1990-05-08

Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 90 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ORDER IN COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, Orders in Council announcing appointments made recently by the government.
Pursuant to Standing Order 110(1), these Orders in Council are deemed to have been referred to the standing committees indicated in the appendix.


PETITIONS
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Madam Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present a
petition signed by several petitioners from southwestern Ontario who call upon Parliament to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax, to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations, ensure that if and when there is a broad public consensus on a sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax this reform not be an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab, and cause the government to cease with a proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, it is a privilege for me to have this opportunity pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a number of petitions from people from Brocklehurst, North Kamloops, Westsyde, Heffley Creek, Raleigh, Aberdeen, Valleyview and Dallas, British Columbia, who are all concerned about the government's goods and services tax.
Quite frankly, they cannot understand why the government would proceed with a tax that will tax reading material. It will make Canada the only country in the world that is actually imposing a tax on books, magazines, newspapers and reading material, which helps young people develop their reading and communication skills, to say nothing about their education generally.
These petitioners are saying that the government should stop proceeding with this tax, go back to the drawing-board and start all over again with real tax reform.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I have a petition from petitioners in London, Ontario and the city of Ottawa, who point out that the number of children in Canada living in poverty is increasing.
They point out a whole set of statistics which shows the abysmal situation in which one of the richest countries in the world would tolerate literally hundreds of thousands of children living in a state of poverty. They are asking the government to take action and, in particular, to support the suggestion of the hon. member from Mis-

May 8, 1990
Routine Proceedings
sion-Coquitlam that we have a comprehensive bill of rights for children.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, I have a petition from petitioners in Kamloops, British Columbia. They are concerned about the curtailment of passenger rail service.
They point out that passenger rail service is important to develop the tourist infrastructure for the area of central British Columbia. They are asking the government to consider increasing once again passenger rail service between Kamloops and Calgary, one of the most scenic routes in Canada.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present petitions against the goods and services tax. These petitioners from northeast Calgary whose signatures I am presenting today, bring the total from my riding alone to 19,000.
My constituents are opposed to this goods and services tax because they feel it is regressive and that it is going to be inflationary. They pray that the government withdraws this form of taxation.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I rise today under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present a petition signed by a number of Canadians who are protesting the government's goods and services tax.
They state clearly that the government has not addressed the unfair taxation system currently in place, a taxation system which permits wealthy individuals and coqrorations to pay little or no federal tax but which forces lower and middle-income taxpayers to bear more of the national tax burden.
The petitioners call on the government to reject its proposal for a goods and services tax, and to reform the taxation system so that there is a minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition from a number of Canadians calling on the government to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax, to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations and to do so in a way which will shift the tax burden not on to ordinary Canadians through
regressive consumption taxes but through real tax reform.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition which calls on the government to reinstate fully funding for the native communications program and also for the northern native broadcast access program.
The petitioners are also calling on the government to consult with the native groups involved before any changes in funding takes place so as to serve the needs of the department as well as the aboriginal people and their media in the future.


Robert Evans Skelly: Further, Madam Speaker, I have a petition from people in Port Alberni calling on the government to reinstate in full all those funds previously designated for core funding for women's centres in Canada.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of the electors of Vancouver Quadra who are represented veiy ably in the House by my right hon. friend, the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra.
This petition urges Parliament to reject the goods and services tax as vicious and unfair.
I realize that the petition may have been signed late by these people, in light of the action taken in this House already. Nevertheless, they are entitled to have their views known. It can only be hoped that we will get an opportunity to deal with this bill again after the other place has made the appropriate amendments.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, it is my duty to table six petitions signed by students at the University of Ottawa.
Last week was Education Week and these students are concerned about the quality of education. Madam Speaker, the petitions ask the various levels of government to promise to hold a federal-provincial conference at the highest level in order to establish the financial responsibilities of both levels of government for post-se-
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condaiy education and to end the shameful neglect of higher education in Canada.
Madam Speaker, the petition is preceded by arguments about the condition of the equipment at universities and post-secondary institutions and about the declining quality and accessibility of these institutions for Canadian students.
So I think it is quite appropriate and important for the House to be aware of the big problem that concerns these students.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Shall all questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I have received an application pursuant to Standing Order 52 from the hon. member for Mackenzie.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Madam Speaker, in brief, a letter that I presented to you points out that within the last 10 days a number of things have happened regarding the farm finance scene.
Grain prices announced by the Canadian Wheat Board and guaranteed by the Government of Canada are down considerably from 18 per cent to 25 per cent. Farm Credit Corporation interest rates went up one percentage point to 14-7/8 per cent during April. Net incomes on the Prairies, in particular, are predicted to be down about $2 billion.
While the Government of Canada supposedly has half a billion dollars on the table, the premiers of those provinces involved are having great difficulty raising the money to make a matching grant. They argued at their
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conference in the west this week that it is not their constitutional responsibility. I think that that is the case.
I urge the House to have a discussion on this urgent matter this evening, pursuant to Standing Order 52.
[Translation\


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: We have carefully considered the request made by the hon. member for Mackenzie. Although we are well aware of the importance of this subject, we have decided and are agreed that the hon. member's request is not urgent at this time. Perhaps it may be acceptable another time, another day, but not now.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, May 7, consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act; and the amendment of Mrs. McDou-gall (p. 11064).
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: When Bill C-21 was last before the House, the hon. member for Burlington had completed his speech. The question and comment period following the hon. member's speech is now available to members, otherwise the Chair is prepared to recognize hon. members for debate.
The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier on a question.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Parliamentary Secretary who, as we all know, is a very knowledgeable person in terms of the bill. He has been here for several years and he also knows procedure.
In the motion put by the government, the third paragraph states that the message from the Senate in regard to amendment 5(b) will be accepted by the

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government and proceeded with. In her remarks yesterday, the Minister of Employment and Immigration stated, as reported at page 11061 of Hansard:
The Senate had asked us in recommendation 5(b) to reduce this-
-that is, the penalty provisions-
- to two years and we agreed to this recommendation. We did not agree to it in the previous message because it will have some impact on our ability to fund the Labour Force Development Strategy. I would remind members that every dollar we take off the one side is not available for the other side. But we do recognize the value of compromise and we are committed to some very fundamental principles, but we are not intransigent. For that reason we are going to accept this recommendation.
At the end of the minister's speech, Madam Speaker, as you know, she tabled a motion which is lengthy and which I will not read. In it, she makes the claim that the government, conscious of this fellowship with its predecessors, reaffirms its sole and undoubted democratic right which will not in this manner be waived. Yet, prior to making the motion, she did waive the privileges of the House of Commons and reaffirmed again that there is some confusion in the government's thinking.
I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary this. How can this House adopt a motion that says that we will not waive our democratic right, our sole and undoubted rights, our privilege of being the sole House that imposes charges upon the state, and accept that the minister did exactly that? By her own admission yesterday, the minister said that this will cost the Government of Canada money.
There is in my view a double standard here. What is the Parliamentary Secretary's answer to this predicament? We have the acceptance of a money amendment made by the Senate which, in the words of the minister and previous speakers in this debate, was not to be accepted by the House. Yet, we have the government accepting it. How can he reconcile that? I would like to have an answer to that.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, the member is nit-picking in the finest tradition. The minister put her remarks forward yesterday and showed the ability to compromise in certain situations.
The minister, by saying that we will not compromise, meant that the two main thrusts of the Senate amendments that would in fact gut the bill all together. It would allow amendments to be put to a bill through the Senate that could not be put in the House of Commons. It would allow amendments that would have been ruled out of order by the committee chairman had they been presented at committee. Had they been presented in the House of Commons, they would have been ruled out of order by the Speaker of the House of Commons.
That is the thrust that the minister is making in her comments, that we will not compromise on this, not the nit-picking approach that the member is taking.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn on a question or comment.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, he has accused me of nit-picking, and I am not nit-picking. I want to make my point.


William James Kempling: "Nit-picking" is not an unparliamentary word.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It is pure procedural argument and you cannot answer it. That is the problem.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order! The hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon -Dundurn):: Madam Speaker, I viewed with a considerable degree of dismay the emphasis which both the Parliamentary Secretary and the minister placed on the results of two polls, one by Decima and one by Environics. These polls apparently show that the Canadian public is very much in favour of spending UI money for training.
I am surprised that is the case. When the committee travelled across the country and spoke to representatives of these very same people, particularly the unemployed-and perhaps the Decima poll was not aimed at the unemployed-their overwhelming reaction was that this was a very wrong-headed way for the government to go, that it was a backward step, and that the victims of unemployment should not be charged for their own training.
The question I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is this. Would he please tell us the questions which appeared in the polls put forward by Decima and Environics? It would be very interesting to know what
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the questions were. I suspect it would go a long way toward giving us some indication as to why the answers came forth as they did.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I do not have those questions in front of me at the moment. I have a sense that they were along these lines: Do you think the unemployment insurance fund should be revised and upgraded? Do you think there is abuse in the unemployment insurance system? Do you think that unemployment insurance funds should be used for training?
That is plain and simple. There is nothing illegal, improper, or immoral about that, as the member has stated some time in the past.
We have an opinion from the Department of Justice that states that benefits can be defined in terms of money or can be defined in terms of training. There are many people who agree that what the Senate is doing in holding up this bill is improper.
For instance, the hon. member for Kamloops said, regarding the Senate: "Quite frankly, I am very disappointed with the Senate because I do not think it has the right to hold up legislation". That was in October, 1987 when he was spoke on Bill C-22.
Then, on March 28 of this year, the New Democratic Party finance critic, the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville said: "I believe the Commons should have the final say. I do not think the unelected body should usurp the elected body". That is the thrust of our argument.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: You should have been here yesterday.


William James Kempling: I was here yesterday.
We heard the hon. member for Kamloops yesterday do his usual little pirouette on a pinhead, talking out of both sides of his mouth all the time.
We believe that we are on the right course. We not only have editorial comments, but we have comments from across the country, from newspapers from coast to coast, commenting on what the Senate is doing. Had I time, I would read every one of them into the record again.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a question.
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Now that the other place has held up this legislation for a good many months, does he have any estimate of the cost to the country and, in particular, to the unemployed in terms of lost benefits that they could have had in the way of job retraining? When we realize the high unemployment rates that exist, particularly in the Mari-times, and the need to introduce new technologies there, to what extent has this hurt the unemployed in that region? Could he be specific about the kind of support this provision has across the country, at which he has just hinted?


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I do not know how many hours I have for this, but I will try to answer the questions.
There are many people hurt by the fact that the Senate is holding up this legislation. The hon. member for Halifax has risen several times during the course of this debate to ask about Lockeport, Nova Scotia, and what is going to happen to there now the fish plant has been closed.
What I said to her, and I will say it again, is that within Bill C-21 is the Community Futures Programs. Lockeport and a couple of hundred other municipalities in eastern Canada cannot access that program because the Senate is holding up this bill. We also have to look at the fact that under Bill C-21 an unemployed fisherman or fish plant worker would have to work only 10 weeks in order to receive unemployment payments. Under the present system they would have to work 14 weeks in order to benefit from unemployment insurance.
I would like to quote from an article in The Financial Post concerning communities where work is not available. "Senate Liberal majority leader Allan MacEachen is asking thousands of new unemployment insurance applicants in Atlantic Canada and all the depressed areas to be patient while he plays a game of political chicken with the Mulroney government at their expense."


An hon. member:: It is shameful.


William James Kempling: He should be ashamed of himself.


Mr. Proud:: Same old song and dance.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It usually is.

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The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry I must interrupt the the hon. member. The time for questions and comments has now expired. Resuming debate.


George Albert Proud: Madam Speaker, I am pleased and honoured to rise again in the House to discuss Bill C-21 and the recommended amendments as proposed by the other place, about which we have heard so much.
I find it unbelievable that the government has chosen this time to inflict more hardships on Canadians, when they are faced with such high interest rates, the proposed GST, and a faltering economy. As has been stated by many speakers in this House on this topic, Canadians, and especially my constituents, are not fooled into thinking that this is a good bill.
Bill C-21 is a further attack on the working people throughout this country. It is an attack on those communities that lack industry and depend on seasonal employment, an attack on the underdeveloped areas and an attack on the basic foundations of our country.
At the same time that this bill is being proposed, the government is trying to turn the tables by placing the blame on the victims, those people who depend on seasonal employment and therefore on unemployment insurance to meet life's basic needs.
The hon. member across the floor was very quick to blame the people of Atlantic Canada for using UI as a form of social welfare. We all know that this is not the case. As I stated a few moments ago, the Atlantic region is not a heavily industrialized area and seasonal employment is the way of life, not by choice but by economic necessity.
The implication in all of this is that those who are not working 12 months a year are somehow trying to beat the system. What makes this attitude so ridiculous is that it comes at a time when federal fiscal policy is increasing our number of unemployed in its so-called battle against inflation.
A 10 to 12 week job with varying hours is not the preferred employment of the people of Prince Edward Island. What I must stress here is that it is the only employment. It is not their fault. It is simply an economic reality, the reality of living in an economically underprivileged and neglected part of Canada. Toughening the
entrance requirements and shortening the benefit periods will impose further hardships on my province, on Atlantic Canada and on those people who are already living on the economic brink. Combined with the severe economic hardships associated with seasonal employment, the UI changes constitute a double hardship with very far-reaching effects on those who are seasonally employed and in turn on their families.
I would like to quote the Minister of Labour for Prince Edward Island, the Hon. Roberta Hubley: "Approximately 1,700 claimants on Prince Edward Island will no longer be able to establish a claim as a result of changes to unemployment insurance entrance requirements. Prince Edward Island recorded the largest percentage of claimants affected by entrance requirement changes. Prince Edward Island recorded the third largest percentage of claimants affected by changes to the UI benefit duration". She further stated that approximately 7,000 claimants in P.E.I. will be affected by changes to the UI benefit duration. Prince Edward Island has been singled out to bear more than its fair share of the cost of the proposed UI changes, particularly in relation to new entrance requirements. These changes will mean an increase in the absolute number of welfare recipients and will be a major blow to many residents of Prince Edward Island.
Since this bill was first introduced, I have listened to various groups, special committees and many of my constituents, and the majority of the views expressed fear of Bill C-21. The major fear is of welfare and unemployment.
Quite often the argument used by hon. members across the way is the same old song and dance about the other place. According to them, it should not even examine this bill, or if it must examine it, should ignore the wishes expressed by the people of Canada. According to the people across the floor, it should silence its conscience and without saying a word rubber stamp this legislation. I totally disagree.
The other place serves a very useful purpose. The government is not listening to the people. It is doing exactly as it wants because of its majority and that is not what democracy is about. It is true, and I would be the first to admit this, the government did win a majority. They won the majority due, in large part, to a wonderful advertising campaign. However, I would like to stress that we have checks and balances in this system. One of
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the roles of the other place is to be one of these checks and balances.
However, the government has to listen. That is why we have an opposition, another Chamber and, in this particular House we have three parties. All the members of this House represent all of the people of Canada.
We often hear about the number of Canadian citizens who live below the poverty line. Those Canadians must depend on food banks in order to survive. It is not a very nice fact that 3.7 million of our country's citizens live below the poverty line, but even more shocking is the fact that a quarter of these are children under the age of 16. Furthermore, one in six Canadian children is undernourished. This is a fact. As Winnipeg sociologist, Harvey Stein, stated, "Poverty, you see, is not a vote getter. The people who use food banks are certainly not the folks who make a difference at election time."
It is very sad and it is also very true. The poor, whether they be working or unemployed, are obviously not the people that politicians seem so often obsessed with when an election or hand-outs are coming. They never consider the public welfare or the fate of the underprivileged.
Senator Jacques Hebert said: "This is the only explanation that comes to mind when I try to understand why the government had the audacity to introduce a bill like C-21, which will increase the suffering of the poor and cruelly affect the many people who already face hunger."
What I find very scary about the whole situation is that, with the increase in unemployment, the cut-back in benefits and the heavy burden placed on our welfare system, what we will have are more underprivileged, undernourished and underutilized Canadians and this is a very sad situation. In Atlantic Canada it is even more sad, because we have the highest unemployment rate and the highest welfare levels. Quite often we hear the Minister of Employment and Immigration boasting about retraining and job creation and about the way this is going to solve all of our problems. Certainly we need training, and we need qualified people all over the country to do the training. In many instances, the bottom line is that you can do all the training you want, but in
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certain areas there are not very many jobs where these people can work.
In my home province of Prince Edward Island, and all over Atlantic Canada, the number of jobs for which you can retrain people is very limited. We realize that we can train people, who then could move on to other parts of Canada or to other areas of their region. There is nothing wrong with this, but when you train people with money taken from unemployed people for jobs that do not exist, it does not seem like a very realistic goal.
I suggest that the government, with all its great ideas and its many millions of dollars, should create an economic and industrial situation where realistic industries will be established in the outlying parts of the country. This will give people a place to work, where they can be trained for jobs. They can then go on from there.
I agree with a statement that the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace has made on many occasions, that the training money should not come from the pockets of those who pay unemployment insurance premiums, neither the employer nor the employees.
Many people say: "There are lots of jobs in central Canada. What is wrong with young people moving to find work?" There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is good for young people to move around their country. Many people have moved from east to central Canada and to the west. People from the west have moved to central Canada and to the east. This is a great thing.
It is very easy for us to say this, but there are many people in the age group 30 to 40 who are already married and raising families. It is very hard for them to uproot themselves and move to other parts of the country, when they do not know whether jobs exist there. It does not matter where many of these people live, they do not want to leave that particular part of the country, because neither their parents nor grandparents left it.
The cold hard facts of life may be that this is what is going to come, and that we have to prepare people in a different way. There has to be another way of teaching people that perhaps the part of the country where they grew up is not where they will be able to live. This is a very cruel thing to say.

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In conclusion, if the government's true goal is positive reform of unemployment insurance, it should not hesitate to pass any of the amendments that are proposed by the other place. The amendments are moderate, sensible and sensitive to both the government's professed goal of deficit reduction, and the needs and dignity of unemployed Canadians.
The key word is dignity. For this reason, I fully support these amendments and urge the government opposite to do the same.


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Madam Speaker, today, I will again try to convince all Canadian parliamentarians of the relevance of Bill C-21, tabled by our government to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act. I will look at this reform from the perspective of the twenty-first century. I will then consider the political aspects of the new legislation and its positive impact on the labour force across this country.
As you know, the text of this legislation reflects the goals of our comprehensive Labour Force Development Strategy, and in fact, both documents form a whole. Our objective is to get employers, unions, governments and all Canadians involved in taking every initiative they consider appropriate to raise the level of skills of our workers.
We also want to implement the policies, programs and employment approaches that will help workers achieve their potential in a technological world where the demand for skills is becoming increasingly sophisticated. The government intends, without further delay, to take appropriate steps to ensure that Canada's labour force is able to adjust to rapid changes in the job environment as a result of major demographic shifts and major changes in technology. Our prosperity and standard of living will depend very much on our vigilance and the speed with which we act. Canada, like other industrial nations, faces a world of increasingly open markets where incredible opportunities are within our grasp. However, the competition for these markets is steadily increasing. We must be prepared for these changes: time is of the essence.
Bill C-21 proposes a comprehensive approach that will help us solve our problems. Bill C-21 updates our
unemployment insurance system while making it possible for more claimants to train for new technologies. Without wishing to be alarmist, we must realize that technological change means our workers must acquire additional skills. We cannot escape this imperative. A day of hesitation is a day lost for the quality of life of our workers.
The message of Bill C-21 and the Labour Force Development Strategy to the people of Canada is this: Be prepared. Prepare for your future. Learn new technologies now.
To young Canadians particularly, we want to say this: Get an education and be prepared to consider training as an on-going process. Madam Speaker, enough time wasted. It is imperative that Bill C-21 be passed and receive Royal Assent. The benefits for Canadians are tremendous. Everywhere I go, I meet people-development officers, workers, unemployed Canadians-who share our views on the Labour Force Development Strategy and Unemployment Insurance reform.
Since 1984, we as a government have started a thorough review of the legislation. Gradually and systematically, we have taken a number of measures whose ultimate goal is to adapt our legislation to the concrete needs of the workers of today and tomorrow. As part of a logical and well-thought out approach, our Labour Force Development Strategy contains four major goals which I may perhaps recall this morning.
First, we want to see a substantial increase in the private sector's role in training these workers and in ensuring that training is more responsive to present labour market needs. We realize it is our role to support the private sector in this very important task: to work with that prime resource, the Canadian labour force.
Second, we have decided to reallocate part of the unemployment insurance budget to increased funding for training and re-employment. Some substantial changes have been made, as we all know, and all these changes will benefit our workers.
Third, we want to improve unemployment insurance benefits, in order to be more responsive to the needs of working parents and workers over 65. The latter are now taking advantage of their right to continue their career, and we must adjust to this new situation.
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As Minister of State for Seniors, I had an opportunity to talk to this group of workers who want to stay on the job and have a lot of questions about the changes that are urgently needed.
Finally, we want to reduce work disincentives which have tended to make the present system one under which recipients no longer actively seek employment, a situation that has gone on far too long. For each of the goals I just mentioned, we have allocated funding at levels appropriate to new demands and to a modern and pragmatic view of the situation.
Our programs thus include more help for the private sector for human resource planning and training and special assistance for older workers who must relocate. They also provide career training for young people and projects to help revitalize local economies. As a government, we believe in dynamic communities. We are prepared to listen to them and to work in partnership with these communities because they are the only ones who really know their workforce training needs.
As you no doubt know, Madam Speaker, the changes to the old Act reallocate $800 million. These funds will help us launch our labour force development strategy. Once our bill is passed and implemented, there will be more funds for basic training of beginning workers. The funds for the co-operative education program, which is working very well, will be increased fourfold.
Under our proposed changes, $350 million from the UI Fund will be used to increase the aid now given to programs for training, relocation assistance, entrepreneurship and re-employment.
Employers will receive more help for human resource planning. Nearly 41 per cent of full-time workers received no training in the last two years and 53 per cent of unskilled workers receive no training at all. This stagnation worries us because it creates a lack of mobility that harms our economy and runs counter to the present trend of globalization of markets.
In our Bill C-21, we see an opportunity for all Canadians to take a new attitude to their obligation, where they are, to train and retrain throughout their career. As technology changes, Canadians must acquire new skills. Our goal is flexibility.
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But we must also note that Bill C-21 is much more than an economic catalyst. This bill faithfully and realistically reflects changes in Canadian society. Finally, the benefits of our new UI plan will comply with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I am convinced that we have chosen the right path and I am proud to belong to this government that wants to reform this very important social program. We are convinced this is the best way. We chose this approach after repeated consultations with our economic partners. Since 1985, a sound relationship has been established which has helped us acquire specific insights and respond to genuine needs.
Employers, unions, academics and directors of associations convinced us that training was an imperative need. We were mindful of this in developing our reform.
Our bill kills two birds with one stone. First of all, it reinforces the ability of the unemployment insurance system to continue to function as a safety net for people who need it. Second, it provides skills training and offers other specific measures to help claimants adjust to changing labour market conditions.
The new legislation will also change entrance requirements and benefits. These changes reflect wide variations in unemployment across the country. They will mainly benefit claimants living in regions with the highest unemployment rates, where job opportunities are scarce. Where equity had to be restored, we saw to it that it was done.
When the new legislation is passed, claimants will have to accumulate from 10 to 20 weeks of employment to be eligible for benefits, depending on the unemployment rate in the region where they work. This makes for a system that is far more sensitive to unemployment rates and to labour force mobility.
The new legislation will increase penalties for persons who quit without just cause, refuse a suitable job or are fired for misconduct.
The benefit period will be based on the number of weeks of employment and the regional unemployment rate. Flowever, the present three-tier structure will be brought back to a single tier.
We are proposing a complete overhaul of the present system for maternity, sickness and parental benefits. The proposed changes will enhance the flexibility of the benefit system and extend the benefit period, and as I

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said before, these changes will be in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Madam Speaker, our new legislation gives workers aged 65 and over the kind of protection they have never had before, because we want to protect the rights of all workers. The people in this age group have no obligation to withdraw from the labour force, and they should be treated fairly. That is what we have done.
Together with our Labour Force Development Strategy, the Canadian Jobs Strategy is a fundamental tool for this government in achieving the main objectives I have mentioned. We have developed six programs, which I will describe briefly.
The Job Development Program was designed to help the long-term unemployed re-enter the job environment with the help of on-the- job training or training in an educational institution.
The Job Entry Program helps people who have trouble entering or re-entering the labour market. It addresses the needs of women, young people and individuals with serious employment problems. Thanks to the UI reform, we have the money to provide additional resources and assistance to reinforce this program for young people, women and the disadvantaged.
We also have the Skill Shortages Program which gives employers the help they need to train employees for jobs where there is a manpower shortage.
The Skill Investment Program is designed for workers who have just been laid off or whose jobs are changing as a result of technological change or developments in the labour market.
The Community Futures Program responds to the needs of small communities experiencing chronic unemployment. We provide training support and assistance for development projects, entrepreneurs and relocation of businesses. The program operates as a partnership with the communities.
Finally, the Innovations Program, as it name indicates, promotes the development and testing of innovative solutions to labour markef pjroblems in specific areas.
The programs I just mentioned are already in effect and will be continued after Bill C-21 is passed. They are
a logical component of our overall approach to unemployment insurance claimants and the various programs we have set up to help them re-enter the labour market as soon as possible and find the jobs they need.
Madam Speaker, adopting Bill C-21 and the Labour Force Development Strategy will make it possible to provide a pragmatic and intelligent solution to many of our labour market problems.
This legislation should be passed without delay. Thousands of unemployed workers and people who are otherwise disadvantaged stand powerless, waiting for the funds the government is prepared to allocate so they can upgrade their training and adjust to the demands of new technologies.
While we hesitate to pass this bill, our competitors continue to step up the training of their workers and to raise their skill levels. Canadian workers deserve better than the present lack of action from Parliament.
Most Canadians, I repeat, approve the direction taken by our government. In a Decima survey, more than 60 per cent of those questioned support updating our unemployment insurance legislation and our options for labour force training. The survey also tells us that more than 90 per cent support what we propose to help claimants find a new job. Eighty-five per cent would support the required changes, as we propose, to give Canada a more qualified labour force.
From having worked with associations of the unemployed before 1984 and from having crossed Canada since 1984,1 personally tell you that the reform before us meets the specific needs of the men and women of Canada.
If we heed the recommendations of experts, the desires expressed by the public, the demands of the global economic reality, we will pass Bill C-21 quickly. Let us do so without delay for the sake of this objective, the quality of life of our Canadian workers.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, the minister and her government, in answering the message from the Senate, accepted one important change and the principle of two more, which they will incorporate in the bill.

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The first amendment adopted, 5(b), deals, as we know, with the unserved period of disqualification imposed on someone who has to, or wishes to, leave a job without valid reason.
The second concerns the training plan to be submitted to the House of Commons for consideration.
The third amendment concerns fishermen's benefits, which, as we know today, are in the regulations and not the legislation. The government agrees to put the regulations on fishermen's benefits into the legislation, which is a step forward.
I must say that we agree with this approach, although these three amendments are very timid, because they are well received by the unemployed and the workers of Canada.
Nevertheless, the government is still hesitating and waffling on the essence of this bill, which is the complete withdrawal of the Canadian government from the financing of unemployment insurance in the years to come.
The burden will thus be borne by the workers and employers, which we do not think is the way to go at all, Madam Speaker, because we believe that the Government of Canada has an important role to play in funding unemployment insurance in the regions with economic difficulties that they cannot face, in some cases, without the help and support of the rest of the country.
I would like to ask the minister a question: The minister knows very well that Bill C-21 is an amendment to the original legislation, the revised 1971 Act. I have already argued in this House, as I am sure the minister knows, that what the Senate wants to do is reduce the present imposition by half. The present legislation provides that the government cover a large part of the cost of unemployment insurance throughout the country.
The Senate proposes that the federal government, instead of eliminating its contribution completely, contribute at least 50 per cent of the cost of benefits.
I ask the minister whether she really has a serious reason to tell Canada's unemployed that the federal government's spending power will no longer benefit them, in order-take note, Madam Speaker-to reduce the deficit. I ask the minister whether this government
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wants to wipe out the deficit-and it doubled the debt in the last five years-by saving money on unemployment insurance. How can they justify asking Canadian workers, Madam Speaker, to accept this government's passing the burden of lowering the national debt onto them while withdrawing its spending power for funding unemployment insurance?


Monique Vézina: The answer is very simple, Madam Speaker: It was common sense.
We have known for a number of years that it was imperative to change the unemployment insurance system which, as you said before 1984 and as we have said since then, takes a far too passive approach.
The present government has a number of important objectives to meet, and the Senate's proposal is diametrically opposed to our objectives, which are to reduce the deficit, improve our social programs and reform the unemployment insurance system which we believe is too passive.
What we want to do, in co-operation with employers and workers, is be able to rejuvenate the labour force strategy and prepare that primary resource, our human capital, for the competition we can expect on a global market, and meanwhile achieve part of our initial objective which is to reduce the deficit. Once that has been done, we will be able to improve our social programs.
I know, from having talked to many unemployed workers, that our strategy appeals to Canadian men and women. It appeals to our departmental officers who are ready to work on these training programs.
The strategy appeals to our communities which during the past two years have worked very hard, with the help of volunteers, to define employment and development strategies and make recommendations to the government, recommendations we are now considering and intend to implement.
Bill C-21, while making it possible to reduce the deficit and at the same time maintain a safety net for those who really need it, also provides the resources to reinforce our Jobs Strategy programs, to reinforce this form of partnership with our young workers, and at this point I wish to pay tribute to the energy and enthusiasm of our volunteers, to the people who want to improve

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conditions in regions beset by unemployment rates that are far too high.
I can say I am proud to belong to a government that has these important objectives and that looks to the future. That is why we are proposing this reform. And if you are so concerned about the well-being of the workers of this country, I suggest you hurry over to the other place and ask your friends to pass Bill C-21 as soon as possible.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to what the minister said, but I did not find the comments to be all that convincing.
It is certainly true that the government has run into some trouble with the Senate-let us call it what it is-insofar as the passage of Bill C-21 is concerned. In no way does that excuse the government's lack of action in bringing in the variable entrance requirements, something that has traditionally been done over the last decade, in order to make it possible for people to be able to qualify for unemployment insurance at a lesser period of time than 14 weeks. There is no excuse whatsoever for the government not having done that. It certainly could have brought in other provisions as well, such as parental leave.
I would like to ask the minister specifically: Why was the government so adamant in not bringing in the variable entrance requirements before the end of the year in order that those people who came from regions with high unemployment were not able to access the rates and benefits which in any other year they would have been able to do?

