1990-12-17

['Mr. Speaker, let us consider the following: in May a Statistics Canada report revealed that the reading skills of 2.9 million Canadians were too limited to allow them to deal with most of the written material they encounter in everyday life. In 1987 the Southam survey found one in four Canadians to be functionally illiterate. These studies help reveal the magnitude of the illiteracy problem which challenges the future development of our country.\nAs we move to address this problem, our actions must be placed in a larger context. Illiteracy is just one part of the puzzle. Our actions on literacy therefore must be part of a much broader strategy to improve social mobilization and our social welfare system.\nOur efforts must be accompanied by actions in areas like training, education, child care, employment equity, and initiatives to address the problem of poverty in this country.\nI look forward to our government moving forward on this social policy agenda. Yet at the same time I urge that this be done in a consistent, comprehensive and co-ordinated manner.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:
December 17, 1990
Mr. Speaker,
I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable John Sopinka, Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, in his capacity as Deputy Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber today, the 17th day of December, 1990, at 3.30 p.m., for the purpose of giving Royal Assent to certain bills.
Yours sincerely,
Judith A. LaRocque Secretary to the Governor General
Pursuant to Standing Order 36, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Miramichi) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider means of ensuring that regional development remains a priority in all decisions to be made by the government.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity today to debate my motion on regional development. I know that this question has been addressed in the past on numerous occasions, but it seems
that it will have to be debated over and over again for the regions of this country actually to see any benefits.
It is especially important now because the regions of this country feel a sense of alienation like never before. Whether it is in western Canada, in the north, in northern Ontario, in northern or eastern Quebec or in Atlantic Canada, these regions have one thing in common. They feel that their government in Ottawa has forgotten about them, and they feel that Ottawa does not care. This is a tragedy.
This is what is slowly killing the heart of our country. Whatever I can do to contribute to reversing this disastrous trend, I will gladly do. This situation has become particularly critical with the Conservative administration.
This government, as we all know, is running the country like a corporation, putting principles like corporate profits and good balance sheets ahead of the interests of people. It is not even doing that well.
As Atlantic Canadians have always known, when the national government operates purely on economic efficiency principles the regions are bound to suffer. The centrepiece, the raison d'etre of the Conservative government's two mandates, is the so-called free trade agreement. With this agreement, Canada is now in a position where it cannot make regional development a priority. It cannot do that because the FTA is basically a bill of rights for the corporate giants, and their objectives become the priorities of this government without questioning.
What the corporate giants basically want, besides free access to our natural resources, is the creation of a level playing field which would use the American standard as a model. Therefore, on behalf of corporate America, the Conservative government is presently well on its way to changing Canadian standards to bring them down to those of the U.S.
This means that our social programs are being destroyed one by one and that anything considered a subsidy by corporate America is being dismantled. The federal government's financial involvement in creating

December 17, 1990
Private Members' Business
the circumstances which will enhance regional development is considered a subsidy by corporate America.
Even though the Prime Minister had vowed that free trade would not hurt the regions and that regional equality would be one of the benefits of the deal, there is convincing evidence that his heartless, big business oriented agenda is a betrayal of the Canadian concept of regional equality.
I would like to summarize the main consequences of this so-called free trade agreement on Atlantic Canada. When most of the country was well out of the 1982 recession, Atlantic Canada was still struggling. Instead of helping our region, the present government has made it worse. Many Atlantic Canadians believe that this situation is the result of vengeance by the Tory government and the Prime Minister, in particular, toward the citizens of this country who had the foresight to vote Liberal in the last election. Something that has really put our development in jeopardy has been the dismantling of our transportation system.


Mr. Belsher:: Can you say that with a straight face?


Maurice Adrian Dionne: Yes, with a very straight face, and I could wipe the grin off yours too, maybe before this is over.
Privatization, deregulation and cuts in subsidies have sadly diminished our ability to transport people and goods in and out of Atlantic Canada, creating a situation where continuing development becomes extremely difficult.
The air transport companies are now in private hands. They operate wherever they choose, which is where the bigger profits are, and as a consequence smaller communities are losing an essential means of transportation or are left with second-class service. And the worst is yet to come.
Rail transportation is also under attack. We have witnessed the decimation of VIA Rail. On top of losing 447 jobs, maritimers now have only one Atlantic train, a combination of the Ocean and the Atlantic, from Halifax to Montreal six times weekly. We also lost the Halifax-Yarmouth run, the Halifax-Sydney, the Halifax-Port Hawkesbury, the Moncton-Campbellton-Edmunston, the Halifax-Moncton-Saint John routes. Moreover, we
lost a bus route on to Prince Edward Island that links the province to VIA at Moncton.
By failing to promote an efficient rail transportation system the Tories are putting additional pressure on our roads, which will need major improvements since more truck traffic is evident on all of the highways in this country. The subsidies to railways for moving export grain and flour to eastern ports were also cancelled. The Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission estimates that $14.4 million in activity will be lost to the region because of the termination of the At and East program. Should both Atlantic grain elevators be unable to continue their operations, which is likely, the resulting negative impact would be somewhere in the vicinity of $34.3 million.
The decision made by this government following the free trade agreement has resulted in the crippling of our transportation system which needed improvement and without which sustainable development for our region becomes impossible.
One good idea that this government has put in place, I must say, is ACOA. The good thing about this agency was that it was set up in the region. It was staffed by people of the region, and these people were making decisions on something that they knew.
Originally, the ACOA budget was $1.05 billion for five years, an humble investment but an investment nevertheless. The problem is that the Tory government found a way to turn a good thing into a bad one. The Prime Minister has a real talent for that.
With its incentive right wing agenda, it decided to spread the amount over seven years instead of five, which means a cut of 28 per cent. One of the consequences of these cuts is that ACOA officials have to deal with too many cases at the same time, which does not permit the proper counselling to allow success to happen as quickly as it should. People are becoming more and disillusioned with the program and are losing faith, which is a sad commentary on this government's record.
The Conservative government has also signed co-operation agreements with the Atlantic provinces. The agreements replace the economic regional development agreements that were put in place by the Liberal government. The result for Atlantic Canada is a loss of more than $300 million. We could surely use that amount of development in these tough times. We need it badly
December 17, 1990

to build an economic structure without which we will never be able to contribute positively to the wealth of the country.
The Conservative government is also cutting transfer payments to the Atlantic Canada. This means cuts to medicare and post-secondary education, which is totally unacceptable. There has been $17.7 million cut this year and $37 million will be cut next year. This is what Tories call progress.
On top of that, with its fiscal and monetary policies designed to suppress inflation concentrated in southern Ontario by high interest rates and an artificially high dollar which again come directly from the free trade deal, the Tory government has been killing jobs at an alarming pace in Atlantic Canada and in the rest of the country.
This is without mentioning the closing down of rural post offices, the cuts to CBC, to Radio-Canada, the mismanagement of the fisheries, and the delay in the Hibernia project.
Once the table is set for an economic and social disaster, what does the government do? It cuts our unemployment insurance program. Approximately 77,500 Atlantic Canadians will see a net loss in UI benefits this year. This could not have come at a worse time. Unemployment insurance has always been seen as a means for the federal government to achieve rough equality across the country and buffer sections of the regions experiencing hardship.
What is totally unacceptable once again is that corporate America believes our federal government's support of the UI program constitutes a subsidy and therefore presents an unfair advantage to Canadian companies and employers. The Tory government decided to lower our standards to U.S. levels. Now the total cost of the program will be borne by employees and employers and those who will suffer are the people and the regions of this country. Atlantic Canada will be especially hard hit.
I could go on talking about the mess which the Tory government, acting on behalf of the interests of corporate America, has inflicted on Atlantic Canada. What we have to do now is think of solutions. Are there any? I believe there are. Yes, there is a solution but only if there is political will.
Private Members' Business
Let us take a quick look at what the parties are offering as solutions. There seems to be a consensus that an effective regional development polity is vital for Canada. Unfortunately, however, no one seems to agree on how to accomplish this goal, primarily because no one seems to agree on what an effective regional development polity should be.
Let us take a look at the views that have been expressed in this House. I am convinced, Mr. Speaker, that examination of the varying approaches to regional development will reveal the strength of the Liberal Party's perspective.
The NDP has made it clear that it disagrees with current government policy on regional development. It is argued that we should go back to the way things were, when we had the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. It is argued that we must have a holistic approach to regional development. In order to develop such an approach, the NDP calls for the creation of a standing committee and a specific government department to deal with regional development. This department's mandate would cover the whole gambit of economic development in a certain region. For example, transportation, fisheries and economic development would be looked at as a whole rather than in isolation.
On this basis, the NDP has expressed its dissatisfaction with the government's decentralized approach to regional development. The creation of ACOA, for example, has been criticized. It is argued that its power and its mandate are far too limited and that the interests of Atlantic Canada would perhaps best be served if there was a department set up in Ottawa.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, defend their policies by saying that ACOA is effective precisely because it is centred in Atlantic Canada where Atlantic Canadians can play a leading role in determining what it does and how it functions. Moreover, they point out that even though the ACOA headquarters is located in Moncton, there are regional offices in each of the provincial capitals as well as Ottawa.
There are valid points made by both the New Democrats and even by the Conservatives. However, there are numerous misleading and, permit me to say, false statements as well. The view of the Liberal Party is based on a combination of the valid points and the elimination of the false ones. The NDP approach to regional development is regressive. The Conservative approach is corpo-ratist. There seems to be a consensus that an effective regional development policy is vital for Canada. Un-

December 17, 1990
Private Members' Business
fortunately, however, no one seems to agree on how to accomplish this goal primarily because no one seems to agree on what an effective regional development policy should be.
Let us take a look at the views that have been expressed in the House. I am convinced that examination of the varying approaches to regional development will reveal the strength of the Liberal Party's perspective.
The NDP has made it clear that it disagrees with current government policy on regional development. It is argued that we should go back to the way things were before.
On this basis, the NDP expressed its dissatisfaction with the government's decentralized approach to regional development. The creation of ACOA, for example, has been criticized.
The Conservatives, on the other hand, defend their policies by saying that ACOA is effective precisely because it is centred in Atlantic Canada where Atlantic Canadians can play a lead role in determining what it does and how it functions. Moreover, they point out that even though the ACOA headquarters is located in Moncton, as I said earlier, there are regional offices.
The Liberals believe that if Canada is to be competitive, it is essential that regional development policies and public investment decisions be a fundamental part of national economic policy. We believe that this country needs the advantages to be gained from strong regional economies.
We believe that economic growth in the next two decades will be highly focused on knowledge and service-based activities. Industries will depend for their success upon an educated and productive labour force and upon cost-effective communications systems for the transfer of data and new knowledge. There will be no need to restrict these industries to the industrial heartland of Canada. Quality of life, communication services, personal transportation and information processing facilities will be dominant factors in determining where business in the future prospers.
We believe that the Canadian government can create the conditions that can attract knowledge-based and resource-based industries to slow growth areas of Canada, such as Atlantic Canada. In other words, we believe that it is possible to do the opposite of what is being done today by this Tory government.
Well-planned public investments can stimulate private sector investments. We want to direct public investment to slow growth areas. Atlantic Canada, in particular, still requires strong investment to develop further its basic infrastructure. We believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Canadian government not only can intervene, but must intervene to achieve that end which will enable Atlantic Canada to eventually become a contributor to our national wealth.


Some hon. members:: Time.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: Our leader, the Hon. Jean Chretien, has already demonstrated this kind of leadership when as President of the Treasury Board in the mid 1970s, he put together a comprehensive government decentralization program-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order, please! I will ask the hon. member to wind up his speech, because his time is up.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: Thirty seconds, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Thirty seconds.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: Thank you. Our leader, the Hon. Jean Chretien has already demonstrated the kind of leadership when he was President of the Treasury Board. More than 10,000 jobs were created. That can be done all over again.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, in the short time that we have today to comment on the motion of this hon. member, I think it is important to put some information on the record and talk about what I think we can do in this country for regional development.
The motion is one that we can support, but I suspect that because of the way it is written the hon. member was perhaps being devious. He expects the government members to rise and support this motion as well.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: I am not expecting anything from the government.


Brian L. Gardiner: He is not expecting anything from the government. Well, I suppose, it is what we have come to expect of the Conservatives.
He made some comments that bear some attention. What he was starting to get at was the whole question of hit and miss of regional development that we have had so far in this country under both the Liberals and the Conservatives. I would like to comment on some of the general programs of the government that act as regional development and some of the specific regional development initiatives that governments have taken. I would like to comment on the number of key agreements to date where the government clearly has failed.
Let us take a look at one of the general ways of regional development, VIA Rail. There is no question that all Canadians know that this current government, and the previous government under the Liberals, have not provided the leadership necessary to see that we develop a full-fledged, well run and well maintained VIA Rail network across the country.
The hon. member spoke about his leader when he was in office. What I remember when the Liberals were in office was how they cut up VIA Rail in the same way the Conservatives have done. The member also talked about the importance of developing an education policy that ensures the workers in our industries and workplaces develop the skills and technical ability necessary to compete in the world today. One of the ways to do that is through post-secondary education.
It is important to point out that for all the support hon. members have given post-secondary education, there is a very serious concern in provinces where, you will recall, Mr. Speaker, under the Liberals' six and five program, it took away the ruling that any federal transfer funds on health and post-secondary education had to be spent on that. Now we have to rely on trust.
I asked the Secretary of State if he could tell us whether federal funds meant for health and post-secondary education are being spent on that in the province of British Columbia. The minister would have to trust us that it is. It is an example of some of the ways in which the previous Liberal government allowed some of the provinces-and the allegations have been made in British Columbia-to spend money meant for health and
Private Members' Business
education to pave highways. That is not the kind of regional development policy that we want in this country.
As well, let us take a look at some of the specific programs aimed at regional development. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the primary resources of this land have made us rich and wealthy. I suggest to you that in a number of specific areas such as our farms, fish and forests-the three /s if you like-this government has failed when it comes to a number of specific initiatives.
I have spoken about one a number of times in the House. The forest agreements are very specific initiatives between the federal and provincial governments to ensure that we do the replanting and research that is necessary. By using these agreements, the two levels of government can talk about the need to develop proper environmental policy when it relates to our forests.
What do we have? We are expecting the government to consider means of ensuring that regional development remains a priority. How high a priority have the forest agreements been in western Canada? As you probably know, the forest agreements in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba expired March 31,1989. The agreement in British Columbia expired on March 31, 1990. Based on what the provincial forestry minister said about verbal commitments for new funding in the green plan, as you know, there are no specifics whatsoever in the green plan relating to providing the necessary funds to forestry in British Columbia.
So as I said at the beginning, it has been very much a hit and miss approach to regional development across the country. Just this morning in Halifax, where the latest mess is taking place, there was an announcement of another co-operation agreement being signed in that province. Again, we have a forest agreement that expired in 1989. It was renewed for two years. It is now coming up for renewal on March 31, 1991 and where are we? It is really hit and miss with each particular program. It certainly is hit and miss depending on the part of the country that you live in with this government and its policy on regional development.
We are hopeful I suppose, but we are wondering about the major emphasis of this new agreement signed this morning. It is really looking at, in a sense, getting into the incentives game that can often be very difficult for provinces and areas when they start bidding against each other. What generally happens is that the standards get lower and lower and we do not end up with the kind of

Private Members' Business
policy in place that really should be there. We have had hit and miss when it comes to the forest agreements.
We have certainly had a miss to date, at least in British Columbia where, in a recent letter I received from the Minister of Agriculture, he said that the agricultural subagreement under the economic agreement with British Columbia has been basically put on hold while they try to resolve a host of other problems. In fact the Minister of Agriculture suggested:
My Department does not have an identified source of funds or
vehicle for agricultural development programming to replace
ARDSA, if it is not included as a priority under the ERDA.
That is the economic regional development agreement. If that is not a miss, Mr. Speaker, you tell me one. That letter is about agriculture in British Columbia, saying that the agreements are really not there.
We have to develop a regional development policy in this country. We need to put the country's resources back on track, as my colleague from Thunder Bay-Atikokan is doing, with his getting VIA Rail back on track policy. That is a general tool of regional development.
We need a policy that ensures we get on with these agreements. We do not need to hide behind a bunch of announcements trying to spin them out over the next two and a half years when this government thinks it may finally put together a regional development policy.
We support the motion. It is a vague one. I guess it is a Liberal regional development vague plan. Because of that, I think there is an opening for the government to support this motion. I know it will do that. I hope and trust that it has the best intentions at heart. We are not sure about that though, if we look at the track record. Let us hope we get a better one.
I am convinced that with the policies we have developed, after the next election campaign, the New Democrats will have the regional development policy for this country.


