1990-03-19

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, February 5, consideration of the motion of Mr. Keyes:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should
consider the advisability of reinstating funding for the Canadian
Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
["Mr. Speaker, this week, the town of Cap-de-la-Madeleine is hosting the 35th Canadian Policemen's Curling Championship. This will be an opportunity for all participants to get to know each other and develop strong ties that will remain, beyond the barriers of distance and language.\nI would like to take this opportunity to stress the magnificent job being done by police officer Raymond Rochefort and his team of volunteers, who during the last two years have worked so hard to make this event a great success. We had some indication of this at the official opening which took place at the Jean-Guy Talbot arena yesterday afternoon.\nI also would like to mention the town council of Cap-de-la-Madeleine which went all out to support Raymond Rochefort's team in every way.\nThe Canadian Policemen's Curling Championship is so successful thanks to the determination of all those who believed that making this event a success was the best way to show all Canadian provinces that the people of Cap-de-la-Madeleine know how to organize and get things done.\nOnce again, our congratulations to Raymond Rochefort and his team, and many thanks to all those who trusted Cap-de-la-Madeleine to organize this first-class event."]
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the motion put forward by my hon. colleague for Hamilton West which impresses upon this House the need to reinstate funding for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
We know the centre was established in 1978 under statute which set up a tripartite board of governors to administer this institution. It gave equal representation to employers, employees and government.
There are certain areas of concern in this country in which I believe government must be involved. For instance, I believe that transportation is such an area considering the size and diversity of this country. There is the health and safety of workers as well as employers in the workplace.
Just like transportation, justice or the environment, to name but a few, health and safety in the workplace is an issue which affects millions of Canadians often in ways which are for the most part beyond their direct control.
Governments have an absolutely fundamental responsibility to do everything within their power to ensure that
Canadians in the workplace are safe and healthy. That is the basic principle which we are discussing today.
With respect to this responsibility the federal government in 1978 established the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. While the government has a responsiblity to make places like the centre possible, it is nonetheless crucial that the source of health and safety information be completely impartial. The relationship between the centre and its funding must remain at arm's length at the very least.
The information which is given out by the centre may very well cause problems for employers, including the government itself. I can appreciate that. But no one can deny that workers deserve all the protection that we can give them. An independent, fully-funded centre is the best way of achieving this impartiality. The bottom line is that the workers must be protected.
As we look at various aspects of safety and health hazards in the workplace, we see that it is governments themselves which in many cases are at the root of many of the problems. Some of the worst abusers of the system, and some of the most skilful at sweeping things under the rug are governments, either municipal, provincial or federal. The fact remains that since governments should not have as their bottom line a profit motive, they are the best source of funds for centres like the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
I do not believe that this is the reason that the government wants to abandon its responsibility to fund the centre. I do believe that this government is not as sincere about its concern for worker health and safety as we would like it to be, or as it would present itself to be.
As we see from its agenda for the economy and for the areas of social welfare, the government tends to dance to the tune of big business. There is no doubt that when it comes to health and safety of workers, be it in the mines, mills or in any of the industrial areas, big business certainly has not led the way in health and safety. Their bottom line is profit, not people. That is unfortunate but true.

March 19, 1990
Private Members' Business
The leaders in workplace safety have always been the workers. If we go back to the late 19th, or the early 20th century, we see that the big issue of the day in the mines in Canada, the United States and around the world was safety. Unfortunately, for many reasons, health was not yet the prime concern of workers. The causes of disease in general were only beginning to be explored and understood by the medical establishment, much less by the workers.
The result of that can be seen in the number of miners today and years ago when miners suffered from that terrible disease known as black lung. The main concern was safety, because workers realized that every day they were going down into the pits, the coal mines and the gold mines, they were incredibly dangerous places to go. We all know there were many long drawn out battles and strikes like those led by the then famous John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, just to achieve some measure of safety and to get safety features written into the contracts.
The triumphs of these workers are prized today throughout Canada and around the world. Now, and in the last few years, health has become a very prominent issue, as it should be. Health is of major concern because there are so many chemicals and so many situations out there that affect the workers today, whether in buildings-a big problem being these sick buildings that we hear about-or whether underground in the mines, or in the mills or in the plants. All kinds of chemicals, dusts and fumes pervade the workplace. Over the years they have, in many cases, adversely affected the health and safety of the lives of workers. We see it with asbestos and with other agents that have been used throughout the years.
Time has shown that these agents are not the miracles that we believed them to be, that the price for the convenience and profit they provide have been too high. Canadians are increasingly aware of the damage we do to ourselves and to our environment.
I am quite aware of what the government intends to do to this centre. It wants to operate it much like a retail business where you buy your information. To that extent, of course, it has already been done at the centre as some information is available on disks for which there is a charge in order to generate revenue. If the source of
health and safety information is to remain impartial, effective and accessible to all, then it must have adequate funding. If the government eliminates its funding the centre will have to look elsewhere.
Certainly, the workers cannot contribute the sums of money that are going to be required to maintain this organization because, as we know, they simply do not have the money. As the Canadian Labour Congress says, it cannot afford to contribute to the centre's funds because the funding would have to be continually indexed to maintain the level that is required and such organizations are not in a position to keep up with this, nor are private individuals.
The centre must not have to depend on money from big business for its survival because, if it does that, then it is to some extent beholden to them, and they simply cannot be trusted to place health and safety above all other priorities.
I believe that if this centre is to survive, if it is to maintain its world-wide reputation as an accessible, effective information centre, then it absolutely requires continued government presence and continued government funding. A basic foundation of the centre's mandate stipulated in statute was that the information would be accessible to any individual in Canada or, indeed, around the world. To ensure this continued funding is essential.
As I explained, another basic principle of the centre is that it be impartial. Therefore, the only realistic funding option is the federal government, public money, because the centre exists for public good.
I believe that the government has an absolute obligation to continue its presence and its funding to this centre. A withdrawal of regular funding amounts to nothing less than privatization of this institution.
As I stated, the centre exists for the public good. It must continue to do so. There are some things that must not carry a price-tag. There are some things which must not fall victim to the government's mania for privatization. One of these is the health and safety of Canadian workers.
I think that the government must be feeling a little bit guilty because it has promised to extend the centre's line of credit of $11.6 million until it becomes self-sufficient. Such a gesture by no means absolves the government. Its
March 19, 1990

bottom line is not supposed to be profit, it is supposed to be the welfare of the Canadian people.
I have no doubt that if the centre were to try to generate all its revenues, then it would not remain open very long because its effectiveness, its credibility and its accessibility would decline sharply. Quality of service does not come cheap, and whatever quality of service would be offered the centre would in many cases be too expensive.
I believe that the plan put forth by government will see a decline in the reliability and the accessibility of the centre through no fault of the people who work there. It is a fact that when the main preoccupation becomes financial survival then other priorities lessen in importance.
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has an excellent world-wide reputation as a one-of-a-kind source for vital information. To abandon this successful and admirable centre would be tragic and short-sighted.
Therefore, I support the motion put forward by my colleague from Hamilton West. I realize this is a free enterprise government, that its dream is a completely market-run economy, but such a concept violates basic Canadian values. One of those values is that the government must play a role in certain areas of public concern. One very important area is occupational health and safety. Every Canadian should have complete access to this information, and that principle cannot be denied.


Mr. Lyle Kristiansen (Kootenay West-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be participating in this debate, although I wish the reasons for it had never come about, namely, because of the decision of the government to privatize, to make self-sustaining, whatever the term it wants to use, in a sense to ditch from the duties of the government and the public the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was established in 1978 as a public corporation by the Parliament of Canada with the passing of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Act. The centre was set up as an independent body, reporting directly to Parliament through the Ministry of Labour.
Private Members' Business
A tripartite council of governors consisting of representatives from labour, employers and government was established to govern the centre. The enactment of this founding statute enjoyed all-party support, including the full support of the Conservative party.
It is important in commencing my remarks to touch on the objects of the centre. As set out by statute they are: (a) to promote health and safety in the workplace in Canada, and the physical and mental health of working people in Canada; (b) to facilitate (1) consultation and co-operation amongst federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions, and (2) participation by labour and management in the establishment and maintenance of high standards of occupational health and safety appropriate to the Canadian situation; (c) to assist in the development and maintenance of policies and programs aimed at the reduction or elimination of occupational hazards; and (d) to serve as a national centre for statistics and other information relating to occupational health and safety.
These objects underline the fundamental principle upon which the centre was based. This principle is the right of access for all Canadians to information that they need to achieve their fundamental right to a healthy and safe working environment. All of this is now at risk due to the government's decision to cut the centre adrift.
Before commenting further on our attitude and response to the business plan which the Minister of Labour approved on March 7, the new guidelines for the operation of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, I think is is worth-while to note just what is at risk out there in the Canadian population. Every year, year in and year out, close to 1,000 Canadians will die as a result of occupational hazards. Some
20,000	will become permanently disabled, and hundreds of thousands of others will suffer illness or injury due to any one of a number of reasons related to their work. The direct cost of death and injury in the Canadian workplace was $3.54 billion in 1987. Those were the costs, both in human suffering and financially.
We believe that it is a grave error-worse than that, it is a major injustice-for the government to set adrift this centre which was vitally needed in 1978 to protect working Canadians. It is just as vitally necessary today.

March 19, 1990
Private Members' Business
As I said, on March 7, the Minister of Labour approved the business plan which, under the government's direction and with some hesitation on the part of the council of the centre, was drafted by the centre's council under duress and with a change of directors in the process.
In his statement of approval of that business plan, the minister said: "The government is deeply committed to the vital role played by the CCOEIS in improving the safety of workplaces in Canada, and in protecting the health of Canadian workers".
No one in this Parliament, regardless of party, wishes harm to come to any Canadian. However, the likely result of the privatizing of this institution may lead to its breakup because one of the basic reasons for the tripartite council and the institution's credibility will be gone when it adopts as one of its prime functions the making of a profit or breaking even rather than providing a legitimate health service to Canadians. We doubt that the survival of the centre and the survival of its obligation to Canadian workers will survive this change in its status.
I would just like to comment briefly on the business plan. The overwhelming focus of the business plan is the commercialization of CCOHS through the sale, primarily to employers, of products, and the privatization of CCOHS by the termination of public funding. There are no proposals to use profits, to restore or expand the free health and safety information service that the centre offers to workers and the public. If this were in fact to be done there is a case for saying that the size and the impartiality of the nonelectronic part of its free information service could be maintained.
Second, the centre has built its reputation largely through providing high quality information on occupational health concerns, but the focus of the centre is now to be on safety issues with a mind to the cost of accidents to employers and workers compensation boards.
As someone who has had a fairly lengthy history of occupational health and safety on the job, one of the chronic problems in the past in Canada has been this emphasis on safety in the workplace as opposed to health in the workplace. It is only in fairly recent years that we have given appropriate attention to the health hazards that exist and the need to attempt to stop the problem at
source instead of adopting programs, whether they be educational or anything else, that attempt to change the focus away from a safe workplace, suggesting that the problem is with the worker or with the employee.
Placing that kind of guilt trip is the kind of path that has been pursued by inspection services and compensation boards across Canada for many years. It is only in this last 10 years or so that we have begun to shift the focus on to where it primarily should be, that is, on having a safe and healthy workplace as opposed to putting the guilt trip on the individual worker.
I just want to give a couple of examples of that from a few years ago in British Columbia, what I like to call the bad old days, which is an odd way of putting it. We had one publication put out by the Workers Compensation Board in British Columbia that was just full of ideas for parades, prizes and safety contests. I can remember the quote: "the blowing of horns, the tooting of whistles" for community extravaganzas to draw attention to the area of safety and health.
One of the recommendations in that particular brochure, and I have seen similar things in other jurisdictions in Canada, was that a safety contest at sawmills should be to hide $1 bills-with the rate of inflation they should be $10 bills now-underneath boards that were left lying around in the sawmill yard for people to trip over. If you were smart enough to go and pick the board up, you would get this prize of a $10 bill that was hidden underneath it because you should not leave boards lying around because people trip over them and get hurt.
That is the kind of crazy attitude that we had to health and safety in the workplace in Canada for years and years. I am afraid that the privatization of this centre is going to be a signal to Canadian workers that we are turning back the clock once again. What we are asking the centre to do is to sell a product that it does not own, which is information on workplace hazards that has only recently been accumulated. There are signed agreements with NIOSH and other international centres of health information that may be broken in this process. If our source for the product dries up, we will have nothing left to sell.
This is a retrograde step by the government. It will be harmful to the health of Canadian workers. I hope beyond hope that the government will change its mind, recognize reality and renew its commitment-the com-
March 19, 1990

mitment of all of us-to the health and safety of Canadian workers.


Mr. A. H. Harry Brightwell (Perth-Wellington-Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this debate on the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. The position of the government for all the time we have been in government has been to attack the deficit. We do much of that through control of our spending, reducing the burden of our public debt on the people of Canada. There is probably no other topic that is more constantly brought to my attention in my riding.
To achieve this objective, the government is determined to sustain its drive toward improved management of expenditures. This requires not only that all departments realign and reduce their expenditures, but also that all sectors of the economy take part in this national effort.
In 1989, respecting the Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the cabinet decided to reflect the policy of fiscal restraint and expenditure cuts to combat the rapidly escalating national debt. The cutbacks in expenditures were directed on a priority basis at the government's own programs. Indeed, we have been remarkably successful in this. Our programs have been growing at the rate of something like 3.6 per cent per year, not like some of the other governments in Canada which have been growing at two and three times this level. In mid-December, because of increased financial pressures on the economy, the government announced further cutbacks on department and agency expenditures amounting to $1 billion.
There are two principal elements of labour-management relations to achieve these economic objectives. The first element is partnership, which I believe to be the key to both economic and social development in Canada. Harmonious relations between all the partners-governments, employers and labour-to reconcile the often divergent interests is vital to the success of any initiative.
I have used the term "partner" deliberately. This is true of many other things that we do in government. An example of this would be the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information Service which provides a pan-Ca-
Private Members' Business
nadian standard for the pro-active disclosure of hazard information about materials used in Canadian workplaces. This is a prime example of effective partnership.
The consensus building and co-operation exhibited by all the partners resulted in WHMIS, an information system that is the most advanced of its kind in the world. Indeed, the unique and distinctly Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety itself was created in 1978 by an act of Parliament. As we have heard from the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke, it has resulted in co-operation and collaboration between governments, associations of employers, workers and occupational health and safety professionals.
Speaking after the hon. member for Kootenay West- Revelstoke is indeed difficult, because he, in his own right, is an expert in the matter of labour. He knows the problems and the dangers in the workplace. He also recognizes that all of us in Parliament are deeply concerned with the workers of Canada that their health be maintained.
The member and I differ in another regard very basically. He does not believe private enterprise can do a job. He believes that government-funded agencies are the only way to deliver services, and I believe that private enterprise is more efficient. I believe that private enterprise is not complacent and that people who do in fact pay for information probably value that information better.
The new technologies coupled with the specialty field of health and safety, the environment and other related fields are all areas where progress demands a change in work attitudes. Organizations and methods are the second element. The government, together with its partners, is constantly on the look-out for new approaches that can be used to make the workplace safer for Canadians.
The rate of scientific change and technological change, the very speed at which things change, has been constantly increasing and challenging all occupational health and safety professionals to improve preventive measures. We know that the future health and safety of all workers largely depends on the ability of all nations to share knowledge, to recognize new potential dangers, to find

March 19, 1990
Private Members' Business
immediate solutions and to ensure the implementation of appropriate preventative measures.
Since 1978 the centre has assumed the role of a national information resource which gathers, evaluates, and distributes occupational health and safety information to workers, unions, management, governments, other professionals and the public also receive this information. These information services have been provided at no cost, or on a minimal cost recovery basis.
The 1989 cabinet decision on the budget was that the centre should become financially more self-sufficient over the next three years for the information services provided to the users of the centre. This decision was based on the fiscal restraints confronting the government but also on the basis of the apparent financial maturity of the centre. Since 1978, the government has helped the centre with about $67 million in operating costs and approximately $2 million per year for other costs.
Since a few years ago, the centre has been recovering some of the costs of producing its information products. The 1989 decision meant that the centre should broaden its base of cost recovery. The costs are those associated with the costs of packaging and distributing these information products that are meant to be recovered, not the costs of the information itself.
The cuts in federal program expenditures are being applied to departments and agencies of the government delivering important services to Canadians. Some of these departmental programs like that of the centre are providing vital information and statistics to both the private and public sector. For instance, Statistics Canada is delivering its information services to its various clients on a cost recovery basis. Why then should the centre on Occupational Health and Safety, which is separate and distinct from government, albeit a federal agency, which has been principally funded by the federal government, be exempted from the general fiscal restraint and government policies on cost recovery?
The centre has demonstrated that it is capable of recovering some of its costs of producing its services. At
the same time, it is an enviable market position of having a high quality product which is obviously in demand in a market that can be further exploited.
Cost recovery is not a new principle, nor is it confined to the federal government. It is a matter of good business practice within the public sector. For example, some provincial Workers Compensation Boards charge employers directly through sectoral assessment for the cost of providing workplace accident and injury prevention programs. Other compensation boards directly fund their preventive educational programs through moneys recovered through direct assessment of employers.
I would like to remind the members of the House that the decision to charge for the packaging and handling of the products of the centre was not made initially by the government, but rather, by The Council of Governors over two years ago. The Council of Governors decided at that time to charge for the packaging and handling of the discs, but not to charge for single copies of the other information products of the centre.
The application of this principle seems to be fair and reasonable. Broadening its application to other products of the centre is not unreasonable. Cost recovery is not a new principle. It is the policy of this government and of preceding governments to charge for and recover the costs of producing items of information. The principle of charging a nominal amount for this information is not new, it has been around for ages.
For example, Public Works Canada charges other departments equivalent market rates for accommodation services. Similarly, the Department of Supply and Services provides material and equipment purchasing services for other departments on a cost recovery basis. Statistics Canada charges for the data, information and publications that it produces and provides to both public and private sectors. The Government Publishing Centre, the Queen's Printer, of the Department of Supply and Services operates on a cost recovery basis.
I note that my time is coming to an end. I repeat what I said earlier today, that I believe private enterprise is a solution, in many cases, for government distribution of services. Under private enterprise, there is less complacency, more attempt at efficiency, and the people who

buy the product are indeed more satisfied and want that product rather than the products that arrive at the door free of charge.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, occupational health and safety are vital issues in Canada. Occupational death is the third leading cause of mortality among Canadians, after heart disease and cancer. Hence, I am pleased to speak in favour of the private member's bill of my hon. colleague from Hamilton West which states:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider
the advisability of reinstating funding for the Canadian Centre for
Occupational Health and Safety.
The centre is the largest Canadian information bank and research centre on work hazards and disease.
The motion by my colleague is in response to this government's decision to reduce federal funding to the centre by 50 per cent by the year 1990-1991 and to totally cut funding by April, 1991. This government, in partial response to criticisms, decided this month to grant the centre $11.6 million to help it become financially selfsufficient in the next three years. This suggests that the government intends to privatize it at the end of these three years.
Established in 1978 as a public corporation by the Parliament of Canada, the centre is an independent tripartite council of governors from labour, employers and government. Its objectives are fourfold:
(1)	to promote health and safety in the workplace in Canada;
(2)	to facilitate participation by labour and management in the establishment and maintenance of high standards of occupational health and safety at all levels of government;
(3)	to assist in the development and maintenance of policies and programs aimed at reducing or eliminating occupational hazards; and
(4)	to serve as a national centre for statistics and other information relating to occupational health and safety.
Indeed, the centre has operated on the principle that it is the right of all Canadians to have access to information
Private Members' Business
that they need to achieve their fundamental right to health and safety in the working environment. It is this principle that would be violated by this government's decision to privatize the centre.
I would now like to discuss some of the statements that have been made in the government-directed draft business plan for the centre.
First, under the mission and objective section of the draft business plan for the centre, it is stated: "The centre must become a commercial organization while operating under its basic mandate of serving workers." The plan also states that it is premature at this stage to state that the trend will be towards financial self-sufficiency and independence.
It is obvious that profit-seeking will take priority over serving workers under the proposed business plan, and this will jeopardize the fundamental principle of the centre, namely, that all Canadians have a right to access to information to achieve a healthy and safe working environment. Obviously, this government is not caring enough to continue promoting this essential right.
In the business plan, it also states: "It was not possible to conduct the kind of detailed market research and implementation planning necessary to develop a business plan that represents a firm commitment. Despite this, it has been concluded in this plan that financial self-sufficiency for the centre is entirely feasible."
This is an admission that this conclusion has been made without sufficient information and evidence. This is unacceptable. It makes a complete farce of the task force's promise of free access for individual Canadians to the centre's important health and safety information.
The third and last point in the business plan that I would like to comment on relates to the principles that govern tri-sectoral sharing in the centre's decision-making. I submit they ought to be continually recognized.
Although the business plan attempts to say that the principles will be recognized, if labour pulls out of the governing council because it believes the centre would no longer be an unbiased, impartial organization and instead, would merely be another business enterprise, then the commitment to tri-sectoral participation will collapse.

March 19, 1990
Private Members' Business
When it becomes a business enterprise, the centre will charge user fees which will have a strong negative impact on small employers with limited financial resources.
The government, in its arguments for privatization of the centre, has stated that it would save $10 million a year by cutting off funding to the centre. Is this good money management? Let me cite a few frightening statistics.
The Workers' Compensation Board stated that the direct cost of compensable injuries in 1987 was $3.54 billion. This only includes money spent to compensate workers or their survivors for injuries or deaths caused by workplace accidents and industrial diseases. Not included are productivity losses associated with accidents or diseases contracted in the workplace.
Estimates by Labour Canada put the total cost of direct compensation payments and direct productivity losses at $14 billion per year. This still does not include industrial diseases whose costs are incurred by medicare and welfare plans.
Such statistics are astounding. How much more will they be when the centre is no longer able to perform its current functions?
Mr. David Leitch, a lawyer and director of the Toronto Workers' Health and Safety Legal Clinic, said in The Globe and Mail of October 16, 1989: "Recognizing only the direct cost of workplace accidents and disease and assuming that the centre reduces the rate of workplace accidents by only one per cent per year, the direct savings contributed by the centre would be more than three times its $10 million annual budget."
Mr. Speaker, I ask, is the plan of the government good money management?
In conclusion, it is obvious that the withdrawal of government funding from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety will not help reduce the deficit or our health care costs. Indeed, it will increase them. Cuts to the centre will lead to more on-the-job injuries and work disruptions. It is only too clear that this government puts its obsession with deficit reduction ahead of the health and safety of Canadians. This in itself is objectionable. What adds insult to injury is that by cutting funds to the centre and, hence, threatening the health of Canadian workers, the government will not
be saving money. This lack of logic on the part of the government is truly frightening.
Hence, I support this motion. The government must not abdicate its responsibility to occupational health and safety and thereby endanger the well being of our Canadian workforce. The government cannot afford to do it. This House must show leadership and tell the government it cannot proceed.