Hon. Monique Ve/.ina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)): For
the simple reason, Madam Speaker, that our bill and our reform contain this sensitivity to unemployment rates that vary from region to region and from sub-region to sub-region. The reform and our bill reflect our concern for peripheral regions with higher unemployment rates.
Madam Speaker, this legislation will help us increase the amount of training we provide, meet specific needs, and be more sensitive to regional unemployment rates.
The variable entrance requirement is included in our unemployment insurance reform because our overall perspective bids us to give special consideration to those regions that are economically sensitive, and we also know that if we are to meet the requirements that will exist in the year 2000, we will have to provide training and do so in co-operation with employers and workers, and that is exactly what we intend to do with our Labour Force Development Strategy and Bill C-21.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate with the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I am certainly glad that I did not have to answer the last question which I asked. For the government not to have brought in the variable entrance requirements, which was certainly an option it had, demonstrates the mean and lean and vicious temperament of this government in many different areas of endeavour.
Over a year ago now when Bill C-21 was introduced in this House, the major government propaganda paper that was submitted with it was a piece of garbage called Success in the Workplace. We have had ample opportunity over the last year to see that government members have not been too successful in putting forth the concepts in Bill C-21 and for very good reason. It is not an accident that they find themselves in what may very well turn out to be a constitutional problem with the Senate at this time.
I could not believe it when yesterday, over a year after it had been introduced, the minister said very nearly the same things which had been said a year ago. The vision I had as she was presenting her speech yesterday was that she could hardly contain herself from not hugging herself; she was so pleased with what she was saying and so pleased with what Bill C-21 was supposed to be doing. I cannot believe that after a year she would still feel the same way about such an horrendously bad piece of legislation and something with which the government had so much trouble.
The assurances with which it was introduced have shown to be hollow, and there are a good many reasons why we would conclude that they are so hollow. There
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were assurances about training and assurances about the training ethic, for heaven's sake, which we may or may not get into later. In case we do not, I will just mention the private sector becoming more involved in the training of Canadian workers. We have not heard too many references to training ethic in relation to Bill C-21 since, with very good reason, because it is something that they are not all that much committed to.
They talk in the most glowing terms of human resource planning. They talk about maternity benefits that are going to accrue under Bill C-21, the benefits to those over 65 years of age and parental benefits, the last two of which except for some change of heart-and I am at a bit of a disadvantage to understand why-were really imposed upon the government as a result of court decisions. As far as the paternal leave was concerned, there was a point up until very shortly before this legislation was introduced where they were going to challenge the decision of the court that parental leave should receive a similar kind of consideration along with adoptive leave. That is just a bit of an indication of how really insincere this government is when it comes to the actions and benefits of Bill C-21.
There are references to the other things to which I have referred such as assistance for social assistance recipients. I would suggest that for the most part every one of those grand and glorious things that they so often fall back on and refer to has very little to do with what Bill C-21 really does. The only way that they can claim any validity as far as Bill C-21 is concerned is that the money they are robbing from those who become unemployed, paid for by those people before they became unemployed, and the money that they are robbing from the UI fund which is now going to go out of the UI fund is totally divorced from Bill C-21. That is why I cannot understand them even referring to these actions within Bill C-21, except that is where they get the money for the training. That is where they are going to get the money for the human resource development. That is where they are going to get the money for Community Futures. That is where they are going to get the money for some of these things that go along with training. That is fine, and we will come to that later.
There are very good reasons those things should occur. However, there are even better reasons those things should not occur in relation to Bill C-21.1 think that the
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government is really stretching the credibility of Canadians a long way, particularly those who understand the implications of Bill C-21, to be speaking of them in the same breath at all.
Bill C-21 was introduced with glowing assurances a year ago. It is tremendously fortunate that it has taken Bill C-21 as long as it has to go through this Parliament because it has given us a chance to look at what this government does in relation to other endeavours which it has carried out over the year. We have seen that there is no reason whatsoever to feel any assurance that the benefits the government states will accrue from Bill C-21 will in fact happen.
As with many other things in which the government has involved itself and the Canadian public at the same time, we can only assume that working Canadians and those who become unemployed are in for an extremely rough time. I would suggest that the proof lies in the results of other government actions throughout the year.
When Bill C-21 was first introduced, we had not yet been exposed to the clawbacks. We had not yet realized that this government was so mean spirited that it would be taking back from the children of this country what little accrues to them through the family allowances. We had not realized that our senior citizens, those who had served this country so well and had established many of the principles upon which this country, government and Parliament are based, would have part of their old age pension clawed back.
The government has used closure innumerable times, in relation to Bill C-21 itself and almost every other piece of legislation that has gone through this Parliament. The closure principle within Parliament is one of the meanest, vilest, most desperate measures that governments can use. This government has used closure so often that is becoming almost meaningless to refer to it. In the last year the closure motion was used by this government some 35 times.
The government has introduced clawbacks. What about the sacred trust? There is no reason why the Canadian public should have any faith in this government at all.
The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was one of the foundations of protection for Canadian workers in this country. It is going to be

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devastated by cut-backs which this government is going to impose upon the Canadian public.
The reference to the Environics and the Decima poll which claimed that the Canadian public was so much in favour of using UI funds for training is rather amusing. If we are going to talk about polls, let us talk about polls that show how the GST is so unpopular with Canadians and yet the government is certainly not going to back off on that. That is another example of how this government, as it admits, is so entrenched in its philosophical desire to change the social fabric of this country that it will not back off.
There are other examples of why we should not be assured that changes to Bill C-21 are going to be of benefit to Canadians, based on this government's demonstration of animosity toward the Canadian public.
The government that wants to bring in Bill C-21 is so caring and democratic that it arrested two solitary demonstrators outside the entrance to the Elouse of Commons. Would a government that brings in that kind of a regulation and does that to two solitary demonstrators within feet, literally, of this very Chamber, have any particular democratic regard or economic regard for the welfare of Canadian workers and whether or not they are unemployed? I would suggest that the answer is no.
Last December the government brought in back-to-work legislation to force their most disadvantaged employees back to work. These employees were disadvantaged because they were unionized but also because they had been prevented from going on strike ever since the moment they were unionized.
Part of the dispute surrounding that back-to-work legislation was affirmative action. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that yesterday the minister made reference to affirmative action and equal opportunity. I would suggest that any reference to affirmative action and equal opportunity made by the minister yesterday rings particularly hollow and is just that much more of an argument that what the government is proposing to do with Bill C-21 will not meet with success. The government forced workers back to work, mostly women, when tribunal after tribunal had determined that those women had been improperly paid for a long time, and that they
ought to be properly paid. The government forced them back to work without addressing that situation at all.
It is absolutely foolhardy for this government to say that Bill C-21 is going to be beneficial. I would suggest it would be more foolhardy for the Canadian public to ever disabuse themselves of the idea that Bill C-21 is going to be beneficial. I am certain that there is going to be a tremendous amount of hardship wreaked upon the Canadian public when those provisions are brought into force.
The Government implies that once Bill C-21 is passed training will be available to the unemployed, and I would suggest even more particularly to those who have not yet found a job, or to those who will be re-entering the workforce after some time. The implication is that there will be training. They will find that nothing could be farther from the truth.
The very best we can hope for is access to training by a doubling of the number of people who have had access to it in the past. In the past, that number was 3 per cent. At the very maximum, the availability of training for people will be 6 per cent of over a million people who are unemployed, 94 per cent of whom will be thinking they will be able to avail themselves of training only to find out that they will not.
The language with which this bill was introduced and the language with reference to training in this bill is nothing more than trying to get people interested in a lottery.
This government ought to be saying to people that the fact of the matter is that there is a limited amount of money so not everyone will be able to access training. That is the real dishonesty of what this government is doing. Under the present unemployment insurance legislation, if you become unemployed at least you can get unemployment insurance, and to imply that if you become unemployed you will be able to access training is totally dishonest. I would suggest that spending U.I. premiums on training is no way to ensure that people will receive training and it is particularly vicious of this government to make those implications.
The government talks about all this money that is going to be available for training. The question that naturally comes back is, where is the money coming from? The answer is that the money is going to be coming from the victims, those who are going to be unemployed, because they will have to work longer to qualify for less. Employees will have to pay more in
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premiums and they will receive less, and then the penalties will be increased.
When the bill was first introduced the government said that the abuse of the system was not very high. Whether it was in the committee, whether it has been in this Parliament, as recently as yesterday when the minister made her reintroduction of comments on this bill, the was reference to abuse. I would suggest to this government that if it really believed that doing away with the so-called abuses within the UI system will put people back to work, then the very best thing that could be done would be to do away with UI altogether. If that is the kind of incentive we need to get people back to work, do away with it.
I would suggest that if the government did away with the unemployment insurance scheme, there is not one more person who would find a job. The reason is there are not any jobs out there. It is lack of jobs that is the problem, not that people are abusing the system and not that the fund is necessarily badly abused because people are supposedly drawing more heavily on it than they ought to be.
The incentives which Canadians need to get working are good quality jobs at good quality wages for the single moms, the poorly educated and the illiterate. I know people who are illiterate. I know people who are poorly educated. I know that they are working at jobs that are quality jobs. I know that they are working at jobs at quality wages. There are not a lot of those around any more. Illiterate people are not ignorant people. People who are poorly educated are as able to take their place in Canadian society as anyone else, if the jobs are there for them to do. They are capable of being as gainfully employed as someone who is highly technically trained or professionally trained, and are capable of earning a living if the jobs are there. I am not saying that someone who cannot read should not be given every opportunity to read, but I would suggest that taking funds away from the unemployed is hardly the way to do it.
I suspect that I am running rather short of time. I see that I have one minute. There is so much to be said but I would like to conclude by moving:
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That the motion be amended by deleting all the words following the
first word "THAT" and substituting the following therefor:
"The order for the consideration of the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, be discharged and the Bill withdrawn."


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: With leave of the House, the Chair will take this amendment under advisement and come back later with a decision. Questions and comments.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I know there are several members on both sides of the House who would like to speak to this particular motion and I am wondering if there might not be an agreement to allow us to sit through the lunch hour and to therefore get on two, maybe three more speakers which would probably be helpful to all sides of the House.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, we, of course, would not oppose such a proposal, although it does play havoc with plans for the lunch hour of some people. They did not know they would be here speaking and had engagements outside. Of course, if it is in the interest of debate and furthering the advancement of the cause of trying to get this government to understand reason and to change its mind on Bill C-21 and make it more humane, we will try to do that during the lunch hour.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, I can also consent to the request to sit through the lunch hour. We, too, believe that the issue demands as much attention as can be given to it. Hopefully, with reasoned debate from this side of the House, government members will see fit to do what is proper in this case.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Questions and comments, the hon. minister.


Monique Vézina: Madam Speaker, I would like to know how the hon.

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member opposite can say, with a straight face, that our proposal is taking funds out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. He gives the false impression that what we are doing with this legislation is reduce the safety net, which, however, is still in place and will be maintained. He knows perfectly well that the money comes from a transfer of funds within the unemployment insurance system which will help us improve social benefits for workers and provide an incentive for the unemployed to find jobs. My question is this: Since his party is against tax increases and increasing the deficit, how would he consider financing this additional training?


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I am not entirely sure whether I understood the minister's comments. I think I heard the minister say that this was merely a transfer of funds within the unemployment insurance fund. I hope that is not what I heard, because C-21 really does not do that. Bill C-21 removes from the public Treasury any assistance to people who have been working and become unemployed.
Previously, the extended benefits to fishermen came out of general revenue. Previously, other extended benefits as well came from general revenue. If a worker was unemployed and able to access a training program which continued past the expiry date of his or her entitlement to unemployment insurance, the unemployment insurance did not cease. It continued and the continuation of those payments came from general revenue. That will no longer be the case.
In a very real sense, that worker who had been working and contributing to the unemployment insurance fund, at least in some small measure, will be paying a portion of the the cost of his or her own training subsequent to the passage of C-21.
The money the government is always talking about which will be available for training-this $1.3 billion or whatever it is-is money which used to come out of general revenues and went to the direct benefit of the unemployed. That will no longer be there. I have no problem with those on social assistance receiving training. I have no problems with those on social assistance receiving much more social support than they do now.
What I and almost everyone, including employers, who submitted a brief to the parliamentary committee on Bill C-21 objected to was the abuse of funds for those kinds of things, taking it out of the unemployment insurance fund and putting it into there. If the minister meant that it is the juggling of those funds from one side of the Bill C-21 barrier into the public domain, I object to that. If that is what Bill C-21 is doing, then I have been misled and I think the public has as well.
The fact is that the UI fund has now been privatized. The employers and employees who will become the recipients of any benefits from unemployment insurance after Bill C-21 is passed are going to be the ones contributing to it and benefiting from it.


An hon. member:: What's wrong with that?


Ron Fisher: Well, I may be wrong but-


Some hon. members:: Of course you are.


Ron Fisher: I may be wrong in what I am about to say, but I believe that a tremendous amount of public funds goes into the training of lawyers. A tremendous amount of public funds goes into our universities for the training of accountants. A tremendous amount of money even goes to support General Motors and a good many other corporations within our society.
If we can use public funds to train lawyers, we can use public funds to train machinists and mechanics and, yes, labourers, too-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Ron Fisher: -because, when one becomes unemployed, one is going to be, quite literally, paying for that trades training out of one's own pocket.


Mr. Howard Crosby (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Madam Speaker, we have been treated in the House of Commons to the worst parade of socialist myths that I have heard for some decades. We have heard every one in the book: that we do not pay for medicare, medicare is free; that unemployment insurance is a benefit that can be distributed without regard to the source of funding; that everything is free; that money grows on trees; and that one does not have to balance revenues with expenditures. We have heard all the social myths, ending with the worst social myth of all: there can be progress without change. One
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does not change the unemployment insurance legislation, but one just learns to live with it.
The member also had the nerve to mention strikes. He did not think of the other side of strikes. He did not think of the veterans who did not receive hospital care while the hospital employees were on strike. He did not think of the fishermen, some of whom perished at sea, while the ships' crews were on strike. He made no mention of them. He made no mention of essential services.
He was concerned because the government dared to interfere with a strike in order to tiy to benefit the veterans and seafarers of Canada. He made no mention of that and no mention of the fact that, in the end, through the awful vehicle of compulsory arbitration, the ships' crews got pay equal to everybody in Canada plus an 8 per cent increase. There was no mention of that. The bogy of compulsory arbitration is just another socialist myth.
Who speaks for the workers of Canada? Does the member speak for the workers of Canada who never collect unemployment insurance but have to pay increasing premiums, even though the unemployment insurance rate has gone from double digits down to 7.5 per cent across Canada under this government? Despite that, workers have to pay higher and higher unemployment insurance premiums to pay for this system which he supports and does not want to change.
What about the steel workers? What about the 500,000 government employees who do not collect unemployment insurance? Does he want them to pay for all the waste in the unemployment insurance system, or does he want it to change? Does he want it to receive positive emphasis so that the people who pay will get the benefit and the people who need the benefit will receive it, but not those who simply use the system?


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that I did not make that last comment. I would like to tell my hon. friend from Halifax that for all my working life I have contributed to the unemployment insurance fund and I have never collected one cent. I have never begrudged any worker, anywhere, who did. I and the workers of Canada resent the implication that there is a lot of abuse.
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Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Ron Fisher: Insofar as the strikers are concerned, the minister seems to have a rather short memory. Time after time he attributes the loss of lives to the ships' crews strike. As a matter of fact, the ships' crews reacted in all haste whenever there was an emergency and there was no loss of life or shipping attributable to that strike whatsoever because they responded. The minister knows that. Even to imply otherwise is tremendously dishonest.
As far as the veterans are concerned-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order.


Ron Fisher: May I have a minute or two to wrap up?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: In letting the hon. member know that his time had expired, I was prepared to let him complete his sentence, but certainly not to continue for two minutes.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls.


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Madam Speaker, I would like to say just a few words concerning this motion before the House. The Unemployment Insurance Act was changed by the Government of Canada by way of a bill which was rejected in the House of Commons by the opposition parties. That bill went to the Senate which examined it and made amendments.
What does the unemployment insurance bill do? It cuts back on unemployment insurance benefits. It cuts back because the triggering point for receiving unemployment insurance benefits under the new bill is changed so that in most parts of Canada more insurable weeks will be required than are at present. There are no other changes as far as I can see.
We have heard a lot of talk about training and changing the Unemployment Insurance Act so that somebody can be educated or re-educated. I do not see a change in the bill saying that if one wants to attend a vocational school or university one can collect unemployment insurance while going there. The act still states that, if one is attending a full-time course of instruction, one does not qualify under the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The Government of Canada turns around and says that it is going to allow certain people to collect unemployment insurance because it is going to buy certain seats in training schools. It does not say that everybody qualifies, as it should say. Therefore, it creates a built-in discrimination against young people and older people. In

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our vocational and training schools, somebody sitting in one seat is getting unemployment insurance, while the person in the next seat cannot qualify, even though they had worked in the same place.
Anyone who is familiar with the law and jurisprudence surrounding this act, or who has examined the jurisprudence laid down by federal judges-and it amounts to some 12,000 cases in the last 15 years or so-will know that it is veiy confusing. A person entering university will say: "All right, I was working, I am applying for unemployment insurance benefits and I am going to take three courses and maintain my status as a full-time student. I am going to be available for work. I am going to go out and look for employment. I am going to sign a sheet of paper that says that if I can find a job I will leave the school that I am attending."
The law is the law is the law, and the law has not been changed by this government to amend that section of the act that should be amended.
I recall that when the government was campaigning in 1984, it came out with a policy which was right at the top of its policy list to allow people, if they qualified, to collect unemployment insurance benefits while they attended a full-time course of instruction. It was never done, but what a marvellous policy that would be if it was actually implemented.
Every works program of the Government of Canada in Employment and Immigration is under the heading of training. In other words, if you go to work on a works program it is for training for something. If a community wants to receive any type of federal money, it has to be for training somebody to do something.
For example, take a community that is surrounded by forests in which there is a sawmill that has closed. The community applies for a works program for a year to thin the forests. Under this government, the only people who qualify to go to work in the woods are people who have never been in the woods before.
The whole structure of job creation has changed under this government so that the only work available through the Government of Canada in a logging community is for non-loggers who are going {p be trained to become loggers when all the other loggers are out of work. Or you might find 10 or 12 out-of-work carpenters in a small community where a job comes up to build a public
building, but they are not allowed to work on that project because they are already carpenters.
Because all of the money for works programs is zeroed in on high unemployment areas, you find that the very people who are out of work and who need work cannot go to work. You put more people into that vocation to put them out of work because once they have worked at it for one year they are not allowed to work at it for the next year.
This business of training really has no justification at all as a positive measure under this particular bill. The average unemployment insurance cheque in Canada today is about $204.50. Imagine, Madam Speaker, all the people abusing that system. Imagine abusing the system to collect $204 when, depending upon your circumstances, you would qualify for almost that amount of social security, depending upon which province you live in.
The list of cases of abuse that were just referred to are commonly identified as overpayments by the Unemployment Insurance Commission and the Auditor General. The principal cause of overpayments in Canada is a mistake by the Unemployment Insurance Commission. Under the Unemployment Insurance Act, if the commission makes a mistake, or if the employer makes a mistake on his books, it is registered as an overpayment and the amount of the overpayment is to be paid back by the recipient.
Most of the overpayments were caused by mistakes by the Unemployment Insurance Commission, or by the employer. What is this poor person supposed to do who is getting $204 a week, the average unemployment insurance cheque?
By the way, the total number of people receiving unemployment insurance in Newfoundland today is about 120,000. There are only 240,000 in the workforce, yet this government claims that the unemployment rate is somewhere around 12 per cent. The hon. gentleman is finding that difficult to understand. In some provinces when the unemployment rate goes down, the total number of unemployment insurance recipients goes up. It is interesting, if you are doing a budgetary analysis, to be asking for more unemployment insurance money
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because your unemployment rate had actually gone down. The reason for that, of course, is that it is short-term employment. When you have an increase in short-term employment you also have a subsequent increase in the number of people collecting unemployment insurance benefits.
Just imagine saying that there is a lot of cheating going on, that people are using the system. What are they using the system for, to get 60 per cent of their wages to a maximum of less than $400 a week? That is quite a using of the system. A straight investigation would find that the cause for these overpayments is not the people themselves, but some mistake by the commission or the employer.
I noticed another misconception. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans went down to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia the other day and said on national television that people enter the fishery and work for 10 weeks and then they go home and sit down for 42 weeks. And he said: "Is that the kind of example that we want our young people in Canada to follow?"
For the information of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, nobody, not one fisherman in Canada, ever worked for 10 weeks and sat home for 42 weeks. Never has one and never will one. Of course, the reason for that is quite simple. You see, when you are a fisherman you can only collect unemployment insurance benefits from the middle of November to the middle of May.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans had a press conference on national television and said that fishermen work for 10 weeks and sit home for 42 weeks. Every fisherman scratched his head and said: "How can I do that when I can only collect for six months under the law of the land?"


Howard Edward Crosby: Be a fish plant worker.


George Baker: That is not a fisherman, it is a fish plant worker. There is quite a distinction.
As far as changes are concerned, hon. members on the government side said, "We want to change the Unemployment Insurance Act". How about changing it to make it fairer, to end the discrimination that is built into the act that has arisen from recent changes made by the
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Government of Canada? As I suggested before, why not make everybody eligible for unemployment insurance benefits if they are attending a full-time course of instruction to educate themselves? Why not change the fisheries regulations to make them exactly the same as labour legislation and allow fishermen to draw unemployment insurance as any labourer or fish plant worker does? Why discriminate against a fisherman and not only limit him to November to May but also take 25 per cent off the top if he is a boat owner? There is built-in discrimination in the act.
There are some things that it is not necessary to change. The section of the act relating to someone who quits is being amended. The government is saying that instead of a six-week penalty there is going to be an eight-week penalty. That really does not mean anything under the law because it is the Unemployment Insurance Commission that determines the period of time, from one week to six weeks under present legislation, that a person is going to lose if they quit their employment without just cause.
The definition of "just cause" under the act is very explicit. The commission may say that person had good cause but did not have just cause and so is going to be penalized for two, three or four weeks. Sometimes you see a six-week disqualification, although not very often because you would have to be kind of stupid to quit your work to collect unemployment insurance at 60 per cent of what you were making, a cheque of, on average, $200 a week. So there usually is some cause involved.
There are sections of the act that should be changed, that it would be very simple to change. I have always suggested over the years that we ask the ultimate experts on the Unemployment Insurance Act what changes to make. There is one group of people who are experts on the Unemployment Insurance Act. They are justices of our courts.
Justice Dubinsky from Nova Scotia recently passed away. He was a learned gentleman who knew the Unemployment Insurance Act perhaps better than anybody in Canada knows the act. There are many other justices who know the act inside out. There is Justice Martin and other justices who could be consulted and asked what changes should be made.

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Why is it that members of Parliament sit in their offices and do nothing about it? It is because they do not know what to do about it. Thke, for example, the case of a man who was working, took sick, and had to go on disability. His place of employment had what is commonly referred to as wage loss insurance or short-term disability through an insurance company, or workman's compensation. There are thousands of cases that are referred to MPs every year.
The gentleman has a short-term disability of 15 weeks. Then he applies for unemployment insurance benefits, but these benefits are based on the top-up in sick pay given by his employer. In other words, after working all his life and then becoming disabled, he ends up with anywhere from $50 to $150 a week unemployment insurance until he can get his long-term disability resolved.
Under the Unemployment Insurance Act, it would be quite simple to introduce an amendment that would say: "Your unemployment insurance benefits would be based on your previous 20 weeks of employment with the company with which you were actually working", as it presently states in the act. There are numerous changes that can be made by the Government of Canada in the abduction sections of the act, but the only changes it made were to save money, to cut back on the benefits and to say: "You are going to qualify for unemployment insurance now, depending on which side of the line you live." This sets communities against communities.
Provinces have never before seen such division with people who are applying for unemployment insurance benefits.
This is an absolutely terrible bill. We commend the people who object to this legislation, and we ask the Government of Canada to accept the repeater provision immediately so that the people in high unemployment areas can collect unemployment insurance benefits with the bare minimum waiting period of 10 weeks.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: As I join in this debate. Madam Speaker, I should like to thank the Government House Leader for giving us a copy of the government response to the last Senate message this past Friday after my request in the House. 1 am grateful
to him because at least we had a chance to consider the government reaction and to familiarize ourselves with the rather complicated provisions contained in this document.
Now then, the speech delivered yesterday by the Minister of Employment and Immigration leads me to the conclusion that the government has paid precious little attention to the debates that have taken place in both the House and the Senate. Its very timid response tells us once again that the government has a one-track mind when it comes to accepting or amending the amendments duly advocated in the Senate message. The unemployment insurance legislation would definitely be improved if these amendments were accepted.
One significant fact is that this is a first for the House of Commons, a historic first in parliamentary life: a response to a message from the Senate has been sent back to us for the second time with what are basically the same amendments, if we exclude those that have been adopted in a previous debate.

When the story on Bill C-21 is reviewed in years to come, it will be seen as one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of this House. Parliamentarians will treat it as a case study on how not to proceed with important pieces of legislation.
Briefly, I want to recall the events starting with March 20, 1990 when we received a message from the Senate telling us that it was insisting on the passage of its amendments to Bill C-21, the unemployment insurance legislation. These amendments were the same ones that were either amended or rejected by the Conservative majority in this House on March 13, 1990.
Instead of dealing with the latest message from the Senate in a substantive way, the government House leader attempted to resolve his political problem by appealing to the Speaker on what cannot be assessed as anything else but spurious procedural grounds. There was nothing before the House, yet he rose on a point of order.
He was allowed to put a long diatribe on the record, contesting the validity of the acceptability of the amendments, and wanted the Speaker to rule them out of order, but the Speaker refused to bail him out. We are now back in the same position that we were in more than
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a month ago, that is debating the message with amendments that are in order.
The government now proposes to send another message to the Senate, a copy of which will be appended to today's minutes for those who have time and want to read them. They will find that the government is telling senators that it agrees with a few of the amendments but disagrees with most of them.
I could not find any precedent over the weekend of how the House of Commons responds to messages from the Senate. There is no precedent for the procedure now being proposed by the government House leader. I looked in Beauchesne and found that citation 814 describes the procedure for dealing with Senate amendments. It reads as follows:
814. When the House of Commons does not agree to the Senate amendments, it adopts a motion which states reasons for its disagreement. This is communicated to the Senate.
We did this on March 13. Beauchesne goes on:
If the Senators persist in their amendments, they send a message
informing the House of this fact.
We received that message, as I said, on March 20. Beauchesne continues:
Upon this, -
That is, receipt of the message from the Senate:
- the House either accepts the amendments or adopts a motion requesting a conference to which each House appoints Members; and a date is fixed for their meeting.
That is part of citation 814. The options provided by Beauchesne when the Senate insists are to either accept the amendments or request a conference.
We cannot go on with this kind of ping-pong game, messages flying from the Senate to the House of Commons, and back and forth. Maybe badminton is a better example than ping-pong; nevertheless, it sounds to me as if we are into a process of tit for tat. That has to come to an end some time.
I would like to continue with the citation from Beauchesne to describe what happens if no agreement is reached at the conference which, in our view, should be called and asked for by the House. I read from Beau-chesne's fifth edition, at page 241:
Should they again disagree, the House may accept the amendments
or the Senate may withdraw them, but when neither of these courses is
followed, no further action is taken on the bill.
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That is the process that has been with us for more than 100 years, and that is the way things usually work out.
It is well described in, I think, Standing Order 57 and in Beauchesne's fifth edition under the heading "Appendix 1, Forms and Formulae", page 283, where the forms which would be used in this event can be found.
This procedure of holding a conference is one that the government House leader is desperately trying to avoid. Although it is provided for in our Standing Orders and is found in all the authorities, the government wants nothing to do with it. It even suggests that this is antiquated procedure not in keeping with modern parliamentary practice. I would say bunk to that. The truth is that though conferences have been available since Confederation, they were first used only at the turn of the century and have been used sometimes since then. Those who are not familiar with the process could look it up. I could give them a long speech as I have all kinds of notes on the conference and how it should be held and how it is to be proposed. But I will not dwell on that today because this may get the government all excited and disturbed.
I want to get back to the message. The government House leader has argued in the House against amendments 5(a), 5(b), 7 and 9 on various grounds. I submit humbly that all his arguments are invalid.
The minister asserts that the amendments are contrary to the principle of the bill. A bill may have only one principle. Otherwise amendments to the clauses would be in order at second reading if it had several principles.
As stated in Beauchesne's, citation 764, subparagraph 3: "The principle of a bill is stated in its long title". The government House leader seemed to think that a bill can have several principles. For example, at page 10140 of Hansard, he speaks of a "major principle of Bill C-21" and alluded there were others. He stated that amendments 7 and 9 "are clearly contrary to that principle of the bill". However, he then says, and I quote: "For the Senate to insist upon amendments that essentially undo or negate the principles of Bill C-21-" and he goes on. There cannot be any more than one principle.

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I ask the minister, since he used the plural, how many principles does this bill have? If a bill can have more than one principle it follows that it should be possible to vote, "no" to one principle on second reading, and "yes" to another, if he could only find them. There is only one principle.
The Speaker himself in his decision stated that the principle of Bill C-21 is to discontinue government support of the unemployment insurance account. That is one principle that is within the bill.
If you read Bill C-21, there is more to it than that. Many clauses of the bill, if we had to deal with only the principle enunciated the other day, would have to be removed from Bill C-21. For example, those dealing with training and development, retraining programs, and all kinds of other things which do not have anything to do with discontinuing government support of the unemployment insurance account.
Unless we return to the time tested proposition that a bill has only one principle, that the Flouse votes on only one principle at second reading, the whole legislative process would be chaotic and meaningless.
As Beauchesne's states, the principle is stated in the long title of the bill. The long title of Bill C-21 reads:
An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the
Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act.
That is what this House undertook to consider when it gave Bill C-21 second reading.

According to the Government House Leader, Madam Speaker, the Senate amendments fly in the face of the government's budget policies. He argues that the bill is based on government budget policies approved by the House, and he maintains that the Senate does not have the constitutional authority to amend it. What a strange argument, Madam Speaker. The minister claims that the budget vote carries a number of consequences. In his remarks he stated that the vote on the budget was tantamount to automatic clearance to collect taxes. Not true. Taxes are levied against the population, not by a budget resolution but through the legislative process by acts of Parliament. We have no statute like Britain's Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1913. The minister may have drawn inspiration from that legislation, but we do not have anything like it in Canada, it is a British statute.
Never has anyone dared to suggest that it applies to Canada.
Then, the Minister claimed that in the case of a budget motion, it is unconstitutional for the Senate to amend Bill C-21 through amendments 5(a), 5(b), 7 and 9.
Madam Speaker, based on that reasonning, had the Senate simply rejected Bill C-21, those amendments would still have been unconstitutional. Even the Minister did not venture to state that openly. However, it is perfectly obvious that those amendments run contrary to the approved budgetary policies of the government. The same holds true for amendments made by the House, Madam Speaker.
Of course, the government House leader is of the opinion that the simplest budget motion referred to in the Standing Orders has an enormous constitutional impact. According to him, that allows the government to levy taxes. That changes the Constitutional Act of 1867, making it possible to force the Senate to adopt all bills relating to budgetary policies as they are approved by the House of Commons.
Madam Speaker, that confines that House to amending money bills. Is there the slightest hint of truth in what the government is saying?