Mr. Andre Plourde (Parliamentary Secretaiy to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, the global economy has embraced a rapidly changing new order in recent years. Industrially and commercially, the essential characteristic of this new order is market globalization or the internationalization of business. For an extremely large and underpopulated country such as ours, this presents a number of challenges which are basic to the preservation of our standard of living, our social programs and our systems of values.
For Canada, and for Quebec in particular, this wave of economic change, although risky, presents novel opportunities for development and prosperity which should be explored.
In the last six years, our economic actions have been predicated entirely upon one fundamental goal: to ensure that all regions of Canada benefit from the emerging new economic order. From the start, we devised a long-range action plan that would enable us to reach this objective.
The problems of Quebec are related to a number of phenomena, such as the emergence of a new industrial order, market globalization, the increased role of competition in international trade and the increasingly vital roles played by research, development and staff training in opening up and maintaining markets. It is essential that these data be taken into account in any regional development policy.
Mr Speaker, for six years now, Quebec has recorded steady economic growth that has allowed it to make strides in the modernization of its industrial base. A good deal still remains to be done, however, before this modernization is completed.
Regional development problems in Quebec, moreover, must take into account one fundamental fact, namely, the dual nature of Quebec's economy. On the one hand, the central regions of the province consist essentially in urban areas comprising 85 percent of the province's population; the economies of these regions are centred on the secondary and tertiary sectors. On the other hand, the resource regions of Quebec cover more

than 90 percent of the province's territory, yet are home to less than 15 percent of the population. The economy of these resource regions is centred essentially on the primary sector and the exploitation of natural resources such as forest, mineral and fisheries resources.
Mr. Speaker, we signed with the Quebec government a master agreement on regional development which takes into account this duality and the different needs of the central and resource regions of Quebec. Let us take a closer look at the different needs of these regions.
In the central regions, such as greater Montreal, the Quebec City region, the Eastern Townships, the Bois-Francs region and the Outaouais, the economy is more diversified and more developed. Traditional sectors remain active here, but they have been eclipsed in importance by new sectors. We must now accelerate the modernization of production facilities and take steps to ensure that companies swiftly incorporate advanced technologies that will make them more productive, efficient and competitive in order that they may carve out market niches for themselves.
It is clear, in this context, that the economy of the greater Montreal region faces a number of special needs. Because this region is in direct competition with other major North American cities, and nearly half the population of Quebec resides within its boundaries, the economy of the Montreal region has a direct influence on the development of other regions in the province. It is therefore essential that the establishment and maintenance of modem economic sectors be stimulated in this region, since such sectors generate sustainable, quality jobs as well as considerable activity in other related sectors.
In recent years, the Montreal region has made significant advances in dynamic and forward-looking sectors. Aeronautics, for example, is strongly represented in the region by companies such as Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney, Bell Helicopter as well as Spar Aerospace, which has been commissioned to build RADARSAT, the first remote sensing satellite to be designed and built entirely in Canada. The decision to locate the Canadian Space Agency within the region, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, will undoubtedly help to generate considerable local economic activity in the fields of aeronautics and telecommunications.
Private Members' Business
Montreal also developed a network a big and small businesses specialized in microelectronics, informatics, software development and the manufacture of printed circuits.
Other job-producing economic sectors have maintained their presence in the greater Montreal region. These include pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and consulting engineering (with such giants as Lavallin and SNC).
All of these sectors require advanced technologies and considerable value added. They provide quality jobs, and their export potential is high. It is vital that the Montreal economy rely more and more on these forward-looking sectors.
Of course, the various levels of government are prepared to do their share, set up programs and coordinate efforts in this direction. It is nevertheless clear that business must make an immediate commitment to the research and development inherent in economic development.
It is all the more essential, Mr. Speaker, that we devote efforts to our resource regions, considering that their industrial base lacks diversification and is often threatened, that these regions are located far away from major urban centres and that unemployment is definitely higher in these regions than in urban areas.
Initiatives have therefore been taken to turn our natural resources to good account by enhancing management and conservation with a view to sustainable development. The technical and professional skills of labour must also be improved.
For example, in the logging, pulp and paper and lumber industries, we are working with the Quebec government for the improvement of timber management, the construction of new access roads to these resources and above all reforestation, which is essential to sustainable development.
We also allocated funds for the diversification of regional enterprises, and for development programs in the agri-food and agriculture sectors.
In response to the need for modernization of production equipment we have set up a series of programs. Thus, the federal government's concerted Enterprise Development Program and Manufacturing Productivity Improvement Program are designed specifically to sup-

December 17, 1990
Private Members' Business
port small businesses engaging in equipment modernization and industrial diversification projects.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, it is most essential that everyone understand the challenges and the development possibilities involved, that objectives be mutually agreed upon and that everyone work towards the same end. For its part, the government will continue to allocate resources as judiciously as possible, and will also continue to inform Quebec businesses about how best to benefit from the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States.


Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: [Editor's Note: Member spoke in Inuktitut.]
For those who do not speak Inuktitut, I will continue in English.
Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a pleasure to speak to the motion of my colleague from Miramichi on regional development.
I commend my colleague, the hon. member for Miramichi, for his motion and for keeping the issue of regional development alive. In his region and in mine, a continued strong federal presence and commitment to economic development is critical. In the north, we have seen, over the past couple of years, a declining commitment.
For example, the federal government has cut back its fiscal transfers to the Yukon and Northwest Territories. In 1984, the previous Liberal government had negotiated five-year formula funding agreements with the two territorial governments.
In the renegotiation of these agreements last year, the current federal government changed that formula. It reduced it so the two territories will receive less funding over the next five years than they would have received under the original formula. Specifically, the Northwest Territories will receive about $110 million less over the next five years. The Yukon government will receive about $80 million less.
In addition to these cutbacks, both territories are still waiting for renewal of the northern economic development agreements. They are now in the process of
negotiations. I hope the government of the Northwest Territories will be successful in coming to a conclusion that is preferable for the Northwest Territories.
In 1984, the Yukon and the federal government signed a five-year economic development agreement worth $26.4 million. That general agreement and the subsidiary agreements negotiated under it, expired in March 1989. Almost two years later, we still do not have a new economic development agreement with the Yukon. It is true that the federal government has provided some interim funding to the Yukon government to cany on some activities, but not all the previously funded components received interim funding.
In the Northwest Territories, the picture is similar. In 1987, a four-year economic development agreement worth $38.3 million was signed. Two of the six subsidiaiy agreements negotiated under that general agreement expired last March. One of them, the tourism sub-agreement, received some interim funding.
The other four sub-agreements expire this coming March. For both of the territories, renewed economic development agreements are necessary for territorial economic growth.
In the Northwest Territories, the government is looking for a more flexible program which can be utilized in less developed areas and communities and which has less emphasis on profitability. We are anxiously awaiting announcements from the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development concerning renewed economic development agreements with both territories and we will be looking, as well, for adequate funding in these agreements.
The north continues to be extremely concerned about the effects of the goods and services tax on both northern consumers and businesses. With the highest cost of living in the country, the goods and services tax is going to affect the northern territories more adversely than anywhere else. I say this especially for the eastern Arctic, the area that I represent, where the cost of living in the area can be about two and a half times higher than that in the city of Ottawa. A litre of milk might cost $5 compared to $1 and some cents for a litre of milk in Ottawa. So, Mr. Speaker, I think we have to convince
December 17, 1990

this government that it has to do as much as it can for regional and northern development.
For the past couple of years, I and other northerners have been telling the finance minister that the GST is going to do us more harm than good. The finance minister stubbornly continues to insist that we will benefit, despite evidence to the contrary. The finance minister maintains that the north will be better off with the goods and services tax. I can point out that resource development might be better off-I say "might" with a question mark-under the GST, but the average person living in Pond Inlet, Coppermine, Pelly Bay or Grise Fiord will not be better off because the purchasing power of that individual will be a lot less and certainly the purchasing power for groceries will be a lot less because of having to pay 7 per cent tax on other goods which presently are not taxed under the MST.
The most recent confirmation of the negative impact of the GST on the north has been pointed out in a report by Ernst and Young, management consultants. This report was made public earlier this month by the Ontario government. It is a report that was commissioned by the provincial and territorial ministers responsible for economic development in the north. I will quote a few excerpts from this report for the benefit of hon. members and for anyone from the finance minister's office who may be listening.
As it is typical of the minister, in replying to my question on this issue in the House a couple of weeks ago, he picked out the only positive aspect of this report and quoted it verbatim to the House when I asked him a question about this report. On the negative side, I quote: "Small business, in all sectors, will be hit by high compliance costs which will be particularly onerous in the north, due to the lack of professional advisory services".
Arts and crafts is an important industry to the residents of the eastern Arctic. This report says that these activities, and I quote: "-will be negatively affected by the goods and services tax, since original works of art have been exempt from the FST but will be subject to the GST. The cost of transporting the art to southern markets will also bear GST, even where the artist can select to be exempt, as a result of having sales of less than $30,000 per year".
Private Members' Business
I would just like to read one more quote: "Municipalities, universities, hospitals and schools in the north will bear higher over all costs under the GST. Rebates for these institutions are to be based on a single national calculation of the increase in the tax burden associated with sales tax reform. However, because local mark-ups and transport costs did not bear FST, the FST content of institutional purchase in the north had been lower than in the south. The rebates will therefore not be sufficient to compensate for the additional tax burden under the GST. "
I would like to take this opportunity to support the motion of my colleague for Miramichi on regional development.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate today and say a few words with regard to regional development. It is a priority of this government. The results are coming through loud and clear.
I also want to say a few words with regard to the Western Diversification Fund that was announced in 1987. The act was passed in 1988, allocating $1.2 billion to the four western provinces. The head office is in Edmonton, but there are satellite offices within each province.
The government has adopted a regional approach that reflects the special circumstances, the needs, the uniqueness, the strength and even indeed the weaknesses of certain areas.
Western Canadians know that we live with a very volatile resource base where oil, gas and agriculture unfortunately are not stable commodities but tend to have peaks and valleys. The Western Diversification program has been extremely successful. It is one that I have worked with quite a bit.
Over 1,866 regular projects have been approved, representing about $542 million since inception. I also want to say that the assistance is not being used to bail out or shore up businesses that are in trouble. It is not used to modernize plants nor expand existing businesses, but it works to promote diversification. That was its main policy in the form of new products, new technologies, new techniques, new markets and import replacements for western Canada.
They have also supported 16 systemic projects representing about $52 million. One that I would like to refer to is the Centre for Frontier Engineering Research,

CFER. It has just sent out a special issue with regard to the opening of its project. It was an $18 million project in Edmonton la st May 28.
This certainly shows co-operation where the federal government worked in co-operation with the provincial government and private enterprise to see this become a reality.
I feel not only has this been extremely beneficial but the other aspect about WD is that 80 per cent of the commitments are repayable. WD gives a helping hand. It gives people a kick-start. We do not have hand-out programs.
The other thing that was interesting in the Speech from the Throne in 1989 was the government's procurement policy. They were told to direct themselves toward regional considerations. In the last couple of years western Canada has received three or four major contracts. One had to do with the Department of Transport's CAATS contract for $380 million. It was awarded to Hughes Aircraft Canada which will open offices in Calgary and Vancouver. The contract was $380 million with spin-offs of over $500 million across Canada.
Also, there was a contract awarded to Computing Devices Canada for over $1 billion from the Department of National Defence. These people are going to open a head office in Calgary. Eighty per cent of that $1 billion will certainly go into the western part of Canada.
In conclusion, I have to say that the ACOA head office in Moncton with $1.05 billion, FEDNOR headquartered in Sault Ste. Marie with $60 million over five years and Western Diversification with the $1.2 billion, have certainly served to diversify. No longer do people sitting in Ottawa make the decisions. It is people in the regions making decisions for the regions and their needs. Diversification is very important.
We are always open to amendments, to improvement, and to ways to do the job better. This is one area that has really been successful. The motion being discussed today is really a non-starter. We are in there. We are doing it. Regional diversification is a priority with this government and always will be.


Mr. Speaker:: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired.

Pursuant to Standing Order 86(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Last October, in Gaspe, Mr. Speaker, Conservative members in the House of Commons who are the strength of Quebecers in Ottawa adopted a resolution asking the federal government to remove from the Canada Health Act all impediments preventing user's fees and other charges. Senator Roch Bolduc, who personally worked with a dozen Conservative Quebecers on a number of federal health system reform projects stated that these are leftovers from the 1950s put there by the very people who are responsible for our bankruptcy, meaning the officials who worked under the Liberal government.
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Marc-Yvan Cote, who is a driving force, will certainly carry out the necessary reform of the Quebec health care and social services.


FORESTRY
Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, on Friday the B.C. Central Credit Union published a report outlining the foreign control of our forest industry. The report's results are of serious concern. Foreign corporations now control just over 43 per cent of industry assets according to this study.
This foreign control is aided and abetted by this government's free trade and softwood lumber tariff policies. This foreign control of our main industry raises serious questions about the future of our forest communities and our ability to have our forests managed in the best environmental manner.

The Minister of Forestry should launch an immediate investigation into the growing foreign control of our forest industry, and he should do it before this government allows all of our resources to be turned over and controlled by U.S. multinational corporations.


TRIBUTE TO THE LATE MGR. ALBERTUS MARTIN
Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: With the passing of Monsignor Albertus Martin, Mr. Speaker, the people of the Nicolet diocese and the rest of Quebec certainly have lost one of the greatest builders and defenders of the Church in Quebec.
Monsignor Martin was a scholar and a world-class canon law specialist. He had been thoroughly involved in the reforms suggested by Vatican II. He was endowed with a remarkable intelligence and was recognized as a man of exceptional apostolic dedication. His administrative and leadership skills led him to found the Nicolet Seminary, rebuild the Nicolet cathedral following its destruction and give a sound financial basis to each of those parishes.
A very accessible man, he knew how to round up his flock following a disaster, whether a fire, a death, a sickness or the loss of a job. He left behind him apostolic accomplishments beyond compare. His simplicty, dedication, hard work, honesty, generosity, kindness and class made him really a man of God.
Monsignor Martin used to quote St. Paul often. Thinking of him, I wish to quote St. Paul. In his Epistle to the Galatians, he wrote: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance". This certainly describes perfectly Monsignor Martin's heritage. Monsignor Martin, farewell and thank you!


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, in its report last week the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology of the House of
Commons made the simple statement that the economic well-being of Canadians depended on science and technology.
If we want jobs in Canada we have to add value to products and services through science and technology and the skills of Canadians, not just scientists and technologists but the men and women who work on the shop floor across this country.
This is a simple message which to now has not been understood by the Conservative government. A newspaper headline on the weekend read: "PM Shatters Dreams of Top Canadian Scientists". The headline is wrong. It should read: "PM Shatters Dreams of all Canadians".
This government has damaged Canada's R and D capacity, cut support for industrial research and development, cut transfer payments for post-secondary education, and cut funds for training.
Can we hope for a death-bed conversion from this government, or is it too late to reverse a disastrous record?


NATIVE HOUSING
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, it is now the holiday season and it is incumbent upon us to promote the spirit of giving and caring for our brothers and sisters. Yet it is a tragic fact that many of our nation's first peoples live in overcrowded homes, often without water and sewage facilities.
Can aboriginal children receive the education they need when they return each night to a crowded house? Can they return to school fresh and ready to learn after trying to sleep with many others in these same rooms? Can seniors expect to retain good health? Can expectant mothers hope to provide proper care in such conditions?
This is a good time for the government to make its New Year's resolution to the native peoples of Canada. This government must commit itself to alleviating the problem of substandard housing.
For many natives housing has improved, but not for all. I think it only fitting that we in this House do what we can to help the native people improve housing conditions in their communities.


SKI NORQUAY
Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, on December 15, I was pleased to be a part of the official opening of the extension of Ski Norquay, located in beautiful Banff National Park.
I am sure all colleagues will want to join with me in sending congratulations to the management and staff of this resort. The new ski runs on Wishbone and Skyline Ridge will provide good skiing and much challenge to people not only from the Banff area but from all of Canada and the world.
Tourism is such a major player in Canada's economy, we should take every opportunity to promote ventures like Ski Norquay and all tourist facilities throughout Canada.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, on August 31 of this year, the Minister of Employment and Immigration eliminated the self-exile category for east Europeans wishing to immigrate to Canada.
At the same time the minister imposed a 40 per cent slowdown in the processing of these applications already in the system. The result has been a three to four-year delay for the outcome of these applications. The delay is causing a financial burden on government and undue hardship on applicants and Canadian sponsors.
I would like to urge the minister, first, to lift all the restrictions for the final disposition for Canadian consulates; second, remove the 40 per cent slowdown of processing; third, give high priority to all self-exile applications; and, fourth, allow work permit authorizations for those applicants already in Canada awaiting the final decision.
These proposed changes will not create a need for a change in regulations, only a change in policy, which is firmly in the minister's power.
In the spirit of Christmas, I ask the minister to implement these four recommendations before the House rises for the winter break.