Mr. GeofT Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was created through partnership and as an expression of co-operation between labour, employers, governments and health and safety professionals, not only to minimize the pain and suffering caused by work related injury, illness, disability and death of Canadian workers, but also to reduce the economic losses to Canadian society.
During the first 12 years of its operations, the funds provided to the centre by the federal government amounted to some $67 million. During the first six years from 1978 to 1984, the centre received an average of some $3 million per year from the government. During the last six years, from 1984 to the present time, the support has been in the area of approximately $50 million or about $8 million per year. This surely demonstrates the government's concern for the health and safety of Canadian workers.
In addition to the direct financial support the centre has received since 1978, the government has also indirectly contributed through costs of services such as accommodation and translation.
Unfortunately, the national debt and the difficulties in servicing it have resulted in constraints upon this government. It is not good enough for those opposite to speak in terms of the health and safety of Canadians being threatened in regard to any decisions relating to this centre. The fact is that the health and safety of Canadians in future depends very much on deficit reduction, because if the government of the day is not financially responsible, there will certainly be insufficient funds left in the future to maintain any sort of services for Canadian people.
In the spring of 1989, the cabinet decided, because of fiscal restraints and the apparent financial maturity of the CCOHS, that the centre should progressively become financially self-sufficient over the next three years, in so far as the information services provided to its users. This would make the centre independent of funding support from the one partner, through increasing its

revenues and by recovering more of the costs of producing the products of the centre from those who use it, that is, all of the partners.
The government's decision on funding is simply that the centre has been asked to broaden its cost recovery policy which it started to implement over three years ago. This decision to recover some of the costs of the centre's products was made by the centre's Council of Governors and not by this government.
In May, 1989, the minister requested that the president of the centre, in consultation with the governing council, develop and submit a business plan to him by the fall of 1989, in order to meet the government's decision on funding. The minister also met with representatives of the centre's Council of Governors to discuss the Treasury Board decision and the requested business plan.
The business plan for the centre's operations was developed by a task force of governors of the centre, with the assistance of Price Waterhouse, management consultants. This plan was presented to the council in January of this year. It was submitted to the minister in February of this year. The business plan reinforces the cabinet's decision and concludes that financial self-sufficiency for the centre is entirely feasible.
The business plan strategy focuses on information products and services that can be delivered through compact disc technology. It suggests development of existing and new markets for existing products. It concentrates on marketing safety related products, and bundles services into packages where possible. It recommends marketing them through existing marketing channels and special arrangements with other organizations and associations.
The key challenge facing the CCOHS will be to meet the challenge of becoming a self-sufficient organization while operating under the basic mandate of serving Canadian workers.
The balancing of these two demanding objectives, while at the same time maintaining the stability of the organization and the conformity of its services through the period of adjustment, will be a challenging task for the management of the centre.
Private Members' Business
It is understandable, Mr. Speaker, that the sequence of events over the past year have imposed some anxiety upon the staff of the CCOHS and engendered uncertainty about their future. That is why earlier this month the Minister of Labour announced that the Government of Canada would provide interim bridge financing for the centre in order to assist it in becoming financially self-sufficient in the next three years, as proposed in the centre's business plan.
It is the government's intention that the centre will continue its role of providing valuable information to all Canadians on matters of occupational safety and health. The government's decision, again, is simply that the centre should recover more of its cost in packaging and distributing the information products of the CCOHS.
The need for greater devolution of responsibility and accountability and increased efficiency within government agencies is higher now than every before. As part of this government's commitment to financial restraint, it has decided it is no longer possible for the government to be the sole financial supporter of the CCOHS. Accordingly, it is the intention of the government that the CCOHS will continue as a financially viable and useful source of unbiased information on occupational health and safety matters in Canada.
The government's funding decision on the centre is not an attempt to privatize it, which would destroy this unique tripartite partnership and the unbiased nature of the products of the CCOHS. The decision is simply and only to make the CCOHS more financially self-supporting by recovering more of the costs of producing its products.
The reason for this thrust and, indeed, that of many others put forward by this government over the past almost six years is to address the difficulties that were left to it. There is a national debt in the area of some $200 billion and a requirement to find the wherewithal not only to pay for the services and operations of the departments of government, but also to pay interest on the accumulated past debt. This requirement has now reached the area where some 30 cents to 35 cents of every revenue dollar acquired by government has to go to pay interest on that past debt that was acquired over roughly the period from 1970 through 1984-85.

March 19, 1990
Private Members' Business
The need to deal with this debt and deficit problem has become the most compelling factor on the national scene. If the problem is left unaddressed and without sufficient attention being paid to it, we shall soon reach the position where so much of the revenue of government will be required to pay interest on that past debt, there will virtually be nothing left to carry on the essential services that Canadians expect of their government.
It is against that difficult background that the Department of Labour, and indeed all of the departments of government, have to operate today. That is why it is necessary to ensure that some of the services which are put out in fact have to become financially self-sufficient.
In closing, I want to reassure the House that the funding of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety reflects these philosophies and will not result in the closing of the centre. The changes merely reflect this government's belief that the CCOHS is now a viable enterprise, capable of becoming more self-sufficient financially. This opinion has now been supported by the Council of Governors itself in their business plan for the centre.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to support my colleague from Hamilton West who sits in the opposition on this side of the House who has moved the following motion:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should
consider the advisability of reinstating funding for the Canadian
Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

When the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was founded approximately 10 years ago, its primary purpose was to serve workers and the general public by informing them of potential hazards in their respective workplaces. It was supposed to warn workers and help them avoid, as much as possible, unfortunate accidents that might also put their lives at risk.
As a result, the federal governments been annually saved millions of dollars which would otherwise have been spent on hospital care.
Every year, work-related accidents involve direct and indirect costs totalling $17.7 billion, and the government is fully aware of this. Furthermore, we must not forget that accidents in the workplace are the third major cause of death in Canada, after heart disease and cancer.
The government wants to make the centre an autonomous, fee-for-service agency.
Mr. Speaker, I predict that if this is done, the centre will close very shortly.
In its frenzy of cutbacks in all areas that come under its jurisdiction, the government does not seem to realize the long-term consequences of its actions. To operate on a profit basis is entirely acceptable. In fact, it is the way any organization should operate. The problem with putting the centre on a commercial basis is that it would doom the centre to disappear, because it was not meant to operate this way, and the organizations with which it has reciprocal agreements and exchanges of information free of charge would be reluctant to continue this relationship.
Obviously, foreign governments, various United Nations programs and international labour organizations involved in the same type of work as the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety will seriously consider withdrawing their support from an agency that sells the information it obtains free of charge, especially since the information was obtained by non-profit organizations.
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety must continue to be subsidized by the government, otherwise it may very well close down or eventually be privatized, which amounts to the same thing. If fees are charged, services will be more readily available to those who can pay for them than to the persons for whom the centre was in fact founded, the workers, who will then be cut off from information they desperately need.
The Canadian government must ensure that all Canadian workers have access, free of charge, to any information relating to occupational health and safety.


Mr. Ross Stevenson (Durham):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on this motion this afternoon. I think it is important for everyone to realize that this centre was established by an act of Parliament in
March 19, 1990

1978 and that the objective of the centre is to gather, evaluate and disseminate occupational health and safety information to Canadian workers.
In putting forward a business plan for the future of this centre, it is certainly not the intent of the government or any other of the partners involved in this centre to weaken its future. Quite the contrary, it is the intent and certainly the concern of the government that this centre have a very positive future and have a sound financial basis from which to operate.
Mr. Speaker, you will be aware that for many of the services of government and partners of government, there has been an action by the federal government to try to make a number of these services more self-sufficient, to increase cost recovery, and certainly the action here is not out of line with many other actions that have been taken on other government services. It is important that we realize that and concentrate on firming up the future of this centre in a self-sufficient manner.
Therefore, a business plan for this centre's operations has been developed by a task force of governors of the centre with the assistance of Price Waterhouse, management consultants. The plan was presented to the council on January 23, 1990 at a meeting in Hamilton and was submitted to the minister in February. The business plan reinforces the cabinet's decision and concludes that financial self-sufficiency for the centre is entirely feasible.
The key problem facing the centre will be to meet the challenge of becoming self-sufficient in the future while operating under the basic mandate of serving Canadian workers. The balancing of these two demanding objectives, while at the same time maintaining the stability of the organization and the conformity of its services through a period of adjustment, will be a challenging task for the management of the centre.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member will have six minutes remaining in his debate the next time the motion is brought before the House.
The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the order is dropped to the bottom of the list of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
It being two o'clock p.m., the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.



Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court decision in the Mahe case is an important victory for linguistic minorities in Canada. The Court ruled that section 23 of the Charter of Rights includes the right to manage and control schools. I want to remind the House that Franco-Albertans were able to go to court to determine their rights because in 1980 the Liberal government decided to repatriate the Constitution and include a Charter of Rights in it.
At the time, we decided that we had to define once and for all the rights that belonged to all Canadians. We believed that the Charter would thus become an important unifying factor. In that sense, Mr. Speaker, Canada is the big winner in this Supreme Court decision affirming the rights of linguistic minorities in this country.


MINORITY LANGUAGE RIGHTS
Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, on March 15, the Supreme Court handed down an historic ruling on francophone minority rights with respect to education. The judgment makes it clear that francophones in Alberta have the right to control and manage their own schools. This is a major victory for all francophones outside Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, it took eight years of waiting and costly legal battles before Franco-Albertans finally saw this fundamental right recognized.
The judgment specifies that the quality of the education offered must equal that of the education given the majority, without necessarily being identical.
However, by refusing to comment on the terms "where numbers warrant" in section 23 of the Charter, the Supreme Court has handed the issue back to the provinces and our legislators.

March 19, 1990
Considering yesterday's judgment, Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that the provinces be more generous in recognizing the legitimate rights of their language minorities and stop harassing them before the courts.


Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of this House I would like to extend best wishes to Team Canada and all the women who will be competing in the first International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championships here in Ottawa.
Beginning today and all this week, teams representing Canada, United States, Japan, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Norway and West Germany will face off in this inaugural meeting of the best women hockey players in the world.
As a great hockey nation, we can be proud that the first women's hockey championships are being held here in our capital. I would like to recognize and thank the co-hosts of this event, the city of Ottawa and the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.
I would also like to recognize Tackla Canada Incorporated, The Ottawa Citizen and the Tyrell Press which as principal sponsors, have offered their assistance in the staging of this world-class event.
I urge all members and the public to go and see the games and cheer on the competitors.

Good luck to you all!


NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, moving the National Energy Board to Calgary is an idea whose time has come.
The heart of the oil and gas industry is in Calgary. Naturally the bulk of the board's work involves interfacing with Calgary based companies.
Moving the board's 285 Ottawa employees to Calgary would save dollars and increase and improve access to the oil patch.
The National Energy Board is an independent, self-contained agency which could operate anywhere and should operate close to the source of the action in the industry.
The largest percentage of the costs of operating the board are borne by the industry, so the National Energy Board should conduct its business and spend its money in the community that bears all the costs.
Moving the National Energy Board to Calgary would be more than a symbolic gesture. It would put the National Energy Board in the same business and political environment as the companies and people whose livelihoods depend on its decisions.


TOURISM
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, tourism, Canada's fastest growing industry, is also an industry at risk. Canada's share of world tourism is declining. Our travel trade deficit is now over $3.5 billion and growing. That is an increase of some 28 per cent over the previous year.
While U.S. visitations have declined, the exodus of Canadian visitors to the United States has surged 53 per cent since 1986.
A recent study of 500 American travel agents revealed that Canada does not even make the top 12 destinations for Americans in 1990. Despite this dramatic decline in U.S. visitations, the federal government has slashed its tourism marketing budget 30 per cent since 1988 and now plans to impose a goods and services tax that will result in substantial price increases and a projected loss of 25,000 jobs and $1 billion a year to the industry.
Inadequate tourism marketing and increased taxation is pricing Canada out of both international and domestic tourism markets. At a critical time for tourism, this government has failed to provide the support the industry needs in order that Canada remain a competitive player in the global tourism market-place.


FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY
Kenneth Ross Stevenson: are rising to meet the challenge by becoming increasingly more competitive and market responsive. Despite media reports blaming plant lay-offs and closures on the Canada-U.S. trade agreement, shut-downs can be attributed to changing business cycles resulting from antiquated facilities and company-wide restructuring.
The news that is receiving little attention by the media is the amount of new investment being carried out by food processors. For example, aggregate planned expenditure on plant and equipment in the food processing industry increased by 15 per cent. In the baking sector increases were 40 per cent and up 73 per cent in the red meat industry. From January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1989 there were 18 plant closures, 62 new investments including new plants and plant enlargements, and 35 plant mergers and acquisitions.
Canada's processed food industry is confident in its ability to produce quality products, and the significant increase in Canadian investment is proof of that fact.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, while the Prime Minister is soaking up the rays in Barbados, a growing number of Canadians are venting their outrage at his new 7 per cent goods and services tax, and they are finding new ways to condemn this government's tax grab.
For instance, last week the Liberal Party organized an electronic petition, the first ever in Canadian politics. By calling the hotline number, Canadians could register their vote against the GST. This pilot project was a resounding success. As a matter of fact the response, dare I say, so overtaxed the Bell Canada 1-900 service that a second line had to be installed mid-week.
Over 70,000 Canadian households called to register their opposition to this disastrous tax. Their calls joined the over 600,000 signatures that we have already presented in this Chamber. Those Canadians want to deliver a simple, visible but very loud message to the Prime Minister about his unfair tax; either scrap the GST or Canadians will scrap you.
Stay tuned, Mr. Speaker, for the next chapter in the Liberal Party's continuing fight against this Tory tax grab. Axe the tax.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Mr.   Maurice@: Mr. Speaker, in June 1987, 11 first ministers agreed on a formula for getting the Province of Quebec back into the Canadian Constitution.
Whatever the outcome will be, in the course of this lengthy process Quebecers have acquired greater maturity and a more balanced outlook, and they are in a better position to weigh the views held by anglophones with respect to Quebec.
The process has also helped a number of anglophones to acquire a better understanding of the position of Quebecers in the Canadian society.
Basically, I think the Meech Lake Accord must be ratified by all provinces, so that we can continue to work for the well-being of all Canadians.
In fact, the following words by Jean Jaures say it quite admirably, and I quote: "Le courage c'est d'aller a Videal et de comprendre le reel".


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, it is about time this government started listening to Canadians. Over 70,000 households and small businesses called in against the GST on the Liberal Party's phone-in petition, and we want to thank each and every one of those people. Over 600,000 people have signed petitions against the goods and services tax.
Canadians have overwhelmingly said no to this idiotic tax, but this government's response has been to stifle debate in the House of Commons on the proposed tax. It has ignored 600,000 people who have signed petitions. It has also paid no attention to thousands of Canadians who have protested this regressive tax through letters and rallies.

March 19, 1990
The Conservative government does not care what Canadians think about the GST. It just spends money to advertise a tax that has not yet gone through Parliament.
The Liberal Party of Canada does care what Canadians think. We are listening to the people. We have collected hundreds of thousands of names on petitions against the GST. We will collect even more. The Liberal Party will continue to represent the voice of Canadians in a fight against the GST. We will continue to fight this fight to the bitter end or until this government is defeated, whichever comes first.


DRUG TESTING
Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, the misplaced priorities and lack of consultation inherent in the government's strategy for substance abuse tabled in this House on Friday last lead us to believe that this report is more a red herring strategy for the political safety of the Tory government than a strategy for the safety of the travelling public.
The public has a right to expect the maximum degree of safety and security compatible with a free society, but this government report fails on both counts.
First, by focusing on mandatory alcohol and drug testing, it simply takes employers and the government off the hook and gives the appearance of doing something about safety.
Second, while concluding that work related stress and fatigue are the primary causes of alcohol and drug abuse, the report totally fails to deal with these causes which result from our mismanaged, understaffed, overworked and deregulated transport industry.
The consultation process on this sensitive area was seriously flawed and worse as a signed agreement with the Canadian Labour Congress, and consultation was unilaterally broken by the government. That plus the unrealistic 90-day committee study suggested by the government leads us to believe that this policy is designed to meet the conditions and timetable of U.S. laws and the U.S. government rather than the needs of Canadians.
We can only hope that the transport committee will put this report into a proper context, give appropriate recognition to the rights of Canadians and consult more fully than did the government.


IMMIGRATION
Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, March 18 to March 24, 1990 marks Manitoba's first Immigration Awareness Week. The event celebrates the contribution immigration has made to the growth and development of our community and country. Immigration has enriched our social environment, multicultural mosaic and political system,and has strengthened our commitment to family values and humanitarian ideals.
Equally important, immigration has stimulated Canada's economy through an inward flow of capital, $6 billion in 1988; the creation of jobs, 36,000 within the next six years; increased demands for goods and services; more taxes paid; and provision of a quality labour force. I therefore salute the Manitoba steering committee with its multi-sectoral representations for their laudable initiative.
I invite my colleagues in Parliament during this week to celebrate with Manitobans the role immigration has played in the building of our province and our nation.


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Mr. Speaker, in periods of dissension or disagreement in a partnership or between family members is the fact that we can appreciate, respect or love another just as much for dissimilarities as those points that we share or have in common.
Canada for 125 years has been a country that includes the province of Quebec with all her differences, and it is those differences that make Canada the country, Canada and its citizens more unique and more attractive.
March 19, 1990

Quebec's uniqueness must be allowed to foster. She must be allowed to grow within the Confederation of Canada as a strong and contributing family member who may have different points of view and opinions, but whose differences should not be judged as ones of intolerance but ones of appreciation and appeal.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, the New Democratic Party is very pleased that Canada is hosting the first ever women's world hockey championships in Ottawa beginning today and running this week.
It is only appropriate that Canada, the birthplace of hockey, be the site of this landmark event. Hockey is truly a great sport, a sport which Canadians take great pride participating in and supporting.
I and my colleagues in the New Democratic Party would like to commend the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and the International Ice Hockey Federation for recognizing the value and merit of this event and sanctioning it.
We hope that this is the first of a series of steps which would see both the increase in popularity of women's hockey in Canada and around the world and rapidly lead to the inclusion of women's ice hockey in the Olympics as a full medal sport.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, I read in the paper that the Liberal Party had set up a phone line so people could call and express their opinion on the GST. I thought this was a decent idea because I think Canadians should have an opportunity to express themselves.
I called the number and a machine came on and told me my vote had been recorded and then the line went dead. I did not have a chance to say anything.
Then I called the government's GST hotline and a real person came on and gave me information. I believe Canadians would rather have information about the GST and make up their own minds.
I urge all Canadians to call the GST hotline at 1-800-267-6620. Once again, that is 1-800-267-6620.
Oral Questions


CANADIAN POLICEMEN'S CURLING CHAMPIONSHIP
Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Forestry)):: Mr. Speaker, this week, the town of Cap-de-la-Madeleine is hosting the 35th Canadian Policemen's Curling Championship. This will be an opportunity for all participants to get to know each other and develop strong ties that will remain, beyond the barriers of distance and language.
I would like to take this opportunity to stress the magnificent job being done by police officer Raymond Rochefort and his team of volunteers, who during the last two years have worked so hard to make this event a great success. We had some indication of this at the official opening which took place at the Jean-Guy Talbot arena yesterday afternoon.
I also would like to mention the town council of Cap-de-la-Madeleine which went all out to support Raymond Rochefort's team in every way.
The Canadian Policemen's Curling Championship is so successful thanks to the determination of all those who believed that making this event a success was the best way to show all Canadian provinces that the people of Cap-de-la-Madeleine know how to organize and get things done.
Once again, our congratulations to Raymond Rochefort and his team, and many thanks to all those who trusted Cap-de-la-Madeleine to organize this first-class event.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Deputy Prime Minister.
This government always claims to support the concept of sustainable development, and I am sure we will hear a lot of high-flown rhetoric in that regard at the Globe 90 conference in Vancouver this week. Almost two years

March 19, 1990
Oral Questions
conference in Vancouver this week. Almost two years ago, in June 1988 at the International Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, the Prime Minister said:
We have established mechanisms to ensure that economic decisions
take environmental impact into account.
Yet last week, the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with an environmental group when it ruled that the federal government failed to apply its own environmental assessment rules before approving the construction of the Oldman River dam.
Why has the government not used the Navigable Waters Protection Act to stop construction of the dam? When will the government apply the mechanisms the Prime Minister boasted about over two years ago to protect the environment, or is the government saying its participation in the Globe 90 conference will be nothing more than a sham?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's conclusions are totally inaccurate and inappropriate. This government has had a tremendous record on the environment and the commitment has been reaffirmed, has been recognized and has been acknowledged; perhaps not over in the Liberal Party but certainly throughout the world.
Both the Minister of Transport and the Minister of the Environment have indicated that this is a very complex ruling. It is being considered in a very full manner and, when a decision is reached as to the next steps that the federal government will take with regard to this matter, it will be announced in an appropriate fashion.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Federal Court couldn't be clearer. It says that the government does not have the option. It is obliged to stop construction of this dam and, second, to apply a full environmental assessment to this project before it goes ahead.
This decision reinforces two previous decisions of the same court on the Rafferty-Alameda dam. These decisions together say that when any project has federal implications it cannot go ahead until there is first a full federal environmental assessment.
Why is the government ignoring the decision of the Federal Court and thereby failing, in the Prime Minister's words, to ensure that economic decisions take environmental impact into account? How does the
government expect to be taken seriously on the environment when it is ignoring the words of its own Prime Minister and when it fails to uphold, enforce and accept the decision of the Federal Court on the Oldman River dam case?


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, there are two or three points which should be brought to the attention of the House.
First, the decision with respect to the Oldman River dam that was just handed down was contrary to the earlier decision of the court. It is certainly appropriate, therefore, for Justice, Transport, Environment and Fisheries and Oceans officials to consider very carefully the implications of that decision.
Second, I would remind the hon. member that the decision handed down by the appeal court did not address the issue of construction, despite what the member just said.
Third, with respect to the concept of sustainable development and whole issue of environmental assessment, it is veiy clear that the government has indicated from day one that it will be implementing the federal guidelines, the EARP guidelines, and that it will be doing that in the very reasonably near future.
I point out, in conclusion, that after Rafferty-Alameda there were appropriate deliberations and the right decision was made after a period of several days. I suggest the same thing will happen here again.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member speaks of environmental assessment guidelines that are going to be coming in the future, but the Prime Minister said almost two years ago that these mechanisms are already in effect and are to be applied when there are economic decisions to be taken. The member has failed to explain why the government is ignoring its own policy.

Mr. Speaker, three times, citizens had to go court to make the federal government enforce its own environmental legislation.
Mr. Speaker, my question is this: Can we really expect Canadians and people from all over the world who have come to attend the Globe 90 Conference to believe this government when it promises, and I quote: "an environmental agenda aimed at ensuring sustainable develop-
March 19, 1990

ment", when this government doesn't even comply with its own environmental legislation? Can we?


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member refers to sustainable development, promises made, and the Globe 90 Conference which is a landmark conference taking place in Vancouver this week.
I would suggest that those who are attending the conference, perhaps later this afternoon, will in fact hear news from the government with respect to promises made and with respect to sustainable development. I think it is the kind of news that all Canadians and people throughout the world, particularly in the province of Manitoba, will applaud.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Now that the minister has had a few days to think about what he said in Montreal, that Canadian workers should not be so greedy, and about his refusal, to listen to senior citizens who objected to his GST bill, is the minister prepared to apologize to senior citizens in Quebec across Canada, as well as to Canadian workers who object to his GST?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think what the hon. member has done is, first, totally distorted what I had to say about wages and salaries. Second, he has put the thing totally backward in relation to my meeting with the senior citizens.
I think I heard the hon. member say that I did not want to hear the senior citizens. Quite the contrary, I did want to hear the senior citizens. That is why I set aside an hour and a half that day to meet with 15 organizations, to have a dialogue on the goods and services tax, to hear then-points of view, to tell them what my points of view are, and to see whether we could get some better under-
Oral Questions
standing. Unfortunately most of the people who came to that meeting left before we had any dialogue. I think that is very unfortunate.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, the point is that the minister refuses to listen to anyone who opposes his tax. He has attacked everyone-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


M. Douglas Young: -who has ever had anything to say about it.
Since the Minister of National Revenue has floated figures from $200 million to $365 million, and since there have been figures as high as $1.4 million to implement the minister's goods and services tax, will the Minister of Finance, in consultation with the Minister of National Revenue, finally tell Canadians how much it is going to cost to implement and administer the goods and services tax? One figure.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the hon. member again saying I refuse to listen. What we have been doing over the course of the last five years, and intensively since June 1987, has been just that: listening, discussing, and having a dialogue to understand the points of view people have on the goods and services tax. We have made a number of changes to reflect the points of view that Canadians have put forward.
Unfortunately I have not been able to have a dialogue with members of the Liberal Party of Canada because the Liberal Party of Canada has no alternative. They have no ideas. They have not put any proposals forward as to what they would do. They say "replace the existing sales tax", but then they do not say how we would find the $18 billion that the existing sales tax is raising for us now. Unfortunately we have had a total cop-out from the Liberal Party of Canada.
My hon. friend asks for the specifics on the administration of the goods and services tax. I point out that he said it is going to cost $1.4 billion to implement the tax. That is wrong. If he would check The Budget Papers, he would see very precisely the amounts of money for the administration as well as the implementation.

March 19, 1990
Oral Questions
I point out that the $1.4 billion figure which has been floating around includes the cost of implementation and the first four years of the administration of the tax.