I want to allude to the procedure that was followed prior to December 1968 because it is important. At that time the Minister of Finance presented his budget statement on the motion that the Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into a committee of Ways and Means. If after the budget debate that motion carried, the House went into the committee of Ways and Means to consider the several Ways and Means motions tabled by the Minister of Finance at the end of his statement. When a Ways and Means motion had been carried in committee, a bill to give legal effect to the motion was formulated by the minister. Thus, every tax bill originated in the House of Commons as required by Section 53 of the Constitutional Act, 1867.
The constant complaint against that procedure was that tax measures were being debated at least three times. They were debated during the budget debate, in the committee of Ways and Means, and at the several stages of the bills. In the 1960s the House decided to eliminate the Ways and Means stage. This meant that the House would not go into a committee of Ways and Means. This meant that the motion for the Speaker to leave the chair was pointless. The House provided a new form. It replaced that the Speaker do now leave the chair
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with, and I read: "That this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government".
This new motion has no more legislative or constitutional significance than the old one. If carried, it means that the House has not withdrawn its confidence from the government, but it does not modify the constitutional powers of either the House of Commons or the Senate when tax bills originated by Ways and Means motions are before Parliament.

In any case, Bill C-21 is not a money bill. Such bills must originate in the House of Commons, following a vote on a Ways and Means motion which is non debatable, as we know, since 1968.
As far as I know, Madam Speaker, no Ways and Means motion relating to Bill C-21 was tabled. The minister knows all that. He knows that Bill C-21 is not a money bill. He knows that, even if it were, a vote does note affect the powers of the House or that of the Senate.

What is he trying to prove? I asked the minister to show me where the Ways and Means motion was put to the House dealing with Bill C-21. There just isn't any, Madam Speaker. It was a statutory bill voted in 1971 which established a reformed system of unemployment insurance that we modified by having before the House Bill C-21. It was an amendment to the bill of 1971; not a Ways and Means motion but a statutory amendment. It is not renewed in Ways and Means motions by Estimates every year.
We will never find that in the Estimates, anymore than we will find the moneys required for paying family allowances or old age security pensions. These are statutory programs which the government has to follow every year. They do not come to us with Ways and Means or Estimates every year saying that we would like to have the House of Commons do this. That is an engagement. It is something we do every year and that the government knows very well is the way we operate.
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I turn now to the matter of the Royal recommendation and the financial initiative of the Crown. What Bill C-21 does in the clauses amended by 5(a), 5(b), 7, and 9 is reduce the statutory charges made by the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1970-72. The Speaker, at the time he made his ruling, stated on April 26, 1990 that it would be in order for this House to restore the charges on the Consolidated Revenue Fund that are being reduced or cancelled by Bill C-21. I want to quote the Speaker:
It could certainly be permissible in this House to restore in an amending bill charges already provided for in existing legislation. For guidance on that point, I refer hon. members to Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, 21st edition, page 716 -
It is under the heading of matters involving money which do not require the Queen's recommendation and in a sense answers the question as to the constitutionality of the process.
It would have been in order for a member of this House to have moved amendment 7 at the report stage, for example. It could have been done in this House at report stage, not before. The charges that Bill C-21 would reduce or cancel exist today. They are authorized by law. Nobody is trying to reduce the financial initiative of the Crown. The Crown has an unquestioned right to initiate tax and appropriation bills, but the fact that the Crown has the sole right to initiate does not restrict the power of this House, or the Senate for that matter, to amend or refuse to pass those bills. The power to initiate is not the power to legislate.

Madam Speaker, the Government House Leader is complaining that the Senate's amendments would reduce the financial initiatives of the Crown. Nothing could be farther from the truth, which is that the Government originally mismanaged the changes it wanted to make to the unemployment insurance scheme. It should have introduced a bill to repeal the previous legislation from a date to be determined by proclamation. In this "way, it could have proposed immediately the kind of unemployment insurance scheme it wanted, and the royal recommendation would have accompanied a new bill which would have been binding on both of the House of Commons and the Senate. But the Govern-

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ment botched up the whole thing. It has been stuck ever since in a procedural mess and has made fruitless efforts to regain some credibility and remedy the situation.
Madam Speaker, you will remember that the Speaker of the House himself had referred in a moving fashion to the Act of Parliament of 1911. Since this British statute was deemed relevant, allow me to make a few short comments on this legislation.

Let us suppose, Madam Speaker, that we have in Canada a comparable law. Would its provisions concerning money bills have helped the government get Bill C-21 enacted? They would not. The Parliament Act, 1911, defines money bills very precisely.
Money bills are those that tax, appropriate money, authorize borrowing. Nothing other than those specified matters may be included. Bill C-21 is not a money bill. Erskine May's twenty-first edition, page 751, defines a money bill and I refer members to that quotation.
Madam Speaker, I see you are going to rise and tell me that my time is up. I tell you, Madam Speaker, the government is on the wrong line of this one. I think it should accept the message from the Senate, go with it and have a better bill. I only wish that it would come to its senses.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On question and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I would like to put a few comments on the record and a question. The previous speaker to the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier who has just completed his remarks made an incredible statement that I think cannot go unchallenged. He said that Bill C-21 was invented in an ivory tower without consultation. That is an incredible statement.
There was a task force on unemployment insurance that was produced in 1981-82 on unemployment insurance. There was the Macdonald Commission report in 1985. The Forget Commission tabled its report in 1987, and the legislative committee on Bill C-21 consulted all over the country with more than 200 groups and individuals.
Certainly it is not a bill that was produced in an ivory tower. Years of study preceded this bill, and the government has proposed a plan that does what is possible today and not tomorrow. Workers want help now, not in some theoretical future. So much for what he had to say.
I would like to comment on what the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier said. I am amazed because he portrays himself as a House of Commons man. He regularly quotes Beauchesne's and Erskine May and balances the Standing Orders on his head. He made not one comment on the Speaker's ruling. It really surprised me that he would not comment on that.
I thought he would have at least commented on the method the Senate is trying to use to bootleg in amendments to a bill which we would not accept in committee under the rules of the House or we would not accept in the House of Commons under the rules of the House. He seems to think that they are quite appropriate if they are bootlegged by the Senate. I thought he would have commented on that.
He said: "The power to initiate is not the power to legislate". That is an incredible statement. Why would you initiate anything? Would it be just for the exercise of running around in circles? You cannot legislate unless you do initiate, so we initiated the bill and want to see it put into place.
I might refer briefly to the Speaker's ruling on April 26 on page 10726 of Hansard:
I also draw to the attention of my colleagues-and I know they will be very interested -on both sides of the House to hear the comments by Sir Wilfrid Laurier on September 7, 1917. As I say, this is not put in as the substance of the ruling. It is just brought to members' attention, and I hope the attention of every Canadian who has a chance to listen or read this judgment. This is what Sir Wilfrid Laurier said on September 7, 1917.
This was his view. He was a great House of Commons man: "Under Rule 78, the Senate has no right to amend or alter in any way a money bill sent to them from this House". Rule 78 is the same as our Rule 80 paragraph 1.
He said: "This House alone has the privilege of dealing with money bills. The only right the Senate has is that of rejecting or assenting to such money bills. That rule has been confirmed over and over again in England".
I am rather surprised. My hon. colleague, for whom I have a great deal of affection, has promoted the independence of the House of Commons and has spoken in complimentary terms many times about this place. He speaks about how we should protect our rights and privileges, but he seems to have brushed that all aside in his speed to approve what the Senate is trying to bootleg
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through this House. I just wish he would perhaps comment on that.
He seems to make light of the fact that we have accepted some amendments put forth by the Senate. He knows very well that this is the normal ebb and flow of views. He knows as well that there was a time when the Senate would get a bill at eleven o'clock in the morning and pass it by twelve o'clock; that is when the Liberals were in power as as government.
In fact, if we look at the last bill that went through the House under the Liberals on unemployment insurance, I think it took a total of two and one-quarter hours to run it through the Senate in all readings and bring it back to the House. It was a same day ruling. Suddenly all these things are swept aside and the member seems to feel that we should not accept any of the rulings that the Senate has put forward. In fact he has commented that to accept any of them means that we should accept all of them. I wonder if the member could comment on that. I have given him enough avenues to run down that he probably will go on for another hour.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, I would be more than pleased to do that. I see the member has done his research and I commend him for it. I have the same documents from which he was reading. I just want to remind him that in reading the documents he must at least-and I know him to be an honest person-give exactly the context in which it was put.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier was talking at that time about aids and supplies. Aids and supplies is not before the House with Bill C-21. He knows that and I know that. This has nothing to do with Estimates. I addressed that in my comments. This has to do with statutory obligations of the government, bills that encompass expenditures from funds of the government of Canada, and has nothing to do with aids and supplies. I addressed that in my first comments and I address it again.
Since he did bring up the issue, and to any member interested in reading the debate that day, the Speaker of the House was a former member for the Gaspe riding, with which my grandfather had something to do, and his name was Rodolphe Lemieux. There would be some
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historical events here which I could relate to my friend some time when he is interested in hearing about it. I know Madam Speaker knows all about Rodolphe Lemieux and how close he was to the Gauthier family. I will not say any more than that.
Having dealt with the issue of what was not dealt with in the debate, I would like to throw back to the member the comment made by his own minister responsible for government House business, on the Question Period program of Sunday last, May 6, 1990, at 6 p.m. I just want to quote one phrase from that because it deals somewhat with what the member was talking about, the Senate's authority.
I want to quote the House Leader on the government side, who said: "You see, the Senate's authority comes from a clause in the Canadian Constitution that says there will be a Parliament consisting of the Queen, the Senate, and the House of Commons.
Now, the Governor General has the same powers the Senate is claiming but everybody would be quite surprised, to say the least, if the Governor General said: 'Well, I am going to amend this legislation before passing it'."
Madam Speaker, we know that is nonsense. The Governor General does not have the same powers that the Senate has. The Senate is a legislative body; the Governor General is not a legislative body. If the government thinks that the Governor General has the same power as the Senate, I would put the following scenario: if the government went to the Governor General and asked the Governor General to give Royal Assent to Bill C-21, and the Governor General said: "I don't like the bill, Mr. Prime Minister". Well, that would have the effect of telling the Prime Minister, "Find yourself another job. I just fired you".
He would have lost the confidence of the Governor General. Mind you, there is the other side of the story. The Prime Minister could call the Queen and say: "Your Royal Highness, fire that Governor General". We could have that kind of fight, but that is not the way things run around here. The Governor General has a role to play, within the triumvirate, if you like, of parliament's constitutional obligations.

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It is there as part of our system, but he does not have the same powers as the Senate. The difference is that the Senate has the power to amend legislation and that is what it has done here; it has proposed good amendments, we think, to Bill C-21. For reasons I do not understand, the government fails to recognize that the arguments we are making are good, sound, and acceptable, and in order.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise and speak in this debate, in support of those amendments sent to us from the other place. I wish to compliment my colleague, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, for his cogent arguments on behalf of the acceptance of those amendments.
I wish to speak a bit, today, about the region from which I come, the Atlantic region, and what it is to be an Atlantic Canadian. I wish to speak about what the policies of this government, including the policies that have resulted in the government's version of Bill C-21, are doing to Atlantic Canadians.
I sat here yesterday in this Elouse and listened to various hon. members, including the hon. parliamentary secretary, and I think that in spite of the number of Atlantic Canadians, which number 32 in this House, sometimes members from other parts of the country are not quite so aware of what it is and what it means to come from that small region of this country.
In our history in the Atlantic region we have been coal miners, in the fishery, farmers, small business operators and loggers. There has been a very diversified but small-based economy in the Atlantic region. A great deal of the work done in Atlantic Canada in those four provinces depends upon the season of the year.
Without going into all the trials and tribulations of the fishing industry, we have seen that in various parts of the Atlantic region, fishing is a seasonal occupation. Clearly because of our climate, farming is a seasonal occupation. Unfortunately, the coal mines are dead and have long been dead. This is the product of policies of yet another Conservative government and I cannot get into the problems inherent in that industry. We have a problem in Cape Breton Island with the steel plant. We have problems throughout Atlantic Canada and Atlantic Canadians rightly, are feeling hard done by. Rightly, Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canadians sit back and wonder about this government and how it feels about them.
My hon. friend across the way yesterday talked about the fact that Lockeport, Nova Scotia could get in line along with a number of other communities for programs under this bill. I ask the hon. member, as I am reasonably certain if I leave him enough time he will probably make some comment, what he sees as the alternative for the town of Lockeport. It is a one-industry town, I think he would agree with me on that, and that industry is based in the fishery. It is based on the fishery whether you are talking about those who go out to fish, who can no longer do so, or those who process the fish in the plant that is now closed.
I heard yesterday from various members of this House on the government side and I read last night about some journalists who adhere to the government's position. They were talking about the fact that the theory that we have called, on this side of the House, the move or starve theory, but they will not use words quite as blunt as that. They were saying that the move or starve theory is one that Canadians just have to adjust to. This is why I say there is some lack of understanding about Atlantic Canadians by some of the other members of this House.
We have been moving out of Atlantic Canada practically since the first Europeans landed there in 1604. Atlantic Canadians are very attached to the place where they were born and to the place where their roots are. I am not suggesting that Ontarians, Quebecois, westerners and northerners are not just as attached but let them make their arguments when they stand in this House. I am speaking now for the people I represent and for the people from the whole region from which I am fortunate enough to come. But to say that we have no comprehension of the economic realities of life and to say that it is enough to walk into Lockeport, Canso, Sydney Mines or Halifax and say, "Well, if you can't get a job, move out", is to show a total lack of sensitivity and a total lack of awareness about what this country stands for.
While growing up in this country, I saw lots of my friends and classmates move. I saw them go to Calgary and Edmonton and other places in western Canada during the oil boom. I saw them move to Windsor, Ontario to help build cars. I saw them move to the mines in Ontario when the coal mines in Cape Breton closed. There is nothing you can tell someone from Atlantic
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Canada about moving out because there are no jobs. We have been doing that over and over again.
This government promised something better to Atlantic Canadians in 1984. It tried to promise the same thing in 1988 with, I am happy to say, a little less success.
This is not something on which we base partisan politics. This is the root of Canadianism and the root of what makes our country strong, the fact that every young Canadian should be able to choose to stay reasonably close to the place where he or she was born and grew up. You should not have to move to Toronto to have a better life. You should not have to move to Calgary, or Vancouver, or Montreal. You should be able to do it in small town Canada, in rural Canada, whether it be Saskatchewan or New Brunswick, Newfoundland or the Northwest Territories.
That is not what we are seeing today. We are seeing a systematic breakdown of this country. We are seeing this country turned into huge urban centres and small town Canada and rural Canada going by the boards. One of the ways in which this is being done is through the attempted passage of this bill in the form in which the government brought it.
Mr. Speaker, I ask you to look at the statistics, the unemployment rates and the entrance requirements under the old unemployment insurance scheme and under the new. I ask you to look at my own riding of Halifax. The unemployment rate in Halifax is approximately 7.8 per cent.
I might add that my learned colleague from Dartmouth is not with us at the moment. He and I frequently have the discussion that because of the small areas in Atlantic Canada different places get lumped in together, and that is exactly what happens in the unemployment statistics. The city of Halifax actually has a higher unemployment rate but because the slightly more prosperous city of Dartmouth is lumped in, along with the suburban areas, the Halifax figures look a little bit better. In actual fact, unemployment in the urban area and in my riding of Halifax is not as low as 7.8 per cent. I merely bring that up for information.
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The entrance requirements under the old scheme call for 12 weeks. The entrance requirements under the new scheme call for 18 weeks. The number of weeks for which you can collect benefits under the old scheme was 28 weeks and under the new scheme is 21 weeks.
An unemployed human being is an unemployed human being. Just because there is a need to make the books look better from the government point of view, why should the requirements become so much stiffer in an area that is generally economically slower than anywhere else in the country? Six more weeks to qualify for unemployment insurance is going to prevent people from ever being able to collect benefits. A twenty-eight week benefit as opposed to a 21-week benefit means that many people who do manage to qualify will hardly be able to get themselves through the difficult winter periods. In Atlantic Canada, because so much work is seasonal, a great deal of the insurable weeks is maintained through the summer months. It is maintained because of the additional work in the tourism industry, in the entertainment industry, and so on.
It is a question of fairness and understanding of what people want to do. I attended a meeting where people talked about stereotypes. They said that Canadians did not want to be stereotyped according to cultural background or according to various and sundry other criteria. I said at the time that we in Atlantic Canada were used to being stereotyped. We were used to the stereotype of Atlantic Canadians sitting on a wharf in the fog, spitting into the water, and waiting for the unemployment insurance cheques to roll in. That stereotype is as pernicious as any other stereotype.
Atlantic Canadians are hard workers. That is one of the reasons they have moved so frequently to other parts of the country. They come from backgrounds of coalminers, fishermen, farmers, steel plant workers, dock workers in Halifax-backgrounds of hard work and physical labour.
I might also add that something that has long been established in the country is the brain-drain from Atlantic Canada. Our wonderful universities in those four provinces have sent people to other universities, to this House, and to the courts right across Canada. They have led the way academically and professionally for many other Canadians. However, we do not dwell on that

May 8, 1990
Government Orders
because we are modest people and do not blow our own horns too much of the time.
This stereotype of Atlantic Canadians just trying to get 10 weeks of insurable earnings so they can sit around, allegedly, and collect unemployment insurance for the rest of the time is unacceptable. In my belief and in the belief of many of my colleagues on this side of the House, it is this kind of attitude that created this legislation.
I recall a man I dealt with back in Nova Scotia. He did not come from my riding but was from rural Nova Scotia. He was one of the hardest workers I have seen. During the spring and fall, he worked in the woods doing as much logging as he could, given the limited resources of that industry in Nova Scotia. In the late fall he worked cutting Christmas trees for export. In the summer he did some commercial fishing when it was available. And in the winter when he could not go into the woods and he could not fish, he would hitch-hike 20 miles into the town nearest his home in the country to shovel snow for people who lived there. He hired himself out as a handyman and generally did any job that came along. If there was any work available, this man would take it. And he was not unusual. I know thousands of Nova Scotians who are like that. They try as best they can to survive in a mixed economy.
But with the mixed economies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, from mid-December pretty well until mid-April, there just are no jobs in many parts of our provinces.
These people work from mid-April to mid-December at a variety of other jobs. They pay into unemployment insurance. Of course, they would rather be working. Any human being who has a modicum of self-respect wants to be able to support himself or herself and to provide for his or her family. That is absolutely endemic to the human condition.
But again, in looking at this bill, it is as if the government is saying: "We do not trust you out there. We know that you do not really adhere to the work ethic that we do, and we are going to get you. We are going to show you that you cannot possibly get away with all the things you have been getting away with for so long."
It says to us on this side of the House that we have a government that does not think very highly of its own citizens, and thinks even less highly if those citizens
happen to come from the four small provinces clinging to the Atlantic sea coast.
When the other place made these amendments and sent them back to us, as was its right to do, I think that there was perhaps a glimmer of hope, certainly among the people whom I represent. The response to this bill in the Atlantic has not been favourable, not at all.
I participated in some of the committee hearings in Halifax last summer and while we were sitting, another committee was set up by a group of concerned citizens to hear all the people who could not come before the legislative committee. My colleagues and I from the opposition side went to that committee as well to hear what these people had to say. They had not had the opportunity to speak to the members of parliament because time was so limited.
The stories from these people about the lives that they live and the impact the changes in this bill will have on their lives were incredibly moving and frightening. It is because of this, and because of the amendments sent to us from the other place, that I think there is some hope. The other place is supposed to be the chamber of sober second thought.
For those opposite who have been bemoaning the fact that the other place does its job, I might add that the other place is a duly constituted, constitutional body. It has a job to do and it is doing it. I say to my colleagues on the government side: "You are the ones with the majority. If you do not like it, change it. You have the power to do so." But they are not doing so. Instead, they are taking things one step too far and taking it out on the citizens of Canada, particularly on the citizens of Atlantic Canada.
When Bill C-21 was first debated in the Chamber, it was not debated long enough. Every member of Parliament did not have the time they should have had in order to make his or her views known and to represent the people of the country.
There has been a great deal of talk, as well, about the Senate's delays. Again, I think that this is unfair. What the other place has done, has been done in its usual manner. The hon. parliamentary secretary talked about the fact that, under a previous government, the other place would pass bills as quickly as an hour and a half or two and a half hours. I merely state, for his own
May 8, 1990

edification, that I guess they know good legislation when they see it.
We know the bill was not sufficiently debated in the House of Commons and we know, as I said before, that many groups did not have the opportunity to be heard. Provincial governments were not heard by the House committee. Claude Forget, the former chairman of the royal commission on unemployment insurance was not heard. The Economic Council was not heard, and so on. It was insufficient. Is it any wonder that the other place, knowing its duty as the Chamber of sober second thought, was not prepared to ram this through in the manner prescribed by the government?
The hearings on Bill C-21 were organized hurriedly during the summer. Again, numerous groups which applied to be heard were not permitted to be heard, giving rise to the kind of "anti-hearings" that were held in Halifax. This bill had to be reported back to the House by October 6. Everybody knows that if you want to get something through without Canadians noticing, do it in the summer time. That is what happened and, with that sort of timetable, the committee spent only one day in every province other than Ontario and Quebec, where two days were spent. That is not very much time to hear the views of those who represent over 25 million Canadians.
The other thing is that this legislation is complex. It is difficult enough for members of Parliament-some of them at any rate-to grasp what this bill is all about, let alone members of the general public, who do not have the resources or the assistance that we have, to grasp what it is we are dealing with.
The major thing is that Bill C-21 cuts $1.5 billion from regular benefits and ends the government's contribution to unemployment insurance which, last year, was $2.8 billion. These changes are radical and they should be given very close examination. In light of the radical nature of these changes, the groups that are affected by these changes should have had every opportunity to express their views.
One thing I found particularly upsetting was with regard to the variable entrance requirements and what took place in the House last December. My riding of Halifax was probably the least adversely affected riding in the country. Without the VER, the entrance requirements in Halifax are 14 weeks and with it, they are 13.
Government Orders
Under the new legislation, they would have been 18. In the long run, without the VER, Halifax was not that much worse off. Ergo, I can enter this part of the debate, at least, with my halo shining. But I am thinking of other Atlantic Canadians. I am thinking of Cape Bretoners, and those from South West Nova and New Brunswick who were adversely affected by the absence of the VER.
I close by reminding the House that we on this side brought in the motion and agreed that we would bring it through without debate and this government voted it down. This is something that Atlantic Canadians will remember. They will remember it along with the theory that they do not want to work and that they are still sitting on the wharf whittling and waiting for the cheques to come in. They will remember for a long, long time.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, may I just put a few facts on the table for consideration.
The member spoke at length about the hearing process, the number of cities visited and the number of witnesses heard at committee hearings. She should know that her colleague, the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace, suggested every city that we travelled in Canada. In fact, she should know that we wanted to travel three weeks before he would agree. In other words, we had a date set very soon after the House rose on which we wanted to begin to travel. He said: "No, no." He did not want to begin to travel until August. That was his determination, backed up by the member from the NDP. So, do not blame us for not travelling enough. Every witness heard was agreed to by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace. Do not tell us that they could not be heard. We did everything we could to hear as many people as we could across the country.
Let me say, as well, the member-


Mary Catherine Clancy: I'd love to hear it.


William James Kempling: It is questions and comments, so I will make comments if I wish.
The member asked what can we do in Lockeport? All the fish-net used in the whole of Nova Scotia-and probably in Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, as well-is imported. The bulk of it comes from the Philippines. It is not bought directly. It is bought from a Japanese agent in Tokyo. People in Canada knit the yarn for those nets. Let the people of Lockeport look into the production of fish-nets and they

May 8, 1990
would have a business that would hire more than the people employed-


Mary Catherine Clancy: There are no fish.


William James Kempling: There are going to be fish, don't worry.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Let there be fish!


William James Kempling: They are still fishing. Let me say as well. All the fish hooks used in Nova Scotia, do you know where they come from? They come from Norway. There is a steel mill in Nova Scotia and, yet, no one has had the initiative to turn around and ask why we could not make fish hooks in Nova Scotia for the whole of the east coast.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: There are no fish, Bill.


William James Kempling: You mean they are not catching any fish at all?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Very few.


William James Kempling: I just don't believe it. I look at the quotas that have been put forward.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member may want to leave the last minute for the person who made the speech to comment. The hon. member for Halifax.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Burlington suggests some interesting remedies for the town of Lockeport. I am sure as soon as the fish stocks are back up they will be interested. I do not think it will satisfy the Sydney steel plant.
I want to go back to the question. My hon. friend from Notre-Dame-de-Grace does not need me to defend him, but perhaps the hon. member for Burlington is rewriting history. I am not suggesting that our Liberal colleagues did not suggest the witnesses heard. I am suggesting that government members made the timetable so short that it was impossible to visit more places.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: This is a debate that will be continued later on today.

It being 2 o'clock, the House will now deal with statements by members, pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Walter Van  De Walle@St. Albert: Madam Speaker, global warming, ozone depletion, acid rain, air quality and sustained development are fast becoming household phrases to many Canadians. Environmental awareness is growing.
Canada is blessed with an abundance of natural beauty. However, it is being threatened by industrial pollutants and human waste which is affecting our lakes, rivers, air and land.
Protection of this planet is a global concern. Our government is determined to provide a leadership role. In fact, it is the goal of this government to make Canada by the year 2000 the industrial world's most environmentally friendly country. Recently, the Minister of Environment announced the details of The Green Plan.
This government has and will continue to take action to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, destroy PCBs, encourage recycling programs, improve waste disposal, protection of the quality of air and water, promote conservation-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry, the hon. member's time has expired.
5ft *	*


NATIONAL FOREST WEEK
Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Madam Speaker, as we celebrate National Forest Week between May 6 and 12, I would like to underline the importance of the forest sector to Canada's economy.
The industry employs nearly 300,000 people directly, while 750,000 more people, including rail workers, truck drivers and machinery operators are employed by associated industries. In 1988, productive forest land yielded more than $30 billion in the value of goods shipped.
May 8, 1990



The forests which cover two thirds of our country provide us with a great many jobs, revenues and resources.
This being the National Forest Week, I cannot help emphasizing the fact that the Government has not yet renewed its Forest Resource Development Agreements with six of the provinces where they have expired.
If the Government is really committed to the forest industry, it should take this opportunity during National Forest Week to renew the expired agreements.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry, the hon. member's time has expired.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Madam Speaker, Canada's national debt is approximately $350 billion, or about $13,500 per person. Saskatchewan's provincial debt is about $10.7 billion, or about $10,770 per person.
Essentially the Government of Canada has borrowed $500 million to commit to the 1989 farm cash flow problem. This money is conditional on the provinces matching it and providing a worth while, effective method of distribution. I am confident that taxpayers would not want it any other way.
Therefore, I would like to urge the province of Saskatchewan to bear in mind the economic position of the federal government and, in the spirit of co-operation, develop a program that will see Saskatchewan's farmers obtain their fair share of federally committed agriculture dollars.


FISHERIES
Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Madam Speaker, on February 9, the Secretary of State for External Affairs assured the House that the government would try to develop new markets for Prince Edward Island lobsters. Yet here we are in the second week of the fishing season with no sign of support from the federal government.
Yesterday, we had hoped to hear of positive action being taken in the development of marketing for the Atlantic fisheries. But no action was taken.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans should be upgrading its role in the area of seafood marketing.
In 1989, the P.E.I. lobster season saw prices drop and inventories of frozen lobster products reached peak levels.
Prince Edward Island's lobster fishermen want to know what this government is doing to develop new markets for their lobsters. I urge this government to take action now before it is too late.


MINERAL OUTLOOK CONFERENCE
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Madam Speaker, tomorrow, May 9, 1990, Energy, Mines and Resources Canada, the Mining Association of Canada, the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the institute's committee on mining economy, will host the Eighth Annual Mineral Outlook Conference at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.
This year, about 700 people are expected to attend, including a large number of senior executives from the mining industry and Canadian and foreign government officials.
The conference will cover the economic and financial impact of sustainable development compatible with the environment, the Canadian mining industry, prospects in the European Economic Community and the Soviet Union, the impact that developments in the mining industry in these regions may have on Canada, and financing the mining industry.
Madam Speaker, the Hon. Jake Epp, Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and member for Pro-vencher extends a cordial welcome to all participants.


TOURISM
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Madam Speaker, British Columbia's lucrative cruise ship industry has sailed into some rough political waters. A U.S. customs decision imposed last year will no longer

May 8, 1990
allow for pre-clearance of American cruise ship passengers arriving at Canada Place in Vancouver.
Since Expo '86 hundreds of thousands of Americans tourists arriving by ship from Alaska have had their luggage sent directly to the Vancouver airport while they visited the city of Vancouver. This new ruling prevents them from spending their time and money in Vancouver before flying home.
Last year, cruise ships carried 350,000 passengers to Vancouver and contributed some $75 million to the B.C. economy.
The Minister of Tourism and the Minister of Revenue Canada should brook no interference in convincing U.S. customs officials to rescind their ridiculous ruling which jeopardizes the future of B.C.'s cruise ship industry.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Madam Speaker, at a time when emotions are running high on the topic of national unity, I rise today to quote briefly from a three page letter I recently received from W. R. Darlington, a retired veteran and constituent of my riding of Delta, B.C.
There is not time to read all of it but I would like to give a few short quotes:
I give you leave, sir, lo stand up in the House and read this letter word for word to the members and remind them that they answer to all of the Canadians of all of the provinces across this country who died for this country in the first and second world wars.
They did not give up their lives in one short day for this great country of Canada to be tearing itself apart.
I wish I could speak French -I would tell the French Canadians that they are a great people and the country needs them. So, from a retired 67 year old Corporal from British Columbia, God bless you all.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Madam Speaker, Canada uses strong rhetoric in support of international human rights, yet as democracy sweeps through Europe and other parts of the world, we caution the Canadian government to pay close attention to the
so-called democratic reforms in some countries before going ahead with large business projects or investments.
Atomic Energy of Canada is planning the sale of another Candu reactor to South Korea, a country known for weak commitment to human rights. We have heard the allegations that despite having signed a nuclear non-proliferation treaty Romania diverted heavy water intended for its Candu reactor to India. South Korea raises concerns about its level of commitment to democracy and human rights.
I call upon the government to urge AECL to present our concerns for human rights in its negotiations with South Korea and make this commitment known to the House.
If Canada wants to maintain its reputation as an advocate of human rights, we cannot allow it to support through aid or trade authoritarian regimes, dictatorships and other violators of human rights.