THE LATE CARL NICKLE
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a former member of this House, Mr. Carl Nickle, who passed away in Calgary last week at the age of 76.
Carl Nickle served as the member of Parliament for the ridings of Calgary West and Calgary South respectively from 1951 to 1957, using this place as a forum to promote the interests of western Canada passionately.
The son of oilman Sam Nickle, Carl was raised and educated in Calgary where he founded both the Daily Oil Bulletin and the Canadian Oil Register before going on to establish his own oil company, Conventures Ltd.
Nickle's achievements were certainly not confined to the oil industry. He served with the Canadian army from 1939 to 1948 where he achieved the rank of lieutenant. An avid coin collector, he became a prominent philanthropist, underwriting the Nickle Art Museum at the University of Calgary and playing a key role in the creation of the Nickle family foundation, which provides scholarships to students and cultural groups.
Carl Nickle was an exceptional parliamentarian, a distinguished Canadian, and a friend.
To his wife, Diana, and their family, I extend sincere condolences.


CANADA POST
Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, when Canada Post shut down public counter services at Postal Station A in Sudbury, it promised more accessible service and said that privatization would give us this.
At 12.45 on Monday, December 10, one of its privatized outlets ran out of stamps. Can you imagine that, Mr. Speaker? In the middle of the Christmas rush, it ran out of stamps.
At other privatized postal outlets patrons were forced to wait in long lines because they just did not have the personnel to serve them more quickly. Yet one block down the street at the commercial outlet they could not serve these people because they are not important enough to Canada Post. We in Sudbury have had enough

of being sacrificed by this government for the bottom line at Air Canada, VIA Rail, CBC, and Canada Post.


FORESTRY
Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the House of Commons subcommittee on forestry, I was very pleased today to receive a positive response to our recent report from a large group of national organizations that both individually and collectively expressed their interest in and their support for both the economic and the environmental interests in our forests as expressed by that report.
These organizations included the Canadian Forestry Association, the Canadian Institute of Forestry, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, the Canadian Federation of Woodlot Owners, the Canadian Wildlife Federation, Wildlife Habitat Canada, the Canadian Nature Federation, Ducks Unlimited Canada, and the Canadian Federation of Professional Foresters.
It is particularly encouraging that these national institutions strongly support our recommendations for the implementation of sustainable development in Canada to begin in our forests and to be accomplished under federal and provincial leadership in a process of partnership with all stake holders in those forests.
The organizations which gathered here today represent a profound and comprehensive expression of the concept of partnership in the management of Canada's forest resources.


CPR TRAINING
Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton-Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, last Saturday evening a Canadian Airlines plane travelling from Ottawa to Vancouver was forced to make an emergency landing in Calgary. While on board, the 10-month old son of my constituents, Robert and Taunia Myrah, had stopped breathing. The flight attendants who were untrained in the procedures of cardiopulmonary resuscitation administered this technique while reading from a manual.
Because emergency medical assistance is not readily available while planes are in the air, it is inconceivable that flight personnel are not required to possess these life saving techniques.

The airlines must assure their passengers that at least one of their flight attendants is trained in these techniques should an emergency come up.

I offer my sincere condolences to the family of Colton Myrah and recommend that as many Canadians as possible become familiar with the life saving techniques of CPR.


CANADA'S GREEN PLAN
Ross Belsher: Mr. Speaker, the residents of Fraser Valley East are very concerned with environmental issues. The beauty of the valley is often cloaked by ugly clouds of smog blown in from Vancouver. Air quality is not simply a cosmetic concern for the residents of Chilliwack, nor for that matter is the murkiness of the Fraser River a cosmetic concern. Every time we breathe the air or look at the water we are reminded of the pressing need for action.
The green plan for a healthy environment is a plan for action. I have made the minister aware of our concerns. The minister has listened, the minister has considered, and the minister has acted.
Targets are set for the establishment of comprehensive emission controls complete with a monitoring and advisory component. In 1991, the federal government will join with the Government of British Columbia to start development of a Fraser River action plan for the Fraser River and Burrard Inlet. The action plan will focus on restoring the river's fish population meaning clearer and cleaner water.
The green plan will ensure that the fresh is put back into fresh air and that the clean will be put back into clean water. This is definitely good news for residents of the Fraser Valley and indeed all Canadians.

Oral Questions


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, during the Liberal leadership campaign the hon. member for Hamilton East asked: "Where does Jean Chretien stand on the GST?"
I believe we can still ask the question: Where do the Liberals stand on the GST? Why did the Liberal senators of the national Liberal caucus not oppose the GST legislation when leave was sought to introduce it in the Senate? Why did the Liberal senators and the Liberal caucus not oppose the GST when it was introduced at first reading in the Senate? Why did the Liberal senators and the Liberal caucus not oppose the GST at second reading in the Senate? Why did the Liberal senators and the Liberal caucus not defeat the GST when they had the majority in committee during April, May, June, July, August, September, and October?
For months and months, while the Liberals had the majority in the Senate, they chose not to defeat the GST. Could it be that the Liberal senators did not defeat the GST because they were following orders from their leader, Jean Chretien?


ILLITERACY
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, let us consider the following: in May a Statistics Canada report revealed that the reading skills of 2.9 million Canadians were too limited to allow them to deal with most of the written material they encounter in everyday life. In 1987 the Southam survey found one in four Canadians to be functionally illiterate. These studies help reveal the magnitude of the illiteracy problem which challenges the future development of our country.
As we move to address this problem, our actions must be placed in a larger context. Illiteracy is just one part of the puzzle. Our actions on literacy therefore must be part of a much broader strategy to improve social mobilization and our social welfare system.
Our efforts must be accompanied by actions in areas like training, education, child care, employment equity, and initiatives to address the problem of poverty in this country.
I look forward to our government moving forward on this social policy agenda. Yet at the same time I urge that this be done in a consistent, comprehensive and co-ordinated manner.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
Last week in Comer Brook and Calgary, last night in Rimouski and Windsor, tens and tens of thousands of Canadians rallied to call for the restoration of their CBC local television stations.
In Windsor, Ontario, for example, 10,000 people called for the bringing back of their station, the only Canadian station of any kind in the entire region. People say that without their stations they are less a part of Canada. They are tired of the unravelling of this country due to the decisions of this government.
If this government is truly interested in maintaining the unity of this country, will it restore local CBC television broadcasting right now?


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity, just a few hours ago, to discuss these matters with representatives of the people from those areas, not Rimouski in particular, but the North Shore.
The CBC applies the principle of providing symmetrical programming services in all regions of the country. It was forced to close local stations as was Radio-Quebec a few years back.
We must bear in mind that Radio-Quebec decided in 1986 to close its nine production centers for financial reasons. In 1990, it closed down its Gaspe office. Neither Radio-Quebec nor the CBC acted irresponsibly. Both were simply responding to economic pressures which force leaders to make decisions, Mr. Speaker.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, what the minister calls symmetry is the

amputation of the regions of this country in a way that cuts it up and destroys its unity. That is not symmetry; that is not what the people of this country want.
This is a time when we should be thinking of the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves. Yet, because of the decisions of the CBC approved of by this government, next year there will be no Heart Fund telethon in Ottawa, no Easter Seals telethon in Windsor, no Children's Hospital telethon in Winnipeg.
My question is for the Minister of Communications. Why is the government so heartless, cruel, and insensitive that it supports the decisions of the CBC to eliminate these telethons? If the government has a heart, will the government take steps to ensure that these telethons are broadcast next year and for many years to come? Will the minister give this reassurance to the needy, the crippled, and the poor of the country right now?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the CBC has regularly received funding from the government to fulfil its mandate. If you analyse the percentages of government funding allocated to government programs, you will see that the CBC has been privileged in this respect in that its percentages were higher.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, this government has a responsibility to provide for sound public administration, especially where the Budget is concerned. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to make sure we have social services across the country next year- One thing is certain, and that is that we will have those services thanks to the policies of this government, and no thanks to the policies of the previous government.
The best way to provide for this country's social, cultural and economic development is to act responsibly when dealing with public funds. That is what the previous government was incapable of doing, Mr. Speaker.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, we have the previous government to thank for local television programming across the country, and the current government is cutting these programs. That is what is really happening, Mr. Speaker.
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On the weekend, 5,000 people expressed their dissatisfaction in Rimouski, and another 10,000 in Windsor, following the shutdown of their CBC tv stations. My question is: Why is the minister depriving the regions of this vital resource? Why does he not he realize how important access to information is for these regions? Why is he isolating them even more from the rest of Canada?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the CBC must take into consideration the current economic situation in this country and the environment in which it has to work, bearing in mind the reports and analyses made over the years, from Apple-baum-Hebert to Caplan-Sauvageau. The CBC and its administrators are trying to provide the country with a major programming centre and representation in the regions. However, the CBC has responsibilities like the rest of the government and like other broadcasters.
In Quebec, for instance, Radio-Quebec had to stop its regional services in 1986, for economic reasons, and again in 1990, for the same reasons.
I think the CBC, like Radio-Quebec, is responsible for the public money it spends, and that is the framework within which it operates, Mr. Speaker.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Communications if he truly believes that the maison-mere on Rene Levesque Boulevard inQuebec City can reflect better the whole of eastern Quebec than they can themselves.
The minister has completely removed the face of eastern Quebec from the screen of Radio-Canada, our international and national voice.
Yesterday I joined 5,000 people in common voice in Rimouski when they asked the Prime Minister to re-order government priorities and provide the necessary funds to serve their distinctive voice.
My question is for the Acting Prime Minister. Will he make that choice? He has an option. Will he today restore the funding needed to put Radio-Canada back on the map across Canada?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the present government has always acted responsibly in its dealings with the CBC. It has made sure that the percentage of assistance given to the corporation was greater than the amount granted all

Oral Questions
government programs. When the hon. member for Mount Royal takes part in public meetings, she should not only be mindful of the economic problems of this government but should also remember that the present Prime Minister never threatened to shut down the CBC.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle -Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Employment and Immigration). Yesterday in Rimouski, an entire region rose up to condemn the savage cuts at the CBC. The hon. member for Mount Royal was there to defend the region and the jobs that were lost. The Minister of Employment was not. Why did the minister support her government's decision? Will the minister now show her solidarity with her region and her people by defending their jobs? Does the minister have the courage to answer the question? Will she fight to bring the CBC back to eastern Quebec?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows perfectly well it is most unfair to put a question of this type to a colleague whose responsibility does not lie in this area. My colleague, the hon. member for Remouski Temiscauata is not hiding behind the Minister of Communications, but her responsibilities lie elsewhere, Mr. Speaker. It is therefore my responsibility as the federal Minister of Communications to provide for the growth of the CBC, and growth means, first of all, programming. The best way to provide for programming is to put the CBC on a sound economic footing. That is how we can then provide a better service to the regions, including the Gaspe, Windsor, and other regions across Canada. The CBC will be there, in all 10 regions in this country, with two major bridgeheads that will provide programs that reflect our Canadian reality and identity. That is how the CBC will be able to serve Canadians, not with the kind of rhetoric we saw under former Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau, who had only one answer for the CBC-

rallied in Saskatoon, the 500 who rallied in St. John's, the 5,000 who rallied in Rimouski. He also refused to make himself available to nearly 10,000 people who gathered in Windsor yesterday not just to protest the CBC cuts, but to express the fact that they have to fight to be a part of Canada because of the actions of this government.
If this minister can have a direct line to Lavalin Corporation, why can he not he listen to Canadians who want nothing more than to have a direct line to the rest of Canada?


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the Department of Communications made sure then as it does now that Canadians were consulted through various working groups and commissions of inquiry, from the Applebaum-Hebert Commission to the Caplan-Sauvageau Commission, and now the working group lead by Mr. Girard and Mr. Peters.
All those mechanisms are made available to the Canadian people so that the Canadian broadcasting system can be defined. But there is an economic reality the hon. member is not familiar with, that of an evolving market which ensures our economic as well as our cultural freedom, but also demands to be taken into account. That is precisely what the CBC leaders are doing, Mr. Speaker.


Sheila Finestone: Tell that to the artists and the journalists.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: I guess this minister wants to go down in history as the minister of benign neglect. He has a responsibility. He talks about maintaining culture. Come on down to Windsor. Come down to Windsor where every single day in the week we are dominated and overcome by American culture. Your job is to defend Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my question is also addressed to the Minister of Communications. Last week his parliamentary secretary said that the minister is always available to consult with Canadians. Yet he refused to meet with the president of CBC. He refused to meet with the 2,500 Canadians who


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the economic situation is difficult. The way to deal with it, however, is

December 17, 1990

Oral Questions
not by taking demagogic measures but responsible ones, and that is what this government is doing.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question for the minister is this: has he listened to the voices coming from Rimouski, Saskatoon, Calgary, the French speaking population of Ontario? Has he listened and has he heard the anger? Has he heard the sense that they want to be able to speak to this country? Is he prepared to give them an answer that he will provide help, he will provide support and he will see that this country stays together in the future?


An hon. member:: He has not listened to Orillia either, I can tell you.


Marcel Masse: Mr. Speaker, the CBC, Radio-Quebec and TV-Ontario of Toronto, like all private or public broacasting companies, like all printed media, all periodicals, and all radio networks in Canada must, like in other countries, take into consideration both the technical evolution and the economic evolution.
We cannot assure the hon. member that one sector among others would be fully protected, Mr. Speaker, because that kind of protection exists only under a communist regime. And we can see now what happens- the total collapse of the entire economic structure.
We in Canada have to be mindful of the market, and it is with that consideration in mind that the CBC management face up to their responsibilities. The government helps to the tune of more than $1 billion, but there is also the advertising side of the issue. Since the CBC does not fully capitalize with respect to advertising, it now has to take that into account and restructure itself.


INDUSTRY
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry. The afterglow of the free trade deal has resulted in a scorched earth policy for Canadian industry. The latest victims are 470 Stelco workers who are joining 4,500 other Stelco workers already on the unemployment insurance lines. Some estimate the job loss as being as high as 226,000 as a direct result of the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal, and yet the Minister for International Trade is in Washington today negotiating an extension to that deal with Mexico, because he says that there are "no fundamental obstacles".
I would like to ask the Minister of Industry whether he believes the loss of 226,000 jobs does not represent a fundamental obstacle to further negotiations and a further trade agreement.


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say first of all that it is in the interest of the hon. member for Hamilton East to say that the FTA is responsible for all jobs lost in the country. However, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association has said very clearly that there is no way that we could put the difference between the recession and the FTA.
We believe that as much as the economic reality could be better, Canadians will be able to take advantage of the free trade agreement. Once again, I believe that we should do our best to recognize that the free trade agreement has been good for Canada; it is the global economy. I do not necessarily ask the member to understand that now but she will maybe understand in a little while.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry ought not to direct his remarks to me but to the 1,000 men and women who have worked in the furniture-making industry in the province of Quebec and to the 136,000 workers who can no longer find employment in that sector in Quebec because of his policies and that of his government.
I have a question for him because he and his government did promise all workers that there would be recycling programs, but there is none. Is he now prepared to assure the Canadian people that there will not be further negotiations until such time as programs have been implemented to find work for the men and women who have been laid off as a result of the free trade policy of this government.


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, the answers in French are the same as in English. The free trade agreement

December 17, 1990
Oral Questions
has nothing to do with current job losses in Canada. These references to the economic recession-
Again, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that Quebec labour was in favour of the free trade agreement, and Quebec remains supportive of this deal. Mr. Speaker, after the Liberal Party's lengthy filibuster over Bill C-21, my colleague the Minister of Employment and Immigration finally has the mechanisms she needs to provide Quebec workers with the recycling programs they want.
But as usual my colleague speaks from both sides of her mouth. At the time she should have done everything to help the House adopt the bill designed to help Quebec employers and workers, and things would have been much easier all around, Mr. Speaker.


FISHERIES
Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Last Friday the minister released a new Atlantic management plan that will apply for three years rather than the usual one. Part of that plan includes the introduction of individual boat quotas for the Scotia-Fundy inshore, a system which may cost many fishermen and communities their livelihood if it is put into place.
I ask the minister this. Why is he going to a three-year plan in the Scotia-Fundy area without first doing a comprehensive stock evaluation, as asked for by the fishing people in the area?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, the question of the hon. member as to the reason why we have introduced a three-year TAC in Scotia-Fundy is the same reason that we have done it for other parts of the Atlantic region. We are trying to build some stability in that fishery. What the fishermen, what the producers and what the manufacturers have told us is if they could get a longer term view of the fishery, they can do better planning, they can do better marketing. That is the reason why we have gone for this three-year TAC, by putting in the window, that is not carved in stone. If we get biological evidence or scientific evidence that the stock is on the verge of
collapse or that it is doing much better, then at that time we shall revise the TACs.