MEECH LAKE ACCORD
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. On the weekend, the Secretary of State for External Affairs drew a parallel between the consequences of non-ratification of Meech Lake and the violence during the 1970 October crisis in Quebec. Does the Deputy Prime Minister really believe that this kind of statement, which is insulting to Quebecers, will help promote the Meech Lake Accord? Is that the kind of leadership the Prime Minister meant?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member should be a little more circumspect about claiming she speaks for the people of Quebec.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Clark: If she wants to quote me, she should not quote just a few passages out of context of what I said in Edmonton, and that is the plain truth. Many critics of Meech Lake tend to forget the kind of situation we had here in Canada a few years ago, when there was a wave of separation in the province of Quebec and threats of violence in the streets. We cannot afford to forget Canada's history if we are to achieve unanimous ratification of the Meech Lake Accord.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is again for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Canadians are increasingly concerned about the future of this country. Surely discussions about violence or potential violence simply fuel the flames of that concern.
What is this government doing to promote a reconciliation of this country instead of fuelling the flames of dissension?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question because there has been outstanding leadership from some of the members of her party who have been working very closely on this issue. We appreciate that support very much. I particularly refer to the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville, who has been very instrumental and very supportive of the exercise. I can assure the hon. member that discussions are ongoing. There is still hope that some accommodation may be reached. I still believe that with goodwill prevailing, and tolerance and understanding, the future for ratification of the accord is very much alive and very much a clear possibility.
The Prime Minister, as you know, is out of the country at the present time on official government business. I can assure the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party that even while he is out of the country he is working on it and he will be totally seized of the issue when he returns.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. I appreciate the Deputy Prime Minister's serious response to a serious question about the future of this nation.
Are the Prime Minister and his government prepared to call a full and open conference long before June 23 so that Canadians can hear the dialogue and understand what is involved to reconcile the impasse that we are at now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the House on an earlier occasion, that has certainly not been ruled out. But I think it is important to ensure that there is progress made in closing some of the gaps with respect to the divergent views of the three provinces that are still having difficulty with the accord.
My sense is that if there can be a closing of that gap and some progress made, it may very well be appropriate to call a First Ministers' Conference. As I said, that has not been ruled out but I think the timing is important here. Hopefully there can be some progress made before the convening of such a conference.
March 19, 1990


FISHERIES
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the newly minted Minister of Fisheries who, I may say, has made an impressive beginning in what is a difficult portfolio. To his credit, in the last three weeks or so he has seen first hand the havoc and pain being caused by the collapse in the inshore fishery in Newfoundland and Atlantic Canada generally, the cutbacks in the offshore and the shut down of fish plants.
Is he in a position now, or could he put a time frame on when he might be in a position to announce on behalf of the government a comprehensive emergency response program to come to the aid of the fishermen and the plant workers whose incomes have been decimated by the events I have mentioned?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the situation in the fishery in Atlantic Canada is very complex. I have been busy in the last two weeks since my return from Atlantic Canada consulting with my colleagues on the Northern Cod Committee who have been seized with this issue for a long time.
We are progressing in trying to shape an initiative on the part of the government that will address the concerns of the people living off this resource in Atlantic Canada. I am hopeful, although I am unable to give a definite time frame, that in the very near future we will be able to put in place initiatives addressing the concerns that exist.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister. He would have had an opportunity by now to peruse and perhaps study closely the findings and recommendations of the Harris panel on northern cod.
Why is it taking so unconscionably long to make this report public, if not to act on it certainly to make it public? Also, in particular, could he tell us whether he anticipates any further cuts in quotas or plant closures or lay-offs as a result of the recommendations contained in the Harris findings?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, given the severity of the problem and the issues in Atlantic Canada in the fishery, I do not think that it would be to the advantage of the fishery in all of Atlantic Canada to rush the release of Harris just
Oral Questions
for the sake of being expedient. I and my colleagues agree that instead of coming with a quick answer we should put it in the context of the whole fishery in Atlantic Canada in order that we put in place what is right for the industry, and that is what we are aiming to do.


LITHUANIA
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the right hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs and pertains to the events happening in Lithuania this weekend.
On several occasions the president of the U.S.S.R. has ruled out the use of force as a reaction to Lithuania's declaration of independence. Over the weekend, however, military aircraft, tanks and Soviet troops staged manoeuvres near the border between Lithuania and Byelorussia.
Has the Secretary of State for External Affairs called in the ambassador of the Soviet Union to find out exactly what the Soviet Union is trying to achieve with these manoeuvres after promising that no such military tactics would be used?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, we have indeed called in the Soviet ambassador and expressed our concerns about this matter, and I know they are concerns shared by the whole House.
I think the House would be interested in knowing that there are Canadian citizens involved in helping the government of Lithuania with its activities, including its media relations. One of those Canadians, Carla Gruotis, has told Canadian government officials that the low-level military manoeuvres that were taking place in southern Lithuania, especially near the Byelorussian border, are "unnerving but not serious" and attributed them to over-zealous local commanders. That is the view of Canadians working with the Lithuanian government in the area.
Nonetheless, we are very concerned about these matters. We are in touch with the Government of the Soviet Union urging it to recognize the clear majority opinion expressed by the people of Lithuania, to proceed in a way that will yield a negotiated, acceptable solution and to respect the commitment that was given to me by

March 19, 1990
Oral Questions
Mr. Shevardnadze that there would be, to use his words, "no crackdown".


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, I thank the right hon. minister for that detailed response. Canadians of Lithuanian descent are very concerned about the breakdown in communications in Lithuania. Many have been trying to no avail to get in touch with their families and friends.
Has the Secretary of State already in his talks with the ambassador broached the subject, or does he intend to broach it with the ambassador so that Canadians can be assured that their loved ones are safe?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, we are pursuing that but telephone lines which have to run through Moscow to get into Lithuania are subject to what Soviet authorities are calling "preventive maintenance".
We are asking that that phase of preventive maintenance be ended and that communications be encouraged and allowed between Canadians of Lithuanian origin and their relatives and friends in Lithuania.


MULTICULTURALISM
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister. When will the Prime Minister fulfil his election promise, which he repeated again just recently, to acknowledge the injustice of the racist Chinese head tax and also the Chinese Exclusion Act?
Also, when will he apologize officially for injustices that were perpetrated against Ukrainian Canadians during World War I when they were interned and also Italian Canadians and others who were interned unjustly during World War II?
Does the Deputy Prime Minister not agree that it is important for us to acknowledge these past injustices in order to help prevent a recurrence of racism and prejudice in Canada?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that the government is
used to working with different communities in this country as it has with the Chinese community.
The Secretary of State is working on this matter at the present time. He has met and will meet again with representatives of the community and that is the way that the Secretary of State will address that issue.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my supplementary question to the Deputy Prime Minister since this is a matter of government policy.
We know that there are different views on the question of redress. Would the Deputy Prime Minister appoint a national redress commission that would develop redress policy and that would also recommend specific compensation in the cases of redress that I have mentioned?
Will the minister, in co-operation with the minister responsible for multiculturalism, and perhaps the Minister of Justice as well, consider establishing a national redress commission?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I believe that when I answer the questions of the hon. member I am speaking on behalf of the government.
I think it is a very serious question and that is the way I take it. I believe also that the Secretary of State is, as I was when I was in that position three years ago, always working with the communities in the way that he determines.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: That's not the question.


Benoît Bouchard: The member is not satisfied. I am not finished my answer, Mr. Speaker.
He will work with those communities in the way that he determines is the best, and I am sure the member will agree with that. It will not be necessarily what she proposes, but we have done a lot of things that she never proposed.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Over the last few days the Liberal party has been running a 50 cent phone

line telling Canadians that if they call the number they will be recorded as being in opposition to the GST.
Media reports indicated that some 60,000 calls were recorded. That has been updated today to 70,000. Of course, we do not know how many duplications there are.
I would like the Minister of Finance to tell the House how many calls the government is getting on its hotline and for what kinds of information about the GST Canadians are asking.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, that is a very perceptive question which the hon. member has asked.
In fact, since our 1-800 number was put in, in early August, we have had over 100,000 calls. In recent weeks we have had as many as 7,500 calls in a day. So there is a very large number of Canadians who are interested in getting information. Seventy per cent of the callers who have used our 1-800 number have asked for information about the GST.
I have something here from the member for Ottawa- Vanier. He says that this government does not want to know what you think. The implication is that Liberals do want to know. But then he asks the question: "Are you for or against the GST?" and gives the 1-900 number. But when you call the number you get a recorded voice that does not listen to whether the answer is yes or no-


Some Hon. Members:: He called, he called!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


AMERICAN EXPRESS
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance or the Minister of State for Finance.
The Minister of Finance announced recently that, contraiy to his undertaking of a year ago, the government will issue a banking licence to American Express without waiting to introduce its long delayed financial institutions legislation.
Since American Express, a foreign corporation, is not a bank in its domestic jurisdiction, but rather a commercial corporation, will the minister confirm that the
Oral Questions
government is now saying that a foreign corporation will be allowed to do in Canada what a Canadian corporation cannot do in Canada or, for that matter, in the United States?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman knows very well that we neither meant nor said such a thing, nor would we act in such a way. We are dealing here with one of the world's best known financial institution organizations that gets 90 per cent of its resources from financial services and it is already operating in Canada without being regulated. Surely the member will agree that there is a lot of merit in having this company regulated.
Furthermore, we have worked on this for well over three years. In mid 1985, we worked very carefully with the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to be sure that it would be within the Bank Act. We are satisfied that they are within the Bank Act.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows perfectly well that the central question in this issue is that American Express is not regulated as a bank in its domestic jurisdiction.
The minister knows that in the case of all foreign banks operating in Canada, both the Superintendent of Financial Institutions and the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation rely upon, and must rely upon, banking information supplied by the foreign jurisdiction to regulate the foreign bank here in Canada.
Since American Express is not a bank in its domestic jurisdiction and since, accordingly, the United States government cannot supply the necessary information, can the minister explain to the House how the government proposes to regulate American Express in Canada?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, this is precisely the point. American Express will be regulated in Canada. We have also asked them to provide us with letters telling us their situation and to protect their investment here.
We are fully satisfied that this organization can function properly within the Bank Act. We have followed the guidelines and we will, therefore, proceed with this matter.

Oral Questions


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
[Stage Direction]
March 19, 1990
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. On December 15, 1989, the minister responsible for the Treasury Board announced several cuts in government programs.
For instance, he indicated that the photo lab of the Canadian Centre for Exhibition was to shut down. On the same day, 93 people received lay-off notices. The government also announced that it would sell two of its Challenger jets that are so often used and even abused by cabinet ministers.
As of last Friday the government had done absolutely nothing to dispose of those jets. Why is the government so quick to cancel everybody's else programs and so slow when it comes to cutting its own benefits?


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, as you know, the fiscal year ends on March 31. The two Challengers will be taken out of service, and the appropriate procedure followed. In the circumstances, there is nothing out of the ordinary about the present procedure.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious the ministers opposite have no intention of taking commercial flights with the rest of us Canadians who are not so keen on hearing them talk about the GST.
I would now like to put my question to the Deputy Prime Minister himself, today's Acting Prime Minister. When will he implement his ministers' own statement? Doesn't he think his government lacks credibility when it advised civil servants of their lay-off a mere 24 hours after announcing the program cuts on December 15 last year, while months later, nothing has been done about the planes? It has now been four months, and nothing has been done about getting rid of these planes. When will the government finally make good on its commitments?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Challenger jets, one of the reasons that this government is able to dispose of two Challenger jets is because we have reduced the use of them by 37 per cent from the days when the Liberals used them.


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. I would like to ask him about some comments made by the Prime Minister on his recent trip to Mexico.
As the government is aware, thousands of jobs have been lost along the U.S.-Mexican border through the Maquiladora program where jobs that were paying $12, $14 or $16 an hour are now being done by Mexican workers at $1 an hour. The products are then imported back into the United States. Questionably some of them may even return to Canada.
In light of those thousands of jobs lost and that trade agreement affecting the Maquiladora program, is it the government's policy to pursue a free trade agreement with Mexico?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member, as usual, is talking through his sombrero. There have not been thousands of jobs, or any jobs, lost with respect to the Maquiladora area, for the simple reason that under the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, if the hon. member had read it as I have-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: If the hon. member has read every jot and tittle of the agreement, as I now have, he will see that there has to be a certificate of origin. The goods have to originate in the United States or in Canada to be admitted under the free trade agreement at the duty rates that are provided.
With respect to Mexico, there are no negotiations under way for a free trade agreement between Canada and Mexico, but we are attempting to improve our trade with Mexico, and the Prime Minister has just had an astoundingly successful visit in Mexico.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I asked for the Deputy Prime Minister and I got
March 19, 1990

a Mexican jumping bean instead. And I am not alluding to any methanol or to the potential consequences.
I would like to ask a question of any one of the ministers who wants to deal with this question, through the Deputy Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has said that 200,000 jobs have been created by the free trade agreement and 25,000 of those jobs were created last month alone. When the Minister for International Trade was at the committee he could not list one single job that had been created by the free trade agreement.
Is the government now prepared to table, in detail, all of the 200,000 jobs that the Prime Minister says have been created and, specifically, the 25,000 jobs he said have been created in the last month? Will it table the information in this House?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, all we need to do is refer to an impartial third source with respect to the value. I will not even cite the Prime Minister as an impartial source. All we have to do is refer to an impartial third source. We have just had a report from the Japanese mission to Canada, led by the president of Mitsubishi, who says that Canada is a much more attractive place for investment as a result of the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement. I can cite any number of plants which have expanded-


Some Hon. Members:: Thble them!


John Carnell Crosbie: Someone should table the hon. member and perhaps we would get some sense out of him in that case.


Claude Girvin (Girve) Fretz: Mr. Speaker, my question too is for the Minister for International Trade. The minister will be aware of an article which appeared recently in The Globe and Mail, which described this as a "new era" in relations between Mexico and Canada.
In keeping with this government's enviable record of enhancing Canada's reputation as a trading nation, would the minister explain to the House the significance of the agreement signed by the Prime Minister recently, particularly in light of the fact that there was a 25 per cent increase in trade between Mexico and Canada in 1989?
Oral Questions


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, it is unusual to hear a rational and sensible question asked in the House.


An Hon. Member:: Did you write it out?


John Carnell Crosbie: It is hard to compete with the barrage of barracking that comes from the hon. gentleman in the New Democratic Party. That substitutes for brains and elocution. It is just a lot of noise from the hon. gentleman.
The Prime Minister actually said that a free trade zone-now listen gentlemen, please-involving Canada, the United States and Mexico may be only a decade away. So it may be a decade or it might be a bit longer.
There was signed in Mexico the new framework for trade and investment consultation as well as a customs agreement. And MOUs on agriculture and forestry co-operation are designed to facilitate increase in trade in both directions.
That is the effect of the agreement signed and I am glad that the hon. gentleman is interested in what was signed, and not in a lot of specious rumours that are repeated by the hon. gentlemen of this House.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Press reports say that the Deputy Prime Minister met with the Canadian Bankers Association to talk about the serious financial crisis facing Canadian farmers this spring. Many banks are refusing to give loans based on the farmer's equity in his farm and are only giving loans based on cash flow considerations. Many crops are priced so low this spring that there is no cash flow.
Was the Deputy Prime Minister able to get some kind of commitment from the Canadian Bankers Association that they would provide production loans for farmers to plant their crops this spring based on an equity basis rather than cash flow? Was he able to get any commitment like that last Thursday?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. members knows, we have set up a federal-provincial monitoring committee to assess the situation and that report has been made. We met with the banks to talk about the current debt

March 19, 1990
Oral Questions
situation, particularly as it applies to the province of Saskatchewan. The premier of Saskatchewan was there as well. We talked about a number of possibilities and options that might be considered.
All I can say to the hon. member is that it was agreed that the problem is one that will require a joint solution. It will require the close co-operation and participation of various components within the agri-food industry including the banks, the Farm Credit Corporation, the provinces and the federal government.
I can assure the hon. member that we are working very hard on this particular issue at the present time having regard to the fact that the period for seeding is not too far in the future. The deputies will be meeting later this week and the ministers of agriculture will be having a meeting later this month. Hopefully by that time we will be in a position to announce something in a more specific vein.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture have known since last November that this financial crisis was upon us. Groups like the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the Ontario Com Producers and others have been demanding a special response. The Minister of Agriculture has outlined all the players who will have to co-operate in this. The minister's own department has suggested that provinces like Saskatchewan will have a negative net farm income, the worst situation since the 1930s.
Can the minister clarify exactly when is he going to announce a special response from the federal government, an interim agriculture stabilization payment, a special grains programs or funds well before seeding takes place. Can the minister give that indication right now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I just indicated to the hon. member and to the House that last December we set up this federal-provincial monitoring committee to look at all details and all aspects of the current cash flow situation, debt problem and income support systems.
As he knows as well, there is some long-term policy review, specifically in the safety net issue and that work has been accelerated. The report has just been received. We are looking at it and we are trying to design a program that will target and meet the specific needs that have been identified by the committee. As soon as that is done an appropriate announcement will be made.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There will be one question from the hon. member for York Centre and also one question from the hon. member for Kamloops.


NORTHWEST PASSAGE AGREEMENT
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I want to ask him about the delusions of grandeur he has about this Northwest Passage Agreement with the Americans. The minister said in the House last week three times that Canada's consent was required for all U.S. vessels to pass. That is false. The consent required is limited to ice-breakers. His agreement means, in effect, that other U.S. vessels like submarines and oil tankers can pass without seeking consent.
Is his agreement not a step backward from the long progress to have the Americans recognize our sovereignty?
Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External
Affairs): Mr. Speaker, we will let the people of Canada decide what is a step backward.
When the hon. member was a minister of the Government of Canada, Canada exerted no effective control over its Arctic. Indeed, there was no understanding by the Government of the United States with regard to the requirement to seek the consent of Canada concerning the passage of ice-breakers.
The member will recall that as a result of that consistent Liberal failure, there was controversy during the summer two or three years ago. This government acted to end that controversy and took a substantial step forward by concluding an agreement with the United States by which the United States seeks the consent of Canada before there is a passage through our territorial waters by their ice-breakers.
March 19, 1990


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister who wall be only too well aware of how deeply the people in Alberta feel against the goods and services tax.
Since Albertans generally feel that their views in opposition to this tax are generally ignored, would the Deputy Prime Minister indicate whether or not the government will permit members from Alberta to reflect their views and oppose the tax if they so wish?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member should know is that the people of Alberta are wondering what sort of an alternative the NDP would provide and what alternative the Liberals would provide because to date they have provided nothing.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government responses to several petitions.
[Editor's Note: See Today's Votes and Proceedings.]


PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present the eleventh report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, and also the twelfth report of that same Standing Committee.
I intend to move concurrence in the twelfth report at the appropriate time by unanimous consent, Mr. Speaker.
Routine Proceedings


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Does the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands have unanimous consent to move the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


CONCURRENCE OF TWELFTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE ON PRIVILEGES AND ELECTIONS
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I should like at this time to move concurrence in the Twelfth Report of the Standing Committee presented this day.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, as we heard earlier in this House today, 70,000 Canadians phoned the 1-900 number objecting to the goods and services tax even though it was reduced to 7 per cent.
When I go to my riding every weekend I am flooded with more petitions asking the government to abolish and reject the proposed goods and services tax at the 7 per cent level.


A.H. Harry Brightwell: Mr. Speaker, I present a duly certified petition from 36 constituents who are concerned that the rights of Canadians are hurt by Bill 178 in Quebec. The petitioners are asking the government to use its power to disallow Bill 178 in the Province of Quebec.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition from a number of constituents throughout Manitoulin Island, including Gore Bay, Manitowaning, Little Current, North Bay, Sudbury and Kagawong objecting to the goods and services tax. This is in addition to the 70,000 phone calls that were made last

March 19, 1990
Routine Proceedings
week during a seven day period opposing the goods and services tax.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I too have the pleasure and honour to present petitions to the House which are against the goods and services tax.
These petitions, pursuant to Standing Order 36, have been certified correct as to form and content. They state that this is a regressive, invisible and harsh tax which will be a terrible burden on all Canadian taxpayers. I want to point out that all of these petitioners are from western Canada, including many from my own riding of Winnipeg St. James.


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Mr. Speaker, we have had 70,000 calls, and 600,000 petitions submitted to the House.
It is my honour to present another 500 names to add to those 600,000 against the GST, and more and more are coming. The petitioners ask and plead with the government to scrap its ridiculous idea of having this insane tax.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I have at least eight petitions signed by Canadians opposing the imposition of the goods and services tax on January 1, 1991.
These people believe strongly that this will affect low-income Canadians, that it will be an unprecedented tax-grab from the pockets of Canadians and will hit them not only with higher taxes but with higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment.
The undersigned petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and an honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of petitioners from London, Stratford, Calgary, Toronto, Kitchener, Victoria and Vancouver.
The petitioners are opposed to the government's goods and services tax. They point out that it is an unfair form of taxation because it ignores the person's ability to pay that tax and they point out that in Canada taxing home heating fuels is a very regressive way to proceed. They ask the Parliament of Canada to do what it can to
have the government back off from this tax initiative and go back to the drawing board and come up with something that is real tax reform, something that is fair, equitable and just for all Canadians.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty to present on behalf of a number of citizens of Saskatchewan a petition calling for the rejection of the goods and services tax.
I am sure the Minister of National Defence would be particularly interested in these petitions because they are from places like Wartime, Saskatchewan, which is his home, Elrose and Plato, Saskatchewan.
These citizens call upon the government to reject the goods and services tax and put in place a tax which would be fair to all Canadians.


Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure and honour to present a petition certified correct as to form and content under Standing Order 36, wherein the petitioners humbly sheweth the government has failed to provide the resources necessary to fulfil its promise of improved passenger rail service, and whereas the government's deregulation of air passenger service has dramatized the need for safe, convenient, economical, rapid and environmentally sound alternative passenger service, the petitioners urge Parliament to maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail services in those areas of the country where it can provide the better service.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to present two petitions. The first one I add to those previously presented to the House indicating that the people of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt are against the goods and services tax. These people are from centres such as Grand Forks, Oliver, Kaleden, Penticton, Naramata and other within that riding.
All of these petitioners are asking the government to cease with this proposal which will shift the tax burden onto ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax.
March 19, 1990


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I have a further petition with respect to the forestry resource agreements with the provinces.
People in various parts of my riding and parts of British Columbia are very concerned that this government continue with the federal-provincial forest resource development agreements.
They ask that I present this petition to encourage the Parliament of Canada to renew the important agreement with British Columbia and thereby provide for renewed commitment to restocking our forest land, advancing forestry research, promoting silviculture and assisting the forest industry in developing new products and markets which will provide us with forestry jobs of the future.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition signed by numerous Canadians who are opposed to the goods and services tax and who call upon Parliament to reject this unfair and inequitable tax measure.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I have petitions from various parts of Canada calling on the government to modernize VIA Rail services in those areas where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise under Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by a number of residents from right across Canada. These petitioners continue to oppose the government's drastic cuts levied on VIA Rail services in this country.
The undersigned signators request that the government maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail services in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.
I submit this petition on their behalf.
Government Orders


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to submit a petition to the House.
The petition is signed by Canadians at the VIA Rail, Kitchener station. It recognizes that the Government of Canada has failed to provide the resources necessary to fulfil its promise of improved rail service in Canada and calls upon Parliament to maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail service in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Donald Frank Mazankowski: that Bill C-48, an act to amend the Crop Insurance Act, be read the third time and passed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will not be too long. I just want to say that I am very pleased to have the opportunity to commence third reading debate on Bill C-48, legislation to amend the Crop Insurance Act.
I think it is fair to say that the bill has received thorough debate and thorough study at the committee level. As well, it can be pointed out that we have had a very constructive debate at report stage when the government accepted two of the three amendments proposed by the opposition parties.
While we were not able to incorporate the third amendment into the legislation itself, we did indicate that we accepted the proposal in principle, but because it would encroach upon provincial jurisdiction, based upon

March 19, 1990
Government Orders
legal advice that I have received, the government is not able to incorporate it into legislation. Nevertheless as I undertook during the course of that debate, and I undertake again today, we will, in the process of negotiating the federal-provincial crop insurance agreements, try to incorporate the establishment of advisory committees into these agreements so that they will fulfil the purpose for which the hon. member for Algoma intended.
It is important to point out, and it has been mentioned by a number of members, that this bill sort of sprung up in the middle of the night at a meeting in Prince Albert.
This particular issue has been before the farm community for some time. There has been a comprehensive federal-provincial crop insurance discussion paper. It has been reviewed and many of the points that were brought forth in the course of that review have indeed been incorporated into this legislation. It bears repeating that crop insurance is essentially a matter that falls within provincial jurisdiction and we had to ensure that we had the broad based support of-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: A point of order, the hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to break in on my hon. friend's speech. It is an important piece of legislation from the government's viewpoint dealing with a very important matter. I have to use this opportunity because as I speak there are security people and police in front of the building preventing protesters from representing their views.
I think we agree that people in this country have the right to assemble, to speak their views and I simply want to protest very clearly that this is not a police state, that the police ought not to be disallowing-


An Hon. Member:: Order!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not find that a point of order. I think if the hon. member would like to discuss this matter further, he should discuss it in my chambers.
I will recognize the hon. House Leader.