NATIONAL FOREST WEEK
Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo -Chilcotin):: Madam Speaker, I would like to draw to the attention of the House a unique tree planting ceremony which took place last Friday on the grounds of Government House.
Forestry Canada researchers achieved a major breakthrough in forest biotechnology, producing trees from a single cell culture. This allows for an unlimited number of trees from superior seeds to be bred for special characteristics, characteristics that will give improved growth, improved resistance to disease and to insects.
This is not only a major accomplishment by the government but it has good commercial applications. It is an example of what we in Canada can do. In National Forest Week it is one that I want to praise.


PORTS CANADA
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, anyone who takes the government at its word on spending restraint had their eyes opened a little wider this weekend.
May 8, 1990

A newspaper report showed that Tory appointees at Ports Canada are living high on the hog-and I do mean hog. From sumptuous lunches at exclusive clubs to, dare I say, a Liberal approach to expense accounts, Port Canada executives are on a spending spree that would do Donald Trump justice.
Perhaps they are just following the proud example of restraint showed by salaries in the Prime Minister's office or at the Bank of Canada.
I would like to see the Minister of Transport explain it to people in my riding who have lost VIA Rail service because the government says it cannot afford it. I would like to see him explain it to the small businesses facing the GST because the government says it wants to bring the deficit down. I would like to see him deny that what the government really means by restraint is cut-backs for the rest of us while the Gucci crowd keeps raking it in.


WORLD RED CROSS DAY
Mr. Bruce Hailiday (Oxford):: Madam Speaker, today, May 8, World Red Cross Day will be celebrated in 149 countries throughout the world. One hundred and sixty-two years ago today Henry Dunant of Switzerland founded a movement which has made the world a better place for everyone. This movement, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, has devoted itself to his ideal, namely, that the life of every human being must be respected and protected against the ravages of man and nature.
Respect for every human being, especially those in need, guides the efforts of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. It helps those trapped in solitude or anguish. It helps those waiting in refugee camps, in hospitals or in prisons. Those who have seen their homes destroyed and the loss of everything dear to them depend on the help of the Red Cross. From the drought-stricken fields of Africa to the war zones of Southeast Asia the Red Cross provides humanitarian assistance where it is needed.
Canada recognizes the work of the Canadian Red Cross Society and supports the ideals for which it strives. Its many services make Canada a better place and help show Canada's humanity in alleviating the suffering of those in other countries.
Let us observe World Red Cross Day by taking time to reflect on the unceasing need to protect human life and dignity, not only of Canadians, but of all humanity.


NATIONAL FOREST WEEK
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, May 6 to 12 is National Forest Week-to encourage greater public awareness of the forest resource.
Formerly called Forest Fire Prevention Week, the new title reflects the many human and environmental needs Canada's forests are now expected to satisfy.
This week, the Canadian Forestry Association challenges all Canadians to learn more about Canada's forests and to think about the multitude of benefits derived from their wise management.
An aware and knowledgeable public is necessary to provide comprehensive conservation and management of one of Canada's greatest assets.
An aware and responsible federal government is also indispensable. I therefore urge this government to develop a sound environmental policy which will allow us to both properly utilize and protect our forest reserves.
The role the forests play nationally and, indeed, globally is of paramount importance to the continuing survival and economic and social prosperity of the citizens of the world.



Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, this week across the country we are celebrating National Forest Week. Our forests are the backbone of this country's economy. They are the greatest of our natural resources.
Allow me to tell you, Madam Speaker, that no one knows the value of the forest better than the residents of Temagami.
I am not talking about the sightseers who travel for a day to view the pine stands of the area. I am talking about those former sawmill workers and the many foresters of the Timiskaming region. I am speaking about the many who have lived within the forests, respecting the sustained growth for generations, those individuals and families who once lived from the productive activi-

May 8, 1990
Oral Questions
ties of the forests and who can no longer gain access to them.
During National Forest Week we should reflect upon the fate of these Temagami families and take the time to consider the great value of working forests.
Multiple land use policies have enabled many Canadians throughout our history to enjoy a rich heritage of harvesting our country's greatest resource. I ask Canadians during this week to reflect and come to respect this heritage.


LITHUANIA
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, the Lithuanian MP in charge of internal security, Zigmas Vaisvila, has been hospitalized following a severe beating by Soviet troops. He went to the press building in Vilnius on April 20 to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the occupation of that building. After presenting his documents, a Colonel Fiodorov issued an order to club him. He sustained injury to his lungs, intestines and has sustained a contusion in the brain.
That deputy was presented to this House in late 1989.1 would urge colleagues and Canadians generally to send letters of support to him in care of the Supreme Council of Lithuania in Vilnius in a gesture of good will. I would urge our Secretary of State for External Affairs to issue a statement to the Soviet government protesting this action.
Finally, the Canadian delegation at the International Conference monitoring Helsinki Accords on the Human Dimension should bring this matter and all other human rights abuses in Lithuania to the attention of the conference.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Yesterday the premiers of the four western provinces gave a highly damaging assessment of this government's economic policies. In a joint communique they said, and I quote:
There is a growing crisis of confidence in the federal government's management of the Canadian economy, and current federal fiscal and monetary policies have created the real danger of a Made-in-Canada recession.
When will the government listen to the four western premiers, three of whom are members of the Prime Minister's own party, and stop these policies that are creating a made-in-Canada recession? Why does this government insist on creating a made-in-Canada recession?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, unless something happened over the weekend there are only two premiers of my party out there, not three. But I will take that as a representation, officially.


Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: You've left out Filmon, have you? Gary is gone!


Mr. Murphy:: They all voted against the GST-kick out all three.


Martin Brian Mulroney: He says that they are all against the GST. We will have to see. Maybe we will have none at that point in time.
I read the comments of the western premiers, and I read the comments of the Premier of Newfoundland in regard to another matter. Clearly, you would have difficulty in getting unanimity in regard to an opinion on the Canadian economy from the provincial premiers. They all feel quite badly done by these days.
That is not the opinion of the World Economic Outlook provided by the IMF over the weekend. For Canada, it stated:
Continuation of the present monetary policy would seem appropriate until there are convincing signs that inflationary pressures are abating.
It went on to state:
A number of important structural initiatives are under way in Canada, including reforms relating to the sales tax and the unemployment insurance system. Together with previous tax reform measures and with the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement with the United States, these initiatives should significantly improve the efficiency of the economy and enhance growth prospects.
May 8, 1990

I realize that all provinces and all premiers have matters that concern them greatly, and we are seeking as best we can to respond to the concerns.
The Minister of Agriculture put out a $500 million package most recently to assist the western farmers. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has just come back from an almost $600 million dollar investment on behalf of the people of Canada in the fishery of Atlantic Canada.
While there are difficulties everywhere, it is interesting to note that the IMF has pointed out that the Government of Canada in difficult times is pursuing economic, fiscal and monetary policies that, while somewhat painful and difficult for the moment for many Canadians, will turn out to be precisely the prescriptions that the Canadian economy requires to provide for a period of sustained, non-inflationary economic growth, which is what Canadians require.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the people of western Canada and Canada as a whole would prefer that the Prime Minister listen to people in this country, in this case the four western premiers, rather than the International Monetary Fund. I know that the Prime Minister would like them to disappear, but the last time I looked there were three Conservative premiers: Filmon, Devine and Getty. I am not sure which one he would like to get rid of, but I know-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Lloyd Axworthy: All three.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: I know the Deputy Prime Minister's close friend and fellow Albertan, Premier Don Getty-and maybe that is the one that the Prime Minister wants to get rid of-said that in their obsession with inflation federal officials "are fighting an imaginary foe while they drive us into a shuddering halt with our economy".
So far the government has offered even less to western farmers this year than the totally inadequate package it offered to the Atlantic fishery yesterday, the package that has been rejected almost unanimously by the people of Atlantic Canada.
For example, the mayor of Trepassey, Rita Pennell, said: "They talk about rebuilding the stocks, but they're rebuilding the stocks for the large companies-certainly
Oral Questions
not rebuilding for people. What we need is something to tide us over until the stocks rebuild".
Why did the government not offer a realistic program for the recovery of the Atlantic fishery? Is it because this government feared reprisals from the United States under the free trade deal that offered so limited, so constrained a program for the recovery of the Atlantic fishery?
If this is not the case, why did the government not offer a meaningful program for the preservation of Atlantic communities and the fishery until the fishery stocks of Atlantic Canada were rebuilt? Is it not fear of reprisal under the trade deal that made this government offer such a totally inadequate program to the people of Atlantic Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my hon. friend. I did not hear an important part of the preface of his first question about the Conservative premiers. In point of fact there are so many of them around, they are hard to keep track of.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Ferguson:: They're going off in all directions.


Mr. Duhamel:: They're an endangered species.


Mr. Speaker:: I cannot help.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, few people can. Obviously, we embrace all Conservative provincial premiers with equal affection. I would not want to convey any other impression.
With regard to the announcement made yesterday by my hon. friend, the Minister of Fisheries, I would have thought that the Leader of the Opposition would have, while not being in full agreement with everything, pointed out a number of the very beneficial aspects of this important program for the benefit of Atlantic fishermen.
It is almost a $600 million package. It deals with some of the very important structural problems that have afflicted the fishery. It deals with conservation. It deals with community futures. It deals with retraining. It deals with a lot of the important fundamentals.
Unfortunately, it does not and cannot by itself bring the fish back tomorrow to ensure that everybody in Atlantic Canada who wishes to can have a substantial job out of the fishery. But it does deal with some of the

May 8, 1990
Oral Questions
fundamental problems that have been long neglected and overdue for action by the Government of Canada.
One of the things that has been carefully considered by the Secretary of State for External Affairs in this is the increased vigilance with which the Government of Canada will deal with all foreigners who seek to fish off our coasts and ensure that all their activities are in full and rigid compliance with international law.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, this is what the Conservative Member for Gaspe thinks about the program announced by the federal fisheries minister, and I quote: "There is nothing for Quebec in the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program". Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Gaspe, who is chairman of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, added that the funds allocated to Quebec were peanut. I therefore would like to ask the Prime Minister why the government is treating Quebec's fishermen so unfairly. Why are the fishermen of this province getting this offhand treatment?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member keeps telling us what other people think. He might let us know what he thinks. If he took the trouble to examine the adjustment program announced yesterday, he would realize that the program contains several components that will benefit fishermen and communities along the coast of Quebec.
For the information of the hon. member and the House, if they are interested, I have already started talks with my provincial counterpart, Minister Page. In fact, we are supposed to meet this Friday to discuss further measures that could be taken jointly with the Government of Quebec for the benefit of maritime Quebec.


FISHERIES
George Baker: Mr. Speaker, the government announced yesterday: "No more groundfish licences will be issued to fishermen in
Newfoundland and Labrador", and that "fishing should be regarded as a skilled profession requiring a range of technical and managerial skills. We propose a formal training apprenticeship and certification program for fishermen".
My question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Does this licence cut-off now mean that a young man or young woman who just started fishing with their father or a relative in the fishing boat, or will start fishing this summer, will not be able to get a groundfish licence, ending the fishing tradition in that family?
What happens if the full-time fisherman who has not been near a classroom for decades flunks this formal training apprenticeship and certification program?
It is not the fishermen who need training, it is this minister and his officials who need the training.
Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans): Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised, given the record of that party while it was in power, that it is looking at fishermen as people who have no qualifications, people who have nothing except to go out there and fish.
We believe in the fishermen of Atlantic Canada. We believe in the fishermen of Newfoundland. This suggestion for the professionalization and certification project was made to this government by the fishermen in his backyard, in Newfoundland and Labrador.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, the fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador think that this program is an insult.
In order to add insult to injury, the Minister of Fisheries announces a lot of money now to try to find out what seals eat. Well, Mr. Speaker, the fishermen have told him what seals eat, and it ain't turnips.
Why did the minister announce yesterday: "Canadians have had difficulty locating and catching commercial quantities of turbot in the northern waters, 2J and 3K, even though Soviet and other East Bloc countries harvest these stocks on a regular basis"? Does the minister realize that we have harvested that stock for hundreds of years before the Soviets even knew what a boat looked like?
May 8, 1990

Why is the minister issuing these foreign licences for that zone in this year for Canadian quotas of turbot and codfish while Newfoundlanders are being chased out of their boats?
Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans): Mr. Speaker, it is easy to come into this House and grandstand on the issue of foreign overfishing.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Dingwall:: Look who's talking. Sit down!


Mr. Allmand:: Your halo is slipping.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, they do not want to hear the answer. When they are totally devoid of ideas they just shout you down. But it will not work with this guy here.
With respect to foreign overfishing, I am going to tell the hon. member and every member in this House that if there are fishermen in Atlantic Canada, in all of Canada, who want to take every fish that can be caught under our quotas in the Canadian zone, then they can go out there and I will not allow one foreign boat to fish in Canada if our people want that.
He should have been with me yesterday when this gentleman, a colleague of his from P.E.I. was saying: "Go fish underutilized stock". The guy said: "I will not fish for six-cents-a-pound fish because I have got to buy fuel. I have got to pay labour. It is not viable".
I am telling the hon. member that if he wants fishing to take place, then support this program. We have a lot of stuff in there for underutilized stock. Support the program. You will help the fishermen in Newfoundland and Labrador.


THE ECONOMY
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Yesterday, as the Prime Minister knows, the western premiers again said that the high interest rates are savaging the prairies. Premier Grant Devine said that to get lower interest rates he would be willing to see the dollar drop. In fact that is exactly what the Prime Minister said in 1984. When he was asked if he had to
Oral Questions
choose between high interest rates and a lower dollar he said: "I will take the lower dollar".
The Prime Minister knows that high interest rates in the west have cost Canadian farmers $330 million this year. They have pushed western farm bankruptcies up 22 per cent. They have threatened 10,000 Saskatchewan farmers with foreclosure and are pricing our farm products out of the world market.
Can the Prime Minister give us one positive effect of this high interest rate policy on Canadian farmers?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the high interest rates, generally speaking, do not provide immediate, palpable and demonstrable benefits for ordinary hard working people. There is no secret in that. What high interest rates from time to time are required to do is to squeeze the inflation out of an economy because the inflation can cripple once and for all hard working ordinary Canadian citizens. Inflation is a pernicious evil that we cannot unleash on the Canadian economy.
The Liberals and the NDP conspired in the late seventies and early eighties to adopt a policy that allowed inflation to get out of hand. Unemployment sky-rocketed and the country economically just about became a basket case. We want to make sure that does not happen again so we are pursuing a policy that most of the international agencies, most recently the IMF, view as productive and important and necessary in the national interest.
The ultimate benefit of the monetary policy of Canada will be economic growth without damaging inflation to any serious extent. That is what we are pursuing and that policy will throw off benefits to farmers, fishermen, auto workers and all Canadians alike.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is to the Prime Minister.
The question that farmers have and that fishermen have on the east coast is what is going to be left for them. If we look at the farm income projected for this year, the farm income is supposed to go down 63 per cent on the prairies. It is supposed to go down 87 per cent in Saskatchewan and 46 per cent in Alberta.
The Prime Minister's government has promised assistance for western farmers; it has promised $500 million. The government knows that the provinces in the west with declining farm incomes cannot afford to match that

May 8, 1990
Oral Questions
assistance. When you offer something to these provinces that they cannot possibly accept, it is no offer at all.
Will the federal government now drop its conditions to the provinces and give the assistance to Canadian farmers that they need right now?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, the federal government offered to provide $500 million worth of assistance to the farmers in Canada.
We are strapped for financial resources. We are limited. We asked the provinces to assist us in developing a kind of package that would put more money into the hands of farmers. If the provinces absolutely refuse to participate, it will obviously mean that there will be less money to be distributed to the farmers.
We are really trying to develop the kind of package that the provinces want some share in the responsibility of. They want a kind of package that would zero in on the problems of each of the respective provinces because it is a multifaceted problem. It is drought in some areas. It is the impact of interest rates. It is the impact of low prices. It is a variation of things.
We have simply said that we are prepared to sit down and work with them in developing a plan that will improve the incomes of farmers for 1990. If they absolutely refuse to participate in that process, it will mean that there will be less money to be distributed. I regret that. As a matter of fact I am somewhat saddened by the fact that they would rather play politics than really help the farmers. That is what we intend to do, and that is our bottom line.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister. Those 10,000 Saskatchewan farmers are not playing politics; they are just trying to survive.
This government is tying conditions that cannot be met to funding and assistance to farmers. After all, it is this government's constitutional responsibility to ensure that the interests of Canadian agriculture are protected in international trade. Expecting prairie provinces that have declining income, 63 per cent this year, to match
assistance dollar for dollar is like asking a drowning man to throw himself a line.
I ask the minister again: Are the prairies going to sink or swim? Will the government live up to its constitutional responsibility to Canadian farmers and do it now before farmers drown?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I regret that the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party engaged in a typical NDP distortion.
I was not accusing the farmers of playing politics. I was simply attempting to answer the question and outline our strategy for getting the greatest amount of money into the hands of the farmers. That can best be achieved with the support and co-operation of the provinces. If that is not forthcoming, obviously we will have to look at another alternative.
We are not here to play politics with the farmers' welfare, but we really regret very much that the premiers of the provinces are not prepared to share in their responsibility.
After all, this government has been providing up to 90 per cent plus in terms of support for agriculture in western Canada. We think it is time the provinces paid their fair share.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I want to pose a question of the same minister and preface it by saying that even though some of them may have been dropped from the Christmas card list of the Prime Minister, I do not think he is being fair to them.
If I may, I want to simply quote from the communique: "The western premiers note that the 1990 income deficiency is a direct result of international trade subsidy wars and as such must be addressed by the federal government". They go on to point out that the United States government is now providing over $1 more support for a bushel of grain than the Canadian government provides to try to beat western Canadian farmers out of the international market.
Under those circumstances is it not proper and responsible for this national government to match at least the efforts of other governments to keep western farmers in
May 8, 1990

business, keep the grain economy going and not let the Europeans and Americans push us out of our rightful grain market that we have had for the last 50 years?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I take from the hon. member that that is a representation asking the federal government to put in place a contingency fund as the premiers have asked.
If that is what the hon. member is asking for, I will take that as a representation. If he is suggesting that we put the $500 million into a form of contingency fund to fight the international price war, I will take that under serious consideration.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the question I am posing is not just in respect of a contingency fund.
It is a comprehensive agricultural program which meets the international support subsidies that come from the Americans and the Europeans. It is one that will bring down interest rates so that 30 per cent of farmers who are now facing bankruptcy will not go broke. It is a program that will deal with the major problem of soil erosion and the major loss of markets.
When is this government going to come up with a comprehensive agricultural program so that western Canada will not face not only a recession but the depression which it is now facing straight on because of this government's lack of attention to its interest and its problems?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I was merely trying to extract from the hon. member what sort of policy position he would follow, because we know what he did when he was on the government side and interest rates went to 24 per cent. They did absolutely nothing.
I have the communique that says western premiers call upon the federal government either to raise initial grain prices or set a $1 billion contingency fund to offset future impacts of the U.S. and European subsidies.
If that is the position of the hon. member, I indicated to him that I would give it serious consideration. We have $500 million. We asked the provinces to sit down and design a program involving some sharing on their
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part so that we could get money into the hands of farmers now.
The hon. member is suggesting that we put this money aside in a contingency fund to fight the international price wars. If that is his recommendation, I will give it serious consideration.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture who I hope will listen to some reason.
The federal government has offered $500 million in farm aid. Farmers desperately need that money because they have been badly hurt by the international subsidy war, high interest rates, the high dollar value, low grain prices, and drought. All these problems are beyond provincial control, yet the federal government will not make good on its offer unless the provinces participate.
Why? The federal government has the money; the farmers need the money. Why not release it now without any strings attached so that there will be no more damage to farmers and their families?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The answer to that question, Mr. Speaker, is very simple.
Quite obviously what I was trying to achieve was $1 billion distributed to the hands of the farmers rather than $500 million. I thought that with the provinces' generosity and their co-operation we could have put $1 billion into the hands of the farmers.
I understand that this member is interested in getting only $500 million out to the farmers and does not care about the rest.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I point out that over and over again the minister has insisted that the provinces match the federal offer dollar for dollar.
Yet, just this morning in the Winnipeg Free Press the Minister of Agriculture is quoted as saying that if the Manitoba government comes through with $8 million, the federal government will come through with a contribution of $63 million.
I want to know what is going on. Is this a new set of conditions? What kind of game is this minister playing with the farmers of Canada? Why not just release the

May 8, 1990
Oral Questions
money now, no strings attached, as insisted upon by the western premiers?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the hon. member does not follow the debate more closely but rather gets engaged in his own rhetoric.
I indicated in the House yesterday that the Manitoba government had come up with programs which would be eligible for a matching contribution from the federal government. We are at the stage now where $8 million from the provincial government would generate a payout of about $72 million to the farmers in Manitoba. I think that is a pretty good deal for the farmers and for the Government of Manitoba.
I would urge the hon. member to use his good office to influence the Government of Manitoba to come on board. I think this could facilitate and speed up the process very much.
In commenting, the hon. member should know that since this government came into office support to the agricultural sector, particularly to western Canada, has increased by about 600 per cent over the time the party of which he is a member was in office.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Yesterday the minister admitted that some rejected refugee claimants have been drugged against their will so they could be easily transported from Canada. This practice directly contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Canada has no statutory justification for the compulsory sedation of detainees. It is not even used on convicted criminals who are being transported on commercial airlines.
My question to the minister is: Will she table in the House a list of the deportees who have been drugged against their will since January 1, 1989? Will she make public the existing departmental guidelines under which this practice has been condoned?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I think the question and the preamble to it were distorted from what was actually said.
I want to make the facts very clear because I know the hon. member has an interest in this issue. I want to take the time to explain thoroughly.
First, deportations come at the end of a long legal process after avenues of appeal on humanitarian and compassionate grounds have been considered. From January 1, 1989 until currently there have been 3,125 deportations from Canada of which 9 came following some medical examination. If someone who is to be deported and in the eyes of an immigration official requires medical treatment of any sort whether it is because they are diabetic or have a heart condition, they then call in a medical examiner. So, the 9 of the 3,125 could have been examined for any reason.
If that medical examiner determines that some medication is required, it is the medical examiner who administers that treatment whatever it may be.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, the minister has not answered my question at all and I regret that she is refusing to put the facts on the table. She must be aware that the charter of Canada says that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Will she put a halt to the practice of compelling deportees to be drugged in certain cases against their will, or at least suspend that practice until it can be reviewed. In other words, will the minister just say 'no' to drugs?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I tried to outline that there are some safety considerations involved. We have had an immigration officer who was injured in the process of accompanying a deportee travelling back to another country. Whatever treatment is to be administered is determined by a medical examiner, a doctor. It is not determined by myself. It is between the doctor and the person being examined. It is for the courts to decide if there is a complaint under the charter. It is not up to me to interfere with medical practice under the laws of a province in which the law is administered by a medical examiner.
May 8, 1990


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister. Yesterday the minister not only condoned but defended the drugging of deportees against their own free will.
I have confirmed with two previous Liberal ministers of immigration that this clearly was not a policy of those previous administrations.
Therefore I ask the minister whether she can now clarify if this offensive practice represents an official policy of this government and please inform the House why this became policy when in fact before, when we were still deporting people, this practice was not only not condoned but was not utilized and other means respecting medical, ethical, and human rights codes were utilized?
Is this policy, when was it started, and why?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have tried to indicate to the House and to the hon. member that it is not a policy of this government. I would certainly be disappointed to learn that prior ministers of immigration did not call for medical assistance to treat people who are to be deported if such is necessary.
That is the action we take. Any treatment from there on is between the medical examiner and the person involved.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that refugees flee countries whose regimes have no respect for human rights and this government then deports people by flagrantly abusing another aspect of those same human rights. The minister cannot have it both ways.
I ask the minister again, after having reflected on this serious issue, is the minister now prepared to put an immediate end to such a deplorable practice? If we wish to protect the safety of the travelling public, which we should, are there other means by which we can do so without trampling over those medical, ethical, and human rights codes that any western civilized country would like to adhere to?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that I do, indeed, take very seriously, both in terms of the health
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and safety of the people and in terms of human rights. There is no question about that.
I do believe that physicians operate under the laws of their province, that it is their job to practise their profession ethically, as it is any other profession, and that they have a code of ethics. If a practising physician determines that some treatment is required, that is between the physician and the person being treated. I would not interfere with that process.


FISHERIES
Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Yesterday he announced that there would be amendments to the Fisheries Act calling for fines of up to $1 million for harmful alteration, destruction or disruption of fish habitat. Today, 60 miles southeast of Halifax, there are 42 foreign boats fishing in what is called the silver hake box.
Ironically, Mr. Speaker, our fishermen cannot go to that area because the line next to the silver hake box, the line that cuts the two, is a spawning area for pollock.
Will these fines apply to foreigners found disrupting the habitat in our waters when our fishermen are not even there?
Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans): Mr. Speaker, I do not resent being called upon to give a lesson in legal terms to the hon. member. If she wants to know whether someone in Canadian waters or someone on Canadian land can be prosecuted if they happen to breach a Canadian law, yes, they can be prosecuted.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister for International Trade. Yesterday's bail-out was less than expected by the many workers. It only amounted to $130 million and was designated only to some workers, in fact, the offshore workers for northern cod.
Was this amount so little because the minister and his cabinet feared the American reaction under the free trade agreement, or will the Americans now use the free trade agreement against the offshore companies, citing unfair subsidies received from this government?

May 8, 1990
Oral Questions
Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International
Trade): Mr. Speaker, we have never had any representation, not even subliminal, from the United States, or any person in the United States, about our programs to assist Canadian fishermen.
I was very pleased to notice the reaction of Richard Cashin, President of Fishermen's Food and Allied Workers Union, who was very supportive of the program announced yesterday. Of course, he had some criticism but he was balanced in his criticism, not like the opposition who are unable to see anything good in any announcement the government makes. Even $584 million does not earn any appreciation from the opposition.
I quote from an official release which states:
Valcourt's recognition of compensation for fishermen was encouraging.
Mr. Cashin feels the Inshore Council will be encouraged by the emphasis put on bona fide fishermen.
That is what the leaders of the fishermen say, unlike the spurious allegations and nonsensical criticisms of members opposite.


SOCIAL PROGRAMS
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon -Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State for Seniors.
In the last budget the New Horizons program was allocated $15 million. Although it was not raised from the previous year, at least seniors were happy there were not any cuts, as has happened with so many other social programs.
My office has been informed that the Minister of National Health and Welfare has secretly and unilaterally cut $4 million, over 25 per cent from this very valuable program.


Some hon. members:: Shame!


Chris Axworthy: Will the Minister of State for Seniors explain why this important program for seniors has been cut after the budget
allocation has been made? Could she also explain why only one province has been exempted from these cuts?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I wish to confirm that senior citizens will remain a priority for this government, that the programs we have put in place since 1984 are being maintained, and that as the Minister of State for Seniors, I fully intend to continue to consult this group and estabish programs appropriate to their needs.
Of course, it is only common sense to evaluate programs and adjust them to changing needs. To this government, the elderly are first class citizens, and we want to work with these people and set up programs, once an assessment has been made.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the minister ignored both questions, but I want to ask her whether or not she can confirm that this $4 million has been taken out of the New Horizons program.
Can she also indicate whether or not she feels that Solange Denis and the other seniors from across Canada have to come to Parliament Hill once again to demonstrate in order to be treated with fairness and dignity?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, as a government, we can say that today, our seniors have three times as much in the way of programs as they did when we came to power in 1984. The reason they came here on the Hill to demand their rights is that, unfortunately, any information that comes from the other side, whether we are talking about the goods and services tax or any other legislation, is given a demagogical twist. I repeat, what we must do is consider seniors as first class citizens and treat them as equals. We can talk about funding cuts, but in any case, we are maintaining our programs for senior citizens.
May 8, 1990


BILL C-21
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton -Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
In my riding and in all high-unemployment ridings, workers are being penalized because they are being asked to work the same number of weeks to qualify for unemployment insurance as they do in high-growth and high-employment areas of this country.
Can the minister bring us up to date on Bill C-21, and state whether or not this question will be addressed in this bill?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I certainly thank the hon. member for this question.
This is a concern that is shared by many members of the House and by many members of the public. Bill C-21 makes the variable entrance requirement a permanent part of the unemployment insurance system, something that past governments lacked the foresight to do.
I would remind hon. members that the VER situation will become increasingly worse until we have Bill C-21 in place. Not only does Bill C-21 provide for VER as a permanent feature of the program, but it also includes $800 million in training and adjustment money which will be of assistance to the hon. member's riding and in his region.


FISHERIES
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe -Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, and I suspect on behalf of the NDP, that if the minister will bring a variable entrance requirement bill to the House, we will pass it in 10 minutes.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister and it concerns the $586 million fisheries adjustment program announced by the Minister of Fisheries.
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Yesterday, the hon. member for Beausejour asked the government to tell Parliament and all Canadians how much of the $586 million in question is new money, how much of it comes out of the current UIC fund and how much of it comes from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
Canadians know this is a five-year program, and Atlantic Canadians know it does not apply to every region. They are now waiting to find out whether substantial portions of the fund are going to come out of existing Atlantic development programs. We want to know just how big a qharade is being pulled by this government.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, obviously the package must not be too bad.
It is so big that the hon. member wants to know whether we had to take money from other programs in Atlantic Canada to fund it. The answer is no. This is new money.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I then put the following proposition to the minister.
Does he and the government accept-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Question!


Brian Vincent Tobin: There will be a question, Mr. Prime Minister, hold on to your shorts.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member could put his question.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Surely the government accepts that the current crisis in the Atlantic fishery is a consequence of government mismanagement, not fishermen's mismanagement. If the minister accepts that premise, will he now tell the House of Commons why he is telling people in fishing communities in Atlantic Canada that they must find alternate means of employment for themselves or resettle? The crisis is a consequence of government mismanagement, not mismanagement by fishermen and plant workers themselves.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, this rhetoric is quite similar to some I heard Sunday night. The hon. member may want

May 8, 1990
Government Orders
to blame people and try to blame previous governments, but the fact is-


Brian Vincent Tobin: You are blaming the fishermen.