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his answer. I am sure if he spoke to the industry in the southern end of Nova Scotia, he would know that they would like to have a new evaluation.
My further question concerns the Minister of the Environment's green plan, which was introduced last week. I am sure the Minister of Fisheries is well aware that at page 76 it states:
Accordingly, in consultation with the fishing industry and the
provinces, the Government will put in place a system of Individual
Transferable Quotas (ITQs) for various fisheries.
I ask the minister, is this now polity? If so, what fisheries does he plan to privatize further on the east coast?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I am struck by that question, privatize. I did not know that the governments of Canada or Nova Scotia, for that matter, or any other were fishing. This belongs to the private sector. I tell the member that these fishermen are entrepreneurs. They are the ones who are harvesting the fish in the Atlantic Ocean.
When she asks me whether this is the policy, she should be aware that the draggermen of her area are the ones to whom we have offered to introduce these Individual Transferable Quotas. They are being implemented right now. They have been asking for it. She should listen to those fishermen more.


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. The Minister for International Trade is now in Washington talking to U.S. and Mexican representatives regarding trade talks on a U.S.-Canada trade deal with Mexico. From reports, the United States has given Canada until February 1, 1991 to decide whether we will participate. The last time the United States gave Canada an ultimatum we lost 226,000 jobs in just two years of the U.S. trade deal.
I want to ask the government this: what is the response of this government to the latest U.S. ultimatum, yes or no?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, as I think the hon. member knows, the trade minister is meeting with the United States trade representative and the Mexican representative today. They will be making a decision shortly. By the end of January or early February the three governments should be in a position to announce what the shape of those negotiations will be. I hope these negotiations will help to increase the creation of jobs in Canada just as we have had since December, 1988, with 207,000 jobs created in Canada since the free trade agreement.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, trade deals for Canada based on hope have certainly not proven in the interest of Canadian workers. Two hundred and twenty-six thousand who have lost their jobs know that.
My supplementary is for the minister. This government, despite the job losses, despite the loss to Canadian sovereignty, continues on the same old way of dragging Canada into something and it cannot even prove that the Canada-U.S. trade agreement has been good for Canada. All other statistics say it has not. Yet this government is now considering a deal with Mexico.
Before even considering being a part of these talks, will the minister undertake on behalf of his government a full public assessment of the results of the Canada-U.S. trade deal before getting us into another one?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting when a spokesman from that side of the House and from the Liberal Party speak about the trade agreement. They always refer to one section of any country's trade balance and that is the manufacturing sector.
The manufacturing sector of Canada, the manufacturing sector of the United States, the manufacturing sector of Europe, the manufacturing sector of Japan have been declining in relationship to services for the past 20 years. There is nothing new about this. The manufacturing sector is declining.
What is not happening in other countries, and is happening in Canada, is that investment intentions in Canada, investment intentions in capital equipment,
Oral Questions
investment intentions in plant and equipment, hit record highs last year and they are up this year, 1990, 9.7 per cent over the previous year.



Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of fisheries and concerns the dockside monitoring program.
Last Friday in the management plan announced by the minister he included references to the dockside monitoring program that fishermen want no part of. According to fisheries officials, the program is to be fishermen funded and run by a third party contractor.
Is the minister having this program contracted out to avoid the heat from annoyed fishermen in Prince Edward Island?


Bernard Valcourt: No, Mr. Speaker, that is not the reason why we are introducing the dockside monitoring program, and I really wonder whether the member would understand if I gave him the reason. With a question like that, you have to wonder.
The reason we are introducing a dockside monitoring program-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: Of course they like the question, but not the answer.


Mr. Gauthier:: Well, give us an answer.


Bernard Valcourt: A good Liberal.
The reason is that the state of the fish stocks in Atlantic Canada is in bad shape. That is because of non-reporting of fish, discarding of fish, dumping of fish at sea-not by bureaucrats, but by fishermen. We want to control the stocks. I was asked earlier by one of the member's colleagues for a better assessment. Well, give us the tools and then we will have a better assessment.


Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister.
In the plan announced last Friday, the Minister of Fisheries announced that there would be a mesh size increase in the gulf fishery as well as a 20 per cent cut in groundfish quotas over three years.

Oral Questions
When is the minister going to undertake a study of the Gulf fishery, like the Harris and Hache commissions?
Also, will the minister set up an assistance plan specifically for the fishermen in the Gulf region now?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the best assistance we can give fishermen in Atlantic Canada is making sure that we have proper management measures to ensure the conservation of these stocks.
If the hon. member cares so much for the fishermen, he should endorse the groundfish management plan because it is one that will ensure the conservation of these stocks for present fishermen and the next generation of fishermen in all of Atlantic Canada.
I will thank him for his strong support.


PERSIAN GULF
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Acting Prime Minister. UN Resolution 678 authorizes member states to use force in the gulf after January 15. Talks before that date between Washington and Baghdad are currently non-existent.
Is Canada taking steps today to ensure that the UN Security Council is sponsoring its own peace negotiations before January 15?


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister responsible for Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, I know that the Secretary of State for External Affairs is meeting with the NATO foreign ministers today and will be discussing the issue of the gulf.
Certainly it is our position that we would urge Saddam Hussein to quickly come to an agreement on a date to proceed with those meetings which would offer the best prospects for development of a peaceful resolution of this problem in the Middle East.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs has certainly been using his good offices to encourage and urge that these meetings take place as quickly as possible so that there be a possibility of a peaceful resolution.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the same minister. On Friday, President Bush referred to January 15 as the deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.
I would like to repeat a question put to this House before but to which we have as yet an unsatisfactory response. Will the government assure us today that Canadian forces will not participate in any offensive action in the gulf before debate on the issue takes place in the House of Commons?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I think this issue was thoroughly debated during the last debate that we had with respect to the UN Resolution. Obviously, as the hon. member knows, the position of this government is that our forces are there to support the UN Resolution, to insist on the enforcement of that resolution, and to bring about a peaceful resolution of the dispute in the gulf.
If there is any change in the role of our forces, the government obviously would have to take that into consideration and would certainly advise the members of the opposition parties as quickly as possible.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for External Relations. The minister knows that despite strong opposition from the African National Congress and despite very serious state violence in the black townships, the European Community yesterday lifted the ban on new investment in South Africa.
Will Canada maintain our ban on new investment in South Africa until there has been irreversible change in the policy of apartheid in South Africa as defined by the African National Congress and as defined by the South African Council of Churches?
[Translation\


Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is well aware that these are multilateral sanctions which we approved within the framework of the Commonwealth. We are determined to maintain our present policy until the responsible ministers meet again in March of next year. My hon. friend is also well aware that the Government of Canada sincerely believes that the sanctions must be
December 17, 1990

maintained as long as there is no evidence of irreversible change in the policy of apartheid in South Africa. Such has always been and remains our position for the time being.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question to the same minister also has to do with the issue of human rights in Africa.
In view of the serious violations of human rights in Zaire, including the killing of students, will the Government of Canada exert pressures so that the Francophone Summit be moved from Zaire, will cancel all assistance and credit to the government of that country and demand the immediate release of all the students currently in Zairian prisons, including Reverend Brother Victore Digekisa, President of the Student Union?


Monique Landry: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is certainly aware of this government's position concerning the human rights issue. Last week, I personally met the Zairian Minister of Foreign Affairs while on a visit to Canada and so did my colleague Marcel Masse. During our discussions, I conveyed to him the government's concern about the disregard for human rights and the democratic process which seems to be developing in Zaire.
My hon. friend referred to past events. Following the Lubumbashi massacres, I sent for the Zairian ambassador to express to him our very deep concern about these incidents. I had requested at the time that his government should authorize an international inquiry into the Lubumbashi events. We continue to give enornous significance to the human rights issue and the democratic process and we will take the every step necessary in this connection.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology. This question is further to the question on regional development in Quebec I asked him on November 7 as to whether three new programs would be
Oral Questions
announced for the resource regions of Quebec under the 1988 Canada-Quebec agreement.
Everyone in Quebec knows that the federal government is prepared to make such an announcement. Did he hear from the Quebec Minister of Regional Development since November 7?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, indeed, the programs concerning the business reception facilities, support for tourist attractions and infrastructure projects and support for major regional facilities were approved by the Treasury Board of Canada. As a matter of fact, we are now waiting for the required harmonization with the Quebec government to be completed and I expect to be able to make an official announcement in early January 1991.


FORESTRY
John Williston (Bud) Bird: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Forestry.
In its report entitled Forests of Canada-The Federal Role, the House of Commons subcommittee on forestry has recommended development of a national forest inventory and data base as a major priority in any strategy for sustainable forestry development in Canada. Such a system would entail not only perpetual statistical control of trees and timber, but also an integrated and constant analysis of wildlife, mineral deposits, ecological reserves, parklands and all other values of the forest, both economical and environmental.
My question to the minister is as follows: does he share the view of the report that such an integrated inventory system and data base is an essential priority for the future management of Canada's forestry resources and, if so, does he accept the recommendation that the federal government must provide the leadership to establish such a system in partnership with the provinces and other stakeholders?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, not only can I tell my hon. friend that I support this kind of approach, but that we are well under way in co-operation with and under the control of the council of forest ministers in the country to update our data systems and put in place a national data system that would respect the principles that he has enunciated in

December 17, 1990
Oral Questions
his report, namely, the need for integrated management and the management of the timber and non-timber assets in our forests. I am pleased to be able to say to my friend that early in the new year, when I am required to make my first report to Parliament, some of these new statistics will be reflected.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, the price discovery mechanisms for grains in the marketplace are not working. Due to concentration in the corporate sector and various United States subsidy programs, such as their target prices and deficiency payments and the Export Enhancement Program, will the Acting Prime Minister assure the House today, before Christmas, that Canadian grain farmers will not have to carry the burden of these misguided United States actions and will be compensated with reasonable prices for their highest quality grain in the world?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, the question raised by my colleague deals with the price of grains. You can see how right Canada is to defend, internationally and more particularly at the GATT, the position that the present grain war is nonsense. It is nonsense for Canada and for all countries closely interested.
We believe that if the Europeans could be convinced to water down their wine and display more flexibility, especially at this time-we did receive mildly optimistic reports from our representatives, as the members of this House did from the Standing Committees last week-it is likely that we could build on solid ground in the GATT negociations, starting in January. To support the Canadian farmers who produce high standard wheat, Mr. Speaker, we absolutely need to reach an agreement at the GATT negociations and I can assure you that Canada will not let this chance go by.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that some very prominent Canadian farm leaders marched with the European farmers in Brussels a couple of weeks ago showing support for the EEC position at GATT. Under the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the United States must take into account the impact that export subsidies have on Canada.
Will this government use the instruments provided for in this agreement to seek consultations and compensation for losses incurred by the Canadian Wheat Board and by the Canadian farmers for the 1990-91 crop year?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member ought to know that last year, the government had consultations with grain producers across Canada. We had a federal-provincial conference in November in Winnipeg, where we practically reached an agreement on a long-term program.
What Canadian grain producers need, in addition to a GATT agreement that will help them get a fair price on international markets, is a program that provides a safety net at the national level that will help them plan for the future. As far as consultation is concerned, Mr. Speaker, this Canadian government has consulted with farm producers more than any other government. We have nothing to be ashamed of in this respect.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Last week the minister informed the House he would seek clarification from his Quebec counterpart with respect to the $5 fee which would be imposed for some types of emergency room visits.
Has the minister received any clarification or reply? What does the minister think of the $5 fee? Is it or is it not a user fee?
*
December 17, 1990


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I have not yet received a reply.
What we have done is write to the provincial ministry of health in Quebec to seek more information. It would be appropriate to await the results of a response to that letter before taking a decision as to whether or not it contravenes the provision of the Canada Health Act.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is to the same minister. Witnesses who have appeared before the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare for the past year have asked for adequate funding of community health care.
Will the minister commit to the House today that he will exercise more federal leadership and expand the mandate of the Canada Health Act to also include funding of community health care, as reflected in the report of the Standing Committee on Health and Welfare tabled in this House of Commons six months ago?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has shown considerable leadership in the whole field of health.
We transfer to the provinces each year some $14 billion to assist them in the provision of health services. In addition to that, we have shown leadership in fighting against AIDS, in terms of the fight against tobacco, drug abuse, and a whole range of other issues which affect the health of Canadians.
One thing that we also do, however, is respect the Constitution of Canada. We respect the fact that the delivery of health care services is given to the provinces within the confines of the Canada Health Act. We believe that is an appropriate division of responsibilities.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Louis Plamondon: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance.
Now that the Senate has passed the GST, Quebec has already exempted books from this tax and the Prime Minister of Canada promised to consider this a few weeks ago, is the minister prepared to make a formal commitment today that he will amend the goods and
Oral Questions
services tax legislation to provide an exemption for books? Is the minister prepared to accept the fact that taxing books means imposing ignorance?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong when he makes those comments.
We are not taxing educational services. We are not taxing public-If the hon. member says we are, he should read the legislation.
We are not taxing libraries. These are important elements in the whole battle against illiteracy in this country. My hon. friend realizes that we have not had Royal Assent. That, I expect, will come later today. We have said, with something as major as the goods and services tax legislation, that we will wait a period of time and review the impact that the GST has on various segments of the economy. After that, we will be in a better position to make some decisions.


FORESTRY
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. Last week the Minister of the Environment promised to take steps to halt the clear cutting of timber in Canada's largest national park, Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta.
Since Canadian Forest Products is now cutting 24 hours a day and has given notice of its plans to double the cut, liquidating the largest white spruce forest in Alberta and destroying the trap lines and livelihood of the Little Red River Indian Band, will the Acting Prime Minister ask Canfor today to halt logging immediately? Or, is clear cutting of the national parks part of the green plan?


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I can indicate that there is a legal agreement between Canfor and the Government of Canada, which was initially entered into by our friends opposite in 1956 and which was renewed in 1982 for a 20-year period. Unfortunately, in that agreement as renewed in 1982, there was no provision for a buy-out opportunity.

December 17, 1990
Routine Proceedings
This Government of Canada is opposed to the timber harvesting which is going on at the present time. We have indicated a willingness to negotiate with Canfor to secure such a buy-out if that company is willing to enter into negotiations.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government. Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1), these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.


FEDERAL REGULATORY PLAN
Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Privatization and Regulatory Affairs)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I am pleased to table, in both official languages, copies of the 1991 Federal Regulatory Plan.


POINT OF ORDER
Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Last week the Minister of Public Works indicated in the House that he would be making available to all members of the House the report with respect to asbestos in the West Block.
Due to the fact that the report has not yet been translated into both official languages, it is not available for tabling in the House. However, it is available in both the opposition and government lobbies and is available to all members.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we understand the minister's predicament. We agreed that the document be made public outside the
House, but it would be going against the Standing Order of this House and against the official languages law to table that today.
Although we requested this morning that it be done in the House, we certainly agree with the minister that it is better to dispose of that issue by tabling it outside the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I fully agree with the opposition House leader's comments. I may refer hon. members to Standing Order 32(4).


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the sixth report of the Standing Committee on the Environment, which has to do with the provision for publishing a report of the committee if the House happens not to be sitting when we expect to complete our third report on the atmosphere.


BILL C-91-REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE
Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-91, an act to amend the Financial Administration Act and other acts, with amendment.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 360 and 390.


Mr. Gardiner: December 17, 1990

Did representatives of the government of British Columbia attend meetings with the Ministers of Finance and National Revenue and their staff, where the principle, concept, and implementation of the Goods and Services Thx was discussed and, if so (a) on what dates (b) which representatives?


Albert Glen Cooper: I am
informed by the Departments of Finance and National Revenue as follows:
Representatives of the government of British Columbia attended meetings with the Minister of Finance where sales tax reform was discussed. At these meetings, the province of British Columbia was represented by the Hon. Mel Couvelier and/or senior officials. The dates these meetings took place are listed below.
December 12, 1986, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
March 12, 1987, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
June 15, 1987, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers, and Treasurers.
November 5, 1987, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
December 10, 1987, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
March 9, 1989, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
April 7, 1989, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
December 7, 1989, Federal-Provincial Meeting of Finance Ministers and Treasurers.
The Minister of National Revenue and his staff did not attend meetings with representatives of the British Columbia government, where the principle, concept and implementation of the Goods and Services Tax was discussed.