Mr. Andre:: Mr Speaker, last November 22 at a meeting of the Board of Internal Economy at which the hon.
member for Kamloops was present, and every other party was represented, a motion was passed unanimously asking the Department of Public Works to amend the public nuisance regulations to move demonstrators back from the entrances of the House of Commons because of the nuisance and security factor. The hon. member agreed with that position. The regulations came forward and have been in the public domain for two weeks which require a 50 metre distance from any entrance. The hon. member now is playing cheap political tricks. It shows you cannot trust the NDP members to keep their word. We are doing what the member asked for.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: This is debate. This matter should be discussed in the Speaker's chambers.
I will recognize the hon. member on a point of order.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, just to clarify for the record. First, I hope my hon. friend will table the minutes that he has referred to from the Board of Internal Economy. He has read from them, I notice reading Hansard of last week.
I want to say that, yes, I was at the meeting when the decision was taken to ask the minister to look into the situation and take appropriate action. That is where the matter ended at the Board of Internal Economy.
We find that this government has stated that it will not tolerate any dissent to this government in front of Parliament unless you are back at least 50 metres.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I recognize the hon. Deputy Prime Minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, during the course of discussions it was agreed that the crop insurance legislation had to be renewed and improved to provide for a more equitable sharing of federal-provincial costs and to enhance the program to reflect the realities of today and the current decade.
This legislation will reform the act to provide producers with guaranteed protection against losses caused by natural disasters. It will also ensure the best insurance coverage available at an affordable cost to the largest number of producers.



March 19, 1990

One of the major areas of change modifies the calculations which were used to determine the level of protection producers will be eligible to insure. The current act provides a method of predicting yield based on the simple historical average of a producer or of a geographic area. This method has been considered by producers to be inflexible and even punitive.
Bill C-48 provides new approaches to determine insurable yields and these approaches will take into account the use of new technology by producers. It will also buffer producers' yield calculation for successive losses, particularly in western Canada. We have had a situation where the historical average fell because of successive years of drought and other weather related disasters. I might say that the last three or four years in western Canada, in terms of the levels of precipitation and heat have probably been more severe than that experienced during the Dirty Thirties. So you have a problem of successive droughts where the over-all average is reduced triggering the lower level and thereby the producer does not get what would usually be considered a reflection of his normal crop.
Bill C-48 provides new approaches to determine insurable yield. As I said, the government will take into account, not only the new technology and methods of production, but also this problem of successive losses.
The amendments also allow the provinces to offer qualifying producers the option of insuring low risk crops at a higher level of protection. For example, the farmer could qualify to insure a crop at 90 percentage coverage instead of the current 80 per cent.
The provinces will now also have the flexibility of basing unit prices on market value or on cost of production. Again, this incorporates a very important item that will enhance the over-all operations of the crop insurance program.
Another major change being proposed under Bill C-48 provides for more equitable cost sharing arrangements that recognize agriculture is a shared responsibility between the federal and provincial governments.
Government Orders
Under the current act, the most commonly used formula allows provinces to pay all the administrative costs, while the federal government and the producers pick up the share of the premium on a fifty-fifty basis.
Under these amendments the federal and provincial governments will share all administrative costs and 50 per cent of the premiums. Producers will remain at the same proportion, namely paying 50 per cent of the premium and nothing towards the cost of administration.
This is an approach that most provinces favour in the over-all amending approach, the over-all improvements that we see incorporated in this legislation.
This approach will make the cost to governments more equitable, while at the same time provide for additional federal funding for improved program administration, including more producer education about the program.
I should say here that while the percentage of federal government spending, particularly as it relates to the premium, will be reduced. The federal government's over-all financial support of the program is expected to rise above traditional levels because of the enhancements. That was clearly the trade-off in working through the improvements to the crop insurance program.
Enhancements to the program, combined with increased participation and contributions to administration costs will increase federal expenditures under this program above historical levels.
Another proposed change will strengthen the crop insurance regulations. Regulatory provisions are being rewritten to set out clearly the basis for federal contributions to crop insurance. We got into a bit of that debate the other day where the hon. members were suggesting that because we use the words "up to 25 per cent", there was some concern that that would not be the case. That clearly is the case and it is now accidentally or otherwise enshrined in the legislation.
Special provisions are also contained in the new bill that recognize the importance of diversifying agriculture production. Crop insurance will be available on new and minor crops by easing the yield data requirements for them. I think that is a very important feature as well because we are asking the industry to diversify and to

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engage in new crop production and new plant production. This will provide more flexibility again in ensuring that adequate coverage will be available to cover new crops and that they will not be penalized.
The final major change is a special provision to compensate producers when their crops are damaged by migratory waterfowl. This provision recognizes the federal government's responsibility under international treaty to protect migratory waterfowl. The amendments propose to increase the compensation to 80 per cent of the actual value of the crops damaged.
I have been informed as well of the views expressed by the members of the legislative committee on additional ways to improve the program. I will take them into account before proposing regulations to the Governor in Council and in developing federal provincial agreements with each province. The deadline for signing crop insurance contracts is fast approaching. The provinces, as the insurers, have to know precisely what the terms and conditions governing the federal contribution are going to be as of April 1, 1990.
The provinces and Canada's producers would therefore appreciate our expeditious consideration and passage of this bill.
The changes I have described represent major improvements to the Crop Insurance Act. Through Bill C-48, the federal government is giving producers an insurance program that is more comprehensive and flexible. It is what producers want and this what we are prepared to deliver with this legislation.


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


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to point out that we have been unable to get a copy of the bill. Bill C-48 as reported at second reading does not seem to be available in the House and I was wondering whether it could-


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of personal privilege.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Ask and you shall receive. Bill C-48 is what you want?


David Barrett: I rise on a point of personal privilege, Mr. Speaker. I have just been questioned by a member of the RCMP for speaking to a citizen who is standing in front of this building -myself, Mr. Bellemare, also a member of this Chamber, for speaking to a citizen. The RCMP came and pushed us out of the way-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If the hon. member would only sit first.


David Barrett: If they did anything wrong, why not take some legal action?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca on a point of privilege..


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David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of personal privilege. As a member of this Chamber I was speaking to a Canadian citizen in front of this House. I was accompanied by Mr. Bellemare whose seat I do not know, but he is also a member of this House.
In the process of discussing with this citizen his complaints about the federal government we were interrupted by RCMP officers who grabbed the citizen away from two MPs, both of us clearly identifying the fact that we were members of Parliament. We told the Mounties that and they still grabbed the citizen away from us.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I felt intimidated by having the Mounties listening to our conversation, moving in on the crowd that was around, pushing their way through, past Mr. Bellemare and myself, seizing the citizen and dragging him away with no explanation to myself or to my fellow member.
This is the earliest possible opportunity at which I could raise this matter of personal privilege. My privileges as a member of this Chamber and the precincts of this Chamber have been violated. I ask the Chair to investigate this and do something in terms of responding to a police action that was violating my rights as a member of Parliament.
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Eugène Bellemare: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of personal privilege, similar to my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.


Mr. Crosby:: He's blind.


Eugène Bellemare: I think if anyone is blind it might be the hon. member from Halifax. If I may, with the indulgence of the bullies facing us, I would like to explain what happened.
The member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca and I were having a conversation. We started to speak with one Mr. Kealey, standing in front of the House of Commons across the roadway. We were having a discussion on the accusations that Mr. Kealey was making vis-a-vis the government. We thought his accusations were interesting, outlandish and even entertaining.
We were having a good conversation when all of a sudden at least four very huge RCMP officers decided that they would pull them away from us. At that point, my colleague and I both identified ourselves as members of Parliament and said that we were having a very civil conversation with Mr. Kealey. Notwithstanding that, they dragged the gentleman away. We tried to intercept without physical force, but by insisting we were members of Parliament, and that we would complain if our rights-we do not know what wrong Mr. Kealey had done-were affected at that point as members of Parliament wanting to have a conversation with a private citizen who had not yet been arrested for anything. I then asked the name of the person in charge as they arrested the gentleman and put him in the car. I would like, with my colleague, to identify this officer as Inspector McCallum who was absolutely uncivil to members of Parliament.


Albert Glen Cooper: Then why don't you lay a charge against him?


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I stand as well on a matter of privilege. It relates to the same factual sequence as was described by my colleagues.
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Just to be specific, I attempted to speak with the Roman Catholic priest who was taken away by the RCMP. I was advised by the RCMP that the priest was not under arrest. However, he was in a police car and when I made some move to approach the car and speak with the priest, I was advised that I may not touch the car. I discussed it with the police officers and decided it would be better in terms of discretion not to provoke an incident and I let the matter rest. Subsequently, in front of me, the priest was physically taken away and the Mounties then advised that he was under arrest.
This raises a very serious matter involving the right of free speech. In particular, it involves my privileges as a member of Parliament to be accessed and to be able to speak freely with individual Canadians who are on these precincts and who are not under arrest. I am not critical of the RCMP in the way that they may have carried out their functions this afternoon. If they had a job to do, that may have been the only way they could have done it. However, I am very critical of the regulation that has been passed. I suggest to Your Honour that what is taking place under the regulation in the Public Works Act and what is happening out in front of the House of Commons now is a breach of my privileges as a member and of the privileges of every other member of this House.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I want to read from the minutes of the Board of Internal Economy meeting of November 22, 1989. In the Chair was the Hon. John Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons. Those present were the Hon. Robert de Cotret, Herb Gray, Robert Layton, Doug Lewis, Messrs. Jim Hawkes and Nelson Riis. Mr. Marleau, Clerk of the House, Major General Cloutier, Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Riedel, Administrator and Steven Ash, Principle Secretary to the Speaker, and Secretary, Mary McDougall.
This committee does not take formal votes. It acts by consensus, and the experience, as I am told-I am just a new member of the committee and was not a member at that time-is not to act if there is strenuous objection from any of the major parties. My colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, nods in concurrence.
According to the minutes, it was agreed that the Speaker would send a letter to the Minister of Public Works requesting that the Public Works nuisance regulations be amended to permit the Minister of Public Works to designate specific areas on Parliament Hill for holding

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demonstrations and other activities, and to allow the minister or a peace officer to prohibit or evict any persons not complying with this order.
Based on that decision by the Board of Internal Economy, on December 1, 1989, the Speaker wrote the following letter to Mr. Elmer MacKay, Minister of Public Works. It states:
I am writing to convey to you the concerns which have been raised by the Board of Internal Economy regarding the presence of demonstrators at the entrance of Centre Block, particularly the West Door.
The board discussed the possibility of designating areas on Parliament Hill where demonstrations could take place. The Members agreed that I write you on their behalf requesting you consider amending the Public Works Nuisance Regulations in such a way as to restrict demonstrations, marches or public gatherings to areas specifically designated for such purposes. I understand this could be done by adding to Section 6 of the Regulations a paragraph similar to the following text:
(3) No person shall participate in a demonstration, march or other public gathering upon any public work, except in those areas specifically designated for their purposes.
This change would thus allow the RCMP to enforce directives as to the location of any demonstration.
It is not the intention of the Board to limit access to Parliament Hill by the public but the Board is concerned that Members and staff have access to the buildings, free of harassment and confident of their safety.
Let me repeat that: "-the board is concerned"-this board of which I was not a member, but the member for Kamloops was-, "is concerned that members and staff have access to the buildings, free of harassment and confident of their safety".
The letter goes on:
I would, of course, be more than ready to discuss with you further should you wish more information.
Sincerely,
John Fraser,
Speaker of the House of Commons.
I will not read all of the regulations, because they are lengthy, but based on a unanimous decision of the Board of Internal Economy, with all three parties represented, the Speaker was requested by this group to write to the Minister of Public Works to promulgate regulations, of the sort the Minister of Public works did. They were out there two weeks ago. There were no objections from any
member of this House or from any party to these regulations. They are now being enforced by the RCMP.
I have no idea whether the RCMP is exercising proper judgment or whether it is going too far, but I strenuously object to members of this House now standing up and screaming in indignation at the results of an action for which their leaders asked. They are in contempt of the Chair.


David Barrett: The citizens are free to talk to anybody at any time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think that we should carry on with debate in the House-


Some Hon. Members:: No!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: -and I think that what I should do is call upon the Sergeant-at-Arms to make a complete report. I can come back to the Chamber, if not today, then tomorrow or the next day, to give a complete report to hon. members. I think that this is where we should cut off debate in this respect, and carry on with debate in the House, so that I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to make a complete report to the House.


Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.
I have just been made aware of what took place on the Hill, and the information we do have is vague. You may wish us to proceed immediately and wait for a report from our distinguished Sergeant-at-Arms, but I have colleagues here who were witnesses to the events which took place. I want to be on the record.
I wish I had been there to see any RCMP officer either take away a paper from me that someone had given me, or ask someone to move along some feet away when we are not aware of these rules. If such a rule was passed, all members of Parliament should be made aware of it.


An Hon. Member:: No such rule was passed.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would like to bring this to a conclusion. I will ask the hon. member to complete his point of privilege.


Marcel Prud'homme: Every year people come to demonstrate for good causes. With all due respect to the Board of Internal Economy and whatever wishes it may have
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expressed to the Minister of Public Works who then issues certain regulations, I think that on the Hill, members of Parliament should be made aware of what is going on. We should know the rules. We should not be informed outside suddenly that there is a new rule.
As annoying as some people may be for some members on the Hill, it is totally relevant as far as I am concerned, if there are going to be new rules-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Albert Glen Cooper: Nelson, you're part of the process, you should be ashamed.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Don't tell me to be ashamed.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marcel Prud'homme: Mr. Speaker, I do tiy to be cool on these questions but if hon. members want to study Parliament, I will tell you how disgusted I am. I just finished visiting inside Parliament. Suddenly, out of nowhere, on the Senate side you see spotlights on the sixth floor, the fifth floor, the fourth floor, the third floor, the second floor and at the main entrance. I believe in security, but I like to know how far this will go.
Members involved should be told. With all due respect, we should be told. If a new regulation is made, it should be discussed in the open and we should not be told by somebody else, a third party. I am not blaming the RCMP who, if they have a new regulation to enforce, are enforcing it. Fine! I am not going to blame these men or women in the RCMP. The one thing I would like to know is what the new rule is. Members should be made aware officially, so that if we wish we can disagree.
If Mr. Speaker was in the Chair, I would say that he should immediately suspend the new regulation until we have a debate on the question.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.
I was witness to the events that just took place outside. As a member of Parliament, I was aghast at what was taking place outside the peoples' house, the House of Commons. When I and my colleague next to me went over and spoke to the RCMP officers, the question was raised if whether or not the new regulation that has been passed to the Public Works' nuisance regulation, affected me as a member of Parliament. If I wanted to pass
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out pamphlets outside the House in my crusade against the GST, could I be arrested? I was told that, yes, the regulation that was passed equally applies to me, as a member of Parliament, as it does to any other member of the public.
The point of privilege I am raising is that this particular regulation, I believe, infringes upon my rights as a member of Parliament to do my job and to demonstrate for or against, both inside this place and outside this place, and that means outside the door. I would ask the Speaker to look into this particular aspect.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I hesitated to take part in this discussion because I was not present at the meeting of the Internal Economy Committee that night. It was one of the few meetings that I did not attend during the year.
I think that the Chair should keep two points in mind. First of all, on the subject of jurisdiction, I think it is difficult to decide whose jurisdiction we are talking about. The privileges of members here in the House of Commons are protected by the Chair. We were always told that outside, on Parliament Hill, Public Works, the National Capital Commission or some other public body had jurisdiction over people's behaviour. Of course, the RCMP enforces the law of the land and I have nothing against that.
There are still two issues that must be dealt with. [English]
The right of members of Parliament to address citizens on the Hill is the first question I hope will be resolved today. We have to address that question. We have an example today involving the privileges of a lot of members to speak and to discuss with Canadians on the Hill matters of mutual interest. Whether or not they knew about the regulation or not is not my point.
These members apparently did not know about this regulation and were speaking with somebody who has been there for some months. He was giving us in Parliament the message he gives every day. That is, yelling certain things to members of Parliament as they enter the building. That is not the point.
These people were talking to a citizen of this country. In my view, we have to settle that point by asking

March 19, 1990
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ourselves: Were their privileges as citizens, and their right to free expression somewhat impaired by the actions of the police? That is the first question.
The second one involves the Board of Internal Economy. The House leader for the government read into the record the minutes of a board meeting. The board asked Public Works Canada to look into the amendments of the regulations affecting conduct on Parliament Hill. They did not come back to the board with the regulations. It was news to many people last week that the regulations had been promulgated by Cabinet.
Regulations are non-discretionary. They must be clear and, as far as I am concerned, they must be without a doubt, interpreted by all people so that we have no difficulty in assessing exactly what is meant.
In this we may have an example of some regulation we could look at. I would probably recommend to the Speaker that this whole thing should be referred back to a committee for a full investigation of: (a) the rights of members of Parliament on the Hill to talk with people; and (b) can we not look at these regulations with a way of adjusting them so that all people concerned would understand what is going on.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, that is a very good suggestion from my colleague, the member for Ottawa-Vanier.
As I have indicated, and I have quoted from the minutes, all that happened was that the Speaker, acting on behalf of the Board of Internal Economy, asked for amendment to the regulations. The regulations were amended and apparently they are being enforced. If what I hear is correct, they are not being enforced in a manner that I would find acceptable. They are not being enforced under direction from the government, I can assure you. They are being enforced by the RCMP, in fulfilment of regulations which were asked for by the Speaker.
In many ways, if that request to the Minister of Public Works was out of order or improper, then we are in essence criticizing the Speaker or the committee. I do not think that is proper. The proper decision now would be for the House or the Chair to ask the Board of Internal Economy to look again at its recommendations and to see whether the request made to the Minister of Public Works was complied with properly. We should
treat the matter in that fashion. Otherwise, we enter into a situation where I would be very reluctant ever, in the future, to act on the kinds of request the Board of Internal Economy might make. A fundamental recommendation of the McGrath Commission to involve the opposition in the administration and with membership on the Board of Internal Economy would be put into jeopardy, and that would be an error.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There is another point of privilege. This is going to carry on all day. I would like to recognize the hon. member for Kamloops on a point of privilege.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My point of privilege is twofold. The government House leader has indicated that I cannot be trusted because I do not support what the government is doing.


Mr. Hawkes:: He did not say that.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: He did say that.


Albert Glen Cooper: Tell the truth.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What he has done is read very clearly-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, if I may have an opportunity to respond. First, I would expect the minister to table the document from which he has quoted. Beauchesne calls for that. I would hope he would have the decency to do that.
He read from the Board of Internal Economy minutes where the board instructed the Speaker to seek amendments to regulations, which he did, on behalf of the board. Presumably, the assumption was that, if there were going to be dramatic changes in the nuisance legislation, dramatic changes in the legislation that would keep people away from Parliament Hill, then that would come back to the Board of Internal Economy. That would go to the Members' Services Committee or come back to the House of Commons.
I noticed with interest that there were people consulted. The RCMP were consulted. The Department of Justice was consulted and, of course, the Department of Public Works. But members of Parliament were never consulted, including those that sit on the Board of Internal Economy. They were not consulted on the
March 19, 1990

details of what the Minister of Public Works planned to do.
Today, we have two issues before us. One is the fact that the government has moved expeditiously, without any consultation with members of Parliament or the caucuses of the various parties as to the specifics of these changes.
We also noted that the request of the Speaker was that there be areas designated clearly to promote demonstration, to encourage dissent, and to encourage people to speak their views. What we see is a zone declared to remove people. That is one point.
The second point is that members of Parliament were not allowed to speak to Canadians in front of the Parliament Buildings of Canada.


David Barrett: That is my point.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The police moved in and said: "We will not allow these discussions to take place".


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Did you see them? Were you there?


Nelson Andrew Riis: This is not a police state. Eastern Europe has been moving away from this type of tactic.


David Barrett: Are you calling me a liar?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Now we have the government moving in such a way that police are not allowing members-


An Hon. Member:: Repeat what you said, Hawkes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please.


Don Boudria: I rise on a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Glengariy-Prescott-Russell on the same point of privilege.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make one or two brief comments. First, I do believe that what the Speaker should consider is whether or not instructions that he gave were in fact followed in an appropriate manner.
The issue here is not whether the Speaker was out of order, or anything in that regard, as the government House leader insinuated a few moments ago. No one is questioning whether the Speaker acted properly by contacting the Minister of Public Works, after having been instructed to do so by the Board of Internal
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Economy. It is the result of that communication that we are questioning, not whether or not the communication was authorized or should have taken place. That is obvious. I do not believe that my colleagues are I are criticizing the Speaker for what was done. As a matter of fact, quite the contrary.
Perhaps none of this was intentional, but it is obvious that the government should have got back to Mr. Speaker with what it was that it thought was the solution to the problem, how it saw this particular solution working, and if it was felt by the government that several people needed to be contacted, for example, Justice and a number of others. Members were not consulted and my colleagues were not consulted after that initial action was taken.
The other issue, Mr. Speaker, that you will want to consider is whether this solution offered by the government, adopted in the way that it was, infringes unduly upon the rights and privileges of members of Parliament that have been with us since the action of the British Parliament of 1675. At that time, my colleagues who are familiar with procedure will know that a member of Parliament in the British House of Commons in May 1675, was prevented from having access to the House. At that point the privileges of members of Parliament were invoked. Similarly, my colleagues who were prevented from speaking to a constituent today, I believe, had their privileges affected in much the same way.
Finally, I want to draw to your attention that those regulations refer to disturbances and so on. One person who was removed from the site was Father Van Nee and you will know, Mr. Speaker, that Father Van Nee does not make speeches on Parliament Hill. He has never been recorded to do so, even though he has been there for two years. Father Van Nee is fasting outside the House of Commons. I do not exactly consider his actions a disturbance. He was dragged physically by the police. I tried to talk to him at that point.


Albert Glen Cooper: Charge the RCMP.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, a colleague across the way says to charge the RCMP. I am making a statement in the House of Commons. I was not hired as a policeman. I was sent here by my constituents. If some other members across the way think they should be policemen, perhaps

March 19, 1990
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they should change jobs. Personally I want to stick around this place where I was sent and make this point.
I conclude by respectfully suggesting that the Speaker should contact the Minister of Public Works, have the regulations temporarily placed in abeyance until such time as proper consultation can take place with all members of the House of Commons and most of all, the respective members of the Board of Internal Economy representing the various parties in the House of Commons.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will recognize the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. Then I will recognize the hon. member for Winnipeg North and the hon. member for Hull-Aylmer.
I hope that I would then be able to take this whole procedure under advisement and report back to the hon. members. It is pretty hard for the Chair to come up with a solution for hon. members unless I can check with the Sergeant-at-Arms and all those who are responsible who have taken part in the incident this afternoon. I will recognize the hon. member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca on a point of privilege.


David Barrett: Mr. Speaker, I want to rise again on a point of privilege and clarify specifically what my point of privilege is. I am not talking about the regulations. I am not talking about whatever went on in the Board of Internal Economy. I am not talking about any of that.
As a member of Parliament, I was talking to a Canadian citizen in front of these buildings. I was not finished with my conversation and was joined in that conversation by the member for Carleton-Gloucester. Both of us were in a conversation with a Canadian citizen. In the midst of that conversation, four policemen came in, pushed the crowd away, seized the citizen who was talking to us and ended the conversation abruptly, not willingly by myself or the other member.
I want to make my point very clear. It has nothing to do with the regulations, nothing to do with Board of Internal Economy minutes, but absolutely to do with the simple fact that in the midst of a conversation with a citizen, we were interrupted by police and the citizen was dragged away. When we asked questions of why he was being dragged away, we were given an explanation that he was interfering or breaking some rule that was not
clearly defined. The only thing that we could see happening was that he was speaking to us.
I want my point of privilege separate. I do not want it with the committee. I do not want it with the Board of Internal Economy. I want the Speaker to look at my complaint, my point of privilege and I want a separate ruling on my point of privilege.