Bernard Valcourt: No, I have never blamed the fishermen. Some fishermen have overfished. Foreigners have overfished. We have a problem there. We are trying to work with the people in place.
I know it is not to the liking of the member to see this government working with the people positively, but I am sorry, that is the way we work.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The Elouse resumed consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act; and on the amendment of Mrs. McDougall (p. 11064); and the amendment of Mr. Fisher (p. 11109).
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: At two
o'clock, there were five minutes remaining in the question and comment period following the speech of the hon. member for Halifax. Are there further questions or comments? The hon. member for Kamloops.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I did not finish my comments.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. for Halifax.


Mary Catherine Clancy: I thank you for your indulgence, Madam Speaker, as I had not yet completed my comments with regard to the comments of the hon. member for Burlington. Particularly after the exchanges in Question Period, I wanted to thank the hon. member again for his suggestion that the town of Lockeport get into the business of making fish-nets and fish-hooks.
After listening to the comments of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the questions from my colleagues regarding the overfishing by foreign fleets and the depletion of fishstocks, and the Minister's answer about Atlantic fishermen who are, according to him,
refusing to fish, I wonder if my hon. friend from Burlington still feels that there would be a viable business for the people of Lockeport, and possibly the people of Canso, making fish-nets and fish-hooks.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, if I may respond to the hon. member, certainly, there is an opportunity there. I know that business fairly well. My son is involved in it on the west coast so I speak from a good deal of experience.


Mary Catherine Clancy: They have more fish there.


William James Kempling: The part that bothers me is that the hon. member seems to try to convey that there are no fish at all. Fishermen are still fishing, quotas have been given out, and they are catching their quotas. There are not as many fish. We know that. Was it our government's fault? I do not know.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Yes.


William James Kempling: What about previous governments? Has there been overfishing by our fishermen? Are they selling them over the side and not reporting it? There are a thousand games played and the member knows it.
I think that anytime there is a difficult economic situation, employment can be found. The member talked about villages being abandoned and so forth. Where did the people who came to Nova Scotia come from? They came from Scotland where there was no work.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Where they were cleared out to be replaced by sheep.


William James Kempling: They came from Ireland where there was a potato famine. They came from Iceland, Germany, the Ukraine, Poland, and all over the world. Why? Because there was nothing there and there is something here.


Mary Catherine Clancy: And they thought they had a better life and they want to stay.


William James Kempling: That is their decision. It is not necessarily our responsibility.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Move or starve!


Coline M. Campbell: Madam Speaker, I would only say to the Parliamentary Secretary that there are many people in my area who feel there is a renewable resource there, that they do not have to leave, and that, if this government was doing a good job of administering the fisheries, they would not be leaving. It is just like those people in the west who are giving up their farms because they are not getting the assistance

May 8, 1990

that is needed. This government has decided to be afraid of a free trade agreement with a country that would kill us everytime we turn around if it could in terms of trade.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member for South West Nova might accept that the Chair reminds her that the question and comments are following the speech of the hon. member for Halifax, and not the question and comments made by the hon. member for Burlington.
There is a minute left for the hon. member.


Coline M. Campbell: Madam Speaker, I will get to the question for my colleague, the hon. member for Halifax. But, in asking the question of my colleague, I am sure that I can enlighten the hon. member regarding those terrible questions he tried to put a few minutes ago.
Coming from Halifax, I am sure the hon. member realizes the effect in the Halifax area of such a depressed fishery and the lack of direction the government is giving to it. It is having its effect even in the Halifax area in terms of the economy. Looking at figures showing the amount of money lost because of the fishery and the misdirection of this fishery, it has to be affecting the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth, the capital of the province. I would like the hon. member to comment on whether or not our people are having to go to Halifax or further to find jobs.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: A very short comment from the hon. member for Halifax.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from South West Nova for her comment. As a fellow Nova Scotian, I do understand. Indeed, this will have major effects on my riding of Halifax, and on the neighbouring riding of Dartmouth. These cutbacks in unemployment insurance in the hon. member's riding and some of the other more rural ridings of Nova Scotia and the government's policy of move or starve will cause many people to move to the Halifax area. They will be no better off because of the cutbacks in UI in Halifax. The City of Halifax municipal social services and provincial social services, already overstressed, will be overstressed
Government Orders
to the breaking point. The reaction of the people of Nova Scotia, in general, is horrendous.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate today in support of the motion of the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
We have to go back a little in history to take a clear look at what we are doing as a party and what we are attempting to do with Bill C-21.
In the Throne Speech last year, we set out our intention to build a strong economy. We intended to put Bill C-21 into that sense of building a strong economy and building an economy that responds to the needs of the 1990s and into the year 2000.
The reason we are going in this direction is quite simply this. In 1984, when we took office, we made a commitment to the Canadian people that we were going to take the country in a direction that had been missing for many years under previous administrations. We in fact did that. In checking the record of what we had done between 1984 and 1988, Canada has had the strongest economy in the world. Between 1984 and 1988, we ranked number two in terms of growth in the world behind just one country, Japan. That clearly illustrates that we are doing the right things, going in the right direction, and doing the things that Canadians elected us to do.
This holds true for Bill C-21. We were elected in 1988 to do the right things and to do the things that would put Canada number one in the world in relation to growth, our ability to do things for ourselves, and training for workers. That is exactly what Bill C-21 is all about. It is to thrust us into the 21st century in a way which was not possible under the old administration. That, in a sense, is the history of that party.
I cannot talk in that sense about the NDP party, because, fortunately for Canadians, it has never formed a government in the country and God forbid that it ever would.


Mr. Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I realize that this is a small point, but it would do my heart good-and I am certain it would do the hearts good of several people across the country-if

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members would stop referring to the "NDP party" and start referring either to the NDP or ND party or some such formulation as that. I would surely appreciate it.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sure that the hon. member does know that this is not a point of order, but his wish has been heard. The Chair cannot comment any more. The hon. member has the floor.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, we can always use a little humour in this place from time to time and I am glad you recognize that. I am also glad that the NDP member recognizes that as well, because they do have a lot of humour on their side and, I guess, a philosophy that in a sense has nothing to do with reality.
In this bill we are attempting to address some realities in this world, the real world. I do not have to go back too far. In fact, I can go back to what happened yesterday in Nova Scotia and our announcement in relation to the fisheries program to help the fisheries which are under siege and experiencing a number of difficulties. We are the party of realism, attacking real problems with real solutions. The only way to get out of a difficulty-and we recognize this as a party-is to work one's way out of that difficulty. Bill C-21 is going to do that. It is going to thrust us into the 21st century.
With regard to yesterday's announcement, the difference between the government, the Liberal Party, and the NDP is that we can see positive aspects in Atlantic Canada. There is a great deal that is positive in Atlantic Canada, and we are going to work on that positive base to build a future for Canadians. Not one member of the House on the opposition side, whether they be NDP or Liberal, stood up and gave us one ounce of credit for what we did yesterday, not one ounce. Why? They want to continue to bury their heads in the past.
All you have to do is examine their record, Madam Speaker. When the Liberal government got into trouble in the past, it simply got out the cheque book and attempted to pay or to buy its way out of problems. The difficulty arising from that is that it overspent for 20 some odd years and left us with a legacy of debt.


Mr. Pickard:: Seventy per cent tax increases?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, I am going to have a drink of water while the member next to me here spouts off and it will give me a little bit of a rest.


Jerry Pickard: You need a drink of water on that one. Seventy per cent tax increases. Doubled the debt.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, they were the ones who burdened us with the debt and we are the ones who are going to have to work out from underneath that legacy of debt.
They are attempting to do the same thing. I knew this member would bring that up. I am ready to talk on that.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Please, I do want to hear the hon. member's point of order, but with all the noise in the House I could not hear him. The hon. member for Burin-St. George's.


Mr. Simmons:: Madam Speaker, as usual you are miles ahead of me. My point of order was that I want to hear my good friend put his case as to why he is supporting this bill, but I cannot hear a word for the two ministers over there. I wonder if you would restrain them for the time being.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: That certainly makes at least two of us. The hon. member.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, I am not sure what it is about this member of Parliament, but every time I get up to speak I am rudely interrupted by the opposition. I am not sure if it is because of where I am placed strategically in this House, but every time I speak I am always the focus of a great deal of criticism from that side of the House. I can take the criticism that they are levying at me because it is simply a reaction going back to those years, as I mentioned before I sat down, of that $200 billion debt with which they saddled us.
Before I sat down, I was mentioning the fishing aid package announced yesterday and the fact that there was not a positive statement from those people on that side of the House in relation to that package. I expect absolutely nothing positive from that particular party.
Returning to the bill we are debating today, the proposals that they are putting forward to Bill C-21 simply, clearly, and undeniably point in the direction that that party has taken for many, many years.
They are putting in proposals, via the Senate, that will raise the cost of that bill by $1.7 billion. The point that I
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am making is that historically the only way they get out from underneath a problem is simply by buying their way out.
In Canada, we have developed programs to help Canadians. There is no question about that. We are very proud of the safety nets that we have developed for the Canadian people, for example, for senior citizens who receive old age pension cheques, Canada pension, and the best health care in the world. We are very proud of those social nets. Those are the kinds of social programs that we want to continue to create in Canada. Most importantly, we want to create programs that we can actually pay for.
The difference between us and the socialist parties, and the Liberal party most notably, is that they want to take those safety nets and use them to entrap Canadians. Instead of using those nets as they are intended, to help and protect people, they want to entrap Canadians in them.
It is pretty clear, Madam Speaker, if you read Bill C-21, that that is exactly what they are attempting to do. No one who is knowledgeable about education and training workers would object to what we are attempting to do in Bill C-21. We want to train Canadians for the future. The opposition is living in a dream world. They are dreaming in technicolour. We are living in a world that is very competitive, where competition is not the province next door or the community next door, it is the world. If we have fallen down as Canadians, that is where we have fallen down.
There is not a member in the House who could dispute the fact that we are competing with the big world. Those workers in Canada who find themselves displaced from the workforce deserve something more than just simply money, a cheque. A cheque does nothing at all to solve that problem.
The Liberal party and the NDP do not want to face that reality. They do not want to open up that door at all. They just simply want to hand out money, regardless of whether or not we have it, just sign the cheque and get it out. To heck with the real problem, do not address the root of the problem, just throw money at it. We are not going to do that.
I want to take the liberty to point out some statistics to our friends on the other side. Bill C-21 allows for a 45
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per cent increase in funding for labour force development. It will give life to the Labour Lorce Development Strategy; a 45 per cent increase. Does that indicate to you, Madam Speaker, that we are on the right track? I think it does. It will increase the quantity of training and of skills for workers, and with a greater commitment on the part of the private sector. That is an area in which we have fallen down drastically in this country.
We as a nation spend less than one-half the amount that U.S. firms spend on training. That tells us something about being competitive in the market-place. What the U.S. spends on training is just a fraction of what other countries like Japan spend for their workers.
Bill C-21 will commit $231 million to training in the private sector. That money will be leveraged with private funding. That will bring in about something in the order of $1.5 billion in additional investment for training in that sector.
Our goal is to create a training culture where employees and companies practice development skills on an ongoing basis so that we can remain competitive in that real world, and that we are not afraid to address it as a government and I do not think we are afraid to address it as a nation.
Part and parcel of Bill C-21 is $100 million for the purpose of setting up new entry level training programs directed at young people. If we are going to have a future and if this country is going to enjoy prosperity in the coming years, it has to be through the young people who are replacing us in the workforce. We have to offer them the training that they need to get out there and compete, whether it be at the university level or the technical school level. We must do it. We are putting dollars into programs to make sure that that happens.
I am not sure why, but in my province of New Brunswick, there is a high degree of illiteracy in Atlantic Canada. In fact, the educational levels of Canadians increase from east to west. It might have to do with the fact that many of our trained and educated workers have had to move from Atlantic Canada to other parts of the country. Maybe there is an equation there of some sort or correlation between those statistics.
There is no question that there is a high degree of illiteracy in my home province of New Brunswick. The same holds true in Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. It improves somewhat moving through Quebec and Ontario. British Columbia has the statistic

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which we are attempting to achieve back in New Brunswick. It has the lowest rate of illiteracy in the country.
There is no question that the success of our province and of Atlantic Canada hinges on legislation like Bill C-21, because it is going to address some of those very real problems that we cannot duck. We cannot duck those problems in the real world.
We can stand here in this House and criticize every single bill that comes before this House, if we want to be nitpicking because no bill is ever perfect. We are all mortals in this House, Madam Speaker, and we are attempting to deal with problems brought on by Canadians like you and I and we are not going to solve those problems by running and hiding from them.
Unemployed workers will receive an additional $350 million under this program. That will reach 60,000 additional UI claimants in the country. Another $50 million will go to current training employment programs in co-operation with the provinces, and we have done that since 1986.
The problem with this particular bill is that it is being held up in the Senate. The Senators are doing it for a very simple reason.


Mr. Nault:: Because the bill is no good.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Partisan reasons. They can claim the bill is no good, but they have to prove that it is no good and they cannot do it. They have not done it yet and they will not do it. They can get up on their hind legs and cry and holler and wave their arms, but the truth is they do not have a realistic alternative to this bill.
Let me read some of the editorials from around the country concerning this bill and what they have had to say about it: "The arrogance" they call it "of the unelected Senate". We have to remember that the opposition in this House, namely the Liberal party, are taking their marching orders from Allan. We refer to him as Uncle Allan in the Senate. That is who gives the marching orders. It is not the whip or the House leader. It is their leader in the Senate.
I want to quote what Mr. MacEachen had to say about the Senate as he was being sworn in as a Senator. As you know, Madam Speaker, it was Prime Minister Trudeau who put Mr. MacEachen in the Senate. This is what Mr. MacEachen had to say about the Senate when he was appointed back in 1984:
No member of this chamber would suggest that the Senate should-systematically obstruct the will of the majority in the elected body of Parliament-
That is what he said. He is not a man of his word, because he has pulled this trick on the House of Commons on a number of occasions going right back to the election of 1988 and our free trade agreement.
There is a connection between this bill, the free trade agreement and the GST. The theme that I have been trying to reach in my short time is simply that we are part of a very competitive world. The UI bill will make us more competitive. The incentive is to get further training, to get into the industries and the areas of technology that we have to enter. The free trade agreement opens up the borders so that we can compete. The GST is going to eliminate those trade barriers in relation to the taxation of the products that we produce here at home and have to sell on the international market.
This is a bill that is going to propel us into the real world that we are facing this very day in Canada. I am proud to be here supporting this bill. I am sure that the pressure will come from ordinary Canadians to make sure that this bill does pass the Senate.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the remarks of the previous speaker on Bill C-21. I also listened with interest to his comments about the private sector putting more money into training in this nation. If it does, it will certainly be a change of pace from the previous history in Canada. I have worked for companies large and small. I have tried to negotiate labour contracts with companies large and small. We tried to negotiate for them to take a larger responsibility for training and I assure you that it was to no avail.
Success in the Workplace, the great propaganda leaflet that came out with Bill C-21, makes reference to the private sector. It says: "Formal training is offered in only about 25 per cent of firms, mostly larger employers. Over all the private sector in Canada spends about $1.4 billion on formal training, less than half of that of the United
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States on a per employee basis". The previous speaker outlined this.
The document goes on to say: "The government's objective is to stimulate an additional private sector training effort of $1.5 billion a year by 1994. The increase is needed to raise the level of Canadian private sector training to that of the United States."
Under C-21 the workers are forced, through an arbitrary increase in their premiums, to contribute more money into the unemployment insurance fund.
How is the government going to get that $1.5 billion from the private sector in Canada? Is it just going to do it on hope or is it going to really seriously get that money on a per year basis?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, coming from the NDP, that is a very good question. I take it with a great deal of sincerity.
The employers and businesses, whether they be high tech or resource sector businesses, realize that they have to contribute if they are going to succeed. Industry in this country has realized that for a number of years. It recognizes that there is a problem. If the hon. member would check his statistics he would see that there are many resource sectors and high tech sectors within this country today which are having some difficulty getting trained workers, and they are more than willing to put up their dollars, and they will.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: I would like to ask the hon. member a question. First, how can he propose the argument that the Senate is non-democratic when the institution is part of our parliamentary democracy? Were he to carry his argument to its logical conclusion, the Supreme Court of Canada, whose justices are appointed, would be considered undemocratic too.
How can the hon. member reconcile with common sense logic his argument that the Senate, the members of which have been appointed by the elected government of the day, is non-democratic? Only because it acts against the wishes of government?
Second, when the people tell us that people disagree with the proposals of government, is that will of the people not a true measure of democracy as now reflected in the amendments coming from the Senate?
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Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, the difference between the House of Commons and the Senate is simply that we have to put our policies, our platforms and our record before the people every four to five years, and we have to be accountable to the people. There is not a person in this House who did not have to get out and fight an election in 1988. Each and every one of us, if we choose, will be doing the same thing in 1992 or 1993.
I want to quote from an article written by Jeffrey Simpson about the Senate. I think this will in part answer the question put forward by the hon. member.
In the article in The Globe and Mail of May 1, 1990, Jeffrey Simpson said:
How exhilarating it is for senators who have never contested an election, or haven't contested one for many years, to consider themselves the public's champion. And how comforting it is, should they be wrong about public opinion, to know that they will not confront the public in the next election.
He goes on to quote Stanley Baldwin. Jeffrey Simpson says:
As Stanley Baldwin said of British newspaper barons, senators have power without responsibility, the "prerogative of the harlot throughout history".
That is exactly the point that I am attempting to make. They do not have to be responsible to the Canadian people. They do not have to care about Canadian people. They simply have to display their arrogance when they choose. They do not have to go before the Canadian people in 1992 or 1993 as all of us in this House do. I think that has something to do with responsibility.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to my colleague with whom I have had many discussions on a number of issues. I think that perhaps at some point we have discussed this one.
I have listened to his views on the unelected Senate doing what he says is something quite terrible, that is, giving sober second thought and trying to refine a bad piece of legislation.
Since my colleague is so opposed to the Senate exercising or even being involved with the democratic process, would he agree that the Senate should not be tampered with by this government or any future government for political will? I am talking about what we have seen referred to many times in the paper, that being the stacking of the Senate, which his party is reported to be preparing to do, to put additional senators in using a clause of the BNA Act.

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Is the member so committed to freeing up this unelected body that he would oppose any measure by this government or any future government to stack the Senate using the clause of the BNA Act which would allow a number of senators to be appointed at large, which, if it was done, would be just done for political purposes?


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, if the Senate behaves responsibly, which I think in the final analysis it might just do, that question will simply be hypothetical. That statement or comment at this point is hypothetical because that is what it is all about, having a Senate that acts responsibly in accordance with the wishes of the people. The wishes of the people are sitting right here in this Chamber.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member would confirm that the government's vision of where training and retraining is going is about as confused, unclear and fuzzy as is its vision with respect to education.
You will recall that the Prime Minister said, I believe it was in Halifax last June, that in their second term they would be concentrating on human resource development. The government cut transfer payments, reduced research and development, added a 3 per cent administrative fee on students and did virtually everything to make us non-competitive with our major trading partners.
Will he please confirm that the confusion exists not only in training and retraining programs, but throughout the whole breadth of education, training, retraining, literacy, research and development? I would like a simple yes or no.


Gregory Francis Thompson: Madam Speaker, it is not as simple as a yes or no because of the preamble. There is no country in the western world, or indeed the whole world, that does more for its students than Canada. There is no question about it.
The quality of life in this country surpasses that of every country in the world, despite our problems. We want to enrich and enhance the training of Canadians. If you examine what we do to support university students in this country you will come tq same conclusion. We do a very good job. There is an incentive for the students to work on their own to help themselves because you get the best results from those who have to go out and do it
for themselves. A certain portion of education in this country is on the shoulders of the individual. We are not going to spoonfeed anyone. But we do have the programs in place that make our educational system the best in the world.


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise today in the debate on the government's motion moved by the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
I am especially delighted that I am able to speak on the amendment to that motion proposed by my hon. colleague from Saskatoon-Dundum which would basically thank the Senate for its interesting work and simply withdraw the bill, because that is the fate it most definitely warrants.
Before addressing particularly the merits of the government's motion and the amendment before us, I would like briefly to review the highlights, if that term can reasonably be applied here, of the history and contents of Bill C-21 as we now have it. To start, we must bear in mind throughout the entirety of this discussion that the Mulroney government's changes to the unemployment insurance program are a major part of a fundamental shift in the way income security programs are designed and financed in Canada.
These changes to unemployment insurance are an attack on both the employed and the unemployed. They will have the effect of moving our UI system closer to the American model of which this government seems so enamoured in so many realms.
Despite all the changes made to UI since it was introduced in 1940, many of its fundamental principles- thus far-remain intact. Unemployment insurance is a social insurance program designed to replace workers' earnings during an interruption of earnings due to job loss, or leave due to pregnancy, sickness, child care or training. The burden of funding is split among workers, employers and the federal government, thus far.
It must be emphasized that UI is not a social assistance program. It is not designed to redistribute wealth from the well-to-do to the less-well-off. Such assistance programs as the social allowance, the guaranteed income supplement and, should we ever achieve it, a guaranteed annual income, are designed to protect people against absolute deprivation.


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By contrast, UI is a social insurance program which, like the Canada Pension Plan and Workers' Compensation, is designed to replace earnings in the event of unemployment, just as the others are designed to replace earnings in the event of retirement or an accident in the workplace, respectively.
UI is a program that benefits most Canadians. While it is easy for us who have actually been unemployed to see the value of UI, it is equally certain that UI benefits those who remain employed. As the Alberta Federation of Labour put it in their excellent brief to the UI legislative committee in Edmonton on September 13:
The income security provided by UI allows employed workers to consume more of what they earn, and hence enjoy a higher standard of living, than would be the case if they had to hedge their consumption patterns against the risk of unemployment.
So unemployment insurance is an integral part of that collection of Canadian social programs that sets us apart fundamentally from, for example, our less fortunate neighbours to the south. In Canada we recognize the value of co-operative collective efforts to insure ourselves and our friends and neighbours against hard times, and we do so through our governments.
But the Mulroney government is setting about to change this, in part through this bill. How?
First, Bill C-21 will cut regular UI benefits by more than $1.5 billion a year. It will do this in three ways. First, it will do it by increasing the entrance requirements from 10 to 14 weeks of work to 10 to 20 weeks of work, with many more instances of 20 weeks being required. Second, it will reduce the maximum duration of benefits. Third, it will increase the penalties on UI claimants who quit or are fired from their jobs from the current maximum of six weeks penalty to a minimum of seven weeks and a maximum of 12 weeks penalty.
Second, Madam Speaker, Bill C-21 will transfer the government's entire share of UI benefit costs-about $2 billion a year-to workers and employers. This is a complete rejection of the current recognition of the effect government policy has on unemployment rates. Under existing UI legislation the government's share includes regionally extended benefits when the local unemployment rate is over 4 per cent.
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Third, the government will allow the UI Commission to use up to 15 per cent of UI funds for schemes and programs such as training, work sharing, job creation, moving costs, travel, business start-up, self-employment bonuses to accept a job quickly, and so on. This means that job training programs will be paid for, not out of general revenue as is currently the case but out of funds snatched from the existing UI safety net.
In all these ways the government is cutting unemployment insurance. How will these changes affect working Canadians? The most obvious effect will be that workers will have less protection against catastrophic income loss when thrown out of work.
In its release of October 2 the Canadian Council on Social Development stated: "The government is performing a high wire act with the income security of Canadians in the balance". By making UI harder to get, the government is in a sense taking one of Canada's most important safety nets out from under that high wire and moving it further and further away.
According to Statistics Canada figures obtained by the Canadian Labour Congress, increasing the number of weeks of work required to be eligible for benefits-and this is only one aspect of the changes-alone would have meant that nearly 130,000 Canadians who received benefits last year would not have received those benefits.
In Alberta, 5,400 UI claimants would have lost their benefits. In Edmonton alone, 3,000 people, accounting for $12 million in benefits, would not have qualified for UI.
The massive cuts in UI benefits will also increase the power of employers over workers. Unemployed workers denied benefits will naturally be more inclined to take the first job open to them, regardless of the wages and benefits paid by that job, and those with jobs will have fewer options and will be forced to put up with harassment or with unsatisfactory, low paid, and even unsafe work.
The erosion of UI thus not only diminishes the protection of workers who lose their jobs. It also tends to erode the wages and working conditions of all workers by providing employers with a greater opportunity to take advantage of the desperation of the unemployed and the underemployed.

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In classic economic terms this is called disciplining the working class. It is odious and contemptible. Even when they are employed, workers will be hit directly in the pocket book. Starting January 1 of this year premiums will have risen by 15 per cent costing a worker making by a no means princely $400 a week an extra $62.40 a year.
It gets worse yet. Another effect will be equally foul. Those workers who need UI the most will be the hardest hit by the cuts. According to a Global Economics study, 80 per cent of all Canadians negatively affected will have annual incomes under $25,000 a year.
In Alberta, 72 per cent of those harmed by the changes, that is 51,000 people, will have an income of less than $20,000 a year. A full 32 per cent, or 23,000 people, will have incomes below $10,000 a year and will experience an average reduction in benefits of $1,800, fully 18 per cent of that meagre $10,000 a year. As incredible as it may seem, this bosses' government is proposing to enrich itself by further impoverishing those earning only $10,000 a year.
Why is the government doing this? We keep hearing the same refrain: "The deficit made us do it". Yet the Mulroney government persists in letting 60,000 profitable corporations pay no income tax at all, and more than 6,000 Canadians earning more than $50,000 a year continue to pay not a penny in personal income tax. By lowering the interest rate by 2 per cent, which it doggedly refuses to do, it could reduce that Satanic deficit by $3.5 billion. Let us hear no more about this phoney deficit justification. It does not wash. It is not the reason.
What is the reason, then? Perhaps, just maybe, these changes are intended to help put Canadian business on what the government loves to call a level playing field with business in the United States. Lord knows it is not level at the moment, at least not so far as UI is concerned. Here in Canada 83 per cent of unemployed workers collect UI. In the U.S. only 25 per cent do. In Canada UI pays out up to 60 per cent of workers' average weekly wages. In the U.S., UI pays just 35 per cent. In Canada the average duration of UI benefits is 22 weeks. In the U.S. it is less than 15 weeks.
That is the direction in which Bill C-21 starts to Jake us. We are not there yet, but that is the level playing field that big business boosters of free trade are pushing for.
The government is using the bulldozer of Bill C-21 to help start the levelling. Not only is doing so wrong on the face of it, it is also hypocritical. Do you remember, Madam Speaker, that before the last election the government promised Canadian workers worried about the effect of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal that they would have one of the finest adjustment programs in the industrial world? Do you remember how on November 15, 1988, just six days before the election, the government reinforced this calming message by raising UI benefits and lowering premiums? It is true. Now, just over a year later, the trade deal is signed and the government is slashing UI benefits and jacking up premiums.
Cynical, opportunistic, savage and anti-Canadian, that is Bill C-21. But the government will have its way. Oh, yes, the government will have its way. Bill C-21 will pass in this House and be rammed through the other place and become law and no member of this House, indeed no citizen of this country, is under any illusion in that regard. It may be wrong. It may be unjust. It may be cruel. It may even be a little touch of treason against the overwhelming majority of people whose Canada this really is, the people who go to work every day, day after day, for a wage or a salary, who seek to build a family and have a decent life for themselves. But that does not matter because the government will get what it wants.
This brings us back to the government motion before us and the amendment moved by my friend, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn. The amendments that the Senate has passed to us, while not without merit, are quite simply inadequate to deal with the fundamental execrable flaws in Bill C-21. Therefore, it matters little if the government picks and chooses among the amendments given to this House from the other place and decides that it may magnanimously adopt this little piece of tinkering here while having, unfortunately, to disregard that other little piece of tinkering there. All of that is immaterial when one considers the effects that Bill C-21 still will have on the vast majority of working people in this country.
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It is not the government's motion that I wish to commend to the House today, but rather the amendment of the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn. I urge every member in this House with ears to hear and a heart to feel and a brain to think, to accept that amendment, thank the Senate for its work, and have this bill withdrawn.


Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I have listened to my colleague quite intensely on this very major piece of legislation that is before us today. He has commended the Senate of Canada for at least holding up the bill and trying to propose some amendments to it to try to convince our colleagues in this place of the error of their ways and the negative impact that this bill is going to have on those across the country who unfortunately, because of the disproportionate spread of wealth across this country, time and again find themselves having to rely on unemployment insurance benefits for whatever period of time.
What would my colleague propose that we do? He mentioned that the bill has been in this House, out of this House, and is back in this House. He says there is no doubt that the majority, which is Conservative-catch that out there people; it is a Conservative majority that is trying to ram this bill through-will probably push this bill through this place and then it will be rammed through the other place.
I just want him to comment a little about how he feels the government might ram this bill through when it goes back to the Senate.


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, I should offer the modest qualification that I never said that we should congratulate the Senate or praise the Senate. I said that we should thank the Senate. I think to do otherwise would be impolite, and it is at this point only politeness with which I am concerned with regard to the Senate.
I would note as well that I assume that the amendments sent back to this House from the other place, dominated by members of the Liberal caucus, were in fact discussed at the Liberal caucus and in fact represent the Liberal caucus position with regard to Bill C-21. Lord knows we have seen no other coherent Liberal caucus position advanced at this point. I still consider them to be utterly inadequate and for that reason far
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prefer the amendment to the motion proposed by my friend from Saskatoon-Dundurn to the government motion or indeed to the amendments from the other place.
I fear I can offer my friend from the Liberal Party no solace or comfort in this regard but I can, I suppose, urge him to keep trying.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Before I give the floor to the hon. member, it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Drummond-External Trade; the hon. member for Mackenzie-Agriculture; the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk-Trade.


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, perhaps we ought to remind ourselves that we are here once again with Bill C-21 entitled an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act.
A little more graphically, the assignment of the House, although we on this side refuse to participate in it, is to gut absolutely and irrevocably a very good piece of legislation that has served this country very well for a very long time, since I believe about 1978. Bill C-21, if implemented, would have the effect of doing some very damaging things to the country and to many thousands of people.
I hope that the gentleman from Carleton-Charlotte will pay close attention to what I have to say. I listened with great interest to him, as well. I thought the highlight of his entire presentation was when he spared no effort in praising some great social programs; what he called, and rightly so, the social net. He talked about medicare. He talked, by inference, about unemployment insurance. He mentioned the Canada Pension Plan specifically and then later in his discourse he mentioned the whole question of student financial aid programs.
I like a man who is fair. I must say that I took a certain comfort from the words of the gentleman from Carle-ton-Charlotte because he was in the process calling to the attention of the House a number of great social programs, all of which without exception were legislated by Liberal governments over the past several years.