Mr. Bellemare: Since February 1988, in the Public Service, how many people in the age 50 to 54 category have lost their employment due to downsizing?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: am informed by the Public Service Commission as follows:
Since February 1, 1988, 149 employees in the age category 50 to 54 have been laid off from the Public Service. Of this number, 36 have been reappointed to the Public Service.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The questions as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I am in receipt of a notice of motion under Standing Order 52 from the hon. member for Victoria.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I could ask for leave, pursuant to Standing Order 52, for an emergency debate on the subject of the Persian Gulf and the situation there.
It arises out of the events of this past weekend. There had been planned meetings between the Secretary of State of the United States and the Foreign Minister of the Government of Iraq. Those meetings this past weekend have been cancelled, leading all observers of the grave situation in the Middle East to a new concern that war will break out in the Middle East shortly after January 15, the deadline established by the United Nations.
These events have added some urgency for this House because of the contemplated recess of the House in a few days. Given the deep concern of Canadians about the possible role of Canadian forces and the need for a commitment from the government before Canadian forces are committed to the situation in Iraq in any offensive capacity, this House must meet and must approve it. It is therefore, in my respectful submission, urgent that this House today deal with the situation as a

Government Orders
result of the weekend's events and have a debate on the issue of Canadian participation in offensive action in the gulf and a clear commitment from the government that there will be no such move by the government without clear parliamentary approval.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Victoria has once again raised an important question, but the Chair feels that the hon. member's request does not meet the criteria for an emergency debate at this time. Consequently, I will have to turn down this very legitimate request by the hon. member for Victoria, for the time being.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 6, consideration of Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, as reported (without amendment) from the legislative committee; and the motion of Mr. Langdon (p. 16404).
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I see that members on the government benches are all keyed up, but I suggest they calm down. I was busy with one of my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, and I wonder whether you would perhaps refresh my memory and tell me where we are in the proceedings.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: We were considering motion No. 4A in the name of Mr. Langdon, concerning Bill C-84, the Petro-Canada legislation.
At the time the debate was adjourned, the hon. member for the New Democratic Party had the floor, and since he is absent, I wonder whether another speaker would like to be recognized.


Some hon. members:: Question!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House is ready for the question.
Shall I dispense with the reading of motion No. 4A?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 4A. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 6A
That Bill C-84 be amended in Clause 9 by adding immediately
after line 26 at page 3 the following:
"(a) provisions insuring that the Governor in Council be entitled to appoint one director to the Board of Directors of Petro-Canada;"
He said: Mr. Speaker, this is yet another further attempt to see to it that there is some continuing public presence, some continuing reflection of the community and its concerns, as Petro-Canada makes its decisions.
After all, we have a company into which the Canadian people have put tremendous amounts of money. The total amount of taxpayers' money which has gone into this company is something like $4.3 billion in 1990

dollars. Inking inflation into account, that investment amounts to over $6.8 billion.
If we had a sense that this company would be sold for anything close to $6.8 billion and that money was going to come back to the people of Canada, then it might make some logical sense for the public authorities of this country to cut themselves off entirely from Petro-Cana-da. I still think it would be a serious mistake in terms of our national energy hopes for the future, but one could see the logic.
However, the minister indicated in testimony before committee that he simply did not know how much money would be received for the shares of this company. For instance, my colleague from Edmonton East asked him point blank: "What you are telling me is that the government does not really have a clue. The government simply does not know how much money it will get for the sale of Petro-Canada". I should congratulate the minister on his frankness when he responded by saying: "That is right. We do not know what we are going to get for the sale of Petro-Canada".
The minister was then asked by the hon. member for Edmonton East if there was a price below which the government would not go, but the minister would not name a price. He would not even say that it was the intention of the government to see to it that the taxpayers of this country would recoup the amount for which the company is valued on the books after some fairly slick accounting wizardry had recently reduced taxpayers' equity by $1.8 billion.
We have a company created by the taxpayers of Canada and expanded by the taxpayers of Canada. It was the recipient in present dollar terms of something like $6.8 billion in assistance and investment from the government, yet the government intends to cut its ties completely with this company.
What a total, absolute, abdication of responsibility to the taxpayers of the country, on the part of the future consumers of the country and on the part of the future people of the country who depend on this company for energy supplies.
We have suggested with this amendment that the government would be entitled to appoint one director to Petro-Canada's board, simply one director. We are not
Government Orders
talking about government control of that board. We are not talking about a great mass of government bureaucrats. We are talking about a single director, so that there would be a chance for the public interest to be represented in the decision making that takes place in this company.
That director could of course be out-voted. It would be possible for that director to face a situation where he or she puts the public interest first, as cabinet saw it, before the Petro-Canada board and Petro-Canada says no, that it intends to follow the dictates of its bottom line and to seek to make decisions on the basis of what is most profitable for it, and that it is not going to listen.
This is not a suggestion that the director appointed by cabinet would have any extra power or authority, but that director would have the capacity to do two things: first, to convey to Petro-Canada, this company that we as taxpayers have put so much money into, the concerns of the public as reflected through the government of the day and, second, to be through participation on the Petro-Canada board, if not a window on the industry, at least a little peephole or a little chance for the government to have some direct insight into what is taking place with respect to this particular industry.
This is an industry which is crucial to the future of our country. It is crucial for the future of consumers and for the future of manufacturers. It is crucial for the future of resource producers in every part of the country that have to make use of gasoline or motor oil. Yet, if this amendment is not accepted, there will simply be a complete cut between the government which established this company and the company itself. This is not something remarkable or unusual. In many cases of privatization throughout the world, government has maintained the power to appoint at least one director. That director has proved an important communications link between the company and the government, subject of course to rules of confidentiality.


John Horton McDermid: Spy.


Steven W. Langdon: The minister suggests that this director would somehow be a spy. That sort of ideological comment on the part of the government just reflects the lack of concern and understanding with respect to the

Government Orders
need for a closer relationship, a closer partnership between government and business in this country.
As far as this government is concerned, government is supposed to retire to the back room. People, the community, are supposed to forget about the $6.8 billion which they put into this company and of which they are almost bound to get, at most, half back. If the minister has been listening, he will realize that this is the 1990 value of the $4.3 billion which was originally invested in this company.
Anybody who looks at constant dollar terms as the government statistics do would realize that $6.8 billion in 1990 is the same as $4.3 billion in 1980.
My final point is to make the case as clear, and precise as possible that we are talking about one director. If this government will not accept even one director, I think this government just shows its lack of understanding of the future relationships between business and government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I regret your time is over. The hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, in order to facilitate the debate this afternoon, I wonder if you would not find that there is unanimous consent to consider the remaining two motions put forward by my hon. colleague from Essex -Windsor to be grouped for the purpose of debate and be voted on separately. This would simply facilitate the afternoon's proceedings. Motions 8A and 12A to-


An hon. member:: What page?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Hey, a man who has found his place.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Does the House agree with the proposal of the hon. member for Kamloops?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Steven W. Langdon: Motion No. 8A
That Bill C-84 be amended in Clause 9 by adding immediately
after line 26 at page 3 the following:
"(a) provisions imposing a minimum price for the issuance and selling of shares so that the issuance and sale shall generate six billion seven hundred million dollars;".
Motion No. 12A
That Bill C-84 be amended in Clause 9 by striking out line 36 at
page 3 and substituting the following therefor:
"more than five per cent of the votes that".


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I will even try not to take my full 10 minutes, but I could not let this particular day and particular bill pass without commenting.
On December 3, 1977 at about one a.m. I became the candidate for the Conservative Party in the riding of Calgary West and ran for the first time in the election of 1979.


An hon. member:: And won.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: As a new candidate I felt it was my obligation in preparing to run for election and hopefully to be a member of this place, to spend some of that time in preparation, learning about pieces of public policy that I felt I was not comfortable with, that I did not know enough about.
Certainly in my case, as someone who was raised primarily in the city, agriculture was one of those areas and I spent many hours at it.
But the other was the oil industry. I was bom in Calgary and grew up there. Many of my friends and acquaintances worked in one facet or another of the oil industry. Yet when facing the possibility of coming here as a member of Parliament I realized how little I really knew about it and how great the need was to learn more about it. I set about doing that. It would certainly have been easier for me in the city of Calgary than it might have been for members in other communities such as Windsor, to really be able to get people voluntarily to teach me about this industry because Calgary is the capital and Calgary is the centre.
One of the people who was my mentor was a man who was the president and the chairman of the board of a company called Voyageur Petroleum. When we became the government in 1979, he headed a committee on behalf of the government to look into the divestiture of Petro-Canada. They brought forward a report in December of that year which never became public policy because we subsequently lost the vote in the House of Commons and we lost an election.
Why did we, in 1979, and why did I, in the intervening time from December 3,1977 until running for election in 1979, become so convinced and so persuaded that it was a piece of very bad public policy to create Petro-Canada in the first place, and that it was an even worse piece of

public policy to maintain it over all these intervening years.
I have read and listened to speeches that come from the other side. I say to members opposite, by and large, you do not know what you are talking about. You have no sense of reality about the funding and the financing of this corporation and what it did to our nation. It was an ideological decision to create this company in the first place. The cost of it was horrendous.
Prior to my running for office, Petro-Canada had acquired its first two smaller oil companies. The public treasury lost its income tax contribution because the minute they came into Petro-Canada's hands, they had no profit. In fact, the grants that the public, all of a sudden, had to give to those companies exceeded the income tax that it had been getting.
When I listen to the member opposite talk about all of the public money invested in this corporation. We had given up essentially, 15 years of income tax. We know how that compounds in the system and the contribution it would have made to deficit reduction over that entire 15-year period of time. We compounded the problem by giving them until 1984, until we became the government, annual grants of substantial size over and above those that were available to the industry generally, just for this corporation specifically.
In the entire period of time from the creation of this corporation until today, the government has had to borrow money to meet its operating expenses, that is, until the last three years when we have a little bit of money to apply the interest on the public debt.
We are talking about governments that went into the private sector, destroyed private companies by bringing them into Petro-Canada and paying for them with borrowed dollars. Canadians are stuck paying the interest on that public debt. My friend is worried about getting $4 billion back from Petro-Canada when it is worth over $7 billion. I heard him earlier in Question Period saying, "restore the money to the CBC. Give them the $108 million that they are asking for". Give, give, give. If we had even $4 billion, let alone $7.8 billion, would we not having to pay interest on it because it was a reduction of the public debt, $4 billion at 10 per cent, which is below market rates, is $400 million. We could give the CBC four times what it is asking for if that is his
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priority. But no, he would rather own comer service stations, asphalt, gas tank hoses and little numbers that run up and down. I am talking about the New Democrat who put these motions and just spoke, but it is a speech I have heard from the Liberals a thousand times.
I will tell you what it did to my city. When the government decided, for ideological reasons, that it had to move in this direction, it distorted, almost overnight, the entire labour market of an industry in the upward direction by about 35 per cent. It made all the costs for every oil company in this country on the staffing side at least 30 per cent to 35 per cent higher almost overnight and was a root cause of the runaway inflation in the early 1980s. This was the root cause of a whole lot of suicides and spousal batterings and this kind of stuff, because the government had blinders and said: "We must be involved in the oil industry at any cost and at any price". What advice did it give us? It did this under the rubric that it had this superlative advice that would put the Government of Canada in a position to do something, but what it was in a position to do was to inflate prices.


An hon. member:: And the 18 cents went to two bucks.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, since Petro-Canada came on the scene the cost of producing gas and oil in this country has rocketed astronomically and the taxation has rocketed astronomically. That permeates the society, it increases the cost of clothing and food and everything else we use. That is the contribution that Petro-Canada has made.
The only salvation at the end of the line is to go out there and sell those shares, bring the money in, reduce the debt, reduce the costs and make things cheaper for Canadians. That is what it is all about.



ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable Deputy to the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of his honourable House in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the House went up to the Senate chamber.
[Stage Direction]
December 17, 1990
Privilege
And being returned:
['I remind the hon. member of Standing Order 48:\n48(2) Unless notice of motion has been given under Standing Orders 54 or 86(2), any Member proposing to raise a question of privilege-\nI did not receive notice from the hon. member. I regret that I did not receive notice of your question of privilege. Resuming debate.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I have the honour to inform the House that when the House went up to the Senate chamber the Deputy Governor General was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the Royal Assent to the following bills:
Bill C-87, an act to amend the statute law in relation to war veterans-Chapter 43;
Bill C-39, an act to apply federal laws and provincial laws to offshore areas and to amend certain acts in consequence thereof- Chapter 44;
Bill C-62, an act to amend the Excise Thx Act, the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Customs Thrift, the Excise Act, the Income Thx Act, the Statistics Act and the Thx Court of Canada Act-Chapter 45; and
Bill S-14, an Act respecting the laws prohibiting marriage between related persons-Chapter 46.



Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt):: Mr. Speaker, I am looking to you for guidance. When the Gentleman Usher of the Back Rod was here, I rose on a point of privilege. Perhaps I was out of order, but being a rookie to this place, I possibly did not know any better.
I am asking the Speaker when it is proper for a member to rise on a point of privilege. When I was rising on a point of privilege, it was a matter very important to me. I am looking for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, as to whether it is proper to rise on a point of privilege, when it is proper and how far democracy can be overlooked.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: When the hon. member rose, the process had already started. He rose when the Chair was leaving the House to go to the other place. Unfortunately, it was impossible for the Chair to recognize the hon. member at that time, since the
procedure for Royal Assent had already started. I felt I could not recognize anyone while we were engaged in this procedure.


Jim Karygiannis: Mr. Speaker, I thank you. Perhaps I am trying to set a precedent, but I believe that democracy, and the way that we are elected here, should never be stopped or overlooked.
My point of privilege is that my rights were overlooked. I believe that this House should not have followed the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod to the other place as it would result in a breach of privilege of all members of this House.
I base this point on the fact that in neither House of Parliament did the government permit the full process to take place. I would urge that in accepting Bill C-62, as we did, without the-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but I believe I explained why I behaved the way I did. I see no need to discuss this decision, and with respect, I would appreciate the hon. member's co-operation. Perhaps we could resume debate from where we were before the Royal Assent. I want to thank the hon. member for his co-operation.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Jim Karygiannis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the fact that I was trying to catch your eye and you did see me. Maybe you did not, but through my eyes I thought that you did see me. The privileges of the members in this democratically-elected House should not be overlooked. The rights of members should always be first and foremost.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I remind the hon. member of Standing Order 48:
48(2) Unless notice of motion has been given under Standing Orders 54 or 86(2), any Member proposing to raise a question of privilege-
I did not receive notice from the hon. member. I regret that I did not receive notice of your question of privilege. Resuming debate.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-84, an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada, as reported (without amendment) from a legislative committee, and Motion No. 6A (Mr. Langdon).
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak very briefly to Bill C-94 and in particular talk about the amendment moved by the gentleman from Essex-Windsor.
In doing so, let me make a preliminary comment. I am delighted to see the gentleman for Kamloops here in the Chamber because I not only listened with care to what he was saying, but I believe more to the point, watched what he was doing when he was making his final point just a few minutes ago. Indeed, those who were watching the monitors outside of the Chamber would have found the whole exercise very instructive as he went to his one pocket, then the other, to determine what his position ought to be on this particular amendment.
You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that a week or so ago I talked to this Chamber about what I call my NDP suit, which has a pocket on either side. The NDP in their respective pockets carry various positions on various subjects.
Well today, poor fellow, the hon. member for Kamloops got his pockets all mixed up but eventually got them sorted out. We now know that he is going to vote for the amendment put down by the gentleman for Essex-Windsor, a member of the same party. He is going to vote for the second one put down by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. There were three in a row. My friend for Kamloops is going to vote for all three of those amendments.
Now, Mr. Speaker, if you think that is consistency, I say to you it is and we commend it. If you think it is an accident, I say to you, right again. It was an accident that he went to the left pocket instead of the right. I commend him for that particular accident. You see, he does sit next to me, the very next seat on my left. He
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stands to my left, and to my right, depending on the mood of the moment.
My friend is getting exercised now, but I mean this kindly. It is too near Christmas to get upset with my friends from British Columbia. We have too much in common to get upset with them.


John Horton McDermid: Name one thing.


Roger Simmons: The Minister of State for Privatization says name one thing. We are the book-ends in Newfoundland and B.C. which help keep this country together, despite the minister's best efforts to tear it apart. That is one thing we have in common.


An hon. member:: Touche.


Roger Simmons: I say to my friend for Comox-Albemi that my sister-in-law is numbered among his constituents. He had better look after that particular constituent.


John Horton McDermid: Did she vote for him?