Mr. Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer):: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Glen Kealey is one of my constituents in Hull- Aylmer. He was my political opponent in November 1988, so I can hardly consider him to be a militant member of my association.
Mr. Speaker, since the 1988 election, Mr. Kealey has been standing here in front of Parliament, every day of the week, to give vent to his criticism of the government. This is all quite true, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Kealey has been here, with other people, for a year and a half.
However, my concern today is the way democracy seems to be lending itself to a new form of dictatorship, when a person can no longer stand in front of the Parliament Buildings and say whether he agrees or disagrees with the government.
Does that mean, Mr. Speaker, that if a an impressive group of citizens were to stand in front of the Parliament Buildings tomorrow and tell the government it did not agree with the GST, the government or the RCMP could arrest every single member of this group? Mr. Speaker, I think we need some clarification about this procedure. I also wonder whether this is perhaps an exercise in preparing for the post-Meech period, to prevent Canadian or Quebec citizens from coming to tell this government what they think.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, I noted that in reply to the comments made by my colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, the government House leader indicated his concurrence in the suggestion made to refer the matter again to the Board of Internal Economy. I would also like to echo the sentiment of my colleague the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and request the Speaker to require the government to rescind temporarily the regulation in question. In fact, I would like to see the
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government voluntarily suspend implementation of the said regulation.
Obviously, we can see that there are a great many concerns being expressed by members of Parliament. I think it is recognized that dissent and freedom of expression are at the heart of democracy. I think this matter should be clarified very quickly.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I am a member of the board. I have listened with a great deal of interest to all the discussion that has taken place here today.
Members may recall that not too many months ago there was a protest on the Hill and inadvertently, I think, the entire roadway was jammed. It made it impossible for emergency vehicles of any kind, ambulances or fire trucks, to make it to these buildings. This put at risk not only the members of Parliament who work in these buildings, but members of the staff, as well as visitors who sit in the gallery.
It was that event which led to the discussion in the Board of Internal Economy and to the request from the Speaker to the Minister of Public Works to pass a regulation that would indeed provide peace officers on the Hill with the authority to keep open the emergency lanes related to roadways.
Members may recall that the regulatory process is a very public process, that there has been ample time for all members of this House and indeed for all Canadians to respond to the proposed regulation. It was raised in this House the latter part of last week on an opposition day. It could have been the subject of debate, if it were a debatable item.
If members look at the regulation, they will find that prominent in the regulation is the notion of 50 metres. Why do the words "50 metres" appear in the regulation? Because it is a distance sufficient to protect the roadways from the point of view of protests so that emergency vehicles can make it to the House.
There are people who have been protesting on the Hill for quite some time, for quite a few months, something which I understand from what I have heard from members opposite. Historically, they have been asked since the passage of this regulation to move about 30 feet or 40 feet to a somewhat different location to be in
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accordance with the regulation passed to protect fire and safety on the Hill.
If they choose deliberately to carry on a protest in a prohibited area then it is a choice they make. If members of Parliament choose to talk to them in that prohibited area rather than in another area, that is the choice they make. Members of Parliament could invite them into the House at any time and into their offices. They could talk to them in many, many places.
Simply, if a member of Parliament stops in the middle of the busiest intersection of Ottawa, right in the middle of the street, and talks to a constituent, there is nothing in law that would lead you to the principle that the Mounties or whatever police force should not come along and remove them all from the intersection so that you can have the safety which roadways require.
Sitting here I felt that maybe there was not enough background for members and-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Did your caucus agree with it?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: -if they were to recall the dangerous situation which led to the discussion and the regulation, they might be less unhappy with what happened out there today. The behaviour of particular officers may or may not have been appropriate. I simply say to the House that we put the whole of democracy and all our lives at risk if we allow protests to take place in areas that stop access of emergency vehicles including ambulances and fire trucks.


Eugène Bellemare: Mr. Speaker, I think the comments made by the hon. member who just spoke are totally absurd. I wonder whether he was really there or whether he was dreaming during the incident.

My colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca was having a conversation with Mr. Kealey with whom I often converse because I find him extremely entertaining and very informative. There are times when I wonder why the federal government is not charging him with something where he would have to put up or shut up on the accusations he makes.
I did not stand in the middle of the street; I do not stand in the middle of streets. I am very much aware of municipal, provincial, and federal by-laws regarding

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highway traffic legislation. I was instrumental, for 20 years, in the development of highway traffic legislation. I am very much aware of the law.
I was on the sidewalk. Mr. Kealey was on the sidewalk. My colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca was on the sidewalk. We were having a very peaceful chat with this gentleman.
There are two points here that I wish to make. There is a regulation, apparently, about which we have not been advised as MPs where people may or may not speak, talk, yell, sing, or pray.
We have been informed that a 110-pound priest was dragged away. I have spoken to this priest many times. He hardly speaks to any one. You must approach him to be able to talk with him. Usually it is the individual who initiates the conversation, never the priest. The gentleman in the front of the building was on the sidewalk.
The point I am making here is: as an MP, Mr. Speaker, when you review this rule, do I have a right to go outside either alone or with a fellow MP, to go on the sidewalk and to have a conversation with anyone without being impeded by the RCMP?
Finally I would like to ask you: during an occurrence, to use the police language, of that nature, is it not the right of an individual, a citizen, let alone a member of Parliament, to ask who is in charge of the police group so that one can address questions to that person? This Inspector McCallum did not identify himself-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member brought that to my attention initially. I appreciate his comments. The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I think this dialogue is interesting. I would like to ask the Speaker to take this whole matter under advisement.
However, there is one point that bothers me, and some of my members here who have not spoken today would like to get involved in it. It is this point: members who were outside were asking the police forces whether if they had spoken or if they were going to circulate documents, would they be arrested and the police officers told them yes.
I do not think that is the interpretation of the regulations that we wanted to put forward. I do not think any member of Parliament should be prevented from doing his duty. I do not know if the police officer who was there knew exactly what he was saying when he told several members of my caucus that indeed if they circulated material or spoke out against government policy at that time they would be arrested. I think that is totally out of the present discussion. It should be clarified for all people that we as members of Parliament have a right to situate ourselves against this government without harassment and without being put under any duress.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, first, I want to make it clear that the regulations that my colleague, the Minister of Public Works, promulgated are the closest reflection he could find to the request made by the Speaker. The intent is to make it possible for members to get to the House of Commons.
My colleague, our party Whip, reminded me that at the demonstration last fall which led to this decision Parliament Hill was jammed up with vehicles and members of the opposition rose on questions of privilege, saying that this congestion prevented them from reaching the House of Commons. In fact the decision of the Board of Internal Economy was brought forward because of questions of privilege from opposition parties about the congestion caused by the demonstration.
I am curious as to how come the RCMP should show up at the same time as several members of the opposition were talking to people out there, when there were television cameras and so on. If I were suspicious I might think it was a set up for the purposes of the national news tonight. I do not know. I am curious as to why that might have happened.
In any event, I think the suggestion of my hon. colleague to have the Speaker take this matter under advisement is well made. I agree with it.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I was a witness to the events. I was also a witness to the first incident that the hon. member for Calgary West indicated caused the problem of congestion on Parliament Hill.
The congestion was actually caused by holding up the cars, by not allowing them to go through in the normal vehicle flow. Members of Parliament were restricted
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from coming to the Hill because they were in taxis and the RCMP had ruled at that time that taxis were not allowed on the Hill because it was thought that they were also in the demonstration.
With regard to today's incident, I am very concerned because it does have some very serious implications for freedom of speech. I was one of the members out there who asked the RCMP a question about my duties tomorrow, that is, if I wanted to distribute literature. I was told that it would be illegal in their interpretation.
The other point I would like to make as to demonstrations is the reason behind the regulations. I am not saying that I am for the regulations. I am definitely against this type of regulation because of what it has done today. When we talk about demonstrations, we do not talk about one or two people out there. We talk about the first incident when we had 400 to 1,000 people out there. In the first incident, the estimates were that there was up to 1,000 people.
Out there today were two individuals. How could they restrict emergency vehicles from coming on to the Hill? How could they restrict MPs from doing their job?
I think the whole process has to be reviewed. With all due respect, the regulation should be suspended until it is dealt with completely.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I appreciate the remarks of all members who have advised the Chair as to exactly what happened here today. I have a couple of issues of privilege to deal with. I think we should report on the role of the Board of Internal Economy. The Chair will take all this under advisement and get back to the House as soon as possible.
I believe that the Chair has heard enough as far as debate is concerned in this regard.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I asked the government House Leader if he would table the minutes from which he quoted in his presentation. He indicated he would do that. Has he done that, or does he plan to do that now?


Harvie Andre: Yes, I will, as soon as I find a Xerox.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is fine. The hon. member for Algoma has the floor on debate.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If you did not hear the hon. minister, he said he will table the minutes as soon as he can get a copy of it.
The hon. member for Algoma is on the floor for debate.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Can he not hand in the copy from which he was quoting?


Harvie Andre: Then I will not have one for my own files. Will you let me make a copy? I keep my word, don't worry.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I sense some kind of a cover-up, Mr. Speaker, and I want to get it out in the open.


Harvie Andre: Don't judge me by your friends' standards.


CROP INSURANCE ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-48, an act to amend the Crop Insurance Act, be read the third time and passed.
Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, with interruptions like that there really will be no opportunity to continue the discussion on Bill C-48.
I should like to comment on the remarks of the Deputy Prime Minister during the course of this debate because he certainly left a number of questions open, in my view. He accepted an amendment last week. As I recall the incidents of last Thursday afternoon, he only accepted one small amendment. With respect to the other one, he was sort of asleep at the switch and the amendment got through without him noting it.
I was disappointed that he did not accept the amendment with regard to the establishment of an advisory committee because the difficulties that we have with climate change in this country are very severe. We have seen literally thousands of farmers in southern Ontario especially, as well as in the three prairie provinces, lose

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their farms over the last three or four years because of climatic change. It does not seem to be improving very much. Thus Bill C-48 is a very important bill.
The minister tried to make the argument this afternoon that this matter was widely discussed. It clearly was widely discussed last July by a very large group of farmers from right across the country. They all agreed that the funding should be one-third, one-third, and one-third; it being shared by the federal and provincial governments as well as by the farmers. When the governments of the provinces and the federal government got together in Prince Albert at the end of July last year, there were no farmers there. A deal was struck which essentially cut up the cash in such a way that the federal government is paying 25 per cent, the provinces are paying 25 per cent, and the farmer ends up continuing to pay 50 per cent.
Although we agree with most of the amendments to the crop insurance legislation, this change really negatives the whole bill. Farmer group after farmer group- practically every group that came before us-said that the problem with it was that although the coverage was moving up from 70 per cent or 80 per cent to 90 per cent, the farmers could not afford to pay it.
That is why they were all opposed to it in the national meeting they had in early July. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, which represents the largest and most broadly based farm group, said in its presentation before the legislative committee about the 25, 25, and 50 formula: "While in some provinces this formula results in a relatively equal tripartite cost sharing of total program costs, in others the producers may end up paying up to 77 per cent more than the federal or provincial governments in their contributions. Uniformity and fairness across the country is essential to a national crop insurance program".
That is why the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and all constituent groups across the country are opposed to this measure. In its final summation before the committee it stated: "As a final note, we would like to point out that in order to increase producer confidence and therefore participation in the program an improved and enhanced program must offer an affordable price. Our members are skeptical of the likelihood of the continuation of an affordable program as it appears that
the federal share of crop insurance is being systematically reduced".
I think that is really the problem with the whole of the government's Green Paper. The paper the minister tabled in the House and about which he spends a lot of time talking essentially provides for two main proposals. One is that the government will reduce support programs to agriculture, which is what it has been doing for the last year. Every program that the government is involved in is being cut in one way or another. The only thing that it followed through on was the drought assistance that it promised in the 1988 general election. Last year the budget was cut by some $500 million to agriculture. Crop insurance alone was cut by some $200 million over two years. There is a whole list of other things including advance payments and other programs which were cut.
If we look at the spending estimates which were tabled a month or so ago, we see that drought assistance has been cut by $365.6 million. We see that the two-price wheat system has been cut by $56 million. We see that $42 million in statutory payments on crop insurance has been reduced. Yet there is all this talk about there being improved coverage. There is going to be improved coverage all right, if one can afford it.
If we look at the cost of the program to various groups we see that it is not going to be affordable. Several members from my caucus including the member for Lambton-Middlesex, the member for Prince Edward- Hastings, the member for Kent-Essex and the member for Essex-Windsor met last Friday with a number of wheat, com and soybean producers. Most of these groups, which included com producers, soybean producers, fruit and vegetable producers and winter wheat producers were all arguing that the cost of the coverage is simply too high.
For instance, for winter wheat producers, we see the cost of the coverage going from 4.4 per cent to 7.2 per cent. That is just to go from 80 per cent coverage to 90 per cent coverage. That is a 63 per cent increase to move up only 10 per cent in improved coverage.
Likewise, with corn, it is 64 per cent. For soybeans it is a 50 per cent increase. Similarly, for producers of red spring wheat in Saskatchewan, the cost of coverage goes
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from 12.6 per cent for 70 per cent coverage, to 19.5 per cent for 90 per cent coverage. We are looking at an almost 50 per cent increase in the cost of the coverage. This type of increase is similar for almost all crops.
Although the bill provides for improved coverage, nobody is going to take it. That is exactly the problem we are facing today. Producers, whether they are com producers, soybean producers or wheat producers in southwestern Ontario, or wheat, barley and other crop producers in the west, are demanding a special financial aid program. They do not have any of the tools that the American producer has. The American wheat grower today has a target price of about $4 U.S. that he is guaranteed. He has a loan rate of something around $2. He has a deficiency payment between those two figures.
About two weeks ago a couple of members from each caucus in the House met with a group from the Agriculture Leadership Training Program of Ontario. There were some 30 young agriculturalists or farmers who met with members of Parliament and put the argument to us that we hear every place we go in this country. It is that there is no certainty.
The government has taken away the advance payments program, which was roughly the same as the American loan program, although not quite as good. There is no target price and there is no deficiency payment. Nobody knows whether the whole special grains program, although very beneficial, is going to be there. It was triggered in 1986 in the middle of a provincial election in Saskatchewan. Will it be triggered this year? We do not know if there is going to be a provincial election. If we knew there was going to be a provincial election, then maybe it would be triggered, but maybe it will not be.


Mr. Malone:: Tell us about the Liberals' special grains program.


Maurice Brydon Foster: I believe the hon. member for Crowfoot is talking about the Liberals' special grains program. Back in the late seventies and early eighties when wheat prices were at $5 or $6 a bushel, when we had a two-price wheat system and the cost of production was probably 50 per cent or 60 per cent lower than today, farmers did not need a special grains program because they were immensely better off than they are today.
We had the spectacle a week ago Monday night with the Premier of Saskatchewan, who is also the Minister of
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Agriculture, pleading on province-wide television for financial support from the federal government. He had already met with the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds and the Deputy Prime Minister. He has probably discussed it with the Prime Minister, yet he has to go on province-wide television to plead for support. The Minister of Agriculture had this all laid out for him by the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool last October and November, which was asking for a special injection of $500 million to put the crop in the ground this spring.
Ontario com and soybean producers have made the same arguments. They are facing the same difficulties, as I told the members of our caucus last week. Yet it goes on month after month: December, January, February, March, April. Farmers just do not believe that there is going to be any special grains program or that there is going to be an interim payment under the Agricultural Stabilization Act. It is just left up in the air. What is going to happen? Nobody knows.
Compounding that problem is the situation we have with the banks. I was in Saskatchewan a week before last meeting with members of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool from around the Yorkton area. It was the same thing with grain producers in southwestern Ontario last week. The banks are essentially closing down Canadian agriculture. They will no longer lend money on the basis of the equity the farmer has in the land itself. The only basis on which they will lend money is on a cash flow basis. As I have already said the price of many grains-wheat, soybeans and com-is below the level where they will have cash flow. We are caught in this bind.
The minister met with the Canadian Bankers' Association last Thursday night. He tried to reassure us today. It seems to me that the whole thing is so hollow. He is talking about all the stakeholders, all the players in the game-the provincial government, the Farm Credit Corporation, the banks, the lending institutions in this country and the federal government.
How can anybody else in the game take the minister seriously when he is sitting there with the producers demanding financial support since last November and no financial support is forthcoming? Will there be a special grains program? Will there be an interim payment on ASA? Nobody knows, and there we sit.

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There is great, great uncertainty. The minister's comments today leave everybody wondering what is going to happen in this situation. Clearly this legislation just provides for more and more ad hoc programs because farmers will not use it.
There is another special concern for people from provinces like Prince Edward Island. It is not only the growers who are going to have extreme difficulty in meeting this new program. In provinces like Prince Edward Island they are going to have great difficulty with the provincial government coming up with their share of support.
I believe what is happening in Prince Edward Island is similarly happening in New Brunswick and perhaps in B.C. When we get to the end of the day we see that Ontario opposed it. With Quebec and Newfoundland, previously there really was not a great deal of support. For Prince Edward Island the costs are going from $150,000 a year to $650,000 a year. We are talking about $500,000 in additional costs to that small province with 130,000 residents.
How is the government of Prince Edward Island going to afford that? It is probably praying that the premiums will be so high that the farmers will not take out the insurance, because it does not know where it is going to get the $500,000 additional cost to its small province.
I do not have the figures for B.C. and New Brunswick, but I am sure that they have similar problems. The Deputy Prime Minister talks about this as though it was not a bill sprung on everybody in the middle of the night. It certainly was sprung on those four provinces that are opposed to it. It certainly was not what the farmers themselves asked for.
The angering part of this whole thing is that it is coming at a time when the United States is starting to work on a new farm bill which, we are told, will essentially be the same as the 1985 farm bill, and the United States is cutting its programs. That government is not reducing its deficiency payments or loan rates, but our government is reducing its support for crop insurance, for advance payments and for a whole series of programs, and we are doing it unilaterally.
That is simply not workable because we have to compete with those American producers. We do not
have an export enhancement program, although the premier of Saskatchewan is calling for that and it is probably a good idea if we are going to maintain our share of the world market. Our producers do not even have the programs that they had two years ago.
This bill will pass the way it is, regardless of how unworkable it is. The real issue today is whether the government is going to come forward with an emergency financial package. Every major farm organization has asked for it. The premier of Saskatchewan is asking for it and so far there is simply no response from the government even though seeding is only a month and a half away. I want to call attention to this. I do not know how it can be more firmly imprinted on the Deputy Prime Minister's mind and focused more dramatically to get action in this regard.
Clearly, the emergency need for funding is there, but we do need action on the farm debt problem. Last Saturday's Globe and Mail illustrates the type of problems that farmers in many parts of the country are facing. In that article, the premier of Saskatchewan pointed out:
"We're facing economic war in Saskatchewan," he said before meeting with the agricultural committee of the Canadian Bankers Association late Thursday. "Our farms are dying. It's a crisis."
He noted that 20,000 farmers-one-third the entire province-are faced with financial ruin unless they receive an immediate cash bailout of $500 million.
That is the $500 million that he went on province wide television a week ago last Tuesday to demand action on.
The article further states:
Moreover, he said, they need another $1 billion to tide them over until the harvest this fall and long-term help so they can carry a debt burden that has risen to more than $5 billion.
Imagine, Mr. Speaker, 60,000 farmers carrying a debt burden of $5 billion.
The urgency is for the government to act, yet it refuses to act. It is putting through a farm crop insurance program which is nickeling and diming and which is going to cause a great deal of problems because farmers will not take out enough coverage and we will have to continue on with this ad hoc program that is being demanded by the Saskatchewan farmers.
The uncertainty not only rests in grain and oilseeds, corn and soybeans, but in every sector of the Canadian agriculture economy today. If you talk to people who are in supply management, in poultry, in eggs and turkey
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production, in the dairy industry, there is tremendous uncertainty. Last week, I asked the Minister for International Trade if he would give a commitment that in the proposal that they are putting before the multilateral trade negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland, this year, they would take the advice of the poultry producers and the dairy producers of the type of access that they would agree to under Article 11 negotiations of the GATT agreement. He gave me the usual non-answer answer. It is absolutely essential that we get a commitment from the government that it is not going to sell out the farmers.
In the free trade deal they did not take the advice. They appointed a special advisory group on international trade, SAGIT, represented by producers, processors and farmers. They made a recommendation that any commodity coming in from the United States, whether it was processed chicken or processed dairy products, that had more than 10 per cent by dry weight or volume of a supply management commodity, would be subject to import controls.
That recommendation of the SAGIT was never accepted. The government went ahead willy-nilly, signing an agreement where the tariffs came down from about 12 per cent to zero over 10 years and essentially gave away the whole supply management structure in that agreement. The Minister of Agriculture said: "Have no fears. We will put all those items from the tariff list over to the import control list and there will be no problems."
That was in January 1988. We knew that there were very serious problems because the chairman of the Senate trade committee in the United States, Mr. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, immediately complained to Mr. Yeut-ter, the Secretary of Trade at that time, that this was breaking the agreement, that there was no provision in there, that they would take Canada to the GATT if they put those items on the import control list.
Sure enough, as soon as they put them on the import control list in December 1988, effective January 1, 1989, the United States petitioned GATT to establish a panel to see if putting those items on the import control list was a conflict of Canada's obligations under the GATT treaty. In September or October of last year the GATT came down with a decision stating that they were in
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contravention and ultimately the government accepted it in early December.
There we were in the GATT negotiations with an incredibly weak hand to play, to say the least. It is hard to see how the government can play that hand, if one looks at the people who are opposed to Article 11 of the GATT. There is our free trade partner, the United States, the trading group that we are associated with, the Cairns Group, and now Professor Worley of the University of Guelph, who is an expert on the GATT negotiations, saying that he thinks the European Economic Community is going to oppose our position as well to strengthen and clarify Article 11 of the GATT.
Of course, there is also the off-hand comment to one of our officials by the United States Ambassador to GATT who stated: "Look, we don't really have to negotiate Article 11. All we have to do is get a couple more GATT panels on the other processed dairy products and we have total access to your market anyway."
While this may sound very complicated, it is very simple to the dairy producers of this country, those who have market-share quota, those who produce milk for the industrial production of processed dairy products, items like ice-cream and yogurt, cheese, skim milk powder and butter. With that border open into the United States, they can easily swamp our market and swamp those producers, many of whom are in the province of Quebec, if the GATT negotiations fail.
That is why I asked the Minister for International Trade the other day if the government would abide by the recommendation of the dairy farmers of Canada, which is to limit imports under the access to our processed dairy products to 5 per cent by value and 3 per cent by volume. That would leave the production of cheese, which has now about 9 per cent access and increase a number of other commodities which have no access now to 1 per cent. However, even 1 per cent is a lot of money. This is a $4 billion business, so 1 per cent is $40 million of access by the United States.
Mr. Speaker, you can understand why every dairy producer, every poultry producer, every egg producer in this country is extremely nervous about those negotiations. Our bargaining position was given away in the free trade deal. Our bargaining position at the GATT is extremely weak. We do not have many friends. Apparently we have the Swiss and the Austrians and some of