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My friend, the minister of energy, feels a speech coming on. We are looking forward to hearing from him in due course. In the meantime I would like to say to the gentleman from Carleton-Charlotte that I appreciated his citing those programs. He ought to have gone the extra step and pointed out two facts: one, that these programs were brought in by Liberal governments, and second: that the fight that we have had on Bill C-21 really characterizes what the larger fight is about.
We have been trying on this side since 1984 to stop the flood gates and to hold back the dikes because this Tory government, of which the member from Carleton- Charlotte is a supporter, is systematically dismantling and gutting those programs. I thought it significant that he should have spent some time talking about the student aid programs. I want to remind him that the students in universities and in post-secondary institutions in general are having much difficulty making ends meet financially these days because the government that he supports has refused since 1984 to change the basic financial guidelines.
It simply means that the students of 1990 who will be going to university this fall- some will not be going because of the policies of this government-will be asked to live on the same basic amount in terms of student loan assistance as their counterparts did six or seven years before. If he is concerned about that particular program maybe he should talk to his colleagues and see what they can do to stop socking it to those students in post-secondary institutions.
I rise to speak in this debate because I believe that the bill, if passed, will do some really terrible things to fishermen and their unemployment insurance. Of all the people who will be at risk by the passage of this legislation, none is more at risk than the fishermen. That is why the Senate took some time to propose a number of amendments.
The fishermen of this country are facing most desperate times, particularly in places like my riding of Burin- St. George's. It has 158 communities and there is hardly a one that does not have some direct involvement in the fishery. There is a total of 17,000 fishermen and plant
workers who make their living directly from the fishery in the riding of Burin-St. George's. Many of those 17,000 are fishermen, either trawlermen or what we call inshore or near-shore fishermen. They are those people who commute to the fishery each morning and back home each night in boats that are from 20 feet to 50 feet long and in some cases, up to 65 feet long.
This bill, if passed, would, to use the fishing term one more time, gut the program as it relates to fishermen. I use that term because it is graphic and it strikes a note with my good friend, the minister of energy. If we could only get him to reflect on this, go back to cabinet and tell his colleagues in cabinet that they are very wrong in wanting to jeopardize the fishermen's benefits. Let me give you an example, Madam Speaker.
In 1988 fishermen paid approximately $18 million into the unemployment insurance fund and they received $269 million in benefits. That is quite a gap. It was otherwise in prior years when we had a viable fishery. There are some times when the fishermen are paying in much less than they are drawing down. If the government is going to back out of the program completely, who is going to make up that difference which, in 1988, was a difference of $251 million? The fear, of course, is that eventually some politicians will make a decision that it is time to scrap the fishermen's program as it relates to unemployment insurance. Under this bill, the unemployment insurance benefits to fishermen could be revoked by the approval of the Governor in Council only, by a cabinet decision. It is blatantly wrong that any cabinet of any government, sitting around the cabinet table, with their own immediate political agenda, without reference to the built-in accountability of Parliament, should have the authority to wipe out the benefits of such a large group of people in this country.
I could go on to deal with the adverse impact on unemployment insurance for fishermen, but I believe the point is made that we have had a good piece of legislation as it relates to fishermen and this is no time to do away with it, when the Atlantic fishery is on its knees.
Yesterday, my friend, the Secretary of State for External Affairs talked about the Atlantic fishery not being in jeopardy.


Mr. Bouchard (Roberval):: That was not what he said.
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Roger Simmons: I say to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology that he said exactly that. He took issue with me when I suggested it was in jeopardy. In yesterday's Hansard he said word for word; "the fishery in the Atlantic is not in jeopardy". That is what he said. I know the minister does not agree with him. He should have a chat with him on that point. I do not agree with him either.
Maybe that is the latest code word of the government. We heard the Prime Minister saying that there was no crisis in Atlantic Canada. Now the minister says the fishery is not in jeopardy. It is in very grave jeopardy, which is evident when we see the statistics in the community of Rose Blanche. In your mother tongue, Madam Speaker, I am sure you would say Rose Blanche. But we have found the proper Newfoundland way of saying it, and we say Rose Blanche, but to us it is home.


Mr. Epp:: What we want to know, Roger, is why it was called that in the first place.


Roger Simmons: Now there is a good question to which I do not know the answer.


Coline M. Campbell: It is a white rose.


Roger Simmons: My translator who sits beside me tells me that there is a perfectly good reason for it. Maybe she and the minister of energy ought to get together. I know Rose Blanche the community, not Rose Blanche the bit of contradictory semantics, which is another issue altogether.
In the community of Rose Blanche there were 170 full-time licensed inshore fishermen in 1987. In the winter fishery alone, from January 1 to March 31, 1987, the period when my friend the minister of fisheries says they should be sitting in their armchairs and drawing their UI, those 170 fishermen landed four million pounds of fish. That three-month period is what we call the winter fishery on the southwest coast of Newfoundland.
This year, during the same period, they did not land four million pounds, they landed fewer than 200 pounds. If the Secretary of State for External Affairs can explain how that does not constitute at least near jeopardy, I invite him to do so. I ask the House to think of four million pounds landed in terms of dollars in fishermen's incomes, the bread on the table, paying for the gas and expenses of operating the boat and paying the loan on the boat. Think of that, and then three years later, think
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of 200 pounds total fish landings for 147 fishermen. That is roughly one pound of fish each. That is devastating. If there is ever a time to change UI to the disadvantage of fishermen, this is certainly not the time to do it.
This brings me to the absolutely delightful revelation that my good friend the Prime Minister made over the weekend after he had had a much needed pep talk with his troops in the hills of Quebec.


Benoît Bouchard: Very positive.


Roger Simmons: I am sure, as the minister says, the pep talk was very positive. What was even more positive was his public report of what happened in that session. I thought it was absolutely marvellous if one focused only on what was said.
Let us read between the lines. We heard the Prime Minister say that he is not a masochist. We have known all along that he is not a masochist. We have known that ever since he was in government, and before that when he was the president of the American branch plant in Labrador City, or the Iron Ore Co. of Canada. He was taking his orders out of Cleveland then instead of Washington. The one thing he has never been is a masochist. A masochist, as we know, is a person who inflicts the pain on himself. The one thing the Prime Minister has never been accused of is hurting himself. He never hurts himself. He is not a masochist. I will tell you what he is.


William James Kempling: Be careful.


Roger Simmons: In the best tradition, I will say to my good friend from Burlington and my good friend from Red Deer, the Prime Minister is a-not to put too fine a point on it-a political terrorist. What is a terrorist? A terrorist, a political hijacker, is someone who takes you where you don't want to go. The Prime Minister has hijacked an entire country. He is taking an entire country where it does not want to go. That, in my language, is a hijacker, a political terrorist in the best or worst tradition of that term.
I defend the Prime Minister. He is not a masochist. He is a hijacker, a political terrorist. He is taking this country where it does not want to go. He is hurting everyone except himself and his few friends. He is hurting the fishermen in my riding. He is hurting the fishermen in the ridings of Atlantic Canada. He is hurting people in the riding of my good friend from Dartmouth. He is

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hurting people in Elaldimand-Norfolk. Madam Speaker, he is hurting people in your riding.


Mr. Fontaine:: Madam Speaker, on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member for Levis, (Mr. Fontaine), on a point of order.


Gabriel Fontaine: Madam Speaker, I think we have reached the point where the debate is no longer on the bill. It is now on invective concerning the personality and qualifications of the Prime Minister. I think that if the opposition has no further arguments against Bill C-21, it should cease and desist and in so doing further the legislative process.


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, I can inform the hon. member for Levis that on the contrary, I think it is very much to the point in this debate to draw the attention of the House to the motives of the Prime Minister.

It is absolutely important. It is crucial. It is related to the bill. If my friend from Levis really wants to understand why this piece of garbage called Bill C-21 is here, it is because the Prime Minister is marching to a very different drummer than the fishermen on the south coast of Newfoundland.
It also explains what the government is doing in terms of the closure of rural post offices. It explains what it is doing in terms of the goods and services tax. It explains what it is doing in terms of the so-called aid program for fishermen. It is aimed at the shutting down of rural Canada, whether that rural Canada fishes or farms.
This government has no interest in the geographic extremities of this country. This government has no interest in people who happen to draw average or below average incomes. How else can you explain the statistics? For those who earn $100,000 or more a year, federal income tax and other federal taxes have gone down by $1,600 a year since this Prime Minister took office in 1984. However, for those who earn $35,000 or less-and that covers every fisherman in my riding-federal taxes have gone up by $1,200 a year.
I understand that, for the hon. gentleman from Levis, it is a tender point when I get close to home on what the real motivation is of the Prime Minister, when I take his own words, and when I come to his defence and say: "No, the Prime Minister is absolutely right. He is not a masochist." Equally, I can say that he is a political terrorist and hijacker who has hijacked the people of the country, taking them where they do not want to go.
Eighty per cent of the people have said in polls: "We do not want a goods and services tax." Yet, it is being rammed down their throats. Why will the government not listen to the people who it is supposed to be serving?


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. member seems to be speaking to everything but the motion. I wonder if he could speak to the motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The Chair was listening carefully. I think the hon. member was just about to make the junction with the bill that is being discussed today.


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, I say to the hon. member who is not in his seat, yes, I am. If some day, as a man, he wants to talk about it with me, he can, but if he wants to be a mouse and a scum, he can do that too.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Roger Simmons: I think my comment is parliamentary and correct, too.
I want to come back to what the Minister of Employment said yesterday. The Minister of State for Privatization can shake his head all he wants. If he wants to get into the debate, he can do so. If he does not like what I am saying-


Mr. McDermid:: I don't like being called a scum.


Roger Simmons: Perhaps you should stop being a scum.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. There are two minutes left in the hon. member's speech.


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, if the minister insists on being despicable, I shall attempt to refrain from responding in kind.
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I want to talk about what another minister said. The Minister of Employment and Immigration who sponsors this bill made a great noise yesterday. She talked about how she could not respond to the Message from the Senate because, in her words, it would infringe on the privilege of the House of Commons to implement money bills.
I do not argue with her that it is, not only the House of Commons' privilege, but responsibility to deal with money bills. Not in isolation, of course. She will be aware that, while the Senate cannot initiate a money bill, it is part of the parliamentary process that finally achieves its passage. I am sure she was not trying to say that the Senate has no role to play in the passage of money bills. I think I understand the spirit of what she said.
What I do not understand is the minister's contradiction in terms two or three minutes later. With much sound and fury, she said loudly and clearly that she could not respond to the recommendations because of the reasons she had just given. Then she proceeded to respond to some of them. I note the contradiction and the grandstanding that she was not going to be compromised. A few minutes later, she was willing to be compromised on at least a couple of points. So, first, I note the contradiction.
More to the point, and to respond to the hon. member from Carleton-Charlotte who spoke a few moments ago, we commend the minister for the small step she has taken. She heard the Senate in part. Now that she has set the precedent and opened the door, it is possible for a minister in the House to hear some of the things the Senate has said on this issue. Her earlier argument about not being able to respond is obviously swept by the side, because she has responded on at least two details. I appeal to the minister now to review her earlier thinking, go back to look at the Senate message and respond more fully so that we can have a better bill that will serve the people.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I am glad that the member finally got back to the motion that is before the House.
I would like to ask him a couple of questions about the Senate. I will not call it the other place, I will call it the Senate because that it what it is.
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The Senate has never written a Throne Speech; that is not its function. It has never put together a budget; that is not its function. It has never had to put forward any national program; that is not its function. It has never initiated any economic program. Regardless of this, the Senate is exercising powers beyond its ability to carry them out.
The member has been in the House of Commons for a number of years and knows very well what has happened in the process here. The Senate has proposed amendments that the House of Commons would reject. Had these changes been put forward at committee, they would have been rejected. Had they been put forward at the report stage of the bill, they would have been rejected by the Speaker. Yet, the member and his colleagues are asking the House to accept in the House of Commons amendments that the House would not accept itself by adopting the amendments put forth by the Senate. Does he think it is a proper for the Senate to circumvent the rules of the House this way?


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Burlington.
First, in his opening remarks, the hon. member used the phrase "beyond its ability" when talking about the Senate. We should be clear that the Senate has done nothing that is beyond its ability. Let us be fair about that. The framers of the Constitution very clearly provided that the Senate has a role, but that role is limited. It cannot, for example, kill a money bill. It can delay a money bill.
One must ask, if the Senate was given this power, who took it away? Is it the words of the member that takes away the power? Is this some new interpretation of the Senate Act or the House of Commons Act? The question really is this: If the Senate is doing something that is illegal, why is there not a proceeding to challenge that?
I hear the rhetoric and it is great. Perhaps, if I were over there, I would be saying some of the same stuff myself. But it has nothing to do with the reality. The reality is that what the Senate is doing is perfectly within its right. If the Senate is doing something that somebody does not like, that is another issue. But let us not get the two mixed up. It is one thing to have the Senate doing something one finds completely odious from one's point of view, but it is another to characterize it as being beyond its ability or capability under law. That is quite a

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different issue. Everything the Senate has done here is absolutely proper.
The Senate has a role and was appointed back in 1867 to protect the regions of the country. That is fine as long as everybody is in bed together and the Senate is doing things that everybody likes.
For example, I have not heard anybody say that the Senator Murray has no right to go around the country talking about the Constitution because he was not elected. Senator Murray has had a fairly powerful role there in his capacity as a senator. It is his capacity in the Senate that allows him to be part of the Queen's Privy Council in Canada. In order to be one of the Queen's ministers, he had to be either in the Senate or in the House, and we know he is not in the House. Senator Murray is going around the country in his capacity as a representative of the government. He happens to be a part of that government by virtue of his membership in the Senate.
If there is suddenly this new burst of interest in purifying the system so that unelected people have no role, I will make a deal. Let us bridle Senator Murray and another unelected person, named John Crow. I have never heard anybody around here say that he ought to be elected. He is out there making decisions that are pulverizing my people in terms of their mortgage rates. He is doing that and he has not been elected. But suddenly there is this great urge to have them all elected.
I am watching with great interest how the government is going to do an about-face a few months from now when it cannot get its way as it is trying to do right now. It will suddenly go out and appoint more Senators to do what it says is illegal for the Senate to do in the first place. It cannot have it both ways.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, the hon. member did not answer my question. I found the same thing with his House Leader. I asked him the same question and he did not answer it. I will ask the hon. member again.
The Senate has put forth amendments to Bill C-21 that would not have been allowed in the House of Commons had they been put at report stage and that would have been struck down had they been put at committee stage. Does he think that legislation that
cannot be amended in this House should be allowed to be amended by the Senate?


Roger Simmons: Madam Speaker, I promise the member I will give him a specific yes or no answer in a moment.
First, he threw in some other phrasing that tickles my fancy, as we say back home. He said: "-amendments that cannot be put in this House". I correct him. It is not, that "cannot", but that "were not". They were not passed in this House but there was no lack of capability. This House can amend this document in any way it wants. There is nobody in this Chamber who does not believe that. We can amend it in any way we want because we are the Parliament of Canada. Nobody is going to argue against that. So, first, it can be done here.
My second point is with regard to authorities on the Senate. From the time of its inception, and going back to the first Prime Minister of the country, Mr. MacDonald, when he discussed the role of the Senate, one of the most oft-used characterizations of the Senate is a chamber of sober second thought. It is generally understood that sober second thought is one of the assigned functions of the Senate.
I put to you, Madam Speaker, the following conundrum. If the role of the Senate is to second-think some of the things that this House does-and that presumes that it might suggest changes-how can we give them that role if, in the next mouthful, it says it cannot perform that role. Does it not follow that, if it is the chamber of sober second thought, sometimes it will come back and say: "House of Commons, we have looked at the legislation you have sent to us and we are suggesting the following changes"? Surely, nobody is going to argue that that is not within the role and the prerogative of the Senate. That is what the Senate has done here.
The question that the hon. member for Burlington has put to me, as I understand it, very clearly or at least in sum, was do I think that the Senate has the right to recommend amendments to the House of Commons. The answer is, yes, I think so.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I rise today to participate again in debate on Bill C-21. I would hope that members in the House, when listening to other members in debate, would understand the realm
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and the acceptability of certain comments. I will try to keep mine as parliamentary as I can, unlike some other members of the House in previous debate.
I rise today to debate this bill which is once again back before the House of Commons. It is a bill that has effectively gutted the unemployment insurance program. That is a program that, unfortunately, too many of us in far-flung regions of the country have had to depend on from time to time because of failed economic policies and a lack of government policy and programs to redistribute wealth across the country.
The effect of Bill C-21 is to change the unemployment insurance system forever. What the government has done is to remove itself from participating in the fund. The government has said that from this point on it is going to be an employer-employee fund. The Government of Canada has reneged on its responsibility to look after the unemployed worker in this country. It is a responsibility that has been there since the bill was initially passed by the House of Commons.
What does the bill do? Why are we on this side of the House so opposed to it? The bill does a whole number of things. First, the bill extends the qualifying period in most parts of the country. In effect, what it means is that those poor Canadians from places like Cumberland- Colchester in New Brunswick, parts of eastern Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Antigonish County who do not have a full-time job, or a regular pay cheque coming in, and who are trying to make ends meet for themselves and their families, now will have to try a little harder. The government says: "We don't think you're trying hard enough to find work. We think that you're living off the system. What we are going to do is punish you. We are going to make you find more weeks of work. Not only that, but if you are able to find work in an area of 15 per cent to 20 per cent unemployment, then we will give you a smaller benefit period. We are going to shorten up the benefit period".
In effect, what the government is doing with this bill is ensuring that those people in this country who have not been able to share the wealth will be the very ones who will be nailed by this government, and not only for retraining, which is quite a departure for this govern-
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ment. The government is now saying under this legislation that those who are unemployed should bear the burden of training. Yet it is taking money out of the unemployment insurance fund which is meant as an income support program for those individuals who find hard times in various parts of this country. It is going to increase the qualifying period and decrease the benefit period as well as the benefits. That is what this bill does. It puts the onus strictly on those in our society who are at least able-for the time being-to look after themselves economically.
The bill does a little more than that. When the bill was first introduced in this House last year, in June I believe it was, it was universally condemned by social activists across this country, by provincial premiers and by individuals who work with the poor, the homeless and the downtrodden. The government did not listen.
At one point I asked the minister responsible a question in the House. I indicated that this bill was simply going to force people off UI and on to municipal welfare rolls. The minister in turn got up and indicated that the government was very concerned about helping people on welfare, and that it was allocating more resources to the Canada Assistance Program for welfare recipients.
I do not think that she realized exactly the feeling that she was conveying. The feeling of this government is that if you cannot look after yourself, do not look toward the government to give you that hand. That is a fundamental departure from the way that this country has operated.
This is a wealthy country. We have always believed that we had the resources, the dollars, the heart and the spirit to redistribute our wealth. We have always believed that nobody in this country should go hungry, that if there are hard times they should be borne by all. That was the principle of the UIC act. It was an income support program.
The bill did not come back from the Senate as quickly as the government would have wanted. The Senate was quite clearly doing its job. The Senate is the other part of Parliament. This is the House of Commons. As everybody should know here, bills get introduced, go through the House and then they go to the other place for sober second thought, for thorough debate.

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Anybody who wishes to misinterpret or mislead Canadians into believing that the Senate is only there for rubber stamping, absolutely denies the history of the Parliament of Canada. In many occasions in the past the Senate, when it had a bill, would do what it was constitutionally obliged to do. It was to take it through all stages in the Senate, which includes committee. In many cases when a government has not been responsive to the needs and wishes of Canadians, the Senate, unelected as it is, has tried to do its part for the democratic process.
The democratic process means that when legislation gets introduced in Parliament, by the time it is finished it has gone through all readings in both Chambers, that it has the benefit not just of debate and committee work in this place, but the benefit of committee work in the other place. I challenge anybody in this House to stand up and tell me with a clear conscience, knowing that they would be misleading, that the Senate does no work of any value.
The Senate of Canada has produced some of the most advanced committee work that have helped this place, helped our policy areas and the government in formulating social and economic policies than this place has done.
When the bill went over to the Senate the government could not get its way. This government is hell-bent on pushing everything through. If you do not agree with the government, it tries to shut you down. If you really want to get to the crux of the matter, the government knew that it did not have public opinion on its side on Bill C-21. It knew that what it was doing was wrong. It knew that what it was doing was unpopular. It knew that what it was doing was in effect kicking in the butt those Canadians who are least able to defend themselves.
The government wanted the Senate, unelected as it is, to be like tame dogs who were going to be scared off from doing their job by some of the rhetoric flowing from the front benches opposite. The government wanted the Senate to deal with it expeditiously. Members of the government said: "Don't listen to Canadians because we on this side have stopped listening. We have plugged our ears and we just go forward with legislation. You nasty old Senators who are trying to do your job, unelected as you are, in ensuring that Canadians are heard ensure that legislation goes through both Houses and that the
end result is that the legislation that is passed into law is legislation of the very best kind".
Thus it goes over to the Senate of Canada. The Senate says: "Hey, there is something wrong here. The government is being negligent in its responsibility to this program. The government in effect is dismantling a major piece of social policy legislation in this country. We think we have to study it. If the Tory government has an agenda whereby it is going to tiy to depopulate those regions of Canada where we have some difficulty with employment and, yes, unfortunately, where we have to look for a handout now and then, if that is what the idea is, then the Senate of Canada feels it is in the best interest of those regions that this bill get a full and thorough airing through the committee process and through debate".
I think that the Senate is really there to represent the interests of the regions, to ensure that they are not trampled on by an out of control government which is just concerned about pleasing its big business buddies down on Bay Street, just concerned about serving the centre. I am sure at some point there must have been a debate in the Tory caucus, or at least in planning and priorities, to figure out how in the name of God you can get rid of all these welfare recipients down east and what to do with these northerners who keep looking for more money. The government says: "My goodness, don't they know that this country has to be run like a business?" At least the Senate knows that this country cannot always be run like a business. There are costs to keeping a country together. You must treat a country and run a country like a nation.
If you run a country like a nation, instead of like a Bay Street business all the time, then you ensure that there are social programs in place for those who are most in need.
The Senators saw this coming. They said: "Okay, we do not want to frustrate the will of the elected place, the House of Commons, but what we want to do is try to make these guys snap to their senses. Do they not have any idea what they are doing to the poor and the unemployed?"
Madam Speaker, I represent the riding of Dartmouth in Nova Scotia, and I am very lucky to represent that riding. We have some economic difficulties, but by and large it is a riding which has benefited from being the centre of Atlantic Canada. What annoys me the most about the way this government operates and the way it treats people who are not from the royal south of
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Ontario with $100,000 a year incomes so they can support this government with donations and ads during election campaigns and things like that, is that I come from a place called Cape Breton-


William James Kempling: Silly ass.


Ronald MacDonald: Silly what? I think there was a comment from the hon. member opposite. If he wants to say it a little louder, we can get it into Hansard.
I come from a place called Cape Breton Island, New Waterford to be exact. It is a coal mining community. We have seen more dinner times than we have seen dinners down there. But we are hard workers. Probably I grew up in poverty. I did not know it because everybody else who lived on the same street, the same neighbourhood and the whole town was poor. At times we had to rely on the generosity and the heart of the federal government to get us through hard times. At times even my father had to go on unemployment insurance. If UI ran out, maybe he had to go on relief from the coal company. But those programs were there to help those communities and those individuals who wanted to contribute.
The whole intent of this legislation is to ensure that we are businesslike. Maybe, just perhaps, it is to ensure that there is a resettlement, that we can get those guys down east-who these people opposite think are perpetually on unemployment insurance and are poor because we want to be poor, which is nonsense and gutterwash-to finally come to their senses, if the government cuts off all the strings of support. I think somebody in this Chamber said a little earlier that they will either move or starve.
We have seen this over and over again by this government. It has no idea where it is going, other than to the centre. It has no other agenda than to cut those bloodsuckers off, those people who are perpetually and habitually draining tax dollars through social programs.
This bill was debated at one point in the fall, and I refer to an article from The Globe and Mail written by Susan Delacourt on October 10. I just want to give members opposite an idea of what they are doing to rural Canada. I want to give them an idea of what they are
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doing to areas that have perpetually suffered from high levels of unemployment.
The headline states: "New jobs policy angers Newfoundland. Shift to training viewed as disguised resettlement program". We can all get up here and spout off rhetoric, and we are all equally good on all sides of this House. But there is now a feeling in Atlantic Canada that we are no longer wanted by this government to stay in Atlantic Canada, and that just perhaps we are no longer wanted by this government as part of Canada. We have all too often had to go down the road to Toronto. Years before my parent's people had to go down the road to Boston. Only a few years ago we had to go down the road to Alberta. Now what this government is doing with Bill C-21 is trying to ensure that we go down the road forever.
As the former Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. Turner said in a speech he gave a number of months back: "This government seems hell-bent on turning Atlantic Canada into one gigantic national park, devoid of industry, devoid of hope and devoid of people".
The Senate got hold of this bill. It said: "This is a fundamental shift away from Canadian social policy. Maybe we can shake this government awake and tell it what the impact is". Maybe the Senate can tell the government what the impact is in Nova Scotia where the changes to the UI act, which the Minister of Employment so smugly got up to defend in this House, are going to cost Nova Scotians in real dollar terms about $50 million. That is a lot of money in a province of about 870,000 people, coupled with the $80 million cut in the second last budget to EPF funding that goes to hospitals and post-secondary education.
The government says in this bill: "We are doing this because we want to put more emphasis on training". It cannot have it both ways. You cannot tell us that your cutting is not gutting a bill and hurting us economically in places like Atlantic Canada and at the same time say: "We are concerned about training. That is why we have done it". If you are so concerned about education, programs and training, then why in the name of goodness have you cut $80 million from the Established Programs Financing over the next five years in Nova Scotia alone?

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That is money that goes to training to make sure that we have a well educated, highly skilled workforce.
I am just trying to give you, Madam Speaker, an idea of the full impact of this legislation, coupled with the other regressive measures. We found out two weeks ago that there was $50 million less transferred in equalization program payments to Nova Scotia.
We found out in the last 12 months that there was $1,221 billion in economic regional development agreements in Atlantic Canada that have been allowed to expire. Yet the minister opposite from Nova Scotia, from Central Nova, the minister responsible for those agreements, only put up $274 million. By anybody's calculation that is almost a $1 billion shortfall.
The effect of this bill, if members opposite do not come to their senses and sit down and talk to the Senate about refining the bill further, is not just going to be that a few people will have to move to Toronto. The effect of the bill is real hardship.
I do not know if members opposite who come from wealthier ridings have ever had to deal with somebody whose benefits have run out and who could not get employment. I dealt with a lot of them when I used to work for my colleague from Cape Breton-East Richmond many years ago. He comes from one of the higher unemployment areas in the country. I will tell you that the gentleman from Cape Breton-East Richmond has worked hard on behalf of those constituents to try to bring this government to its senses and to show it the real human tragedy in suffering and deprivation that is going to be caused by this bill.
Has anybody opposite ever had to sit down with a young gentleman of 22 who has two children and is living in a barn in October when the winds howl down off the east coast of Atlantic Canada because there is no work? You tell me that that man enjoys that. You tell me that he enjoys going to bed at night knowing that he cannot look after his spouse and his children. That is the impression I get from listening to speeches by members opposite.
When this bill came into the House I was annoyed. I was damn mad when I listened to some members opposite talk about the abuse of the UI system. Sure, there is abuse. There is abuse in every program, but it is a
very small percentage of abuse. To correct the abuse, as they call it, they have nailed everybody.
If they have ever had to sit down at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon when every municipal and provincial government office that can help is closed and look in the eye a guy with two small boys, four and two, who is living in a barn because the system has failed him, I do not think they could stand in their places opposite and say that those people who are on unemployment insurance do not need it, that if they worked a little harder they would find a job. The reality of today's economy in those areas is otherwise.
This government is completely abandoning the principle of trying to help those individuals who need the help the most.
The amendments that have been proposed by the Senate are truly amendments not meant to frustrate the will of Parliament. They are amendments meant to put some heart and some sense back into the heads and bodies of the members opposite in the government, to try to show them what the full impact of these measures is.
What in the name of goodness are we going to do when people can no longer get the weeks work that they need to go on unemployment insurance, when they cannot get the extra qualifying weeks? How in the name of goodness are those municipalities that are now going to have to pay welfare to them going to find the money?
This government's cut-backs have cut us to the bone in Atlantic Canada. They have pummelled those that need this government's help the most.
I want to talk very quickly about the Senate. The Senate has been trying to do its job. It has been trying to save the hides of the members opposite here who are now down to 15 per cent in public opinion because of their misguided policies. Perhaps if they listened to the Senate, which has every constitutional right to do what it is doing on this particular bill, they would not be at 15 per cent in the polls. Perhaps they could sleep a little bit sounder at night. Perhaps they could come to their senses and withdraw legislation like this and put heart and caring back into government.


Mr. Benoit Tremblay (Rosemont):: Can the member tell me what the employment situation was in 1984 and what it is now in Atlantic Canada?
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Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, in 1984 were just recovering from a recession. Because of Liberal policies people were not lined up at food banks like they are now in Atlantic Canada.
In 1984, because of Liberal policies, which were a safety net in case of recession so that nobody in this country should go hungry or lose their home, they worked. He asks me now what the situation is. The situation is bleak in places like Cape Breton Island. The situation is absolutely desperate in places like Cumberland-Colchester. The situation is absolutely devastating in our fisheries communities across Atlantic Canada.
I hope the hon. member was just trying to fill time when he asked the question because I am going to fill in a little bit of time for him. He asked what the situation now is dealing with unemployment in Atlantic Canada.
If you want to look at the real tragedy in Atlantic Canada, look at the measure that was put forward yesterday by a whole bevy of ministers. I thought they were delivering the federal treasury, there were so many down there for the announcement. My goodness, we had to wait weeks for the hon. Minister for International Trade to come back to get his value photo opportunity.
Yesterday what we were waiting for was a rescue package, an aid package for the fisheries which has been in a state of virtual collapse in Atlantic Canada. It did not happen yesterday. If the hon. member has been in this House since the election of 1988, he knows that members on this side of the House have been consistently standing in their places and doing everything but begging this government to recognize the crisis that was emerging in the Atlantic fishery.
Do you want to know what the situation is now with a Tory government in power? We have the town of Canso ready to go down on its knees after being shut down after 400 years of fishing tradition. We have Trepassey, Gaul-tois, Lockeport and a whole number of other small communities that have lost their single industry-fisheries. It is a resource-based industry that when managed properly can allow people to eke out a modest living.
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This government, which is so uncaring about any industry in Atlantic Canada, did not listen to the members over here. As a result, we are seeing a social tragedy unfold. We are seeing a resettlement program.
I believe it was the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls who got up in the House one day and accused this government of embarking upon a resettlement program. I mentioned it before. It was in an October article of The Globe and Mail.
I must admit that even as a partisan in this place I had my fingers crossed yesterday, hoping that the new Minister of Fisheries who comes from Atlantic Canada would have at least found a voice to stand up and show that he understands the problem in employment in the fisheries. I perhaps got the most arrogant response of all. It was the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program, not an aid program.
What we heard about the fisheries yesterday is that the government has basically accepted that the stocks are never going to recover, that we have to downsize the fishery, that we have to give them the golden handshake in those communities. The government did not come in and talk about measures, dollars and programs to keep those communities alive until the stocks rebounded. It did not talk about that. It talked about the golden handshake. They said: "We are going to retire you early. We are going to retrain you for jobs that don't exist, but they will be in Toronto".
Do you want to know what has happened in Atlantic Canada under this government? We have seen the wholesale dismantling of our economy in our resource-based industries. We have seen an abandonment by the Government of Canada of the aspirations for a rightful place in this Confederation by each and every Atlantic Canadian. That is what we got from our government.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I commend the member for Dartmouth for a very fine speech.
I would like to ask him in relation to his very last statement before the questions and comments began about the amendment which we are addressing that the government should be withdrawing Bill C-21. Does he think that that would be an appropriate thing to do?