Roger Simmons: I certainly could talk to her on that point. She had that choice or Social Credit, which is no choice at all. She is bright enough to know that having to decide between NDP and Social Credit is not much of a decision to have to make. I think he will agree on that point. Now we have them all excited in the NDP. Anybody who can get the NDP excited ought to get a medal.
I was saying to my friend from British Columbia that we in this party and particularly those who come from Newfoundland are still a bit upset about the jig that the crowd in the NDP danced on Hibernia. If ever anybody needed a suit with several pockets, it was that particular day. When they voted against the bill, they voted Hibernia. Then the member for Yukon went to Newfoundland and made that memorable statement to the press and to the university students. She said: "Because we voted against it does not mean we are against it". Oh no. If you are in the NDP, it does not mean that at all. It could mean you are for it or against it, or both, as the case may be. Do you understand that? It is all very clear. You are either for it, against it, or both. So I took great encouragement a few minutes ago when I found the hon. member for Kamloops actually closing ranks. He is going to vote for all three amendments put down by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. Mr. Speaker, we are mak-

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mg progress in this House. It is getting near Christmas. You can tell just by the mood of the House.
This brings me to the hon. member for Calgary West. That was not only his first speech, but his finest speech, absolutely his finest speech to date. He actually said- and you want to scream out "author"-listen to it: "They don't know what they are talking about". That is original. "They don't know what they are talking about", he said. Well, far be it from me to defend the NDP that I just came that close to maligning, but they do know what they are talking about and so do we, on this particular issue.
I say to my friend, the hon. member for Calgary West, that if he were a little more charitable today, he would recognize that we do know what we are talking about. I believe what he really means is that he does not agree with what we are talking about. He does not agree with what we are saying and that is his right because he has the right to be wrong, and he is dead wrong. He knows what he is talking about when he speaks on PetroCan but he is applying his facts, I submit, with less than real skill because he should read the title of this bill, "an act respecting the privatization of the national petroleum company of Canada". That was what it was intended to be, our national policy instrument in the area of energy. That is what it is, that is what it was, and that is what the government is destroying. The government can put the nicest face on it and make as many accusations as it wants about that big, bad, Liberal regime in its day but it cannot skate around the fact that it is wiping out an important policy instrument at a time when we still need it.
Indeed, I heard the hon. member go on about all the sins that had been visited on the country by this big, bad, Liberal regime. The hon. member blamed Petro-Canada for suicides and for the pulverizing of Calgary. One would think that Calgary did not exist any more. I was in Calgary and it was existing and getting along fine, thank you, despite his gloom and doom scenario. If the hon. member is going to represent Calgary, let him represent it as having a future, not as if he is giving a funeral oration. A great city like Calgary is being maligned by one of its very own members. It is shameful, absolutely shameful. I have three sisters in Calgary. They deserve better representation than that. I am going to send them out with my cousin in Comox-Albemi because people are getting better representation out there than they are
getting from that member. I do not agree with what he says but at least he does not misrepresent.


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


Roger Simmons: At least he does not misrepresent. The minister is absolutely right, I should not suggest that the hon. member for Calgary West is misrepresenting. For that I apologize. I got carried away again, as I often do.
When I heard the hon. member talking about what terrible things Petro-Canada visited on this country, such as wiping out a city-which I understand still exists, despite his submission to the contrary-which has caused suicides, it occurred to me that about the only thing that he has not blamed PetroCan for is Noah's fame, as a result of the flood. That is about the only thing he did not cite as being the direct, adverse consequence of this animal, this monster called PetroCan.
It is getting much too near Christmas. These people ought to restrain themselves. If they are going to get up and say irresponsible things in the House, they ought to be required to have their notes read by somebody who knows what he is talking about, before they let loose people like the member for Calgary West who gets up and, with respect, I say to him, makes a complete fool of himself. He knows what he is talking about, yes, but he does not apply his knowledge terribly well in this circumstance.
I see from your signal, Sir, that my time is running out. Let me tell you that I think the hon. member for Essex-Windsor has a brilliant resolution on 6A, so I am going to vote for it. It does not look too brilliant on 8A, so I am going to vote against it. We support what he is saying in 12A. We are for a little more control in terms of foreign ownership, and I can support that particular amendment.
On a final word, let us put this thing in context. This has nothing to do with the minutia or the routine of changing bills. This has to do, however nicely it is couched, with dismantling a country. Whether you are talking about CBC, or post offices or unemployment insurance, this is another nail in the coffin of Canada. This privatization of PetroCan is part of the process that this government undertook back in 1984. It is part of a process of dismantling what was once a great country. There will not be enough left to govern if this crowd stays in office much longer. That is why I like the idea of the man out west, who was reported on the news this weekend. He is starting a campaign to have an election
December 17, 1990

now. I am going to subscribe to his advertising fund. The sooner the better for all concerned, especially Canada.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the last time I stood regarding what we were doing, I think I garbled up a little bit. I would like to seek unanimous consent so that Motions Nos. 8A and 12A be deemed to be moved by the member from Essex-Windsor and grouped with 6A, currently under debate, with an understanding that the vote on 6A would apply to 8A and 12A.
I will simply say that 8A and 12A be deemed to be moved by the member for Essex-Windsor and grouped with 6A, currently under debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is the House agreed on the motion of the hon. member from Kamloops?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I believe I know which amendments I am supposed to be speaking to. I am probably in favour of all of them, including some of the Liberal ones that are vague, to say the least.
We have had the smugness of the member from Calgary West saying "We know it all and you know nothing," and that is part of the problem with the government. It tells Canadians "You know nothing, let us steer you in the right direction and everything will be fine." We go from smugness to Liberal flippancy. I enjoy the member's speeches but, on such a serious topic, you would not think that he would be just quite so flippant. The Christmas spirit I hope we will all catch, but the flippancy of the topic and of the Christmas spirit is not appropriate.
We New Democrats take this extremely seriously. I honestly thought that in my constituency there would not be a great to-do about the privatization of PetroCan. Nevertheless, we went ahead with the press conference at a PetroCan station in our community, along with 20 other New Democrats. I do not think the Liberals bothered, so this defence of Petro-Canada is a bit of a sham.
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Afterward, we received 800 mail-backs of concern from my riding saying: "Please, government, don't sell off PetroCan". Here we are at Christmastime this year. Do you know what we were doing last year? I am sure the members opposite would want to forget. Last year we were talking about clawback, the end of universality in this country as we now know it. At that time it was lost in another debate and many Canadians were not aware of what was going on. Now, I think, they know. Here we are again at Christmastime and the government is doing something unto Canadians which they do not want to happen. In talking about my friend from Kamloops and his pockets and whatever he was trying to depict about my good friend, one has to talk about where the Liberals stand. I suspect that they do stand on the fence. They are getting hit from both sides, and that is very difficult. We understand where this group opposite is; it is on the far right. We understand we are on the left, but the Liberals maintain that middle road. As I say, they get hit from both sides when they do that.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The Liberals set it up.


Steve Butland: The Liberals set it up at the behest of the New Democratic Party, absolutely. That is the truth, and the Liberals know it full well. I can tell by their reaction that we have touched a nerve. It was set up at the behest of the New Democratic Party.
The energy critic at that time was the member for Sault Ste. Marie, Cyril Symes, a good man. It was his initiative, along with that of Tommy Douglas. I hope to have a chance to give some education, as opposed to this smugness from the member for Calgary West that they know it all. I suggest he read about Tommy Douglas, and he might know a heck of a lot more than he does now.
With regard to privatization, we are talking Petro-Canada, Air Canada, Canada Post, and VIA Rail. I am wondering if we are talking about CBC. The CBC says it will not be able to fund the viewing of Parliament in the rest of Canada. I am wondering if this is the foot in the door which we brought to the government's attention. Everyone should know that there was an agreement between CBC and the cable companies of this country to get into a partnership where they would share the viewing-

December 17, 1990
Government Orders


John Horton McDermid: What has this got to do with these amendments?


Steve Butland: It is related to this privatization. It seems strange that the CBC would make such a sensitive cut and say: "Canadians, you are not going to be able to view Parliament". However, there is an agreement between Cableco and CBC somewhere that may go to the CRTC, and eventually this agreement may come about. I suspect, since CBC cannot afford it, we will be able to privatize it completely. You will be able to avoid the lobby groups, go right into the House and buy yourself an MP, the ones perhaps who are not already bought.


Some hon. members:: Order, order.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, you do not have to stand. If necessary, I retract that statement.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please! I may remind hon. members that the debate is still on the three motions in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, Motions Nos. 6A, 8A and 12A. I am sure the hon. member knows better than to digress from the subject before the House today which deals with the legislation to privatize Petro-Canada.
I thank the hon. member for his co-operation. [English]


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I thank you for reminding me of the excellent amendments as proposed by the New Democratic Party and my lukewarm support for most of the vague amendments from the Liberal Party.
I thought what the member for Burin-St. George's touched upon had no relationship whatsoever. He talked about my friend from Comox-Albemi and people all across the country. I too have friends, but I am not going to recite their names. I suspect that mine was more in line with the amendments than that of my colleague from Burin-St. George's.


Mr. Milliken:: You are getting into trouble. Maybe you should sit down.


Steve Butland: No, I am going to continue. These amendments are very appropriate because at least they are offering that last bit of hope to Canadians that there will be a line of communication with Petro-Canada as
we once knew it, not as it has developed over the past several years.
They are suggesting: "Let's sell it off. Let's operate it like a private enterprise". Canadian taxpayers have asked me: "If you sell off a private company, don't you get some money back. Where is my dividend? If I have invested $7 billion", or whatever the price tag is "am I not entitled to something back?" I am sure if a corporation divests itself of its ownership the directors say: "Where is my proceeds from the sale?" This is not going to happen.
Petro-Canada had the opportunity to be a leader, to be a public servant. It was in the beginning but gradually it phased out. It was not allowed to show any leadership in areas in which it certainly could have, given the appropriate funding. The director of Petro-Canada said: "If the timing is not right to sell, we won't sell". Let us say that the timing could not be worse. I know the minister would agree with me that the timing could not be worse. Petro-Canada was begun because of the mid-east crisis, and there may be an oil crisis. The timing is inappropriate. It is the wrong time, the wrong price, the wrong decision. If Petro-Canada had taken any kind of public leadership, Canadians would have said: "My goodness, it is different from the other corporations". However it was not allowed to.
I have cited before what is perhaps a very small environmental issue that becomes a major one. In my community I receive calls from constituents and gasoline retailers saying: "What about our waste oil? What do we do with it?" Nobody wants it. Some people say: "I am forced to go out into the forest and dump my waste oil when I change my oil in my vehicle". Why could not Petro-Canada, if it were operating for public benefit and public good, show leadership in that area? It will never be allowed to because profit will now be the sole motivation for the corporation. It will be no different from any other oil multinational. It will be the very same.
The amendments are excellent. They stand on their own merit. Once again I have to say that whoever crafted the Liberal amendments-


John Horton McDermid: We are not on them yet.


Steve Butland: I think I have to make a point of them. Petro-Canada has to work for the general advantage of
December 17, 1990

Canada, how vague can they be? Ours are very specific and exemplary. I think the House should support them.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I rise at report stage on this bill because I believe, as I pointed out at the second reading stage, that the mandate of Petro-Canada should be expanded.
Motion No. 6A would provide that the Governor in Council be entitled to appoint one director to the board of Petro-Canada. It is one of the ways that we could achieve some of the things I spoke about at second reading.
I asked the government at that time to expand the mandate of Petro-Canada, not only to reinstate its status as a vehicle for frontier development and exploration which has been virtually at a standstill over the last two years. The number of oil wells drilled and brought into production in Canada last year was the lowest since the 1970s. This year it is only slightly better in spite of increased crude oil prices. The other area I suggested to this government to expand the role of Petro-Canada was the inclusion of alternative and renewable fuels. I suggested that the government should immediately implement a program to ensure that all automotive fuels contain 3.2 per cent oxygen, and that MMT be banned for use in Canada immediately.
This octane enhancer, MMT, has been banned in the United States since 1978. In the words of one our leading neurotoxic scientists, "it is an insidious neurotoxic substance that is taken in through the respiratory system and destroys the cells in the base of the brain". Children whose immune systems are not yet fully developed are particularly susceptible. Canadian children will accumulate the substance in their bodies over a period of years, and the results may not be visible for several years.
This is a case of gross negligence by this government. I submit the government should not privatize this oil company but rather direct it to take the lead by cleaning up its product and developing the plants required to produce the ethanol and provide a blended gasoline which is one part ethanol to nine parts gasoline.
This requirement would utilize five million to eight million bushels of Canadian grains and would be a tremendous boost to the farmers of this nation. This
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new market would take about 20 per cent of our total grain production. The by-products created could be used by the cattle industry, the dairy industry, fish farms, and as a dried food product for Third World countries for human consumption.
I should point out that the net energy balance of ethanol contains two to four times the energy invested in its manufacture. In fact fuel ethanol is renewable. Its positive net energy balance of up to 80,000 B.t.u. per U.S. gallon is extremely favourable in comparison to gasoline, a fossilized energy source. The net energy content of gasoline is calculated at 110,000 B.t.u. per U.S. gallon, after accounting for a 12 per cent energy subsidy consumed in energy production and refining.
This government has brought in closure on this bill. We do not have a great deal of time or opportunity to debate all the possibilities and opportunities that should be pursued by this Crown corporation.
The so-called green plan tabled last week in this House shows the areas of smog concentration across Canada. These are all concentrated in major urban centres where the congestion of traffic is greatest. The report points out that this smog is the worst in the summer months. Therefore we know that most of it has to come from automotive emissions rather than home or office furnaces or other heating systems.
The report also states that these concentrations are known to have adverse effects on health. Yet the report carefully avoids any identification of one of the worst toxic substances being used. It ignores the fact that there are environmentally friendly alternatives that would cut these carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent or more. This is not just a 10 per cent cut in carbon dioxide emissions, but carbon dioxide emissions are also absorbed through the process of photosynthesis or the growing of the plant because as it is growing to produce the grains the plant absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. We have a double-barrelled impact on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
We have the lowering of the carbon dioxide emissions on the one hand. Then, if we were to ban the MMT or methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonate in Canada as they have in the United States, it would also take away that insidious near toxic substance that comes from the exhaust systems of cars, commonly known to che-

December 17, 1990
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mists as Mn3, and accumulates not only in the atmosphere but in the bodies of the people who breathe it in.
I should point out that this is not the normal type of manganese accumulation that takes place through the digestive system. Our bodies, soil and most growing plants contain manganese, but this Mn3 is taken in through the respiratory system and attacks the cells at the base of the brain. As I mentioned earlier, young children whose immune systems are not yet in place are particularly susceptible.
I am appalled that in the last month and a half five individuals from Newfoundland through to southern Ontario have come to me with health problems they feel may be linked to gasoline additives. I am not convinced at this point that all of it may not be linked to the Mn3 but to other substances including benzene, which is used as an octane enhancer and is carcinogenic in nature. The people who have come to me with these problems pointed out that they worked either in a gas station, at a distribution centre or in the service bay of an automotive dealership and consequently over the years have come down with these ailments. They must be linked somehow to the fuels and to the environment they work in.
I wish to point out one quote from page 44 of the green plan.
Over the last 2Q years, scientists have learned much about the detrimental effects of toxic chemicals. We know that barely detectable amounts of some chemicals have the ability to remain and build up in the tissue of the animals we rely on for food. These "persistent" toxic substances accumulate to a point where they represent a danger to our health.
I see that I am running out of time, but I want to suggest that it is a case of gross negligence to suggest that we should be concerned about the build-up in animals and completely ignore the build-up in citizens of this country. Certainly both go hand in hand. If we are going to be concerned about the build-up in animals we rely on for food, we should also be concerned about the build-up in human bodies, because we have far more humans in the urban concentration around the cities where the smog is worse than we do animals, which are usually out in the countryside grazing in the pastures or eating in bams or feed lots.
I call on the government now to withdraw this bill and give Petro-Canada a new mandate, one that places first and foremost the health of our people including that of our children and grandchildren.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Albemi):: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member who just spoke on his speech and his suggestion about the kind of leadership that Petro-Canada could take under appropriate management and direction from the government, if we had a government that was capable of giving the corporation appropriate direction.
Basically what we are doing here is following the dictates of an ideologically right wing party that believes the government should not be involved in anything. For that reason, it wants to dump Petro-Canada and virtually every other Crown corporation that it is involved in.
I was surprised at the member for Calgary West who was talking about the amount of income tax we could get from Petro-Canada. He was talking about the fact that once Petro-Canada was nationalized we were no longer able to receive income tax from it. I challenge the member for Calgary West to tell me about the 100,000 other corporations in this country that are profitable corporations and pay absolutely no income tax at all.
Among those corporations are some of the most profitable oil companies that operate in Canada, basically foreign owned oil companies such as Shell Oil of Canada which in many years has paid absolutely no income tax at all.
I suspect that once Petro-Canada is privatized, given the tax policy of this government, we are not going to see a nickel of income tax coming from Petro-Canada because of the taxation policy of this government that has allowed the rich and powerful to get away with paying absolutely no taxes in this country. There are 100,000 profitable corporations paying absolutely no income tax at all. Petro-Canada is going to be numbered among those, as have Shell Oil and other major oil companies over the years because of Conservative and Liberal tax policies.
The suggestion that once they privatize Petro-Canada we are going to see the income tax flowing from that organization is false and misleading. I am sure the

member did not mean to mislead the House. This may have been a belief of his, but it certainly is not borne out by the taxation statistics.
The member for Calgary West also complained about the number of grants that the Government of Canada and the taxpayers of Canada have had to pay to Petro-Canada over the last few years. I can tell the hon. member that grants have gone from this government to oil companies that are not in the public sector. Petro-Canada received very few of those grants. As the hon. member for Burin-St. George's just pointed out, we gave something like $1.8 billion or it might have been $2.1 billion to the Hibernia project. We have given money to projects for getting oil out of the tar sands of northern Alberta. We have given money for heavy oil upgraders on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan.
This government has been very generous in the grants that it has given to private oil companies. In many cases, those grants have not substantially increased the amount of permanent employment in this country and in many cases those grants have not resulted in any permanent, long-term employment at all in this country. The grants have simply gone to foreign-controlled oil companies and, in many cases, there is a connection between the amount of money flowing outside of our borders, along with the oil that flows outside of our borders to the United States, and the grants made by this government and this Parliament generally end up flowing outside our borders and leaving Canadians with no net benefit from the grants made to those corporations.
That information has been backed up by a number of studies, including studies done by the Auditor General. So the suggestion that grants have been made to Petro-Canada and not to other oil companies is completely false. The vast majority of grants made by this country and this Parliament to oil companies have gone to the private oil companies and in most cases they have delivered no real net benefit, no long lasting benefit. In addition, many of the companies receiving those grants are among the companies listed in the taxation statistics as paying no income tax at all. So it is not a good deal for Canadians.
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The oil companies derive other benefits from this government as well. I noticed over the last weekend the Minister of Transport announced that the oil companies are going to receive the generous benefit of not having to double-hull the tankers that they use in Canadian waters. It may be a generous benefit to the oil companies, but to people in my constituency who have seen oil spills on their beaches time after time, and have, in many cases, seen those oil spills cleaned up through the efforts of government tax money and through the volunteer efforts of constituents in my riding, the grant of the relief from the double-hulling of the tankers is not of much benefit to Canadian citizens and certainly not of much benefit to the people of my riding who are going to experience more oil spills, as a result of that decision by the Minister of Transport. Again, this is a decision made by this government that receives a substantial amount of its campaign donations from oil companies. This is a decision made to benefit the oil companies. In spite of the risk of oil spills, in spite of the green plan, and in spite of what this government says about its concern for the environment, this government is not going to require the oil companies to assume the costs of the risks of transporting oil. In fact, this government has said that those oil companies can pass that risk on.