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the Scandinavian countries with us, but compared to the power and influence of the European Economic Community, if Professor Worley is right, and compared to the United States that has vowed openly to do away with Article 11, and compared to the 11 or 12 countries in Cairns Group, our position is not strong.
That is not to say that we want to see the government not succeed in this, because doing away with the vibrancy, efficiency and viability of the poultry and dairy industry would be a disastrous blow. We would be facing the same kind of demands for financial support from that sector as we are facing in the grain, oilseed and com crops this year, if we were to lose out in those negotiations.
This bill makes some improvements. It looks good on paper, but the cost to producers is dramatically increased at a time when they cannot even borrow money on the equity they have in their farms. They can only borrow on the cash flow of their crops. Many farmers will not be able to afford the dramatically increased premiums which, in some cases, increased by 60 per cent and in some cases even more than that.
We want to see the government act immediately on the farm debt crisis and the farm financial crisis, because we are talking about the very future and the viability of our industry. We know it may be counter to the government's Green Paper, which is essentially to remove support programs and to make the industry wide open to world markets. We think that they should stop and look at survival of an industry which is facing horrendous difficulties in this coming year. It is an industry that is competitive. Our problem is coping with the international community, the massive subsidies in the United States and in the European Community. It is essential that we look at this from a global point of view. Are we going to have a viable agriculture industry which not only provides efficient food production in this country but provides a vibrant and effective rural community which is essential to the well-being of our country.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I rise on third reading debate of Bill C-48, an act to amend the crop insurance legislation. To give some background, I would like to spend a few minutes in the 20 minutes that
I have available to me to go through some of the international affairs that have affected the world of grain production and the impact that that has had on the farms of people on the prairies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and northern British Columbia, and also as it affects grain production in central and Atlantic Canada. All grain producers producing crops in this country have been affected by the grain wars that have erupted between the two big power blocs, the European Economic Community and the United States of America.
Each war is quite unique. This particular one is centred on a question of who should be a producer of grains for exports in the world, with the Americans taking the position that they should be the pre-eminent exporters of grains and that other countries should be much smaller exporters of grains. In particular, the American viewpoint is that the Europeans really do not have any business exporting grain into world markets. That is an attitude that carries back to the last world wheat talks which failed, whereby the wheat exporters of the world were attempting to set a floor price beyond which countries that were participants in the wheat agreement would not offer grain.
The system of floor prices has been in effect for quite a long time; sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not. When wheat was in high supply, often some of the countries involved in the pact would begin to break the agreement.
From Canada's point of view, it was very often the United States which broke those agreements. It would find ways of offering some grades of grain and some types of grain below the floor price and that would eventually break the price. A number of times in my memory when Canada attempted to abide by the commitments under the International Wheat Agreement and held the price up, the consequence was that we sold very little grain in those periods of time because we were trying to abide by international rules.
I raise this because what we have been facing in rural Canada over the last decade almost, certainly in the last six or eight years, has been a heating up of the dispute as to who should be able to sell grain between the Europeans and the Americans. It got much warmer in 1985 with the introduction of the American farm bill which
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had not only the plethora of subsidies that is endemic in the agricultural system of the United States of America, but an additional impetus to exports by including the Export Enhancement Program whereby the United States offers money to potential buyers of grain to buy their grain as opposed to somebody else's grain.
They began by offering incentives in the range of $7 per tonne. More recent sales this calendar year have gone over $20 per tonne. So the war is heating up.
I am a Canadian fanner, as are thousands of others in this country. We can understand the ups and downs of international marketing, and to some extent, even though there is a lot of politics in it, we have learned to accept and live with that. What we find very difficult to live with is when our own government refuses to come on side and be an advocate for us in those grain wars.
We can accept that there are times when other countries will be shooting at us and we will be caught in the crossfire, as we have been between the Europeans and the Americans. It is extremely difficult to accept our own government shooting at us as well. It is bad enough to duck the competition but when your own government starts shooting at you, you start to think that something is wrong. I submit that something is very wrong when, since re-election in 1988, the government has contributed to our misery in rural Canada by taking an additional $1 billion out of the pockets of farmers.
How have they done this? In the last two budgets, programs have been pulled away that had existed for a long time which were of benefit to rural Canada. For example, small programs such as the at and east freight rates encouraged western grain to go into Atlantic Canada, permitted workers in Atlantic Canada to load ships year round, and kept rail line workers busy ferrying grains from the Georgian Bay elevators over to Halifax and Saint John.
There was also a reduction of the crop insurance money that goes into crop insurance, the program we are debating here today. The Government of Canada has decided that it will not supply close to half of the premiums to cany the cost of crop insurance. After Bill C-48 that we are debating today is passed, instead of
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farmers paying 50 per cent of the premiums and the federal government paying 50 per cent of the premiums, farmers will continue to pay at least 50 per cent of the premiums and the federal government will drop its contribution to 25 per cent and leave the provinces to pick up the other 25 per cent.
That will mean that farmers and rural people will be paying through their provincial taxpayers' pockets. For some of the larger provinces, this will not be too much of a problem. However, in provinces like Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island where farmers and farming make up a great deal of the economy, taxes will increase quite perceptibly because the Gross National Product of those provinces depends very much on the production of field crops, whether they are potatoes, wheat, or some of the oilseed crops. It will make a big difference to the amount of taxes that provincial taxpayers will put into the crop insurance program.
That is where some of the controversy takes place. In the course of the building of the grain wars, the balance between the amount of money that a farm takes in and the amount that that farm has to spend on personal expenses and business reinvestment has changed remarkably. Up until about 10 or 15 years ago, approximately 50 to 70 per cent of a farm's gross income went out as expenses. In Saskatchewan, the crop insurance program covered 70 per cent of the average long-term yield for that province. If land was producing 30 bushels to the acre of wheat, the crop insurance program would cover 70 per cent of that, which would be something like 21 bushels per acre. This would virtually cover the actual cash outlays of those farms at that time.
Because of the grain wars and the downward pressure on price, most farms are now finding that even the most efficient with good crops have only about 10 to 15 per cent to spend on their own families and for reinvestment in the farm after all costs are paid.
The government's response at Prince Albert was to open up the crop insurance legislation so that the various contracts with the provinces between the federal government and the provinces could include crop insurance that would pay up to 90 per cent of the loss. The idea was to permit farmers to take out enough crop insurance to cover their cash losses if there was no crop.

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I have no great objection to opening up the legislation to permit higher levels of coverage. I just point out that it is not going to address the income problem that is out there. Fiddling with crop insurance is not going to be the answer to a problem that is essentially a world price problem.
At one time, we had two sets of programs because we recognized that there were two problems that faced farmers. One was a production problem, for which we had crop insurance. It was not always as adequate as it could be, but the program is there and still will be there after C-48.
On the other hand, we had a price insurance program which went into place through two different sets of legislation. In the Wheat Board area of western Canada, the Western Grain Stabilization Act applied and we contributed 2 per cent of our sales to finance that. The federal government also contributed on a two for one basis. In the rest of Canada, price was protected under the Agricultural Stabilization Act. Farmers in those regions who had crops that were not of the six major grains in the Wheat Board region got coverage without paying premiums.
Anyone who has watched farming policy in the last number of years knows that one of the last acts of the old Liberal government and one of the first acts of the new Conservative government in 1984 was to make some fairly drastic amendments to the Western Grain Stabilization Act, with the idea of paying out a larger payment for a couple of years, on the assumption that the world price problems that were surfacing would go away.
Even when there is no political interference, world price problems generally have a cycle of about 15 years from the low through the high and back to the low. If I had any criticism of the Western Grain Stabilization program, it was that it had too short a vision. It looked at a 10 year period of time instead of the 15, which would have more properly reflected the reality of world price cycles.
After 1984, we shortened that up to seven years with the result that the program is now virtually useless. The fund is in deep deficit. No money is being paid out, and yet farmers needs are still there. That happened because the formula was changed to generate a quick, large pay-out around election time. It did its political job, but
it did not do its economic job of evening out farm incomes.
This particular legislation is permissive. As I said earlier, it fails to follow the government's own program of tripartitism, which involves provincial, federal and producer payments on an equal, one-third, one-third basis. Instead, the federal government has taken a quick-fix budget oriented approach to increase coverage which will increase premiums to producers, but the federal government will not increase the amount they pay on those premiums. In fact, it has decided instead to unload that responsibility onto the provinces.
While the federal government proposes to save $90 million in the year that is coming to a close and an additional $110 million in the fiscal year coming into play April 1, the provinces will have to pick that up. For the further coverage that may be possible with the opening up of the program to coverage up to 90 per cent, producers will have to pay extra premiums.
Just to give an idea of what that will mean, we got some figures from some of the witnesses from Ontario who appeared before us. They pointed out that for Ontario right now the average winter wheat producer pays $4.50 per acre for the basic coverage package. The new increased coverage will cost him an extra $1.79. That simply puts his coverage level 10 per cent higher than it was. He goes from an 80 per cent coverage to a 90 per cent coverage in the province of Ontario and that will cost that producer almost $1.80 per acre more.
Had this initiative been carried out on a tripartite basis, where the producer, the federal, and provincial governments paid equally, that extra coverage would have cost that Ontario producer of winter wheat an extra six cents per acre. We can see the dramatic difference that this makes in production costs to producers. For winter wheat, it is almost $1.80 an acre.
If we consider something like tomatoes, where the producer is now paying $41.50, enhancement to the program namely, going from 80 per cent coverage to 90 per cent coverage will cost him almost an extra $35 an acre. Under tripartite it would have cost him an extra $20. So the tripartite system is one that producers had expected and were looking forward to as being part of
March 19, 1990

the package, and there is some disappointment that that was not the case.
As well, one of the confusing things at committee level was dealing with 10 different contracts. The federal government has a different system of contracting crop insurance with each of the provinces. The rules affecting a producer of commodities like wheat or peas in one province are sometimes quite substantially different from the rules that affect a producer of the same commodity in another province.
For instance, the federal government makes ad hoc changes to the contracts that it puts on. Sometimes these are encouraged by the producers in the area, but they are never fair. For instance, at the end of last week there was an announcement about the final multi-year disaster benefit for 1989 to those regions of prairie Canada that had a further continuation of the drought. For some regions it was the third consecutive year of drought.
It would be possible to treat them on a farm-by-farm basis in the province of Saskatchewan because of the kind of crop insurance records and program that we have. We have had crop insurance since either 1960 or 1961, which took over from the old Prairie Farm Assistance Act. The region of the province where I live, which is reasonably well watered most of the time, was the pilot area to start that insurance program. We paid our 1 per cent, not to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act but into crop insurance premiums. Some of us did not have very many losses during that period of time, but it meant that if we did have a loss on our farm, we would get paid for the losses that we had, rather than having to depend on all of the surrounding townships having losses before we qualified.
The government has forgotten those lessons of the PFAA and has reintroduced the multi-year disaster benefit. Even though your farm had a drought for three years in a row and you collected the maximum crop insurance, you did not qualify for the extra 10 per cent coverage benefit unless you were in a municipality that bordered on three other municipalities which make up a district of four municipalities suffering the same disastrous occurrence. If you happen to live in a municipality that is isolated then you are just out of luck. Many people found that they were out of luck and were not able to get any assistance, as a result.
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We believe that this particular bill is not entirely beneficial for Canadian farmers. We think it is simply an excuse for the federal government to unload some of its spending responsibility for farmers on to the provinces, and an excuse to charge farmers more for crop insurance. As I said at the beginning of my speech, that is consistent with its move to take more than a billion dollars of extra funds out of farmers' pockets in the last year and a half since its re-election. If the federal government would simply recompense those funds it has already taken out of farmers' pockets unjustly, farming would be in much better shape than it is today.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, last year's budget indicated that the amount to be spent on crop insurance for 1989-90 would be reduced by $90 million-


An Hon. Member:: No questions or comments after the first three speakers.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Not for the first two speakers, but for the third one there is a question and comment period. I just want to bring it to the attention of the hon. member that under Standing Order 43, the first two speakers have unlimited time, the third speaker has 20 minutes plus questions and comments. I recognize the hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt again on his question or comment.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, the last federal budget indicates that the amount to be spent on crop insurance for 1989-90 would be reduced by $90 million and a further $110 million decline was projected for 1990-91 fiscal year. This reduced the federal commitment which would equal the share of the crop insurance premiums paid by the provinces to a maximum of 25 per cent.
How will this affect the likely returns for farmers who are collecting crop insurance in the next year? Can it be projected into the pocketbooks of the farmers during the next year?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the $91 billion from last year and the $110 million of savings to the federal Treasury in the coming fiscal year are to be brought about as a result of unloading part of the cost on to the provinces.
If the provinces sign new contracts increasing the amount of coverage to the farmer, permitting contracts which would allow the farmer to increase his coverage from the existing 70 per cent in Saskatchewan up to 80 per cent which was available in the past crop year, and as high as 90 per cent in the province of Ontario, which was,

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available last crop year, the federal government is projecting that it will mean higher premiums being paid by the fanners. Between them the federal government and the provincial governments have to match those premiums.
Since the federal government is proposing to save some $90 million last year and $110 million in the coming fiscal year, that means the provincial governments will have to pick up the same amount that the federal government saves. The provinces will be having to raise approximately an extra $100 million as a result of this initiative by the federal government.
Farmers will be paying slightly higher fees if they opt for the higher coverage levels which I think they will be forced to do given the change in the production economics at the farm level whereby close to 90 per cent of the gross sales of a farm go out directly for cash costs.
If the farmer wants to stay in business after having a crop loss he will need crop insurance that will cover at least 90 per cent of his cost. Therefore, premiums will rise at the farm level, and coverage will be up. The main problem for provincial governments will be that they will have to raise quite a bit more money to make up the deficit of the $90 million last year and $110 million this year.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, will the vegetable growers, fruit growers and non-grain growers be affected in the same way?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, we did not get to see all the contracts which exist, but my understanding is that increased coverage will be available to vegetable and fruit growers as well.
The premiums will be somewhat higher. I believe I mentioned tomato growers in southern Ontario having to pay an extra $35 per acre for premiums for that extra 10 per cent coverage. It is a fairly high rate, but given the kind of cost-price squeeze that is affecting farmers now, some of them may be forced by their creditors and their lending institutions to take the higher coverage levels,
just for the mutual protection of the farmer and the banker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-48. As I was listening to some of my colleagues speak to this issue, I started to reflect on what has caused this lack of pride that we, as Canadians, seem to have in our agricultural community.
I want to go back to an experience I had in 1986.1 was flying to Cuba with our former Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. Eugene Whelan. The Liberals were not in power then and Mr. Whelan was long gone as a minister. I remember, as he was walking to the back of the plane, everyone gave him a friendly greeting, saying that it was nice to have him back. We went on to Cuba where we received a very warm welcome from officials.
One evening I asked the Cuban officials why they had such respect for this man who had been away for so long. One of them said that when they were in need the minister made sure that they had Holstein cattle to help feed the people and when they had fever break out from time to time, Canadian veterinarians would go to Cuba. There seemed to be a sense around the world that Canadian agriculture had a place of pride.
About two months ago, I was in Moscow to speak on an environmental issue. I was amazed by the lineups for food that I saw every morning on my way to the conference. There were lineups of 200 people or 300 people at every food store in the city. These people were afraid that if they did not get to the food stores early in the morning they would not have lunch or dinner. The food that was in these stores made me feel ashamed.
When I returned home I was struck by the fact that I do not think we really give the farmers of this country enough respect or enough time. We have seen a government that has been retreating from its national responsibility over the last five or six years. I am afraid that situation has now reached the farmers.


Mr. Blais:: You are always away. You don't know what is going on here.
March 19, 1990


Dennis Joseph Mills: The hon. member says that we do not know what is going on here. If the hon. member watched IT-5 last night, he would know that 50 per cent of that show was dedicated to the farmers of Canada, who are crying out desperately for government, at all levels, to give them some time and attention. Even though I am an urban member, many of my constituents are phoning my office and telling me that we are not giving enough time to the agricultural community of this country.
I admit readily that many constituents do not understand what crop insurance is. I understand that the government is trying to redefine and reshape its priorities and put more responsibility in the provincial hands. At the same time I do not think the government is realizing that agriculture is not a business. It is like a vocation. I suggest, in my humble opinion, that the government does not realize completely the sacrifices of farmers and the the desperate financial shape the farmers of this country are in. If it did I think that we would be spending a lot more time on this issue.
Very few people in this House realize that I have been in agriculture for over 22 years. I do not grow crops but I have been involved and have had an operational farm for over 22 years. Even though I am not involved in it day to day I hear the stories from my own farm manager and our neighbours about how desperate the situation is.
The desperation seems to stem from two or three areas. First, many of our farmers are of an age where they would like to take life a little easier. They see that everyone else in the country has a certain quality of life and that as they get a little older they seem to be able to take things a little easier.
However, in the agriculture community this is not the case. Many of the farmers who are most active in this country today are in their early sixties and some are in their late sixties. This is a tremendous strain for them.
We see that their sons and daughters not wanting to stay on the farms. They are tempted because of the quality of life not to stay in rural Canada but to go to the urban centres. Who is going to carry on these family farms? From coast to coast we are seeing a complete deterioration of the family farm.
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I know that members opposite are not designing this kind of a situation. I cannot imagine any man or woman who would want to see that kind of thing happen. The problem is that there does not seem to be an aggressive approach to promoting and enhancing the family farm. There does not seem to be enough awareness in the urban communities of the importance of the family farm and the health of the family farm. There does not seem to be enough communication to the people at large.


Mr. Lewis:: He has a hobby farm.


Dennis Joseph Mills: There does not seem to be enough communication that family farms are vital to our economy. It is vital in terms of our experts. The hon. member for Simcoe North talks about me trying to give a lecture about family farms-


Philip Derek Lewis: From Broadview-Greenwood.


Dennis Joseph Mills: He knows about many farms in his own community where they are having a very difficult time now, where sons and daughters of those farmers in his own riding are leaving those farms. They are so close to the metropolitan areas that there is a disincentive factor.


An Hon. Member:: Welcome to the 20th century.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Welcome to the 20th century he says. That is the attitude we get when we are trying to talk constructively about the family farm in this House. That is precisely the problem. This government is so pre-occupied with the retreat from national governments, so pre-occupied with cutting things like-


Pierre Blais: Where?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Where? VIA Rail, unemployment insurance, farm programs coast to coast. Cutting back on crop insurance responsibility and adding it on to the provinces. Right now you have disadvantaged provinces-


Pierre Blais: They all agree. The farmers agree. You don't know what you are talking about.


Dennis Joseph Mills: There is the smugness and the arrogance of the members opposite when we are trying to make people aware of a group in our society right now wich is crying out.

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We are trying to show that we on this side of the House care about the agricultural community in this country. Never before have the farmers been in such desperate straits. There are farm foreclosures day after day. Lines of credit are being cut back.


Pierre Blais: What have you done for the long-term dairy policy?


Dennis Joseph Mills: It is an incredible thing for someone who initially, when he came to this House, seemed to show a sense of respect for a community he came from. Now, all of a sudden, those members seem to have all the answers. They do not have all the answers and that is why the agricultural community of this country is in such desperate shape.
The Conservatives are not listening any more. They do not want to listen. They just want their own design, which is a massive decentralization of the national government. The only way we are going to put the agricultural community of this country back in shape is if this Chamber takes some leadership and we start putting some pride and a sense of appreciation back into the agricultural community.
I realize this is a complex issue, and that we must address the debt and deficit. The greatest resource we have in this country is our agricultural community. We in the city as we walk along the Danforth see in restaurant after restaurant plates piled high with food and every grocery store filled with every product one could conceivably imagine. We live in a cocoon in the urban areas of this country.
We are taking our agricultural community for granted. It is time we gave agriculture a higher priority and made sure that we develop policies in this country that will give our farming community a greater sense of respect and appreciation. We have to show them that we in this Chamber really care about their direction and their future. We have to get our youth back on the family farm. We have to make sure that those people out there right now, who are facing increasing difficulty in acquiring new machinery and equipment, know that we care.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the hon. member where in the world
would he ever get the notion, and why would he ever say it, even if he read it in a comic book or otherwise, that farming is not a business?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, did the hon. member say that I said that farming is not a business? I correct myself. I am well aware that agriculture is a business.
My comment was that it is more than a business. It is a vocation, a part of our cultural heritage, and it is a way of life. That is the point I was trying to make.


Arnold John Malone: I would like to ask the hon. member to justify how he can say that the government today does not care about farming, when the support for farming has increased 650 per cent from the time the Liberal Party was governing this country.
How can he claim that the Liberals cared more when they did not have drought assistance, a special grain program or the $51 billions that went for support of the farm industry? How can he come to the House of Commons and make the claim that they are somehow more caring for the farming industry, when there is nothing in the public accounts of Canada that would give any documentation whatsoever that that might even be slightly factual?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, this government has an incredible way of playing gymnastics with figures and percentages. The hon. member says 650 per cent. I do not know whether he is including the sum of money toward drought assistance. I do not know exactly what he means.
I do know one thing. Ask the agricultural community of this country if it has the same sense of pride in its work, in its state, in the general fabric of this country today, compared to 1984 and before. I can tell you that a great number of farmers are not satisfied. They are not happy. They think a lot more can be done.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a short comment and conclude with a question.
First, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for his speech. It is not often enough in this House that we hear members representing urban areas speak on agriculture. Agriculture is not just a subject that those of us who represent agricultural ridings should speak about, and because all people eat, we should bear that in mind.
March 19, 1990

During the excellent discourse of my hon. colleague I heard some members across the way heckling. There were insinuations about what an urban member was doing talking about agriculture.
I think all members from both sides of the House should spend more time concentrating on agriculture because it is not just the business of those of us who live in rural areas. I want to congratulate him for taking that initiative.
There is a lesson here that all members of the House should learn. It is to become knowledgeable in agriculture, as my colleague has just obviously demonstrated, judging by the excellent speech that he made. Perhaps other members representing urban areas can do that as well.
I also recognize that my colleague has a keen interest in agricultural issues because of certain holdings and because of his many acquaintances in rural areas. I am particularly glad to see that as well.
I want to ask my colleague about another issue in agriculture. It concerns the general malaise that farmers are seeing vis-a-vis the threat to their supply management systems for the dairy industry principally and, of course, the poultry producers as well.
My colleague will know that the government has signed a free trade deal with the Americans and has made certain promises primarily to the agricultural sector, whereby it would be protected from imports, particularly in area of ice cream and yogurt. The Government of Canada made a unilateral statement in that regard, and that as such, it was in fact the law, knowing of course that there is no such arrangement.
When the government then tried to impose its ruling unilaterally, placing ice cream on the import control list, the Americans appealed to the GATT and won a first round decision, only to find that the Canadian government caved in afterwards.
Does my colleague agree with me that the Canadian dairy farmers need to have their supply management system strengthened and protected by a government which cares about supply management the way the previous Liberal government did? Does he agree with me as well that the government across the way has been caving in to the Americans and failing to support supply
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management as it should, both with the United States and at the GATT?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood on a very short reply.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it will be a very short reply. Of course I support my colleague, but I want to add that my constituents are demanding that we become knowledgeable about agricultural matters. A group of them worked with one of the agricultural associations over the last two weeks and our next householder is devoted specifically to agricultural issues, because the basic problem we have is that this government is decentralizing to a point where it is hard to develop a national consensus and a national will.
It is only when everyone in the community becomes involved in these problem areas that we can begin to galvanize the country. That is where you get support and that is the only way the agricultural community of Canada is going to get the support that it needs.


Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak today on Bill C-48.
Once again the government is persisting in off-loading federal costs to the provinces with this bill. In the past two budgets it has become very evident that off-loading is the main objective of this government. It is as if the people who pay the federal taxes are different from people who pay provincial taxes. It is as if we are talking about two different countries, not two different jurisdictions.
If Bill C-48 is passed, the federal government says it will save $200 million. Taxpayers will not save $200 million. They will pay the same as before, or more. All that is really happening is that a different jurisdiction will pay for the same program, with little or no improvement to the program.
The minister has claimed that all the provinces are agreeing to these new arrangements under Bill C-48. This is not true. British Columbia is not agreeing to this program, New Brunswick does not agree with this program and Prince Edward Island does not agree with the program changes. In fact, Prince Edward Island would be better off under the old program than under these new regulations.
In the past the crop insurance program was cost shared fifty-fifty between the producers and the federal govern-

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ment with the provinces picking up the administrative costs. Even with this arrangement, the costs were such that farmers were reluctant to buy crop insurance in my province. With the new arrangements, the producer continues to pay 50 per cent of the premiums with the other 50 per cent divided equally between the province and the federal government. The administration costs would also be shared between the federal and provincial governments.
This new arrangement will increase the cost to the Prince Edward Island taxpayer by at least $500,000. This the province cannot afford to pay. It will definitely be a hardship for our small number of taxpayers.
I was happy to hear the minister say last week, in response to the member for Algoma who has been doing yeoman work with this legislation, that he is prepared to work out a timeframe in the new sharing formula with P.E.I. This is good news and should result in a reduced cost for Prince Edward Island in the short term, but the end result will be the same. In a few years the crop insurance program will cost Prince Edward Island taxpayers in excess of $500,000, which they cannot afford. The net result will be that the new program will be used less than the old one.
The federal government is saying, "Pay now and see what the benefits will be later". Well, the farmers are not willing to do that, nor would anyone else in similar circumstances. This was proven in the changes made to the Advance Payment for Crops Act. The federal government off-loaded again. As a result, no Prince Edward Island farmer is using the provisions under the act. There was absolutely no one available to administer the act in Prince Edward Island and the farmers saw absolutely no advantage for them to use it.
Crop insurance is vital to farmers. It means that if a disaster strikes they will not be wiped out, they can retrieve their costs. But if it is going to be cost prohibitive to join the program, farmers will take their chances and will not buy insurance.
It has been proven in the United States, our friendly neighbour to the south, that unless premiums are affordable and coverage substantial, farmers will take their chances with the weather rather than with the insurance program. Farmers will not take out coverage which, in
the end, will see no improvement in their position, whether they take out insurance or not.
Since we, as a nation, cannot afford to see any more farmers going into bankruptcy, it is incumbent upon governments to enhance programs like crop insurance and not just simply to increase costs. The tragedy now being played out in Saskatchewan can happen in other areas of Canada, more so now and in the future because of the environmental instability due to the greenhouse effect, ozone deficiencies and the normal natural weather patterns. I hope the government will continue to be generous to Saskatchewan farmers and will enhance programs for other Canadian farmers rather than make it more difficult for farming to be a prosperous and vital industry.
We have no need to fear American trade action if we are supportive of our own farmers, at least no more than we do now. It is becoming obvious to us that the Americans subsidize agriculture as much or more than we do. It is a matter of semantics as to whether agriculture is being top-loaded or bottom-loaded. The United States is not prepared to allow its farmers to be abandoned to market forces, and neither should we. We should make that claim to the Americans.
There is no reason to dive headlong into a subsidy cutting exercise in order to please the Americans. The Americans will never be satisfied as long as they cannot compete against producers from other countries. If they cannot compete, they believe we are cheating. They believe we must be getting something free, we must be getting some assistance from our government.
As long as we have no common understanding of what a subsidy is, the free trade agreement, as far as agriculture is concerned, is a farce.
To conclude, the minister says the legislation is in provincial jurisdiction. Yet he is changing the program without the consent of the ten provinces. He only has the consent of seven. The act says clearly that mutual consent or five-years advance notice is required if changes are made in the act. This did not happen. New Brunswick, P.E.I. and B.C. have not given their support. In addition, the government changed the spirit of the old act when it changed the requirement that Ottawa obtain the consent of the provinces to a provision which requires Ottawa to simply consult with the provinces.