Ronald MacDonald: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his kind remarks.

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The only way that we are going to get out of this regressive measure is to have the bill withdrawn. I think that the Senate has done everything in its power to try to bring these people to their senses.
I do not think that the government is going to withdraw it. I think that members of the government all have the strings through their noses and that they are all being tugged by the PM's office which tells them when to nod yes and when to nod no. If you are asking me if I think that it is going to be withdrawn, if I thought that there was anything that I could do to get this government to come to its senses and withdraw this bill, I would say yes. But at this particular point it is in a process between the Senate and the House of Commons.
This government is so arrogant that it refuses to recognize proper procedure constitutionally. Its members continue to stand in this House and tell the Canadian public and members in this Chamber that the Senate has no right to do what it is doing.
If you have been sitting in this place as long as some members opposite have, you should have read a little bit of history. I know what the Senate is legally and constitutionally empowered to do. If anybody on the other side wants to take issue with the way that the Senate has proceeded with this bill, then get their government to challenge the Senate. You know that you do not have a leg to stand on. You know that what the Senate of Canada is doing right now, even though it is unelected-and I want to see reform in that upper chamber; I want to see a chamber that is elected-is ensuring that the will of the majority, the tyranny of the majority does not rule over the will of the people of this country. Thank God for that in this case. That is why the Senate of Canada is enjoying public support in what it is doing in trying to stop this government's regressive and almost totalitarian measures against the people of Canada.


John Horton McDermid: Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech with great interest. He is quite articulate and in his unique bombastic style has laid out his concerns regarding the bill we are discussing.
One of the things that concerns me however is that in his whole speech he was talking about people on unemployment insurance and on welfare. He said nothing
about job creation, nothing about training people and retraining people for the needs of today, nothing about this government putting in more money, development money, to create employment and diversification of the economy in the east through ACOA, which I believe has been universally accepted. He has not talked in any way, shape or form of new methods of improving the situation in the east.
I have been around here both in government and in opposition. The Liberals like to talk about how many years they were in power, how wonderful things were and let us go back to the old ways. They say that we have to go back to the old ways, the way that the unemployment insurance system was because it was perfect.


David Charles Dingwall: Question.


John Horton McDermid: This is questions and comments, as I recall the rules. I am making a comment now.
I have listened to them always wanting to go back to the old ways. They say that the old ways were better. Well, they are not better, and times are changing. With the change we have to change in this place and we have to change some of the things that are going on in this country.
One of the things we want to do in eastern Canada is to develop employment for people. That is very important. That is why ACOA was set up. That is why we have training and retraining programs to bring people into the mainstream.
People in eastern Canada are no different from people anywhere else in Canada. They do not want to be on unemployment insurance and they do not want to be on welfare. They want a job. That is what this government is dedicated to do.
Why does the hon. member not stand up and give some positive ideas of how the economy can be diversified in eastern Canada rather than standing up here and whining and moaning about unemployment insurance and welfare, like he does day in and day out?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The period for questions and comments has now expired.
Resuming debate with the hon. member for Trinity- Spadina.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, it is very important to me to have this opportunity to comment on Bill C-21 which is now back before us in the House of Commons. I say that because there is a rumour going about the country that everything is okey-dokey in
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Toronto, that we do not have poor people in Toronto, that we do not have unemployed or hungry people in Toronto. As I say, that is a rumour. You can see hungry people at the food lines. You will not see many of the unemployed people because they cannot pay the Toronto rents. They are forced out of sight, out of Toronto. The 10,000 to 20,000 homeless people still lurking around Toronto are not telephoned by Statistics Canada to find out whether they have a job or not. They do not have a job. They do not have a telephone. They do not have a home to put a telephone in.
This piece of legislation is quite untimely. No doubt it is a good thing to create jobs but not to take money from people who have paid their unemployment insurance premiums on the excuse of training them for new jobs.
We know what the neo-Conservative agenda is, and we know with unemployment insurance the primary goal is to weaken the bargaining power of workers, to cause more workers to lose their rights to unemployment benefits, to cause workers to be uneasy about standing up for their rights on the job because the rules have changed for dismissing a person and for taking away a person's benefits after he or she has been dismissed.
What this government is looking for and obviously what it has promised the Business Council on National Issues is a more docile work force where people will not stand up and defend themselves as vigorously as they have done over the past decades. By taking the money from the pockets of the unemployed to do the training the government is depriving the unemployed. Many unemployed will not get the training and there is no guarantee given by the government that they will. In the short term the government is depriving the unemployed of the benefit from premiums they paid. It is also putting those who do take training in the position of having taken it from their brothers and sisters by the government's order. This will mean a meaner and less generous program.
The current President of the United States said he wanted a gentler, kinder country. He obviously thinks that is Canada. That is why he is taking it over, but we
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will not be a gentler, kinder country once we have been homogenized into the American pattern.
The primary fault of this system is the removal of the government from any responsibility, the responsibility it has had for nearly half a century, for not only administering the fund but also for providing input as a guarantee of both regional fairness and carryover in times of slump. The government until now has had a material interest in seeing that unemployment does not become serious.
Now the government, if this bill is passed, will go scot-free and will be able to let unemployment rise without a bill to the government for payment.
This Tory government has shown its intention by holding the present unemployed hostage to the VERs. Instead of the annual adjustment of benefits and the eligibility time to the current regional conditions, the government has tied these benefits to the bill in which it will take this $1.3 billion out of the fund created primarily by workers and employers.
The government will not review the VERs. It is now May and it still refuses to review the VERs. It will not review parental benefits in spite of a Supreme Court decision ordering it to provide them. It is showing itself in contempt of the law of the land, which it brags about. The government says we have a government according to law, only according to the laws which suit the government. As I say, they are holding the training funds hostage. There are no training funds yet because the government has cut back on most of the training programs that we have had during the 1980s. They are holding hostage the entire principle of training.
Yesterday the minister spoke at length about the importance of training. Nobody disagrees that training is important. Nobody disagrees that for our economy to sustain itself there must be training and retraining. What she did not mention yesterday was that the six labour-business task forces that she set up to make recommendations about the new training program all said: "Don't take unemployment insurance money to do it".
She brags about having set up these task forces. She brags about the training programs, but she ignored the unanimous recommendation of her own task forces on that point.

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As I have said, there is a rumour about the country that everything is just lovely in Toronto. In fact in the last couple of years Toronto has lost about 77 plants, either closed or on notice of closing. This puts about 16,000 workers in jeopardy, either out of work or about to be out of work. Simply talking about the number of jobs does not answer the question of how these people can pay the cost of living in Toronto, how they can pay Toronto rents or house prices. A job at McDonald's doesn't do that in Toronto.
It is going to be the older workers particularly in Toronto who will be hit. Many of these plants have a great many long service employees or had until they were closed a great many long service employees. I know from my own experience. When the factory I worked in was closed down after about a half-century of operation, men and women 50 years or older had a very hard time finding other work, particularly if they had a few little injuries on the job. A tow motor operator with a bad back is not much sought after by the employers, especially if he is looking for something other than tow motor work because there are not that many tow motor jobs.
finding whatever benefits are due to them as well as opportunities for training and retraining, training in English or French as a second language and retraining in their own industry such as the clothing industry or for other industries that are emerging or increasing and in which these people might find jobs.
The Metro Toronto Labour Education Centre has found that among the workers who come to it for help the average length of unemployment after a plant closing is 10 months. Out of all the new jobs we are told about the average is 10 months to find a new job after a lay-off. The reduced benefits in Bill C-21 will mean that the maximum a worker can get will be 35 weeks or just over 8 months and that is in Toronto. Madam Speaker, 6 weeks of holidays without pay is not what these workers are looking for. When you live on unemployment insurance you are not saving very much money. Many of these workers are going to be over the 10-month mark, and they and their families will suffer a good deal. How do they pay a mortgage with nothing coming in?
Immigrants and people with very little formal education will be hard hit. The policies of the present and past governments of allowing the people to drift out of the homes they want to live in on the east coast into places like Toronto have brought many people with limited schooling; not all of them but many of them. I worked with them in the factory for 18 years. Their schooling was limited; good as far as it went, but it does not take them beyond grade 7 or grade 8 in most cases. Many immigrants and people with little education will be very hard hit. They will not find it easy to get jobs to pay their mortgages. Of course, once they have had to move out of Toronto, the government will again say that the Toronto statistics look good.
There is a great deal of good work being done by the Metro Toronto Labour Education Centre. On this point I do want to commend the minister for her continued funding of that work. They are doing the kind of work that the minister and the government and members on this side of the House agree should be done. They get in touch with workers. They encourage workers to get in touch with them when they have been laid off or are about to be laid off. They can give them assistance in
As I said, in Toronto the housing prices and mortgage prices are seriously overheated. We also have in Toronto a significant number of the visible minority population. This government has expressed its concern, and rightly so. Other people are expressing concern about rising racial tensions in our country. We have the evidence of that in Toronto, as elsewhere. This is going to be exacerbated by the government's action in this bill. The increased penalties for those who quit their jobs could be really devastating for people who suffer from subtle racism.
In other words, if a person of a visible minority or for that matter a woman, let alone a woman of a visible minority, is being harassed on the job because of race or gender-and it happens; I have seen it in the factory and I am sure many others in this House have seen it in different places of work-it is going to be very hard to know whether he or she should stand up for themselves and risk losing the job under these new harsher penalties or whether they should button their lips and accept the racist or sexist harassment just so that they know that they will have a pay cheque next week and the week after.

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This bill will make their situations harder. It will make it harder for them to stand up against the kind of racial discrimination or gender discrimination that all sides of this Parliament are opposed to.
This bill will also have the effect of forcing workers into substandard jobs, if they can get them at all. The Labour Education Centre has reported that those who re-entered the workforce in Toronto after a plant closure got a job that averaged $3 per hour less than the one they left. They were the lucky ones who got another job, but they now have to make do and pay that mortgage with $3 an hour less. Just to say there are jobs there does not tell people whether or not they can live or whether or not they can keep a roof over their heads in the city of Toronto.
It is possible that the government does not pay much attention to the findings of the Labour Education Centre or to the Downtown Churchworkers' Association which were refused the right to speak to the committee last year when they came to Toronto. But the government usually professes to pay some attention to the Economic Council of Canada. In its recent report Good Jobs: Bad Jobs the council reports that for Canada as a whole 54 per cent of those who changed jobs after the age of 55 were still unemployed six months later. More than half the older workers 55 years of age or older who changed jobs were still unemployed six months later. That is, if they had to leave a job it was six months or more before they found another. At that age, that is very threatening. Some of us here know what it is like to be in our late fifties and sixties or even seventies.
It also reported that 40 per cent of the workers of all ages who were laid of suffered a wage loss. We are talking in many cases about workers with years of service, experienced workers, laid off through no fault of their own but through changing business conditions. Two out of five of them suffered a wage loss. Many of these people are living just on the edge of making it on Toronto rents, transporation prices, and general Toronto costs. The Economic Council of Canada also reports that the gap in the unemployment rate between those with less than nine years of schooling and the average has widened significantly over the past decade.
Fortunately, schooling is increasing and the average is now more than nine years. That is good, but the wage gap for those who did not make it past nine years of schooling is increasing and they have to suffer under the
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same living costs in Toronto as those with higher education who are getting the jobs with the rising incomes that are increasing the gap between them and the rest.
My point is that it will be the older workers, the less educated workers, and the workers who have been laid off following the many plant closures related to free trade who will be suffering more as a result of Bill C-21. A few of them may get into the training programs we have been told about. As I said, the minister does not guarantee that any of them will. Certainly the minister does not try to tell us that all or most of them will have that opportunity.
The effect of this bill is to take money from those who generally can least afford it, in order to train people to serve those who in many cases are paying no or almost no taxes. This government has a powerful track record over the last five or six years of reducing the tax on those who have the most ability to pay and increasing the tax on those who have the least ability to pay.
This bill is another tax on those who have the least ability to pay. Yes, some of them may be trained, but the people who will employ them will in many cases be those whom this government is excusing from paying the cost of that training. Instead it is forcing their relatively poorer brothers and sisters who continue in the work force or who were in the work force paying unemployment insurance benefits to pay that cost. It will force the poor to subsidize the poorer, while the rich will pay less and less, especially if the goods and services tax is imposed.
These 80,000 or 90,000 companies that pay no tax will be able to employ workers who are trained at the cost of others. They will not have to pay the cost of training. It is a very unjust law set within a pattern of unjust laws. There are high taxes on working people. There are high interest rates that put mortgages beyond the reach of many working people. Now we have an unemployment insurance system that will take from the poor to subsidize the training of a few workers to the benefit of the rich. It is a shameful law.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the member for Trinity-Spadina for providing us with information that unfortunately many of us did not know, particularly in relation to the fact that in many respects Toronto is not the boom town it is made out to be. That fact alone may go a long way toward shooting down the government's

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argument for high interest rates in order to keep inflation down, even as it applies to Toronto.
I was interested in the hon. member's comments about discrimination that some immigrant, minority or visible minority groups may be facing. Will he expand on that to give us a better idea of the problems these people face in relation to their employment and continued employment.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I will not go into it in great detail but I will point out for example that in Trinity-Spadina many thousands of the people are immigrants from Hong Kong, the People's Republic of China, or the several countries of southeast Asia. These are mostly people who come with little knowledge of English or French. Their employment is often limited by their opportunities within the community of their own languages.
In past years it has certainly been found that some of these people were working at below minimum wage and were being deprived of benefits such as unemployment insurance by unscrupulous employers. Many of them are working in the garment industry which has suffered greatly from this government's action in the trade deal with the United States. If they find their place of employment closed they will have a harder than average time finding work somewhere else because in many cases, particularly among the women, they have not had an opportunity to learn English.
The policy of this government and of the previous government was to provide some English language training for those who were destined for the workforce. That means they excluded people whom they regarded as mere housewives. They could just stay home. They did not need English. That is by and large the policy, especially as the government is cutting back on English and French as second language programs.
People such as that have been held back by their working conditions because not all those housewives had the luxury of staying home every day, if that is what they considered a luxury. Many of them, nevertheless, had to
get out to work to pay the rent and to make ends meet. They did not have the opportunity to learn one of the official languages, to learn what is the minimum wage amount, to learn other basic laws of our country for the protection of workers so that they could defend themselves and their rights on the job. Those people will suffer considerably.
There are other language minorities as well. There are people who speak a dialect of the Caribbean; there are people from the Azores and from the mainland of Portugal; there are others from various non-Englishspeaking countries, all of whom to some degree suffer the same difficulty as these East Asian immigrants. They will bear an extra cost under this Bill C-21 if it becomes law.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-10, an Act respecting the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act; and on the amendment of Mrs. McDougall (p. 11064); and the amendment of Mr. Fisher (p. 11109).
Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I wonder if I could at this time get the agreement of the House to a motion which has been
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discussed among House Leaders and for which I think there is unanimous agreement. The motion is as follows:
That the House continue to sit past the ordinary hour of daily adjournment until there are no further speakers in debate on the motion in relation to the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, at which time the putting of the question on the amendment and on the main motion shall be deemed to be deferred until 3.00 o'clock p.m., Wednesday, May 9, 1990, and the Speaker shall proceed with the adjournment motion under Standing 38 and adjourn the House until tomorrow at 2.00 o'clock p.m.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House has heard the motion as moved by the hon. Government House Leader. Is there unanimous consent for such a motion.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. I just want to repeat some elementary points, not respecting the substance of Bill C-21 which has been debated for many months in this House and in committee and in the other place, but rather the propriety of the actions of the Senate respecting this legislation.
We have had the benefit of the Chair's ruling that was requested by myself in respect of the actions of the Senate. As the Speaker very clearly pointed out in his ruling, that while he lacked, as we understood, the constitutional authority to intervene with the other House, just as the Speaker of the other House lacks the authority to intervene here, there was no question that what the Senate is proposing tramples substantially on the rights and privileges of this House.
First, the financial initiative of the Crown is infringed when, in the Senate's proposed changes in Bill C-21, major costly amendments are proposed without first securing a Royal Recommendation. It seems clear to any fair-minded person who looks at the legislation that the Royal Recommendation is exceeded vastly by the proposed amendments of the Senate.
Second, there is an affront by the Senate to this House when Senators in the majority ignore and defy the budget and its valence of Ways and Means. They have suggested in Bill C-21 that they can make changes to the unemployment insurance system which take an additional $1.75 billion out of the revenue this year and upset the budget proposed by this House to that extent. This is not
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just a minor adjustment, this is a $2 billion hole in the budget projections from April 1989, a budget from last year.
Third, as a result of the two basic constitutional shortfalls I have cited, the Senate puts itself in violation of the principles in Sections 53 and 54 of our Constitution Act. It might be helpful just to remind this House what those sections say because this is our constitution. They state that bills for appropriating any part of the public revenue or for imposing any tax impost shall originate in the House of Commons.
That right becomes meaningless if the other place can distort and change to an extent as to make the origin unrecognizable. What good is it to have this authority in the constitution if the other place assumes to itself the authority to distort and warp what might have been initiated in this House.
Section 54 states that it shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any vote, resolution, address or bill for the appropriation of any part of the public revenue or at any tax impost to any purpose that has not been first recommended to the House by a message of the Governor General, the session in which such vote, resolution, address or bill is proposed. That is the so-called Royal Recommendation.
If it is unlawful for this House to depart from the Royal Recommendation, how can one suggest that the other place can do so? How can we possibly accept amendments from the other House which we cannot accept if they were proposed in this House. What constitutional authority would make it appropriate for us to accept amendments from the other place which we could not accept if they originated in this place? That surely is not a procedure that anyone who respects this institution could voluntarily agree to.
Finally, for these reasons, the motion of the government makes it very clear that this House will not turn its back on the law and the constitution and our own long-established procedures here. We say in the message that we will not accept Senate proposals which cost money over which only this elected House has the power to propose.
The other place claims its authority from Section 17 of the British North America Act, or the Constitution of Canada Act, which says, "There shall be a Parliament

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consisting of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons."
The Chair affirmed in the ruling of April 26, 1990, that the strength of our parliamentary system lies in all three constituent parts respecting their constitutional roles. Section 17 could be interpreted by the Governor General to mean that he has the right to amend legislation, to alter it, to change it, to kill it, or veto it, and those who support the Senate's right to do that, must also support the Governor General's right to do that.
What kind of a democratic system would that be? Obviously an absurd democratic system that has never, ever in this country, until 1984, been a part of the practice.
I would like to refer the House to a paragraph from a book, The Modern Senate of Canada, published in 1965. That is the latest reference we have to the modern Senate. This is pre-MacEachen, obviously. It is by Mr. EA. Kunz. After a long discussion about the relative roles of the House and the Senate, he states:
On the contrary, the Senate has acted in full understanding of 1he meaning and implications of responsible government and accepted as binding upon itself the proposition that it should not unduly disturb what has come to be called "the balance of ways and means"; or, as Hopkins says, "that it would be inadmissible to tamper with the overall financial program submitted by the Government in its budgetary proposals in such a way as to effect a material change in the budgetary surplus or deficit envisaged therein".
Surely the Senate's proposal of a $2 billion increase in the deficit is, by anybody's definition, tampering with the balance of ways and means. We have a budget presented in this House. Immediately upon presenting the budget, a motion of confidence is put to the House. It is debated for six days, and there are usually a couple of amendments from the opposition. This House says in finality that, yes, this House has confidence in the budgetary measures of the government.
On the strength of that motion, taxes are collected immediately. Plans are made by industry, by the private sector, by the economy of this country. This is possible because of all these practices, such as provisions 53 and 54 of the Constitution. It has been the practice for more than a century in this country and a few centuries in Britain, upon which our system is based, that the
unelected chamber does not tamper with the balance of ways and means. Until 1984, that was the way this country operated.
In 1984, some Trudeauites were appointed to the Senate and now, suddenly, we are having a debate which is more fitting for Victorian England than modem Canada. It is incredible in this day and age, in 1990, that we are seriously discussing whether in fact an elected legislature should have precedence over a non-elected body. It is incredible to find an outstanding lawyer from Kingston, such as the member for Kingston and the Islands, stand there, without blushing, and suggest that it is legitimate for this non-elected, appointed body to trample on the rights of this House.
I would like to acquaint members of the House with Standing Order 80(1), which states:
80. (1) All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought 1o begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit, and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.
Were we to take the suggestions of the Liberals or the New Democratic Party to accept the Senate's amendments or ask them to go further, we would in essence be going against the Standing Orders of this House.
That Standing Order, by the way, has been there since 1867. It is based on a statement by the British House of Commons in 1671. We have over 300 years of tradition here that says this House and only this House has the right to decide the details on all grants and aids to her Sovereign. The language there is a bit archaic, the argument is a bit archaic, but it is astounding that we should, in all seriousness, be having this debate here.
I suspect that a lot of this is primarily fluff from those people who say that they believe that the Senate is doing good work, that the Senate knows what the people want, the House of Commons does not. But if you read what they say in private or to the media, you get some interesting quotes. Let me quote a few: Senator MacEa-chen, Question Period, 1985, speaking in respect to a borrowing bill that the Senate was then holding up stated: "I think if we did amend the bill in any serious
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way, or if we defeated it, I think that would be quite arrogant".
Senator MacEachen is the leader of the Liberals in the Senate. Senator Frith is his deputy leader, and he stated: "There may be 100 reasons why we should not in the Senate yield to the House, and only one reason why we should, and if that one reason is that the Commons is elected and the Senate is not, that is reason enough to yield." He is right.
Senator Hebert, remember him?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The hunger-striker.


Harvie Andre: As reported in Senate Debates, July 21, 1988, he stated: "The non-elected representatives should give away to the elected representatives leaving the people the choice to elect another government". Even he, if push comes to shove, recognizes democracy should prevail.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: That's why they only amended this bill instead of rejecting it outright.


Harvie Andre: Senator Buckwold, who is chairing the committee on the GST stated: "It should be understood constitutionally that basically the House of Commons in the end would be supreme, that there could be a very real cause for concern if the Senate rejected bills".
Senator Theriault, a Liberal from New Brunswick, stated: "The House of Commons is the legislature with the powers, as it should be as long as the Senate is an appointed Senate". He is dead right.
Senator DeBane, stated: "The Liberal party was not elected to government. The Conservatives were. It is time to bow to the will of the elected representatives. I urge my colleagues not to put any more road-blocks in the way of passing this bill".
New Democratic Party House leader, Nelson Riis, said on October 30, 1987: "Quite frankly, I am very disappointed with the Senate because I do not think it has the right to hold up legislation".
Lome Nystrom, New Democratic Party finance critic in The Globe and Mail, March 28, 1990, said: "I believe the Commons should have the final say. I do not think the unelected body should usurp the elected body".
Pierre Trudeau, remember him, in 1984, when speaking on behalf of that party said: "No member of this Chamber would suggest that the Senate should systematically obstruct the will of the majority in the elected body of Parliament". Pierre Trudeau said that.
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Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that there are a lot of things said in this Chamber about this and that, but the reality is that we all serve the public here in this Chamber, or even down the hall, and we serve that public not at all unless we continue to recognize that in a democracy it is only the elected body that has the right to insist that its views prevail.
I do not expect the members of the opposite side to stand up and acknowledge that fact at this point in time.
I expect they will continue to vote that we listen to the Senate and that the Senate has a right to prevail. I understand that. But they do that in the sure knowledge that they are outnumbered in this Chamber. However, I would ask of them that as they meet in caucus with their Senators that they remember that this is a democracy. We are at the end of the day. It is time to let the will of the democratically elected House of Commons prevail. To do otherwise is to do damage to at least 130 years of tradition in this country and a couple of centuries more in terms of the British system upon which our system is based.
I ask that hon. members opposite aid us in ensuring that democracy continues.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On questions or comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to everything that the government House leader had to say. It sounded like his point of order on April 3. He will not mind me drawing the parallels, because I wanted to quote to him a few things he left out of his speech today that he said on April 3 and ask if his position is not just a little bit thick.
On April 3, as reported at page 10143 of Hansard he stated:
Amendments 5(a) and (b) propose a different and more
expensive -over $350 million -
And of course he was sounding shocked at the time.
- scheme than that provided for in the royal recommendation. For this reason 5(a) and (b) should be ruled out of order.

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That was his position on April 3. Now, here we have the resolution which the Minister of Employment and Immigration moved yesterday and I presume that the government House leader, being part of this wonderful cabinet we have here, had something to do with the drafting of this resolution. It says at the very beginning:
That a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours
that this House agrees with amendment 5(b) made by the Senate to
Bill C-21.
In other words, this amendment 5(b) that was out of order, according to the government House leader on April 3, now has been properly apparently moved in the Senate, because we do not have a royal recommendation attached to this resolution that the government has moved in its proposal here.


William James Kempling: That is a spurious argument.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It is not spurious at all. The hon. member says that it is a spurious argument. The problem is how did the minister come to these varying views? Is it because his position has changed since April 3, in respect of his argument, or did one speech writer write the speech on April 3 and somebody else draft the resolution that we are adopting in the House today?
I would like to know how the minister who piously intones about the rights of Parliament and has gone on and on about how he is such a defender of those rights, now is accepting that this amendment is proper, as moved by the Senate, which increases the charge on the public revenue, by his admission. We have not denied that. We have said that it simply increases it by less than the amount of the royal recommendation originally. We have said that all along, and have said that these are in order. At the same time, on April 3 the minister was saying that this is wrong, this is bad. We cannot have it. Which is it? I ask the hon. minister to explain that.


Harvie Andre: I will be pleased to explain. First, I would like to put a proposal back. If the hon. member is suggesting that he finds this amendment an affront, then I am sure we could work out an agreement to amend the motion, to scratch this amendment, if he in turn would agree to vote with us on the remainder of the motion and prevail upon his colleagues down the hall to agree. Now, if he would agree to do that, we could do this straight away.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: No, I was just worried about your position.


Harvie Andre: Let the record show that the head nod was sideways, not up and down.
The hon. member will also know that what is of concern here is in respect of expenditures from the UI account, not from the CRF. The main principle of the bill, the principle on which we must insist and which if violated would truly ruin the balance of ways and means is the principle that the unemployment insurance account will be paid for by employers and employees and not by the general taxpayer. This amendment does not violate that particular principle.
But again, I repeat my offer, if the hon. member could make commitments on behalf of his caucus both here and in the other place, we could certainly go back to the motion that we sent to the Senate the first time.


Ron Fisher: Madam Speaker, I was rather interested in the defence of democracy put forth by the government House leader. He is also suggesting that if the impasse should remain, there is a possibility that the government might, while staying within the bounds of democracy, support what I would describe as a super-saturated Senate. I would like the government House leader to expand on the proposition that if things continue, they will appoint Senators over and above the usual number.


Harvie Andre: There is no such proposition. There is a provision in the Constitution of Canada Act to allow for the appointment of additional Senators to break an impasse. People are aware of that.
Today, virtually the entire world is going to democracy. A few years ago it looked like democracies were under threat as totalitarianism was gaining throughout the world but now the opposite is occurring. Democracies are flourishing everywhere, but we wonder sometimes in Canada as this non-democratic body asserts what it claims are its legitimate rights.
As I said in my remarks, I do not think that the government will need to resort to those kinds of Draconian tactics because I believe, as the two leaders of his party, the finance critic and house leader said, the will of the House of Commons should prevail. I am sure his leader feels that way. I am sure there are more democrats in the New Democratic Party than there are people


Harvie Andre: Oh, I see.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Just a debating point.

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who believe the Senate is doing God's work here. I am sure there are more democrats in the Liberal party than would be evidenced by hearing their speeches and that they realize that it is the right of the House of Commons to prevail.
Around the world on many occasions, people have taken very drastic action to defend democracy and at this point in time no responsible person would dismiss any alternative in order to defend our democratic system.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, I can understand why the minister chooses to deliver a sermon rather than to comment on the contents of the bill. I would be embarrassed to comment in defence of the bill as well.


William James Kempling: We are debating a motion, not the bill.