John Horton McDermid: What has this got to do with this amendment. Absolutely nothing.


Robert Evans Skelly: It has a substantial amount to do with it. For the member who constantly speaks from his seat, who never stands up in the House to justify his positions, and who is constantly harassing other members in the House, this human wrecking-ball who is responsible for privatization in the cabinet, if he wants to stand up and speak, let him do so, but when other members are on their feet speaking in this House, as is their right, I would appreciate it, Mr. Speaker, if you would tell that member to shut up.


John Horton McDermid: Start telling the truth.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, this member was speaking from his seat a few minutes ago when my colleague, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor was talking about putting a director on the board of PetroCan who would be appointed by Governor in Council. We are not asking that the NDP appoint this director, we are not asking that the Liberals appoint this director. However, if the opposition did it, it would probably be more

December 17, 1990
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responsible to the people of Canada. We are saying that the Governor in Council should appoint a director to the board of Petro-Canada once it is privatized.
There is a precedent for this. The member from his seat said, "All you want to do is control the private sector". We are all subject to a certain element of control in this country. We all have to drive our car on the appropriate side of the road and stop at stop signs. Oil companies themselves should be subject to some control, whether it is pollution control or whether it is control relating to labour relations and occupational health and safety.
In Europe, the government and trade unions put representatives on the board of directors so that the policies of companies, the labour policies and government policies can be integrated and can be consistent. We are not saying that the oil companies should not be making a profit. We are saying that oil companies' policies should be consistent with the other policies of the country so that we can develop an integrated approach to the management and the exploration for energy. That is all we are asking.
For this member to crab from his seat and say, "All you want to do is control the private sector", that is absolutely right. We believe that the private sector should be subjected to the same kind of controls that individuals in our society are subjected to, so that we all obey the laws and so that we all operate in a direction that is consistent with what is best for Canada.
I definitely support the idea of the government having a single director on the board of Petro-Canada. I think it is an excellent amendment and I certainly commend it to the House for its support.


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to say a few words concerning the three amendments now before the House, the three amendments having been put forward by colleagues in the New Democratic Party. I could not help but listen carefully to the remarks of my colleague in the Liberal opposition, the member for Lambton-Middlesex, in relation to the ethanol issue, an alternative fuel and the hope that Petro-Canada might have had an expanded mandate in this area of alternative fuels.
In my view it is unfortunate that over the long haul we may have, in divesting ourselves of Petro-Canada, given away, sold or privatized a tool that might have addressed the issue of alternative fuels in a manner that is more
prompt and more effective than that which the private sector by itself would generate.
Motion No. 6A proposes that the Governor in Council has the right to appoint one director to the board of Petro-Canada. We feel that is not a bad amendment at all. We feel we can support that.
As long as the government controls the shares of Petro-Canada, it is going to be appointing directors. For that phase of the privatization of Petro-Canada, there really is not great difficulty relative to the appointment of directors. As the sale goes on, as we piece off more and more of Petro-Canada, we approach what we could call the grey line-it is not a red line, it is a grey line-where we are not sure whether the big block shareholder has control or not. In some widely-held corporations the control block can involve as little as 10 or 15 per cent of the shares outstanding. So what do we do, the people of Canada, when our government holds, something in the vicinity of 10 or 15 per cent, let us say, of the outstanding shares of Petro-Canada? We have one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat and we may find we no longer have control. We have an interest but we no longer have any representation on the board. This amendment would ensure that the Governor in Council had that right to appoint at least one person to the board.
The amendment, as it is structured, would run past the total divestiture date. It would go on forever. It would be in perpetuity, I suppose, as long as Petro-Canada was around. Given the origins of Petro-Canada I cannot say that would be a bad thing for us or for Petro-Canada.
The other amendment, 12A, proposes that the individual control limit that would be the 10 per cent limit of shareholdings would be reduced to 5 per cent. I would not want to try to guess what the reason for that would be, but I think the reason is that, as I mentioned earlier, the control blocks in some widely held corporations can be constituted by as little as-and I am talking theory here-10 per cent. I think the thrust of the amendment is that the threshold be 5 per cent so that we are very sure that we can catch control blocks and prevent them from maturing.
I was disappointed actually in the remarks of the member for Calgary West when he referred to the fact that Petro-Canada did not earn a profit in its early years. It was not profitable for the taxpayers of the country. I have to point out for the record that we are not in the business of making profits, of running things for profits.

We are in the business of running a country, not for profit, and the acquisition of Petro-Canada was not ideologically driven any more than a divestiture of Petro-Canada is ideologically driven.
There are a lot of countries in this world that have state oil companies and are proud of it. They continue in operation and some of them are thriving. It happens to be the position of this government, whether it is ideologically driven or not-and we can certainly debate that here if we want to-that Petro-Canada should be discarded. We, of course, do not agree with that and it is not easy to stand and try to propose constructive amendments to a bill that you fundamentally disagree with.
Is your heart in it? I suppose your heart is in it, trying to make a bad bill better, but if you agree with divestiture and privatization, this is not a bad bill. It does exactly what the doctor ordered. It sends the thing back out into the private sector. A lot of people expect that those in opposition have an obligation to lie down in front of the freight train and do a Hollywood production. The debate is opposition. It is not grandstanding, it is not a Darryl E Zanuck Hollywood production that some people in the media would like it to be. It is what is going on right here in debate.
The last amendment proposed is No. 8A, requiring that the sale yield $6.7 billion bottom line. I am afraid that we cannot support that. The idea is fine and it would be nice if we could dictate what the sale would yield, admitting all along that we do not agree with the sale in the first place, but we have to keep in mind that we are selling Petro-Canada-if it is to be sold-in fractions and pieces. You cannot at the beginning create what looks like a master reserve bid. You cannot dictate in the beginning that the sale is going to yield a minimum of x billion dollars all the way through.
That would make the sale, the privatization, rather problematic. Maybe that is part of the thrust of the amendment. Maybe I kind of agree with that too. But if it is going to be sold and if we do not like the deal, let us get on and not destabilize the process and let us not back
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ourselves into a comer that would impair the process that we adopt in the House here.
Having addressed the three amendments in that way I will defer to the next speaker.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, in the brief time we have this afternoon to speak to Bill C-84 I would like to put some comments on the record about this bill, what its intentions are, and of course on some of the amendments that are actually being proposed this afternoon.
Before I start I would like to give credit to two colleagues from our caucus who have done a great deal of work on this bill, the hon. member for Essex-Windsor and the hon. member for Edmonton East, my seatmate, who as our energy critic has really led the way with his staff to prepare a lot of the material and information on this bill at a very important time.
If we look at the world Conservative agenda or world-wide conspiracy in their own respective jurisdictions to destroy the country and the institutions many of us have come to believe in and to recognize, I do not think we should forget what this government is doing. As the member from Scarborough mentioned, how do you move good amendments to bad legislation? I want to echo his comments on where that fits in with the agenda that this government is following. Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, on a Monday afternoon for a couple of hours, we get to do our best to convince government members opposite of some of the amendments we propose to their plan to get rid of PetroCan will make it a very difficult thing. It fits with the agenda this government has, be it post offices, VIA Rail and, of course, more recently their attempts to destroy the CBC, some of the institutions that have come to help define what we are in Canada.
I hope when the vote takes place that maybe enough Tories will stay away and some of these amendments will actually pass. These are good amendments and they are trying to improve bad legislation. When you look at the amendments you can actually see that they are very reasonable.
For example, the motion from the New Democrats is asking the cabinet to appoint a member to the board of this newly privatized PetroCan so it may provide a window, or a messenger if you like, to have the opportunity that the Government of Canada would still

December 17, 1990
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have in terms of directing the activities of PetroCan, to provide some advice from government and from the public. I think that is very important. I do not know how long the Minister of State for Privatization's political career has been, but I will tell you one thing, we will not appoint him to the board after the next election. I can guarantee that. It is having that window on the operation of PetroCan that will be critical and this is an entirely reasonable amendment.
In fact, the very good notes prepared for our members took a look at what the guru of privatization for most of the members opposite, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, who went on this privatization splurge, did. Even Margaret Thatcher had an appointee from her cabinet on the boards of directors of some of the businesses, the former Crown corporations as we know them here; British Aerospace, Britoil, British Gas, Cable and Wireless and British Telecom. One would think that government would want to do this because once this is done and this bill passes-and we will vote on a lot of these amendments today and there will be another day's debate-what will we get just before Christmas? We will get rid of PetroCan probably once and for all.
During the break, I had a chance to ask some people out on the Sparks Street Mall what they thought, that if we sell PetroCan, can we get it back? I am afraid to report to you that a lot of people just do not think that we could do that again. How will we get control of our oil company again? It will be very difficult to do, if not a costly thing to do.
One other very reasonable provision that we suggested earlier, and unfortunately the Liberals and Conservatives joined to defeat this particular motion, was to call on the government to submit an annual report to Parliament to show exactly where the industrial benefits were happening, where the jobs were being created, what kinds of jobs they were and where the oil was going.
That would give a chance for the government to say that we were wrong. We were going to give the government the opportunity to come back in a year with an annual report to Parliament saying: "You guys were
wrong. Look at all the wonderful things that have happened to this company since we sold it off".
It is a reasonable amendment. This time, unfortunately, the Liberals and Conservatives defeated this amendment. It was good enough for legislation that we dealt with last week, Bill C-74, the Fisheries Act, where we asked that a separate annual report to Parliament be given. In that case it was habitat protection. The government accepted that amendment. So I see no reason in my mind why it should not be able to accept the very straightforward amendment in Bill C-84, the one we are debating today.
I see the other amendment that we brought in as a challenge to the government. If it is going to sell off Petro-Canada, then maybe it should do its best to get a fair return for the taxpayers of Canada. That is why we think it should be asking for a minimum of $6.7 billion. That is the amount of money that the taxpayers of Canada have put into this corporation. That is only a fair return.
I suggest that the government should take us up on our challenge, see if it can do it and then agree to our provisions for an annual report so it can come back to Parliament and tell us that it was successful. The problem, though, is I am not sure we would expect that of this government.
For many communities across the country Petro-Canada has become more than just a gas station. It has become a community store and in many cases it is the only place where you can buy gas. The Tories are just selling off bits and pieces of the country and it's institutions. We have come, as I said earlier, to try and define ourselves.
In wrapping up, Mr. Speaker, if anything has got ten through to Canadians and to the media who have been covering this debate, it has been the work by my colleague for Edmonton East in saying to Parliament and to Canadians: "Why don't we use Petro-Canada as the vehicle to ensure that we have energy conservation in Canada, and use its locations throughout in Canada as a way to promote energy conservation".
Think of all those locations where there would be a store-front opportunity for Canadians from across the country to get easy and handy information and advice on proper car maintenance, running of their vehicles and homes. I could not think of a better thing to do.
December 17, 1990

At the same time, instead of what we are likely to expect from the Tories in turning the red and white of Petro-Canada to a blue and white, why do we not paint it green and white?


Steve Butland: Don't tell them.


Brian L. Gardiner: If you give the minister an idea like that, you know what he is going to do with it. Why do we not paint the colours green and white; use Petro-Canada as our environmental leading edge in energy conservation. Let us not go about destroying the country like this government is doing. Let us not sell off the valuable assets that we have gained. Let us keep Petro-Canada. I hope the government will come to its senses, withdraw the bill, or at the very least, support some of the very reasonable amendments moved by my colleagues from the New Democratic Party.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Mr. Speaker, it does not very often happen but I am going to be standing for the first part of my comments in opposition to something my colleague for Sault Ste. Marie said.


Steve Butland: Shame.


Ron Fisher: The New Democrat disagrees. The member for Sault Ste. Marie said that the timing was perfect. What he was referring to was that with the economy in the kind of trouble it is, although it could be argued I think that capital is doing very well, thank you-it is the economy that is in bad shape-nevertheless, in the state of the country in which we find ourselves, the d word has now been used. We are now in a depression, it has been admitted to by the government-recession, the r, he has not got to the d word yet. In any event, the inference of the member for Sault Ste. Marie was that it was an inopportune time to sell, that the timing was really bad.
I would submit that that is not the case. From the government's point of view and from the ideological and philosophical point of view and the reasons for which it is actually getting rid of Petro-Canada, the timing is most opportune. When we realize that really what is happening here is the transference of wealth from the people of Canada to the rich friends of the government, then the very best thing that we could possibly do is sell Petro-Canada when it is at its least economically desirable state of affairs.
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That is perfectly consistent with the whole philosophical constitution of the Progressive Conservative Party. I would remind my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie, other members of the House and the Canadian public who are listening that I once heard Ted Kennedy say that conservatives get elected by promising the poor they will look after them; the smoke and mirrors where they have to get rid of Petro-Canada, for example, in order to be able to balance the budget or to reduce the national debt or whatever the case may be.
Mr. Speaker, if you are to believe that, with all the things they have privatized up to this point, they would not have to privatize Petro-Canada in order to balance the budget, in order to eradicate the national debt, they would already have done it. The fact of the matter is of course that nothing they have so far privatized has gone, even the slightest iota, toward reducing the deficit or the national debt.
The second part of the quotation is that they get elected by promising the poor they will look after them and by assuring the rich that they will not. That fits in so well with the whole idea that it is an opportune time to be selling Petro-Canada now because they are certainly looking after the rich, as they sell Petro-Canada at a time when the market would indicate that it really is not all that desirable a commodity. If I had money to buy shares in Petro-Canada, which I do not, I assure you that it is just at this time in the economic cycle that I would be doing my very best to get as many shares out of them as I could.
This brings up one of the references to the amendments where we are proposing that the maximum amount of ownership be not 10 per cent as the legislation proposes but rather that it should be 5 per cent. I would suggest that 5 per cent, even in a Canadian context, is rather generous when we understand that in the United States of America they consider 5 per cent ownership of a company to be tantamount to control of a company. They realize that for someone to be able to amass enough capital to be able to own 5 per cent of the shares of a company is very close to being able to control it.
That of course makes no reference at all to the whole idea of privatizing it in the first place or foreign control. We were talking earlier on one of the other amendments where the legislation talks in terms of 25 per cent and we were proposing that it be 1 per cent. In the United States as well, as was alluded to the other day, the same