That is all this government has done-consult. It did not receive the consent of the provinces.
This bill will do injury to P.E.I. and New Brunswick. The objectives and reservations these provinces have should be addressed before the bill is passed.


Mr. Len Gustafson (Parliamentary Secretary to Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I have a brief comment. On the weekend I had the opportunity to look at the new insurance program as it affects Saskatchewan and the people in our area. The purpose of the bill is to improve the coverage in order that it be more comprehensive for the farmers. It does exactly that. In fact the farmer can choose to increase his coverage up to 80 per cent, in the case of Saskatchewan, if he cares to. He can insure at 70 per cent, as has been the case, or he can insure at a lower percentage.
The cost of the insurance, at least as it affects the farms with which I am acquainted-and I had an inquiry on the weekend specifically on this-is the same as it was last year. If you increase the insurance, of course your coverage is going to be higher. But it is much more comprehensive and it certainly gives the farmer a greater opportunity to cover his operation by insurance.
I spent about one hour with the people who are administering this provincially and I felt very positive about the program. It certainly contains extensive coverage. I have not heard anyone on the opposition side indicate how the program works. As I say, I had a first-hand look at how it applies in Saskatchewan. I do not know how it applies to other provinces because each province has some input on the way the program works in that province.
There was a suggestion made that there was too much centralization. Well, we must realize that farming in Saskatchewan is quite a different situation.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Decentralization.


Leonard J. Gustafson: I believe the hon. member made the comment that there was too much centralization.


Dennis Joseph Mills: No.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Then I misunderstood his comment.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Mr. Speaker, I am getting my information that the program will not be used as much in Prince Edward Island as was the old program from the provincial government itself. It has asked Agriculture Canada to calculate what the new system of 10 per cent deducti-
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bility would do to premiums in P.E.I. To this point the federal Department of Agriculture has not come up with the two different sets of figures. However, according to the province's own figures, the changes to this act will act as a disincentive to the farmers in Prince Edward Island. This is why they have been holding out trying to get a better deal for them as compared to other provinces.
It is interesting to note that the proposal that Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and B.C. came up with, and to which the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and Newfoundland agreed, was killed by the province of Saskatchewan. I am not really sure what difficulty they had with the arrangements that these three provinces were proposing, but they did succeed in negating the progress which these three provinces were making in order to come to a better deal with the federal government under these new regulations. I cannot really comment any further than that.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate the problem that most farmers are facing. I think the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister had indicated that for an increase of $4,300 you could move from 70 per cent coverage to 80 per cent coverage. Although $4,300 to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is really a drop in the bucket, practically small change, to the average producer it is a very significant increase. This would be on, say, 1,200 acres of wheat production.
Producers across the country, including the Canadian Federation of Agriculture which represented the Pools before the committee, were arguing that if we had a three-way split on the premiums with the farmer, the federal government and the provincial government each paying a third, we could have that same kind of coverage, 80 per cent coverage in Saskatchewan for the $5,700, which was the premium paid for 70 per cent coverage last year. You would be able to move up because you would be splitting it three ways. The average producer will have difficulty paying that extra $4,300 to move up to the maximum coverage which is 80 per cent in Saskatchewan from 70 per cent last year.
The argument we are making is that we are just perpetuating the idea of more ad hoc programs. We are trying to get away from ad hoc programs but, because the cost of the premium has gone up so much to move to the higher percentage coverage, the government is going to

March 19, 1990
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continue to come up with ad hoc programs such as they need in Souris-Assiniboia and in Brandon-Souris.
They need a special drought assistance program this year because the drought there is worse than it was in 1988, which was the worst year since the thirties. By passing this law now without reducing the price of the premiums, we are perpetuating the need for more ad hoc programs, such as we do need in Souris-Assiniboia and in Brandon-Souris this year.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I noticed that in his comments the hon. member for Egmont pointed out that this particular proposal was unacceptable to Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the province of British Columbia.
Could he inform the House whether the existing contracts in some or all of those provinces are such that coverage will be on the basis of existing law or whether the federal government will force these people into signing new contracts under the new legislation, Bill C-48?


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Mr. Speaker, it is my information that the implementation of these regulations by federal government will include every province of Canada, whether or not they agree with the specific regulations that we are passing here today.
The minister also said last week that he is now working with New Brunswick and he is going to continue to work with Prince Edward Island to work out specific details on a slightly different arrangement. How quickly this is going to happen I do not know, but as of April 1 the province of Prince Edward Island will be required to change over the administrative apparatus at its own cost and have it implemented in 1993.
Again, the costs are being put on the provinces to make the changes but specifically I hope that the changes Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the federal government will finally come up with will save the producers of Prince Edward Island some money and will make it more attractive for the farmers there to participate in the program.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. parliamentary secretary cannot direct a question to the hon. member for Algoma, but if he has another supplementary question that he would like to ask of the hon. member for Egmont, I will entertain it, but be very brief please.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to comment that for the most part the farmers in Saskatchewan, to whom I have been talking and who are now looking at this new program, are going to take the higher coverage. That is the information I am getting from the grassroots and that is where it counts, at the grassroots.
In the case of Saskatchewan it is important that they have the opportunity to increase the coverage four to five bushels an acre, which is the higher risk. Naturally there is a little more premium but most of the farmers are choosing to take that initial coverage.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today is Bill C-48, an act to amend the Crop Insurance Act, presented to us at third and final reading. It is just one more example of how this government is abdicating its responsibilities to Canadians.
We have seen this government working hard to get out of the business of government. The examples are many, but the visible process began with the free trade agreement and it is continuing with these most recent bills before us. The unemployment insurance legislation amendments, Bill C-21, was just one in that long list.
I do not want to deviate from the bill before us, but I must say a few words about Bill C-21 in order to establish the basis for the argument that I want to present here today.
Bill C-21, the unemployment insurance legislation, has many faults. One of them is that it allows the federal government to remove itself from all funding responsibilities for that program. The total cost of Canada's unemployment insurance program, because of Bill C-21, will now be borne by the employees and the employers of Canada. There will be no federal financing involved in the benefits of the unemployment insurance program. The bill transfers the costs of those programs away from the federal government, and I object to that.
Most recently, Canadians will recall that the finance minister's budget, brought in on February 20, transferred a greater share of the costs of post-secondary education and health care to the provinces, again showing the
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reduced commitment of the federal government to those important national programs.
I can cite quite a few other examples, Mr. Speaker, and I know you are aware of examples yourself, but I do not want to stray too far from the substance of Bill C-48 now before us. The bottom line, however, is quite clear. In this, as in the other circumstances, the government is abandoning or beginning the abandonment process of the Canadian people and of the programs that bind them together.
The one other clear example that I cannot forget to mention in all of this is the post office. As the post office critic for the New Democratic Party, it is a subject that I am very close to. There is not a single person in rural Canada who does not know that Canada Post, with the support of the government, is abandoning rural Canada. More and more post offices are closing and more and more postal services are being provided by the private sector in areas where the federal presence is desperately needed.
The ability of Canadians to look to their government for leadership, direction, assistance and guidance is being taken away by this government, slowly and without much fanfare. When Canadians are in trouble, they will soon have nowhere to turn because this government is removing itself from taking responsibility for helping Canadians to determine their own future.
I know that that is the Conservative government's way. Get government off the backs of the taxpayers, we have heard in the past, reduce government to a level where it is insignificant. And when Canadians need the help of their government, it is not there to provide them with that help.
The Conservative way does not work because with the reduction of support has gone the increase and the cost of the government. Our national debt continues to grow, the burden on the taxpayer continues to escalate, as the support from the government diminishes.
I find that shameful. Bill C-48 before us today outlines this very well and fits into that big picture which I think we all detest. What this bill proposes at the outset is to
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again reduce the federal government's commitment to crop insurance and, therefore, its commitment to agriculture and the people of rural Canada.
If passed, and I do not doubt that it will pass because of the majority of government members, the legislation will reduce the federal cost sharing from 45 per cent to approximately 27.5 per cent. In so doing, it increases the provinces' costs on the crop insurance program. It is a move that could result in the farmers themselves shouldering a greater percentage of the costs of the crop insurance for two reasons. One is the way the program is designed and the second is that the additional provincial financing burden will show up later in reductions in revenue sharing for smaller communities and rural municipalities across the country.
Those concerns were outlined quite clearly by the National Farmers Union in a brief to the government committee studying the bill. I want to quote briefly from that National Farmers Union brief:
The last federal budget indicated the amount to be spent on crop insurance for 1989-90 would be reduced by $90 million and a further $110 million decline was projected for the 1990-91 fiscal year. This reduced federal commitment, which would equal the share of the crop insurance premiums paid by provinces to a maximum of 25 per cent, would create inequalities among provinces and producers. Adding costs onto provincial treasuries will hurt poorer provinces, and result in disparate programs available to producers in different regions.
Under current wording of the proposed legislation-federal contributions would be governed by annual loss claims. Enrolled producers will need to pay their full share of premiums but the federal and provincial governments would pay their respective shares into the provincial plans only if circumstances dictate. We anticipate there may be years in which the producer share would represent well over 50 percent of funds collected by their respective crop insurance programs. The funds could conceivably be depleted every year and farmers could well be confronted with rate increases which might otherwise not be the case.
The NFU is recommending the federal government's financial commitment to the crop insurance program be increased to cover two-thirds of the premium costs. Producers would pick up the other one-third of the premium expenses, with the provinces assuming the administration costs associated with the program.
The recommendation is one that has a great deal of support throughout the agriculture industry and this government must address it. Even with the amendments so far accepted, this legislation is not going to assist the

March 19, 1990
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farm populations in western, central or Atlantic Canada address their real needs.
I remember at the beginning of this debate my colleague for Saskatoon-Humboldt putting this into perspective. He said and I quote: "It is very doubtful that this bill is going to do much to improve farm viability or to reduce the exodus of population from rural communities. All it will do is reduce the cost of the crop insurance program to the federal government."
I do not have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there is a financial crisis in agriculture today. The price of grain is too low to cover the increasing cost of production. Because of this, the Department of Agriculture is projecting a net loss in income for Saskatchewan producers in 1990.
Also, I do not have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that my province has lost 55,000 people in the past five years. In my constituency the largest community is the city of North Battleford with a population of 15,000. In the past five years we have lost the equivalent of three and a half North Battleford Saskatchewans, all because there has not been enough support for the people of rural Canada, the people of rural Saskatchewan and the agriculture industry.
Can we continue the loss of farmers off the land? Can we continue to lose young people from our rural communities, from our cities and from our province? No, we cannot. We certainly need more than a program which relies on higher premiums for producers and a greater contribution from the provincial Treasury to correct this problem. This crisis affects us all and all legislation, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, must be directed at correcting the problem.
That means, first, increasing the revenues at the farm gate and, second, decreasing the cost of the debt now running at $22 billion, an almost unbelievable amount at the farmgate, considering how valuable agriculture is to the future stability of our entire economy.
Bill C-48, an act to amend the Crop Insurance Act, does nothing to address either of these matters. This bill sets out the terms under which the federal government will contribute to provincial crop insurance schemes. It is an opportunity to express the federal government's
commitment to the industry and acknowledge the value that that industry holds for our country.
I know that the federal government does not have jurisdiction on crop insurance and it is not responsible for designing the crop insurance scheme. But that does not mean that the federal government does not have an interest in ensuring that the insurance practices in one province are the same as in another, and that all producers, no matter where they farm, have the same degree of protection that the insurance schemes provide.
With Bill C-48 we see the opposite happening. New Democrats concerned about the future of agriculture will not stand idly by and accept this. The government had undertaken consultations prior to drafting C-48 and listened intently, I expect, to representations made during the committee hearing process. But the bill has not been drafted to assist farmers, as the consultations led us to believe. Its only purpose is to continue the government's plan of reducing its own responsibilities to Canadians.
Let there be no mistake. This government would rather not have to deal with the problems of our economy. That is its philosophy. It is a philosophy that will drive farmers off the land and return agriculture to the control of the private sector which nearly bankrupted the entire industry just a few decades ago. The fact that this legislation is before us today leads me to believe that other initiatives being undertaken by this government are expected to produce the same result.
Perhaps my greatest concern lies with the government's initiated review of the operations of the Canadian Wheat Board because, if it is the intention of government to get out of the business of government, the goal for the Canadian Wheat Board is to get out of that business and not act for the farmer as it has been doing until now.
You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that in November, 1988, there was a general election in this country. Prior to that election there was a great deal of concern about the future of the Canadian Wheat Board because the then proposed free trade agreement was threatening its existence. The government said, "No way, we are committed to the Canadian Wheat Board. The free trade agreement does not affect the Wheat Board. The existence of the Wheat Board is secure".
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Well, while this government was in the process of amending the Crop Insurance Act, with the intent of reducing its financial commitment to that act, it has launched an attack on the Wheat Board at the same time; first, with the removal of oats from the export jurisdiction of the board, and now with this full-scale review of the board itself.
Do not blame me for being sceptical or afraid that once again the Conservative philosophy of getting out of government will lead to the destruction of the Canadian Wheat Board and the destruction of farms across the country. Central desk selling and the pooling of grain prices is still the preference of the majority of farmers across Canada. The Canadian Wheat Board has proven its value. Last year in particular, despite advances made by the Americans and the Europeans on the world market, the Wheat Board beat the odds and sold more grain than it was expected to sell under those circumstances.
Do not forget, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Wheat Board was established because Canadian farmers had absolutely no say in the market-place. That seems to me to be the direction to which this government wants to return.
At a time when Canadian farmers need the support of their government and the benefits that can be achieved by co-operation and pooling resources, this government is working to return the industry to the hands of the grain trade whose only interest is the profits they can make, not the income that the farmer can make.
Farmers and Canadians have to ask themselves: should farmers go back to the winner-loser type of market situation where every grain grower is competing for market share and price with every other grain grower in the country?
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool delegates recently showed their preference by voting to support the orderly marketing of grain through the Wheat Board. The government opposite must take heed or risk putting farmer against farmer, community against community, and slowly destroy the entire basis on which the farm economy is structured.
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Bill C-48 is just one more step in this long, complicated and dangerous process that is removing the federal government from its commitment to the future and to Canadian farmers.
You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that I rose in my place last week to ask the government to provide immediately for the industry's call for $500 million so that producers could get their crops in the ground. The snow is melting on the prairies, the farmers are in their garages and their Quonsets preparing their equipment for the land, but the financial institutions are refusing to lend the money they need to get the seed in the ground.
We have never seen a crisis like what we are seeing right now on the prairies. The government takes great pleasure in talking about all it has done for agriculture. I have heard it said that the proof is in the pudding.
If what the government has done in the past is so wonderful, why is the industry in such trouble today? The government's band-aids have been necessary but they are wearing awfully thin. If the crisis in agriculture is a wound, it needs a cleansing remedy, it needs a tourniquet, it needs to be healed so that a healthy industry can grow.
Nothing done to date has been anything more than a band-aid. The assistance in recent years has been greater than at any other time in our history. That does not mean it has been adequate or that the programs which brought it forward were adequate. The agriculture crisis has been building for nine years. It is the result of Liberal and Conservative government mismanagement and totally inappropriate responses to the circumstances in the world market-place.
The amendments to the Crop Insurance Act, the removal of oats from the Wheat Board, the termination of the branch line rehabilitation program, the cancelling of the interest-free cash advance, all make it more difficult for the farmer to respond individually to changes in that international market-place.
Although the Uruguay Round at GATT will end this year, the international problem with export subsidies is still there. There will be no magic solutions for the crop year ahead of us. The government cannot continue to sit on its hands and hope that the market-place will solve the problem for it.

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How do we who represent farm interests in this House convince the government that its approach is wrong when it is not listening and cannot read the writing on the wall?
Bill C-48 is taking Canada in the wrong direction. The correct approach is to act internally to reduce interest rates, to institute an income stabilization program to ensure that farmers have an adequate income for their labours, to put in place an immediate $500 million for Saskatchewan farmers to help cover the costs of the recent droughts and low grain prices, and to establish a moratorium on farm foreclosures at least until July 1, 1990 to ensure that a debt restructuring program can be designed and executed.
The Minister of Agriculture is aware that the agricultural debt in Saskatchewan alone is $6 billion, half of which is held by federal and provincial government institutions. Unless that debt is restructured no amount of other assistance is going to alleviate the farm financial crisis before us.
Bill C-48 is an attempt to cloud the crisis, to fool farmers into thinking this government is acting on something. We in the Canadian farm population will not be fooled. At this time of great difficulty in the industry we need a government that is prepared to show leadership, a government that is prepared to see the industry through this difficulty without undue and unnecessary stress, and a government that is prepared to step in where necessary rather than a government that will remove itself from the process.
I will not support Bill C-48 and hope this government will reverse its direction so that farmers can do what they do best: farm the land and provide food for the world.


Leonard J. Gustafson: Mr. Speaker, I have just one brief comment.
I listened very closely to the hon. member's remarks. He is not recommending that this is a good program. I want to recommend it to the farmers of Saskatchewan. I took a good look at this bill on the weekend with different farmers as it relates to their individual farms.
If the government pays 50 per cent of the coverage plus the administration cost, as it does on the crop insurance program, it is a good deal for the farmers. The
additional cost and coverage are very important. I am sure the hon. member is not suggesting to the farmers of Saskatchewan that they should not take this coverage, particularly when there are difficult problems for agriculture in Saskatchewan.
The government realizes the problem. That is why the amendments have been made and why this program is important. It is important to farmers to consider taking this program or coverage unless they are in good shape financially.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman opposite has a great deal of experience in the farm community. I know that on occasion he represents his constituency extremely well. I do not doubt for a minute that he advocates the taking of this crop insurance by the farmers in his part of the province.
He will recognize that there are great discrepancies across the province of Saskatchewan in terms of the way in which the crop insurance schemes have been designed and the way in which they assist farmers on marginal land in the north versus the farmers in the southern part of the province. That is not what we are here to debate today.
I believe in crop insurance. I believe crop insurance is an essential part of the agricultural program. However, my argument, if the hon. member had listened, was quite clear, that no amount of tinkering with the crop insurance programs we have today is going to alleviate the farm crisis. Rather than debate this motion, we in this House have to try to find a way out of the farm crisis, to find a way to keep the farmers on the land, and not to try to fool them that we are doing something about it when in fact the big problem is still there.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member from Saskatchewan. He has often served on the agriculture committee and I know he is aware of the difficulties facing Saskatchewan.
The recommendation made by a number of groups in Saskatchewan that there be an acreage payment of something like $20 per acre with perhaps a lesser amount for summer fallow would be a kind of cash injection. The member was saying that we should not be tinkering with the system, that we need a cash injection at this time so farmers can put their crops in the ground this spring. I
March 19, 1990

am interested in knowing the hon. member's view as to what mechanisms should be used.
I understand the federal government is arguing that it should be a cost shared arrangement with the provinces, especially the provinces of Saskatchewan and Ontario, for com, soybean and wheat producers.
I would be interested in hearing the hon. member's comments with regard to the initial payment and why he believes the Government of Canada has diddled since last November when the Saskatchewan Pool at its annual meeting recommended that there be at least a $500 million cash injection. The premier talked in terms of $500 million now and an additional $1 billion throughout the coming crop year.
Why has the federal government taken so long to make up its mind, and is there going to be a payment before seeding time this spring?


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the comments and questions from the hon. member with whom I have served a number of times at committee. I always enjoy listening to questions and comments of the hon. member because he answers a good part of his own question and I share many of his thoughts on this pay-out.
One of the things I was going to say about the pay-out was that it was originally requested by the Saskatchewan Pool. The president of the pool requested quite some time ago the $500 million pay-out.
I do not want to get into the nitty-gritty, the ins and outs of how it should be paid or to whom it should be paid. From my meetings with representatives of the pool and its members, with representatives of national farmers unions and other farmers throughout my constituency and with representatives of the political parties, I believe a number of different schemes would get these funds into the hands of farmers.
My biggest concern is not how the funds get there but that they get there. If seeding does not occur this year, we will be in serious difficulty. The only way that it will occur is for the government to take a leadership role and to provide the mechanism for the release of those funds.
I believe very strongly the words of the hon. member that the government is diddling with this issue are
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sincere. The government is certainly diddling with this issue. The essence of my remarks today were, quite frankly, that the government did not want to deal with this problem and that it was hoping that something else will occur to take it away from dealing with this problem of the farm financial crisis on the land today, both on the revenue side and on the debt side.
The problem will not go away on its own. This government has to take a leadership role and act now. That $500 million is a minimum that Canadian farmers, in fact Saskatchewan farmers, are asking for.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member on an excellent presentation this afternoon.
During the course of the debate we have heard government members praise the government's actions on behalf of farmers. The government states that there has been an increase of 650 per cent or some such figure in aid to farmers. Most of that aid has occurred in the past. What we have is an expert operation of the kind seen in magic shows where the magician talks us into looking at something other than the trick he is pulling.
We heard a lot from the government about all the assistance it has pulled out of the hat by way of ad hoc payments, but we did not hear much and we never hear veiy much from the government concerning the amount of money it is taking out of farmers' pockets, particularly since its re-election in November 1988.
There was something like $200 million in the past budget and the current budget out of crop insurance, which will be pulled out of our pockets as taxpayers at the provincial level or in higher premiums at the farm level, taking something like $25 million to $30 million a year forever out of farmers' pockets because of the government's decision to do away with the interest-free cash advance payments programs in the west and across the rest of the country.
There were increased producer levies under the western grain stabilization program. The doubling of the increase there did not come into effect until after the election was over. Although it was known to members of the stabilization committee before the election, it did not show up at the elevator until the election was well in hand.
Also, the discontinuation of the fuel tax rebates was announced in this past budget. It will take effect over

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two years: January 1, 1990 and it will disappear totally January 1, 1991. It will have the effect of taking between-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Could the member put his question?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: What does the member think of a government that talks a good line but is pulling money out of our pockets at the same time as it is talking?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will give the hon. member one minute.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I do not have more time to answer that question and to reiterate some of the figures that my hon. colleague has cited.
There is no question that my hon. colleague, who has been the New Democratic Party's agriculture critic for a number of years, has served the agriculture industry very well. His research has been second to none, and the government would be well served if it would listen to the criticisms and support brought forward by the hon. member for Mackenzie whom I consider a friend as well as a colleague.
The information that he provided to us today is very accurate. There is no question that the government is acting like that magician out there who is showing one thing in one hand and doing something else with the other one. I agree with him entirely and I wish him well in continuing to serve the farm community on agricultural matters.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I want to start today with commenting on the work of the House at the report stage on Bill C-48, the crop insurance bill.
I am glad to see, in spite of the two ministers' objections, that the House had the wisdom to adopt the amendment that ensures the federal government's commitment to the crop insurance program is at least 25 per cent and not up to 25 per cent. We would rather have had 50 per cent or one-third, at least. To cut it back to 25 per cent and then not include a proposal to make sure at least that it stays at that level and not be withdrawn or cut back later is wrong. That amendment is certainly a good one, and the House should be commended on its wisdom to include it as part of the legislation we are debating at third reading.
The Minister of Agriculture attempted to assure the House that the cut-back to their share of the premium
would never happen. Now, because of the amendment, we are sure it cannot happen unless the act is changed again by the House.
I would like to point out that this legislation is indeed a cutback in federal government funding for the crop insurance program. I would like to reflect on all the cutbacks in various farm programs this last year, and all of these coming at a time of extreme economic hardship in the farm sector. Spring planting is just a few weeks away and my neighbours will be starting to plant in a couple of weeks. The lending institutions are no longer lending on equity but rather lending only on a cash flow projections basis. No matter how one budgets for this coming year, with our low prices of wheat, com, soybeans and other crops, one cannot cash flow in order to show a profit next fall. Consequently many farmers are having their operating loans cut off this year.
I think back to some of the discussions earlier this afternoon and to what happened on November 21. That was the day of the massive demonstration, that wonderful demonstration that was put together by the UPA of Quebec, the producers, organization in Quebec. They protested on Parliament Hill because of these massive cutbacks in spending in agriculture, because of the uncertainty resulting from the free trade agreement, and because the government failed to stand up at GATT and take the part of the producers.
I look back at what happened at that time and look at the events of today when two innocent people who were protesting on Parliament Hill were dragged off by the police, dragged out at a time when they were speaking to members of Parliament. One of them was a priest who was fasting on behalf of the unborn.
We heard arguments and references made to that meeting of November 21. When I think back on that I have to wonder if it is sheer coincidence that this action took place here today because the farmers were demonstrating on November 21 on the Hill. I have to think that perhaps the government is afraid to let them back on the Hill again to protest. It is afraid that the next time they come back if the government does not listen, they will tear the place apart. No doubt they will be joined by literally thousands upon thousands of farmers from across the rest of Canada.