Marlene Catterall: I would like to ask the minister one question. He has left on the record the implication that the delay in this bill is somehow costing the Canadian taxpayers $2 billion. His mathematics is a little wrong. We are not talking about a whole year, for starters. Perhaps he could explain to us how that compares to the cost to Canadian taxpayers of the government's interest rate policy.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, as one of my colleagues mentioned, we are debating a motion to respond to Senate amendments, not the bill. The bill has been debated ad nauseam for many months.
The point about the roughly $2 billion in terms of a hole in the deficit, only a Liberal could suggest, "What is $2 billion?". If MacEachen wants to drive a hole in our deficit projections by $2 billion for the sake of some political gain, he should be free to do that, they seem to be saying. That is absurd.
The question of interest rates has a lot to do with the deficit and a lot to do with us spending more than we are taking in while trying to service the accumulated debt her predecessors left this government.
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If the hon. member is suggesting that one can help with the interest rate problems by increasing the deficit by $2 billion in this manner, then I suggest that the Liberal caucus is in need of better financial advisers.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, it was rather interesting listening to the diatribe of the government House leader, particularly in response to the questions which were put to him by my colleague for Kingston and the Islands.
However, in reviewing the motion before the House, I would like indicate to members present that the subject matter that we are dealing with, although very important to Canadians generally, specifically it is very important to those Canadians who have had opportunities, and some of them unfortunate opportunities, to be on unemployment insurance.
Many of those individuals are quite cynical about this entire process, especially the government's actions with regard to the statements that it has made previously. I remind members opposite and the public at large what a senior minister of the Crown said during the last election. The Minister for International Trade said during the 1988 election campaign: "No one is planning any changes in the unemployment insurance program. There has not been any change proposed to us since we dealt with the Forget commission. We are not contemplating any changes".
Those were the words of the Newfoundland representative in the federal cabinet, stating that there would be no changes to unemployment insurance. This was quoted in the Evening Telegram of October 14, 1988, on page 3.
Here we are, not too many months later, with the government introducing a budget and a particular bill to deal with the Unemployment Insurance Commission which will have, in the estimation both of government members, as expressed in this Chamber, and by those who have been recipients of unemployment insurance, tremendous, economic impact on the economies of the various provinces across this country.
As a result of this particular bill, the Government of Canada and the Department of Employment and Immigration have said that the province of Newfoundland will lose $21 million. The Canadian Labour Congress, on the other hand, states that it will be much more significant than $21 million. They state that it will be $58 million. In Nova Scotia it will be $29 million. The Canadian Labour

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Congress states that it will be $52 million. In Prince Edward Island, CLC states that it will be $22 million; New Brunswick, $47 million; Quebec, $256 million; Ontario, $228 million; Manitoba, $42 million; Saskatchewan, $23 million; Alberta, $60 million; British Columbia, $72 million, for a total of some $800 million, which is a very significant amount.
When I think of young people, such as a young gentleman by the name of Christopher Chisholm who is watching tonight, I wonder what his world will be like 15 to 18 to 20 years from now. What the government has done by presenting this bill is change unilaterally the social contract that Canadians, both employers and employees had with the Government of Canada since the inception of the Unemployment Insurance Commission.
The changes which were put forward in the bill received vigorous debate in the House of Commons, examination by legislative committee, and were brought back to the House and thereafter debated in detail. The bill passed in the House because the government has the majority. It went on to the Senate, where the Senate did a thorough analysis, and heard from a variety of groups, including provincial governments, interested spokespersons, and organizations from across the country. They submitted what they believed were honest criticisms, and no one has doubted or questioned their sincerity, or that the facts that they did provide were authentic.
The Senate has made recommendations to this House. In part, the government has accepted some and has not accepted others. We find ourselves in a dilemma with the motion that is before us now to send certain information back to the Senate. The Government of Canada believes that somehow the Senate of Canada does not have the right to do what it is doing. That is understandable. Any time that an institution and individuals in that institution impede progress-and there is a funny way to define progress in this particular instance-that governments want to have in order to change massively the social contract that was so much a part of daily Canadian lives, it is understandable that the big corporate interests and the Conservative Party of Canada would not be pleased
at all with those particular musings and suggestions coming from the other place.
As I said previously in this Chamber on this particular subject matter, these arguments have been made repeatedly by members in this House, by organizations and, of course, by the other place.
The government has a very easy way out of this particular mess they it has got itself into. Page 241 of Beauchesne's fifth edition states:
When the House of Commons does not agree to the Senate amendments, it adopts a motion which states reasons for its disagreement.
Well, that has been done.
This is communicated to the Senate. If the Senators persist in their amendments, they send a message informing the House of this fact. Upon this, the House either accepts the amendments or adopts a motion requesting a conference to which each House appoints Members; and a date is fixed for their meeting.
If members opposite want a way out of this particular impasse of their own making, it is very clear. Either accept the amendments of the Senate or you have a conference. It is a simple as that.
I point out to members opposite and to the public at large that this government does not know how to govern. They do not want to meet. They do not want to discuss. The Senate has eveiy legal and constitutional right to do this, although they can argue the opposite. Quite frankly, we can argue on our side as well, but it is very clear from Beauchesne's fifth edition on page 241 that the appropriate procedure is for a conference to take place and/or for the House of Commons to accept the amendments of the Senate.
Let us not be fooled. We are not just dealing with some sort of procedural wrangling taking place between two separate bodies of one institution, namely the Parliament of Canada. We are dealing with something which is far more important than a procedural wrangling. We are dealing with the lives of Canadians across this country.
I do not say that I and I alone, because I represent a constituency in this country which has excessively high unemployment, know everything about unemployment insurance or that I have the measure of sensitivity and concern of every working man and woman in this country, but I do know that these changes being pro-
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posed by the government are unacceptable to those individuals who are presently unemployed, who may have been unemployed, and who are likely to be unemployed, because they know the importance which is associated with removing the Government of Canada from the previous tripartite social contract that we had in this country for many years.
To say to employees who work in a fish plant that they as employees will have to pay for the training for high tech workers in downtown Toronto or in Edmonton or in Montreal or Toronto, for the Government of Canada to exclude itself, as a result of the amendments which the government is seeking through this bill, is unfair. We, on this side of the House, believe that it is poor public policy.
Members can debate whether that is accurate, whether it is true or whether it is untrue, but the fact of the matter is that when you remove a major economic player such as the Government of Canada from a tripartite agreement-I call it the social contract-it is no wonder that we have such consternation, such difficulties here in the House and the upper chamber with regard to these particular amendments before us.
The changes which are being sought, not only by members on this side of the House but indeed by the majority of those in the upper House are reasonable, are desired by those who are unemployed and those who work with the unemployed. These changes are being sought by provincial governments and by individuals of different walks of life who know of the insecurities and concerns that unemployed people have in terms of conducting their daily lives.
I would have hoped that the government opposite would have seen its way, notwithstanding its argument which, in some ways, is valid. The budget was introduced on April 27, 1989. Thereafter a piece of legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in the House and then we had the legislative committee, et cetera, and the debate has been taking place. Sadly, I represent a constituency where the real unemployment rate is, in some communities, three, four and five times that of the national average.
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Surely to God we as members of Parliament must plug ourselves in and ask whether this is good public policy.
Members opposite, because of their neo-conservative views, may say that it is, but the majority of Canadians say that it is not. Of course, members opposite will ask what our test is for coming to that conclusion. It is very evident. As you travel across the country and meet with the people whom the public policy will eventually affect, they will tell you en masse that the changes sought by the Conservative government of the Prime Minister of the day are not acceptable to them and that the amendments being put forward by the Liberal party here in this Chamber, augmented if you will by those in the other Chamber, are acceptable to the massive number of Canadians.
Provincial governments concur with what we are doing. It is not good public policy. Surely a government, whether it has a majority of five, ten, twenty or thirty individuals, would not want to implement it notwithstanding the devastation that will take place simply because it believes it may have the upper hand in some sort of procedural argument.
In my concluding remarks I might say that I hope the Chamber has gone beyond that. There is no federal election due for two, three years. Surely it is the job of every member of Parliament to express their particular views, right wing, left wing, centre, neo-conservative, what have you. But you have to ask the fundamental question: Is it good public policy? Is it good public policy to have a tripartite social contract, thereafter to change that and to remove the biggest economic player in that tripartite contract? Is that fair to our fishermen on the Atlantic coast?
There is a very subtle view which is expressed, sometimes not in a public way, but in the most sophisticated way that is rather undignified, particularly for those who are unemployed, both men and women. But nowhere is that statement more apropos than in the fishing sector of our Canadian economy.
People in the fishing industry for many, many years have been able to fish on a seasonal basis, particularly in Atlantic Canada. I do not know if they fish in downtown Toronto, I suspect not, but that is due to the geography of the country. On a commercial basis for a livelihood there is not too much fishing on Yonge Street or in

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Kingston and the Islands, but there is a hell of a lot of fishing on the Atlantic coast. Those fishermen today know what it is like to be out in a small boat without any form of assistance.
What do I mean by that? We have an economic package which the Government of Canada has announced with great fanfare which has been found by most individuals in our region to be totally unacceptable. You make the problem even more difficult for those fishermen by saying: "And by the way, we have now changed the unemployment insurance. We are going to remove the federal government from the tripartite social contract that was there since its inception. We are going to train you in Canso, Nova Scotia, we are going to train you in Trepassey, Newfoundland. We are going to do all wonderful things for you".
They are all going to become barbers. Imagine, barbers. That is what they are going to train them for. Or maybe they are going to train them to become cooks.
It is just not acceptable that a poor fisherman who may work for a short period of time is now going to have to pay money to train, but train for what in these areas? Not only that, the Government of Canada is not even going to be there to assist and to facilitate in the training process. But this is the hook. The government says that it is going to give money for training of individuals all across Canada. It is going to help the people down there. That is how the government phrases it. It is going to help the people down there.
I charge that the public policy of the fisheries package announced by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, aided and abetted by Bill C-21 and members opposite, is nothing more than a smoke and mirrors game for what has become known in this country as and has proven to be the most disruptive public policy one could imagine, namely resettlement: resettlement of people from Atlantic Canada to other parts of Canada, which is totally unacceptable to the Canadian people regardless of where they live. It infringes upon the pith and substance of the constitutional accord of 1981-82. I believe it is a total abrogation of everything the Prime Minister has said as well as members opposite.
I conclude by urging the government to see the error of its ways. It has an opportunity here to resolve a procedural impasse by doing what Beauchesne says in the fifth edition on page 241, that is, either pass the amendments being advocated by the upper chamber and/or sit down and have a conference in order to resolve this particular matter.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise again to speak on this bill. Notwithstanding any comments the minister may have made, I have very carefully reread the motion before the House. It very clearly refers to amendments to Bill C-21, to the principles of the bill and to the objectives of the policy. It goes on to speak at great length about specific sections of the bill. I have absolutely no hesitation in talking about the bill because that is exactly the subject of the motion before us.
I was astonished to hear the minister stand in the House to speak as he did about democracy. I suspect that never in such a short period in Canadian history, since November 1988 when this government took office, has there been such a consistent attack on democracy. It has occurred not in the other place but in this House.
The figures show that at no time since Confederation has closure been used as much as it has since November 1988.1 fail to remember one bill coming into this House that the opposition wished to debate on which the government has not introduced closure and stifled debate, thereby stifling accountability of this government to the people of Canada.
I cannot of one major bill that has passed this House on which there has been any input from the public. On many of them the government has chosen to ignore totally the views of Canadians. It has ignored them on VIA Rail. It has ignored them on the clawback of old age pensions and family allowances. It has ignored them on unemployment insurance, and it has ignored them on the goods and services tax. In fact it has ignored virtually every commitment it made to the Canadian people to get itself elected to this House.
It should not be one bit surprising if the House of sober second thought insists on giving sober second thought to the fact that this government is proceeding in ways that are totally contrary to commitments and to the
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sacred trust it swore to Canadians that it would be defending and not abandoning.
If anybody needs to be concerned about the commitment to democracy, it is not the other House and it is not the opposition. It is the Government of Canada.
I want to talk a little about justice. The government pretends that this is a bill that is going to improve things for Canadians somehow, and especially for those who most need a little help.
I want to talk about a very fundamental democratic principle, and that is a fact that we have a Constitution in this country and that Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That charter of rights says that people are to be treated equitably. Also the charter says-and this has been in the courts and is in this bill-that the rights to parental leave in this bill is not this government's gift to women, although the women and the unemployed of Canada will be paying for it. It is something the charter requires. This government is playing a game with those rights in this bill as it is doing with a number of other policy issues by withholding from women who are pregnant right now the rights that the courts said they are entitled to have.
The government is using those rights as bargaining chips against which it is introducing other unpopular, damaging, hurtful measures. If the government is committed to the Constitution, committed to human rights in this country, and at all observant of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada on those rights, it should be pulling that parental leave requirement out of the bill and introducing it today as a separate bill. We on this side of the House can guarantee that those improved parental rights as ordered by the courts would be through this House in 30 seconds. The government does not want to do that, because then what does it have to put as icing on this very unpleasant piece of mud pie so that the people will think there is something good about it?
The government should also ensure that those parental rights are retroactive. It is going to say that it cannot do that because this bill is being held up. It will say that it cannot give pregnant women who may be on maternity leave the same rights as other women who may go on maternity leave the day after the bill is passed. The government will say it cannot give those two groups of
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women the same rights because the bill is being held up; it is not passed yet.
That did not stop the government from starting to charge people higher unemployment insurance rates to pay for those parental benefits, to pay for those maternity benefits, and to pay for training that nobody is getting. Those people have been charged that extra money from January 1, even though the programs that money is supposedly going to pay for are not in place. But the government refuses to give rights and benefits to people retroactive to that same January 1.
Similarly the government is using and victimizing the unemployed because it is not getting its way on this bill as fast as it would like. It is requiring that people work longer. It is taking away the variable entrance requirements that make it easier for people in high unemployment regions to qualify for unemployment insurance. It has refused to do what is fair and just to those persons by simply extending the existing variable entrance requirements. Instead, like a little child it is having a temper tantrum and saying: "if we cannot have our way, everybody else is going to suffer too. The unemployed are going to suffer, pregnant women are going to suffer, and we don't care because we don't care about justice".
As has been said over and over again, this bill hurts those who are poorest, hurts those who are least educated and hurts those who have the hardest time in the labour market. It hurts the poorest regions of this country to the point where whole communities will be dying out because of the provisions of this bill.
I live in a region of relative prosperity with a relatively low unemployment rate. That is why it was a privilege for me to travel across this country and to listen and try to respond with sensitivity to the concerns I heard from people who live in fishing communities, from migrant farmers, from the disabled trying to compete in the labour force, and from women trying to get back into the labour force after being out of it for many years and trying to juggle child care responsibilities. We listened, and some of us heard and some of us did not, to the fact that those who can least afford to be hurt any more are going to be hurt by this bill. That is unjust.
Even members on the other side of the House have to admit that a legitimate role of the Senate, one which it is seeking to strengthen, is to represent the views, opinions and interests of the various regions in this country in a

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more equitable way, perhaps, than they are represented in this House. The Senate is doing that.
It is listening to people from those various regions on how their section of Canada is going to be hurt, and how this bill will harm our concept of a just and compassionate society that provides equal opportunities from coast to coast, no matter how small or large one's community, or how poor or rich one's household.
This bill hurts those who can least afford to be hurt further. Yet, the government refused to include in this bill any provisions that would ensure that those at the lowest end of the pay scale, with the least resources to compete in a changing labour force, would benefit from the training programs which their meagre incomes are going to be drained further to pay for. This government refused to include what it imposes on every federally regulated industry, which is equitable access for women, disabled persons, visible minorities and native Canadians to these training programs.
After refusing that kind of change to the bill, any government that pretends that it is interested in equity or justice or fairness has very few listeners left. This bill that is floating back and forth between the House and the other place makes no requirement whatsoever for any equity in the delivery of those programs, or assurance that they go to those who need them most. Yet it is those people who are paying the cost.
I said that this is a relatively prosperous region with a relatively low unemployment rate. Yet that very prosperity often hides the plight of the poor in prosperous urban centres. I can tell members of the government that being unemployed in an area like the National Capital Region or in a city like Toronto or in any of the better-off communities of our country is no less painful than it is in Canso, or any of the small communities of our country where people are being hurt badly by the government's economic policies. The changes to the unemployment insurance program will make it worse.
In fact, it is often more difficult to be unemployed in a prosperous area because of the higher prices for food, housing and clothing. They do not have the community support structures which we saw across this country to support and help one's neighbours in times of unemployment and hardship in communities where that is a more common problem.
I want to close with just a few comments about the government's lack of frankness with Canadians about this bill. I do not think the government understands training programs. If it did it would not have stripped money out of the Challenge 90 program and diverted it into a program to try to keep kids in high school. Surely the government must understand that for many families and for many children, the difference between whether or not they go back to high school in September is whether they have a summer job.
I know many families where the pressures of family poverty drive young people out into the workforce before they are ready. The summer job that thousands of young people across our country are being denied is often what gives them a stake in their community, a feeling of having a better future, and what sends them back to school in September. Thousands of young people will no longer have that opportunity.
The bill we are debating today, which is the subject of the motion before us, has one purpose, like so many of the actions of this government. It is not to improve training, it is not to improve employment opportunities, it is not to improve parental benefits, it is to grab more money wherever it can and particularly from victims who are vulnerable and least able to resist.
We need only look at the last few months in this House. Where is the money coming from? It is coming from women; women's programs, women's centres. It is coming from people of a different cultural background. Look at the stripping of the heritage language programs, the stripping of the communications mechanisms of native Canadians. It is coming from seniors through the clawback and changes to RRSPs. It is coming from students in a new fee charged on their student loans, loans for which they only qualify because they are too poor to pay their own way through university. It is coming from children through the clawback of the family allowance, and now it is coming from the unemployed.
If I sound indignant, Madam Speaker, it is because I am, on behalf of all those people from whom we heard right across the country. Two members of the government who were with me at those hearings are in the House today. On behalf of all those people from whom we heard, or at least from whom I heard but from whom apparently the government did not hear, I am indignant and I am angry because I think something fundamental about our sense of sharing and caring for each other in
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this country, not only from rich to poor but from one region to another, is being abandoned. The government is abandoning its responsibility to contribute on behalf of all Canadians and compensate for the negative effects on some people in some parts of the country for its economic policies. I think that is a shame, and I am ashamed that this is happening in this country.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I was not going to participate in this debate but after sitting here yesterday listening to the hon. member for Kamloops I put a question to him. In answer to the question he challenged me to stand up and give a speech to explain to him and to the members of his party the duties and obligations of senators and the privileges of the Senate in relation to Commons bills. I said that of course if the hon. member for Kamloops wanted some advice in that regard I would be happy to provide it to him. So I am taking advantage of this opportunity today to do that.
I also wanted to correct a few misapprehensions that appear to have arisen in respect of this bill among the members of the government who have made some pretty wild-eyed observations in the course of their remarks. I think the hon. member for Ottawa West who just spoke expressed the indignation of many members on this side of the House at the government's actions in introducing this bill and in dealing with it in the way that it has. She probably also expressed the view of many of the members of the government side who are reluctant to get on their feet and say what they really think about this bill. I will proceed as best I can to point out to the government Whip and others who are here at this late hour some of the problems the Minister of Employment and Immigration brought out in the course of her introductory remarks on the motion yesterday.
The minister made a great to-do. In fact it was one of the longest speeches by a minister in this House that I have had the pleasure to witness. She seemed to have a lot of information about the historic rights of Parliament. I was delighted to hear the minister defend staunchly the
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rights of Parliament. I have had to play that role in the House. Indeed the opposition has had to play that role now for some time against a government which seems bent on destroying the rights of Parliament.
The minister took a new tack yesterday and put herself forward as a sort of champion of parliamentary government. As reported at page 11055 of Hansard the minister said:
This House must defend its historic right to initiate and direct the financial policy of the elected government. This is not simply a theoretical exercise, but a defence of one of the key principles of responsible government. The battle for this right was won generations ago and we must protect its integrity.
That is wonderful to hear; I do not disagree with those words. The trouble is that the minister and I seem to have a profound disagreement on what it is we have to do to protect those rights.
As reported on the next page of Hansard, the minister went on to discuss British practice and spoke with longing for some kind of change in the powers of the Senate such as was introduced in 1911 in the United Kingdom to alter the powers of the House of Lords.
The minister has been a member of a government that for five years has not lifted a finger to do anything about Senate reform. The Prime Minister keeps saying that he will call a conference on Senate reform this autumn if Meech Lake passes the provinces by June. If it doesn't then he won't. I presume he is holding this out as a bit of a threat. I think most Canadians would regard that as something quite beneficial, because they realize the Senate as it currently exists provides some considerable defence for them against actions by this government which have been dictatorial in the extreme.
The minister spoke about the British practice and said how in 1911 the wings of the House of Lords were clipped. That of course has not happened in Canada.
The Prime Minister had an opportunity to make changes to the powers of the Senate as he negotiated the Meech Lake constitutional accord. I know he did not. Clearly it was not a priority. He knew, even though there was a Liberal majority in that body, the reasonableness of those senators was such that on any important issue he

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would be able to convince them to go along with the government initiative in whole or at least in part.
I suggest the fact that the government is being very irrational in dealing with Bill C-21 is an indication of the difficulty it is having in getting that statute through the other place.
I could quote extensively from the minister's speech, but a lot of it dealt with the ins and outs of the bill. I did not want to get into that too deeply. The minister made an incredible statement on page 11062 as follows:
This government was elected in 1984 and again in 1988 largely
because Canadians understood which party could be counted on to
manage effectively.
What nonsense. That is not the reason. Hon. members opposite know perfectly well that the issue in the last campaign was free trade. It was not effective management. No Canadian in his or her right sense would have voted for a government that has managed as incompetently as this government has. It said it would cut the deficit. It has not. The deficit is still $30 billion. It said it would save Canada from financial ruin. All it has done is increased taxes, increased the amount of money the government brings in, and increased government spending at an alarming rate. That is its idea of sound financial management. I have spoken on that before and do not propose to go through it all again.
We come now to the real crux of the matter. Here we have the resolution proposed by the government. I put a question earlier to the government House leader who on April 3 in the House had the gall to stand up to argue that the amendments proposed to this bill by the other place were somehow improper.
The Speaker gave a speech on this subject on April 26. It is not quite clear to me what was the effect of the decision. It is certainly clear that the government House leader did not have the Speaker rule any of the Senate amendments out of order. The Speaker declined to make a ruling on whether or not the Senate amendments were out of order and in fact faced the government House leader who asserted they were and who now in this resolution says in fact that at least one of them is not because he approves of it. He does not have a royal recommendation to support it. If it was out of order on April 3 when he made his point, and he now says it is in order, obviously he has conceded the point. I suggest he went through a lot of bafflegab in answer to my question earlier because he really did not know what to say. He
got himself into a corner and ended up in great difficulty because he really did not understand the constitutional position in which he had placed himself in saying that the amendment is out of order. Now he is saying it is in order. He is going along with it. I congratulate him on that. I just wish he would go along with a lot more of them and, if he did, he would probably find he would have much less difficulty in getting the bill through.
That deals with the Minister of Employment and Immigration, but let us look at the government House leader because he has made some other unbelievable statements about the Constitution.
I have here a transcript of an interview he gave. He repeated some of these statements today in the House. I do not want to quote what he said because I did not write it down. I do have what he said in an interview on May 6, taped on May 4 with Pamela Wallin on the CTC news report. The minister was asked questions about his view of the role of the Senate. He made these statements which portray in my submission a profound ignorance of the Constitution of Canada.
I have urged him to spend some time in his new role reading up on this subject so he would know something more about the Constitution when he discusses it, because after all he is called upon to make comments on the role of the other place. Yet, obviously not having paid a lot of attention to this, he said:
You see, the Senate's authority comes from a clause in the Canadian Constitution that says there will be a Parliament consisting of the Queen, the Senate and the House of Commons. Now the Governor General has the same powers the Senate is claiming but everybody would be quite surprised, to say the least, if the Governor General said well I'm going to amend this legislation before passing it.
That is true, but had he read the Constitution Act instead of just the one clause, he would see that Section 13-and I urged him earlier today to read it-states:
The provisions of this act referring to the Governor General in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor General acting by and with the advice of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
The Governor General does not go off on his or her own. The Queen or the King does not go off on his or her own, if it were a king in this particular case. The decision is made after taking advice. Everybody in Canada knows that. The Governor General cannot do anything without receiving advice on the subject except
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on thing, and that is refuse or accept advice concerning the dissolution of the Parliament of Canada.
If the advice is refused, the Prime Minister must resign. That is just the way it is. Refusal of advice on any point results in dismissal of the cabinet.
We have had the spectacle of that happening once in 1926. But, other than that, it is just unheard of. The Governor General accepts advice from the government of the day, from the privy councillors who form the cabinet. That is the way it is. That is the way it has been in Canada for years, at least since the British North America Act was passed in 1867. So, for him to suggest that the Governor General and the Senate are similar in any way is simply beyond belief.
The minister went on. The interviewer, of course, was shocked. She said:
But that is a little bit different than a body that is-
He interrupted and said "they are both appointed", which apparently makes them the same in the view of the government House leader. He went on:
They are both appointed. In fact, Governors General are only there
for five years; Senators are there for life, for heaven's sake.
If he knew anything about the Canadian Constitution he would know that in 1965 an amendment was passed which limited senators sitting until age 75, except those appointed prior to the passage of the amendment in 1965.
Senators are not there for life unless the government House leader considers that life ends at 75. I hope, for his sake, he does not. I was hoping he would live to a ripe old age and with any luck continue to sit in this Chamber because certainly his constitutional blunders cause no end of merriment to those of us who sit on this side of the House.
I suggest that he has again blundered on with his statements as to the powers and abilities, if you like, of the Senate of Canada.
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I could go on and argue that his views need some correction. The British North America Act, which he quoted from, has lots of sections I could read that do not reflect constitutional reality. I could turn, for example, to Section 55. Perhaps the hon. member would enjoy this:
55. Where a Bill passed by the Houses of Parliament is presented to the Governor General for the Queen's Assent, he shall declare, according to his Discretion, but subject to the Provisions of this Act and to Her Majesty's Instructions, either that he assents thereto in the Queen's Name, or that he withholds the Queen's Assent, or that he reserves the Bill for the Signification of the Queen's Pleasure.
We all know that section is no longer followed, that the Governor General invariably gives his assent to bills that are passed by this House and the other place. For the government House leader to suggest that the Senate's powers are somehow similar to those of the Governor General is simply ridiculous.
I want to turn to the questions raised by the hon. member for Kamloops who has suffered-if you want to call it that-an about face. As I said yesterday, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus at least in part, he and his party have seen the light with respect to the Senate. The NDP has recognized the true contribution that the Senate makes, and I am sorry that they are not here. I am sure they would enjoy hearing some of these things and perhaps learn some things about the Senate.
The hon. member for Kamloops explained the NDP's new position this way. It had to be one of the vaguest explanations I have ever seen. He said at page 11075 of Hansard for yesterday:
New Democrats watched intently the assault on democracy which took place last year.
Of course, so did we:
We exercised our democratic rights within our own party and voted at our December convention to change our party policy on the Senate. Whereas once we were satisfied that the Senate had to be abolished, and that was it, we are now in the process of looking at a variety of options 1o provide and promote better regional representation in the Parliament of Canada, including but not limited to, proportional representation, an elected Senate, and other options.
In other words, the New Democratic Party now has no policy on the Senate. It scrapped its abolition policy, but

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it does not now know what it should do. That is not surprising. New Democratic Party policies change with the circumstances, just like the skin of a chameleon. In this case, we had the principle of democracy as exemplified by NDP policy, being that the Senate should be abolished.
Yesterday, we had the spectacle of the hon. member for Kamloops demanding that the Senate block this bill. In fact, he went on to say, at the same page in Hansard:
New Democrats were among those who went to the Senate and requested that it block the imposition of Bill C-21.
He was referring to New Democrats outside the House of Commons, and he made that clear. He said:
Through their labour councils, social councils, churches and women's groups, they asked the Senate to protect the unemployment insurance program that their fathers and mothers and fellow social democrats had fought so hard to establish. These ordinary New Democrats -
I presume the ones here are not ordinary:
-and ordinary Canadians generally, told the Senate of the importance of maintaining a healthy unemployment insurance program, of the need for government to play a role in training programs, of the responsibility of government toward unemployed workers.
We in this party, have said the same thing, but there is an important difference between the Liberal party and the New Democratic Party when it comes to dealing with the Senate.
The New Democratic Party said: "Use your powers as an unelected body, but use the constitutional power granted to you by the British North America Act of 1867 to block this bill." As the hon. member for Kamloops well knows, there has been no amendment made in this House similar to the British amendment of 1911 which curtailed the powers of the upper chamber. We have not done that.
The Senate has full power to change any bill that comes before it, and indeed could block this bill. The Senate has chosen not to do that, and it is not by accident that it is dominated by members of this party. We in the Liberal party do not believe that the unelected body should have the power to block the will of the democratically elected House of Commons. We have always said that. It has been our position consistently, and the position is exemplified by the actions of the Senators in the other place.


Mr. Waddell:: What about the trade deal?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They did not reject the trade deal. What it did was say: "We will hold up, block and seek to correct the Commons in its errors. We will send the bill back with amendments." The hon. member knows that is what has happened in this case. I can see why he would flee, he does not want to face the music. Instead, the New Democratic Party has abandoned its democratic principle because it is inconvenient today. It says to the Senate: "Block this bill".
I will let you in on a secret. I know why they have said that they do not really want the Senate to block this. They say on the one hand block it, but they do not want it to happen because what they want the Senate to do is let the bill through eventually with some amendments. We are getting some more today. I see the government has softened up a bit more this time and has agreed to some of the very reasonable amendments that the Senate has proposed. Maybe if it comes back again, it will agree to more. Who knows?
What has happened is that the New Democratic Party want to be in the position where they can go to the people and say: "We urged the Senate to block this bill. We abandoned our democratic principles and we asked an unelected body to block this bill, but they did not do it".
Then they will say to the Canadian people: "Do you know why they did not do it?. Because they were Liberals and Liberals are not really in favour of protecting you by blocking this bill". That is what they will say.
They will suggest that somehow we, the opposition in this House, are somehow insincere because our colleagues in the Senate who recognize the limitations they have on their powers under the constitutional practice in Canada will not block this bill. That is what the New Democratic Party is trying to do. They are trying to have it both ways.
The trouble is in trying to get it that way they have had to abandon their democratic principles and scrap their policy of abolition of the Senate in favour of a no policy because they really have not the faintest idea of what they are going to do now.
The hon. member for Kamloops got himself into difficulty yesterday when I put these questions to him. Instead of responding in a reasonable way and admitting that their policy is folly and that they do not know what they are doing, he tried to pretend that in fact there was
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a sound policy base for the actions that their party has taken. He knows as well as I do that there is no basis.
This is a chameleon-like move in an effort to fill in a vacuum that has been created because we have been defeated in this House on this matter. We have lost the vote on second and third reading after closure. The government has steamrolled the rights of parliamentarians in the course of its dealings on this bill.
What we have, I submit, is a situation where the New Democratic Party ought to be delighted that the Senate has taken the steps it has and has brought forward reasonable amendments, some of which the government has had the wisdom to accept, most of which it has not had the wisdom to accept. It should be delighted that the Senate-although they are limited amendments-have at least tried to correct the folly of the government in bringing forward this bill which is so unfair to the unemployed people of Canada.
Of course, the persons who are now employed who may subsequently become unemployed and may not
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know it are also going to be victims under this particular piece of legislation.
I welcome the opportunity to debate these issues. I am sorry that time does not permit me to explain further the weaknesses of the New Democratic Party's position on this matter. I wish they would stay and support us in our opposition to this bill because we have indicated our anxiety to see that this bill be defeated and will continue to do so.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the staff, the interpreters, and everyone who stayed around for this debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Pursuant to the order made earlier today, the division on the amendment and the main motion is deemed to have been deferred until tomorrow, Wednesday, May 9, 1990, at 3 p.m.
Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.49 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 9,1990