An Hon. Member:: Simcoe too.
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Ralph Ferguson: Simcoe, too. I do not doubt that at all. Most of the rich people from Toronto own homes up in Simcoe County. A lot of the very wealthy ones are up there, and they do not get hit as hard as the rest, but I would suggest that the Minister of Transport should go out and talk to the real down to earth farmers, the ones who make their livelihood out of the soil.
The government knows that if these farmers are forced to come back to the Hill to demonstrate again, there will be double the number that were here last November. At that time, there were between 12,000 and
13.000,	according to the figures that were obtained from some of our institutions on the Hill. La Presse said
15.000.	The Ottawa Citizen said 13,000, but the figures we have indicate between 12,000 and 13,000, most of them from the province of Quebec, but quite a number from the province of Ontario as well. If they come back, they will hold the government accountable for what has happened to agriculture since the fall of 1984 when it took over.
Passing an Order in Council to prevent the people of this country from demonstrating on the Hill is not acceptable when we have the economic conditions that we have here in the farm sector today.
When I was a young person going to school, I used to hear my father talk about the tough times under the Bennett government. The farmers from across Canada came by railway and every other means possible to demonstrate on the Hill. Their demonstrations proved to be effective because back at that time we had the various boards come into place. They gave the farmers control over what they are selling and the returns they had to have, and took it out of the hands of a few very large corporate people who were making excessive profits.
One of the problems that producers have today is that they do not have VIA Rail any more. The government cut that off too to keep them away from the Hill here, so they could not demonstrate.


An Hon. Member:: Some 2,700 people down the tube.


Ralph Ferguson: That is right.
We heard the Premier of Saskatchewan saying last week that a third of their farmers are in extremely difficult positions and may go down the tubes. That is a
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third of all farmers, 21,000 in Saskatchewan is a third of their farmers, and another third in difficult problems.
I ask you to listen to what the Minister of Finance said in his 1989 budget. It is on page 15 of his budget speech. He said that a rebalancing of the costs of this program will result in a federal saving of $90 million in 1988-89 and $110 million in 1990-91. What we are seeing today is the result of that statement. A massive cutback at this time, when the farmers are facing such harsh economic conditions out there, and now their operating loans are cutting off, it is neither acceptable nor can it be condoned.
Clearly the Minister of Finance sees this as a cost cutting measure, with the federal government's share of the program being cut. Of course this past Wednesday the Minister of Agriculture told the House that this is not a cutback on the government's share of crop insurance costs. Let us look at the effects of the program's new funding arrangements.
The provinces share the cost of crop insurance, and their share will increase. For example, the cost to Prince Edward Island is going to increase from $150,000 a year to $650,000 a year. That is a half a million dollar increase-a whopping 333 per cent. Producers' costs will increase as well. In some cases the producers' costs will increase by close to 50 per cent.
As we heard earlier, the federal government will spend $200 million less on crop insurance over the next two years. How can it possibly say that the $200 million is not a cutback? Last December, when this legislation came before the House, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture told the House that one of the major reasons for the change of crop insurance was: "We have provided a more equitable rate for sharing the cost of insurance premiums".
It is easy for two of the three partners in the program to get together and say: "Look, we will share one-half of the cost and leave the other guys alone because they are not here." It is easy for them to make such an arrangement when that third party is not at the table and is not involved in these negotiations. This is exactly what happened. The producers were not present when this agreement was arrived at.
Indeed, the members used the terms "equitable" or "balanced" more than half a dozen times to describe the changes in the premium funding arrangements. If the member listened to the witnesses when this bill was before the committee and took the time to read their

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briefs, he would fail to bring to light a single witness, other than the minister, who calls this change "equitable".
Even the governments of Ontario, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and New Brunswick found that it is far less than equitable. Seven out of the nine producer witnesses asked for a tripartite sharing of the costs of crop insurance. The list of witnesses was very impressive, witnesses who were asking for an amendment to change the funding for the crop insurance program to a one-third, one-third, one-third split.
We have the Ontario Agriculture Commodity Council that represents 17 different producer groups. The Soybean Growers' Marketing Board of Ontario was present. The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities made a brief. The Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association, the Western Barley Growers' Association, the Ontario Seed Growers' Association, and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, all these organizations that came before the committee recognized an equitable sharing of the premium would be one divided along the line of one-third, one-third, one-third.
Only the minister and his department's witnesses agreed with the proposed format. I suggest that only this government could possibly argue that this legislation would implement an equitable sharing arrangement.
I should point out, perhaps, that when the National Farmers Union appeared before the committee it asked for a one-third, two-thirds sharing of the split, with the federal government accepting the two-thirds share.
In December, I argued for the precedent of the tripartite cost sharing to be established in crop insurance. I would like to point out today with this legislation that the government is clearly attempting to undermine that precedent and to set a new precedent for cost sharing and programs to provide the rationale to reverse these previous decisions.
I would like to take a few moments to point out some of the other weaknesses of this legislation to show how some of them are directly related to this legislation's failure to introduce equitable cost sharing. The coverage under this bill would improve from 80 per cent to 90 per cent for some crops. That may seem like an improvement that the legislation would make for crop insurance. However, on a field of com, this 10 per cent improvement would cost the farmer almost double the premium. The farmer's insurance premium costs would go from $5.71 an acre to $10 per acre. Common sense alone should tell the government that this is far from balanced, or is very inequitable to say the least.
Look at what happens to a Saskatchewan farmer. Let us say that he has 1,200 acres of wheat with a coverage of 70 per cent, guaranteeing him returns of 18 bushels an acre. His premium would be $5,700. To increase that coverage from 70 per cent to 80 per cent, a 10 per cent increase in coverage, his premium would increase by 75 per cent-a 75 per cent cost for a 10 per cent return. That is far from being equitable. I am reasonably sure that very few farmers will be opting for that additional coverage, because of the extra cost.
Considering the administrative difficulties and the gross inequities revealed by the application of the Canadian Drought Assistance Program, I would have thought that the government would have attempted to address these problems in this legislation. I have to refer to the fact that it has been recommended by various groups that we should have more coverage that is available for individual farms. For example in my own riding, producers in Ekfrid, Metcalfe, and Adelaide townships were able to establish a long narrow drought band cutting a swath across their townships. The area of the band in total was fairly large. Because the majority of the three townships in question was not as hard hit, the whole township was ruled ineligible for drought assistance. Because of the guidelines the appeal process failed to rectify the situation. If the intent of the legislation is truly and actually to reform crop insurance, we should have included changes that would allow for damage assessments such as this and make recommendations for future years, such as we had in 1987 and 1988, and in some areas in 1989.
I would like to speak of tomorrow. A few moments ago I referred to the fact that spring is almost here. It is here officially on March 21. In my area, seeding will start around April 1.
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Canadian producers need that legislation now, and they need the financial assistance to go along with it. Farm incomes are forecast to drop dramatically this year as Canadian farmers are victims in an international trade war in which their government refuses to fire a shot. I call on the government to show some compassion in view of the fact that farmers are not getting their operating loans this year. Again, one cannot cash flow one's input costs against expected returns.
I call on the government to provide an insurance coverage program by delaying the payments on the premiums until the harvest and sale of this crop takes place. Surely, in these economically tough times, the government could take a look at this. We are only asking the government to share some of the risk rather than have these people not being able to plant their crops because they cannot afford crop insurance.
I have a petition here that the Ontario Wheat Producers Marketing Board committeemen presented the week before last, on March 6, to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds, asking for help. It states:
The undersigned Ontario wheat producers, duly elected county committeemen, implore the federal government to immediately establish price support to equalize the damage caused to Ontario wheat prices by the United States export enhancement program. Such support can be accomplished by approval of the Ontario Wheat Board's request for the 1990 initial payment guarantee of $130 per tonne.
These committeemen, and there are three pages of names here, represent 25,000 wheat producers across the province of Ontario.
We have letters of request from the Ontario Com Growers Association. Again, it asks the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to realize the severity of the drought experienced in several parts of southwestern Ontario and central Ontario last year and to come across with some assistance this year to help in planting the crops.
It goes on and on. The soybean producers are equally hard hit. It is the same for the wheat producers in Saskatchewan.
On March 12 the com producers announced that their members' incomes have declined substantially and are
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now only 28 per cent of pre-1985 levels. This shows that incomes have dropped dramatically since this government took power in 1984. The sums the government is currently offering barely meet one-tenth of the United States Export Enhancement Program's current allocation of $570 million. That is a program which is to be increased to $900 million for next year.
We should not fail to consider the European Economic Community's subsidies which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture on March 5 estimated to be close to $80 a tonne for grains.
In view of this situation, I call on the minister and the government to listen to all these requests for assistance and to act now before it is too late so that our producers can plant their crops this year.
We have the most efficient producers in the world who grow the highest quality produce. The government should not be abandoning its responsibility to provide equitable crop insurance as this bill clearly does. I cannot support this bill in its current form.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of the hon. member. I noticed that he mentioned some of the wheat producers and com producers with whom he met recently are pointing out the great need for a price support program of some sort to offset the effects of the grain wars going on between the United States and the European Economic Community. Would he care to comment on that just a little bit more? Would he place particular emphasis on the initiative that the U.S. embarked upon some years ago to try to get all countries off a subsidy program, which is interesting coming from that country which is one of the highest users of taxpayers' money to produce raw grain and food products of any country in the world?
A lot of the other countries have programs that force their consumers to pay more for food products, countries such as Japan and countries in Europe. The U.S. is the most fervent user of taxpayers' money to produce food to try to get the price down. The result has been a very low amount of money that the consumer pays for the grocery bill. It is something like 11 per cent of income. That is masked because that same consumer's tax pocket is being used all the time to keep the price of food low.

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I realize that we are all calling for some sort of ad hoc price support program. Would the member look down the road for just a moment and tell us what he thinks the possibilities are of living in a subsidy-free world, given that that same subsidy-free world assumes that somewhere out there there is a free market?
I ask my question given the reports from some parts of the United States with regard to actions on the Chicago Board of Trade concerning soybean futures in particular, and also the indications of massive manipulation by some of the users of the Chicago Board of Trade which is the point at which most world prices are established. Will the member tell us how comfortable he is with having to rely on that to be the methodology whereby price discovery takes place if we do in fact reach this great world that the United States is trying to direct world agriculture into?


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to respond to the question which the hon. member has laid out very clearly. When I look at what is happening in the area of price discovery in the market-place I see that that method of price discovery no longer exists. The U.S. Export Enhancement Program that provided $20.50 a tonne subsidy on the sale of wheat to Russia in January caused our price of wheat here in Canada to drop by $20.50 a tonne. The Americans actually set our price of wheat; the market-place had nothing to do with it. Our world grain reserves are a low point, yet the prices are held down artificially by such actions.
When I look at what is happening in the area of com production and the price of com, the U.S. has an acreage allotment program. That acreage allotment program has been in place for a great many years. Farmers are required to set aside 10 per cent of their acreage, and in return they have a target price. They receive a deficiency payment which is the difference between the market price and the target price. That money will come into the producers' hands this month. They will be able to go ahead and plant their crops for the coming year. The money that comes into their hands is half the deficiency payment, the other half is paid a year from now.
The member also referred to the scandal last summer on the Chicago Board of Trade. I followed that very extensively. Again, it was price manipulation by a few
very large corporations that was not stopped by the proper regulatory authority. It was allowed to continue.
When I look at the method of price determination and then at the actions of this government, which is working hand in hand with the American government to try to bring about an end to the subsidies, I find it hard to find words to describe just what is happening. Perhaps I can refer to a description I heard not long ago as to what is happening to the Canadian farmer. What is happening to the Canadian farmer at the present time is not unlike what Jimmy Bakker did to Jessica Hahn. I think that sums it up very clearly.
The hon. member asked me what we can see down the road. It is up to we as Canadians to set the direction for Canadian agriculture. It is up to we Canadians to show the world that we have the highest quality products in the world. We have maintained our share of the world markets over the years.
I am convinced that we should ignore what is happening to the south of us and go with our own programs which are designed to protect Canadian farmers. We should make food a national security item here in this country, with the large percentage of it produced and processed in this country and forget about that ill-founded trade agreement that gave the Americans our oil, natural gas, water, and is putting adverse pressure on our producers.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today and discuss this very important bill, Bill C-48, which has a tremendous effect on the Canadian farmer and the Canadian institution itself.
As I stop to think about what I would consider some of the most important issues is Canada, it is making sure that businesses, such as all farms are, are given the proper tools and the proper facilities to operate in this society. I honestly believe, without question, that crop insurance is a very, very important tool required to operate.
As I think about crop insurance I have to think about what it does in order to help the Canadian farmer live a much better life, a much more stable existence. It seems



to me that year after year, problem after problem, we hear of ad hoc policies that are brought out by the government in order to stop difficulties that exist.
Let me give an example of that. In 1988 a drought hit across Canada and destroyed much of the agricultural community. Weather conditions cannot be easily controlled. As a result, a drought is devastating to an enormous part of agriculture in Canada.
Just last year in my area we had a tremendous flood. No one expected 12 inches of rain in a very short time period. That devastation came down upon the farmers in my area and literally destroyed hundreds of acres of production. The result is that we scramble here and there in ad hoc committees, hoping that we will set up programs which will answer the difficulties the Canadian farmer faces.
I get a little tired when I hear that the answer to many of these problems is a payment of this or a payment of that. The Canadian farmer deserves better. He is a very hard working, very good businessman and does produce to the best of his ability with the circumstances he is in. Of all businesses I think about in Canada, the agricultural community is more subject to weather conditions which produce droughts, floods, frosts which cause a tremendous amount of damage, and hail storms that knock out a tremendous amount of crop production from time to time.
As we start considering those in the agricultural community, we see that they really do need a very strong, stable insurance program. That stable insurance program needs to have two qualities. The two qualities are affordability and flexibility.
When I stop and think about the aspect of insurance being affordable, all I have to do is relate it to any consumer who is buying auto insurance, house insurance or any other type of insurance. If the cost of that insurance exceeds its ability to support that family, or if it exceeds the ability of the family to buy a car and have it properly insured, then the insurance policy is not meeting the need of the consumer.
If this crop insurance program which is being produced is going to have rates that are extremely high, and if those rates are not being somehow supported by both levels of government, federal and provincial, the effectiveness of the insurance is strongly affected by its affordability. If a farmer in my area decides that the cost of insuring his acreage of com, soybeans, tomatoes or
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whatever is too high, he is going to stop and start thinking about what the odds are of getting around this insurance policy this year. His input costs and all his other costs are so high, he may not be able to participate in the plan.
What I am seeing and hearing is that the number of dollars available to farmers in this area and farmers right across Canada are not plentiful. They are not there for him just to go out and buy insurance easily.
I see articles with headlines suggesting that if you thought you could afford crop insurance last year, you may not be able to afford crop insurance this year. They are suggesting that the rates of this crop insurance program are not being alleviated at all by the introduction of this crop insurance bill.
As a matter of fact, we all know that the federal government in its generosity did support crop insurance at a rate of 50 per cent of the premium in many provinces across Canada. Particularly here in Ontario the 50 per cent rate was covered by the federal government up to a maximum of 80 per cent of historic crop value. At the same time the provincial government carried the administrative costs and the farm community carried the other 50 per cent.
To make this insurance more affordable to the farmer, the recommendation came from almost every farm group across this country that we set up a tripartite payment plan which would give the federal government, the provincial government and the farmer or the producer each one-third of the payment responsibility.
This would affect the farmer in two separate ways. First, it would make the program more affordable. Second, it would give the opportunity to many of those who did not have the financial resources to participate in the insurance program the ability to get into the program and to participate in a reasonable way.
The recommendation was very strongly put forward. One of the greatest disappointments I have read from almost every producer area across Canada was with respect to the fact that the federal government, rather than following through with reducing from 50 per cent input to 33 per cent input decided to go right down to 25 per cent, which it passed on to the provincial governments. In other words, our federal government changed its method of support to the farm community, reducing its costs by approximately $100 million a year. Now the provincial government has to pick up what the federal

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government was paying up until the introduction of this bill.
The federal government is going to pick up part of the administrative costs, which are very low. They are estimated to be in the 7 per cent range. The federal government is picking up part of the administrative costs but only subsidizing this program to 25 per cent. That is a very unfortunate situation when we look at what is happening in the farm community in general.
People in the farm community have also been hit with many bills because of the legislation that has come down in the last two budgets, particularly the budget before this one. They are still feeling those effects this year. We are seeing fuel cost rebates being taken back. The farmer is paying much more for the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel.
We have seen transportation subsidies reduced. We have seen many farm programs, where we have had subsidies in line to pay the farm community what it needed for support, taken away. At the same time I feel that this insurance program could eliminate the ad hoc programs that we come to from time to time. We have not basically taken hold of that crop insurance and really encouraged the farmer to get involved, but we have cut back our support in that area as well.
The major problem that the farm community was upset with was this reduction in federal support, the federal support in the crop insurance program. Another area in which help was asked for in this insurance program was the optional coverage going from the 80 per cent level, which is in most programs now, to a 90 per cent level, which would give the farmer an opportunity to more protect his crop and more protect his harvest. TTiat is in place, in part.
For some programs like com, farmers will be able to get a 90 per cent coverage, but there are many other crops that have quite a strong variation. One year they might have 50 bushels per acre, while another year they have much less and another year more. Because of those variations there is a very complicated formula that has been put out by the federal government resulting in crops such as soybeans only being allowed to have 86 per cent coverage. Crops such as spring wheat would only be allowed 83 per cent coverage. There are many other
crops that would not be allowed to come up to the 80 per cent.
I would like to look at comments that have come back about this crop insurance bill from people whom we all respect in the agricultural community. Roger George, the vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, said that the changes are mere illusion. "There will be no break for farmers," he said. Don Drew, from the Ontario Com Producers' Association said that any improvements are marginal at best. John Jacks said that improvements will either be marginal or non-existent.
What they are saying is that as this bill has been formulated, it has been formulated for a very specific reason by the Conservative government. Basically, the bill is reducing its commitment and its costs to the farm community. It is reducing its commitment and costs for, I think, very narrow reasons. It does not look at the farm community as a community that needs a great deal of help in this time period. It is looking mainly at the farm community which may be a group of people that represent 2 per cent to 3 per cent of our society today. Maybe because there is not a huge voting element in the farm community they are not being supported well with a higher-price food policy. We have a cheap food policy which is driving agricultural group after agricultural group to its knees.
This policy is being couched and covered in many different ways. We are being told that because of agreements that have been made between the United States and Canada, because of GATT rulings, because of all different kinds of agreements that have been entered into, that we cannot protect the farm community.
That is not necessarily the truth when it comes down to some of the statements that have been made. I would like to quote a comment which appeared in the com producers' June 1989 newsletter. It states that federal spokesmen have claimed that their jurisdiction for a 25-25-50 split in premiums among the two levels of government and producers, respectively, will have to be followed because of an agreement that was made at the April Geneva GATT conference which froze agricultural subsidies. It goes on to state that federal trade negotiators have assured people in this House and all farm communities that the freeze involves the total effective level of support, that the statutory and ad hoc measures must be included.
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Therefore if we look at crop insurance as a statutory law and we look at the ad hoc measures, the payments for drought assistance and floods, or payments made to all other areas, we realize that there is a tremendous amount of latitude and extra dollars that this government is not being forced to peel back. As a matter of fact, the government has a tremendous amount of room to negotiate, when we realize what it has done to the advance payments to farm communities and how that is affecting the farm community financially, and when we consider what it has done to the transportation payments that have been paid and which have been cut back dramatically. In this regard we can also consider the fuel tax rebates which are being cut out, as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been taken out of the farm community in the last 18 months.
I am frightened for the farmers in my area and for farmers across this country because they deserve better. They deserve the opportunity to be the type of business they deserve to be, that is, a stable industry in this country.
If we realize the value of food to any country, it is imperative that we take similar measures to the U.S. and Europe to protect our agricultural industries. We are going in the opposite direction. We are taking dollars out of their pockets day after day, week after week, month after month, while we watch the U.S. not change any laws about subsidies or cut back any moneys to its agricultural communities. We see the U.S. in a real entanglement with the European common market, and it is putting in more money and more money which in fact comes back and devastates the Canadian farmer. It is an unfortunate but real situation that our farming community is under a great deal of stress today. We must do what we can to support it.
I believe that this bill has flaws in it that do not support the agricultural community as it should. I cannot support the bill because of the main item in it, that is the three levels of government and their participation. I believe that the federal government should pay one-third, the provincial government should pay one-third and the producers should pay one-third. Clearly, that would
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make a much fairer situation, a situation in which we are not always going back for other ad hoc support for the agricultural community.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, we have been told by Statistics Canada and by Agriculture Canada that the statistics show that farmers will actually be losing money next year from their realized income. They will not, in a sense, get back what they have put into inputs.
Can the member give us an indication of what he feels the value of insurance is going to be under those kinds of circumstances, especially when we know before we plant the seeds that we are not going to get a return which is going to cover the costs of production?


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, the people in my area to whom I have talked are very concerned about being able to have some money in their pockets to be able to go out and plant the crops this year. Because of the cutbacks in advance payments and because of the stress that they are under, many of the banking institutions are not extending credit for the basic start-up fees that our farmers really need to get under production.
Certainly the aspect that the hon. member brings forward is one that the farmer is going to be challenged with if he does get the start-up money or the advance money in order to get his crop in the ground. The actual harvest price is not looking good. We have been under attack by U.S. and European subsidies on certain products. We have actually driven the price of that commodity below the cost of production. If that is the case, there is a strong question of how the farmer can survive at all.
It is not how you operate a business in this case, it is whether that business is being so subsidized by different governments that it is unfair to exist.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member will have eight minutes remaining in his questions and comments.
It being 7 p.m., pursuant to an order made Thursday, March 15, 1990, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion of Mr. Nault in relation to the business of supply.

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ALLOTTED DAY, S. O. 81-REGIONAL DISPARITIES
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, March 15, consideration of the motion of Mr. Nault:
That this House condemn the government for its failure to protect, support and promote the regional economies of Canada, in order to eliminate regional disparities in the Atlantic provinces, Northern Ontario and Western and Northern Canada.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the		1
motion lost.		-'i
It being 7.25 o'clock p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.25 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, March 20,1990