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idea prevails where they consider that 5 per cent ownership of the economy in any sense is getting to be dangerous in so far as the sovereignty of the United States is concerned.
We have the double-edged whammy of great amounts of foreign ownership being allowed in Canada and also great amounts, which 10 per cent certainly is, of private ownership as well. The control simply dissolves away from any kind of public participation at all. Amendment 6A refers to the fact that the government ought to have some kind of public control, governmental control and involvement and ought to have some kind of window into the operation of Petro-Canada even after it has been privatized to the extent that a good portion of the assets which are being disposed of will really not accrue to the Canadian public.
As was pointed out earlier, there seems to be some controversy about whether or not you speak and evaluate in terms of the original investment or in terms of the present inflated value of the Canadian dollar. I would suggest that it makes a great deal of sense to speak of it in terms of the $6.7 billion or $8 billion which it ought to be valued at, rather than at the somewhat less value of $1.5 or $2 billion less, that the government seems to think is a fair amount of money to evaluate the company at.
The member for Calgary West made reference to the National Energy Program. I come from the west, Saskatchewan, and we produce a little bit of oil there. We do not produce anywhere near as much as they do in the province of Alberta, but enough to give a resident of Saskatchewan an interest in what is happening within the oil industry. I can remember the uproar that was caused, particularly in Alberta, not so much in Saskatchewan, over the National Energy Program. I can remember the pictures on the news in the evenings of the drilling rigs from Alberta heading south of the border and how all this was described and depicted as being such a tremendously negative thing for the country, and how the National Energy Program had destroyed the province of Alberta. While it is certainly unfortunate that the oil activity in the province of Alberta declined as much as it did, it seems to me that a good portion of the blame
attributed to the National Energy Program was really not deserved at all.
If the journalists and the news media in Canada had followed those oil rigs into the United States, they would have seen that they found no work there either. Rather than going down there and continuing drilling, finding all kinds of oil and making billions of dollars-as in the mythology of the oil industry-what in fact happened was that they were parked. I would suggest that the member from Calgary was certainly a long way off base on that.
As far as the lost taxes from Petro-Canada being a Crown corporation over the years, I do not know how much Petro-Canada paid in taxes. I would like to think that the Government of Canada ran Petro-Canada as a responsible corporate citizen. We saw, particularly during the Olympics, with the carrying of the Olympic flame and so on, a great deal of involvement by Petro-Canada in the national community. That is the kind of thing it should have done. Through the years, I would hope that Petro-Canada, as a reliable and desirable corporate citizen, would also have paid the taxes which it ought to have paid.
I would like to take exception to the member for Calgary West's reference to the loss of tax revenue from Petro-Canada. There are a few oil companies in this country. I would hope that Petro-Canada was an exception which made a tremendous amount of profit and paid no taxes at all. The Prairie Oil Royalties Company had a profit of $5.1 million in 1989. It got a bonus of $1.6 million and paid no taxes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Unless the House agrees, the hon. member's time has expired.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have listened patiently, and maybe sometimes not so patiently, to the debate this afternoon on amendments 6A, 8A and 12A, which the House Leader of the New Democratic Party finally got right. I thank him for doing that because it does expedite the business of the House.
I have listened for quite some time. The NDP are back on their old kick about corporations. One figure that was thrown out this afternoon was that of 100,000 profitable companies not paying taxes in a given year. One thing the New Democratic Party never does is to go back to see how these corporations did the year before or the year before that, whether or not they lost money. That would be terrible if the NDP went back to check to see if they

had some legitimate write-offs. Of course, they have legitimate write-offs. Corporations do not avoid tax without having losses or donations to some very good charities.
The hon. member just talked about Petro-Canada dealing with sharing the Olympic Flame and all that that involved. Many private corporations in the energy industry do a tremendous amount for the arts in this country. They do a tremendous amount for artists, writers and so on in this country. The NDP members fail to mention that when they stand up here and rhyme off all these silly statistics that do not mean a hill of beans because they do not give the whole story.
I think the energy industry as a whole has done a tremendous job on the environment and the record speaks for itself. As a matter of fact, it has received national and international awards for the work it has done on the environment.
The members of the New Democratic Party suggest that we should maintain Petro-Canada and use it as a centre for collecting old oil and doing all these other things. What I say to the New Democratic Party is that if that is what it wants to do with stations around the country-and there are many people who have set up businesses to collect old oil and recycle it and are doing a fine job at it-you cannot just take one corporation in a competitive environment, as the hon. member mentioned, one that is competing with other companies and place the onus on that company which places it at a disadvantage to other competitors. If you do that, and place an environmental stipulation on an industry, then do it as a whole so it is competitive for all of them. But do not place one corporation in an uncompetitive position. That is exactly what the New Democratic Party is suggesting.
It is unfair to the corporation, whether it is a Crown corporation competing in the private sector or whether it is one that becomes privatized and therefore has to compete in that same environment; it is a very unfair idea of the New Democratic Party. It would be better to promote an over-all environmental program. That would be more important, and that is exactly what our government is doing with the green plan. The green plan is an environmental program that affects all industries
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on a fair and equitable basis and speaks to the environment as a whole and does not place the onus on one or two Canadian companies.
The other interesting thing about this is that they are asking us to place the onus on a Canadian company when they are not placing it on foreign companies. That is exactly what the NDP wants to do. It wants to place a Canadian company in unfair competition with foreign interests in this country. That is hogwash.
The other interesting thing about this is that they are asking us to place an onus on a Canadian company when they are not placing it on the foreign companies. That is exactly what they want to do. They want to place a Canadian company in unfair competition with foreign interests in this country. That is hogwash.
I must admit that I digressed a little, but so did they. They agree that in all fairness I had a chance to rebut what they had to say. The first amendment from the New Democratic Party talks to appointing a director on the board of Petro-Canada in perpetuity, forever and ever. Again I ask: why do you not bring forward a proposal that we appoint one board member to Imperial Oil, to Shell and to the other 2,500 energy companies we have in this country? Why does the NDP not suggest that the government appoint a board member to each and every one of them; Canadian, foreign, it does not matter what. Why do you not do that?
I am surprised members of the New Democratic Party did not come forward with that suggestion. That sounds very much like what they would do. That sounds exactly like what they would do. They would like to stick their tentacles into every private corporation board room to see what goes on there. Because they have suspicions about all these board rooms across this country, how terrible they are, we should have an appointee on each and every one of them.
I can tell the House and the people that we as a government will have representatives on the board of directors of Petro-Canada as long as we have shares in Petro-Canada. There will be a mechanism established to appoint members to the board of directors from the Government of Canada as long as we hold shares. I can assure the House and the public of that.

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Once we completely divest ourselves of the corporation, however, it will be electing its own board of directors by shareholders, by those Canadians who exercise their rights to vote as shareholders in Petro-Canada. It would be really inappropriate for us to legislate a seat in perpetuity on the board of directors of a privatized Petro-Canada, so we will be voting against that motion.
The next amendment is the NDP accounting procedure. A dollar is not a dollar. A dollar is $1.50 to its members. If in fact we did accounting procedures like members of the New Democratic Party are bringing forward on Petro-Canada, there is not an accountant in Canada agree with their accounting. Even the NDP accountants in this country do not agree with this type of accounting. They do not agree with it whatsoever.
We will be defeating this motion. We are committed to receiving a fair value for the company, a fair value for the taxpayers' dollar that has been spent and which is on our books at $4.3 billion. Even the New Democratic Party can understand-at least I hope it can-that a share is sold when a willing seller is prepared to sell it and a willing buyer is prepared to buy it.


An hon. member:: It is called capitalism.


John Horton McDermid: Isn't that awful? It is called capitalism. Can you believe that?


An hon. member:: What about profits?
McDermid: I heard them talking about profits. It is terrible. The New Democratic Party does not like either of those things. Isn't that awful? Isn't that terrible?
It is profits that get reinvested and make our economy grow. That is what it is all about. Once the New Democratic Party understands that, maybe it will get somewhere in governing this country. Maybe, sometime.
Timing to the final amendment they have put forward, they are proposing to reduce the percentage of voting shares an individual is permitted to own from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. The current individual ownership provisions are intended to encourage a broad base of ownership in Petro-Canada much like we saw in Air Canada wherein 130,000 Canadians participated in the
initial issue and to prevent a single investor or group from obtaining control of the company.
The strength of these provisions lies not only in the 10 per cent limit itself but in the definition of associates, since the limit applies to any one person together with the associates of that person. In this way two or more shareholders are prevented from acting in a way that would circumvent the 10 per cent individual ownership requirements. The argument that they put up that two people would be able to control Petro-Canada is entirely false. We feel that the level of 10 per cent strikes a reasonable balance.
Those are the three amendments that the New Democratic Party has proposed in this particular area, Motions Nos. 6A, 8A, and 12A. We will be voting against these motions.


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


Some hon. members:: Question


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 6A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.
December 17, 1990


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.
The next question is on Motion No. 12A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 15
That Bill C-84 be amended in clause 9 by striking out line 29 at
page 4 and substituting the following therefor.
"(e) financing of Petro-Canada or for so long as the Minister holds any voting shares of Petro-Canada, from disposing of any asset of Petro-Canada which the Minister has designated in writing as a strategic asset, where the Minister has published notice of same in The Canada Gazette prior to the completion of any such disposition."
He said: Mr. Speaker, this proposed amendment respecting the bill privatizing Petro-Canada deals with an issue that arose during the debate, the discussions and the hearing of witnesses at committee. It derives from a projection into the future of certain fact se-
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quences which might prove to be a problem for Petro-Canada, for the government, and for the shareholders.
The proposed amendment sets out that the minister- and that would be the minister designated under this particular bill-would have the opportunity to prevent a sale by Petro-Canada of an asset described as a strategic asset.
Why is that important to us? If we look at the reason for having a state oil company in the first place, we see we can define certain national interests that require us to act or take steps as a country and as a nation. In this case the state oil company would take steps on behalf of all of us to protect our vital interests in areas deemed to be of strategic importance.
When I talk about strategic importance or strategic assets or vital interests, I am talking about economic areas of activity engaged in now by Petro-Canada, areas where Canadians and the government have wanted Petro-Canada to be active from the beginning, exploration for domestic oil reserves and distribution of energy commodities in this country.
The difficulty we see arising is one in a future that would not be quite so orderly and planned as what we like to think would mature in the ordinary course. I am talking about a situation that would evolve in the economy and politically around the world. I suppose the current gulf crisis is an example. Although that particular crisis is quite a way offshore, it has affected us here in Canada. It has affected our oil price.
However, in this unseen future I think what I am looking at is a change in circumstances whereupon the people of Canada, from all across the country or from a particular region, would say to this government that in acting for all of us it must take a step in our interest to protect us or to foster the national interest in a particular field of the economy.
I am talking about, for example, maintaining in business a refinery that is strategically located in our national interest in a particular region, in a particular area. I am talking about the sale of particular reserves of crude, and even of a particular type of crude, in a particular area of the country where it would be seen to be in our national interest for that crude not to fall into foreign hands or offshore control. I am also talking about the sale, conveyance or even abandonment of transportation infrastructure by Petro-Canada, which by that point in time will be our former state oil company. We will either still have a percentage interest or even a large interest, but because of the process of divestiture and privatiza-

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tion we will have given up administrative or, practically speaking any role in the running of the company and the decisions it would be making.
As well I am talking about the sale of a pipeline, the abandonment of a pipeline. I noted last week or two weeks ago a projection that the pipeline which runs from southern Ontario to Montreal could be shut down by 1991. Petro-Canada does not have anything to do with that pipeline. However, I am talking about a situation wherein the government is called upon by the electorate to intervene, protect, and stabilize an enterprise like a pipeline to ensure that the people of Montreal, for example, have access to western Canadian crude. I have referred to the refinery, the reserves, the transportation, the infrastructure, and the pipeline. There are perhaps other unforeseen areas where Canadians will demand that their government intervene, protect and stabilize a particular strategic asset.
By placing this amendment in this bill, it will provide notice to Petro-Canada, to its competitors, and to its new shareholders that Canadians still retain the right to intervene if they feel it is in their national interest to do so.
I know that does not sit well in the private sector. I know that a provision like this one will affect to some degree the price of shares, but in the phase of moving from no privately held shares to all privately held shares we have to go through the process where the potential purchaser of shares knows very well that the people of Canada still have an interest in Petro-Canada. Whether that process takes five years or ten years, it is still going to be there for us.
There is no need in this amendment to define what is a strategic asset. Some people may ask: "How can you provide for a right for the minister to force Petro-Canada to retain a strategic asset when you have not defined what it is?" I would maintain that when the minister is called upon to act, he or she would know exactly what that asset was. As long as the government felt that it was an asset disposition which required its intervention, that
would be a sufficient reason for intervening. I am sure that that intervention would not be taken lightly.
The amendment provides that notice of same would be published in The Canada Gazette. I am sure as well that there might be offers to the government: "If you are going to prevent us from disposing of it, then perhaps you ought to expropriate it". I do not know whether or not we will get into that kind of situation. It would place us right back to where we were when Petro-Canada was created in the first place, where there was a perceived need for a national oil company that had the means of participating in the marketplace and in the upstream and downstream side. When Petro-Canada was created of course it was the upstream side that was targeted, but it is that national interest the people will wish us to pursue.
That is the reason for the amendment. I believe it fairly describes the situation wherein such intervention would have to be involved, at least in terms of process. I hope the House will support my amendment.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak for a short time on the amendment being presented by the Official Opposition. We can certainly support this particular amendment. It is a particularly good policy approach, if this government is going to go ahead and get rid of Petro-Canada, sell it off once and for all. It would appear that is what is to happen. It should do an entire review of its assets, equipment, refineries, and pipelines. In particular they should all be surveyed. As the hon. member who just spoke suggested veiy reasonably, a determination would obviously be made by the Governor in Council, by cabinet, as to which particular parts of the company are strategic. We all know what strategic really means. We know when it comes to oil crises and problems with our national energy supply that we could be faced with that situation now, given the crisis in the gulf. Reference was made to that earlier today in our speeches.
Here we are, turning over an entire infrastructure that the public has paid for, and that we built up to provide an opportunity for a window on the industry and a chance for the Government of Canada to make some money

from the oil industry. It has a chance to use Petro-Cana-da in some innovative leading-edge ways when it comes to the environment.
It is a very reasonable amendment to suggest that the government would take a look at the strategic assets of PetroCan and publish them for comment in the Canada Gazette. This would give people a chance to see what are the strategic assets so that they would then be able to comment on them.
In the Peace district of northern British Columbia, I believe the refinery in Taylor is owned by PetroCan. Who knows what is going to happen to that refinery after this bill is passed? If that refinery was to close it would do damage to the economy of that area and the whole infrastructure of the industry in that particular part of British Columbia.
It is without any hesitation that we can support this amendment. It is only a logical approach to take. I hope that the Government of Canada has some logic and will support this amendment.


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Mr. Speaker, I have heard both my colleagues on this amendment. I am somewhat confused about it because they seem to not understand that the Government of Canada has sufficient power in any kind of emergency situation to do whatever it wants.
For the kind of emergency that this amendment is meant to compensate for, this amendment is unnecessary. It is also unnecessary to put obstacles in the way of people buying Petro-Canada. It is unnecessary to make policy decisions for some unforeseen happening down the road. If there is a true emergency, the Government of Canada has all the power to intercede that it can possibly need under any of the emergency measures orders.
This is just one more way in which the opposition parties want to put hedges against what happens with respect to Petro-Canada. There is no real reason for it. It is one more amendment that our party is certainly going to vote against.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, this time I will try to deal directly with the amendments or assets which the minister deems to be strategic. There is a problem with that unless we would change the minister. The strategies of this minister and this government would certainly not be in line with what the Canadian public wants.
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For the general advantage of Canada, I am going back to this business of very vague amendments. They are so far-reaching that I think they are very innocuous. The New Democrats can see their way to support them nevertheless. Loath as I am to read, I would like to read just one paragraph where I hope one can get the relationship to the amendments. It is entitled "Loss of Autonomy":
Selling state economic assets to a foreign MNC may yield real benefits, but it has the necessary result of the nation state losing control of some of its resources. For example, Chile has sold its ownership of vast forest holdings to two New Zealand companies, Carter Holt Holdings and Fletcher Challenge limited. These firms may have very different approaches to the use of these forests than the Chilean government. When the forests are held by a foreign multinational, harvesting schedules may be tied to the world price for paper or timber. Whereas the Chilean government may have made forestry decisions based on the objectives of maintaining an active presence in the world market, continuing employment levels or managing forest lands for orderly future harvests.
It is an intriguing paper from which I read. It is entitled "Privatization in Developing Countries". I would ask the minister to make note of what is in this document. We certainly are not a developing country. The minister should take note of the safeguards and the concerns that the author puts forward, even if he is speaking of the underdeveloped countries of the world.


Mr. John E. Cole (York-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this rather enlightening debate this afternoon. It is really strange to try to figure out the balances on the opposite side of the House.
We are looking at legislation that is really talking about disposing of assets and not disposing of assets. We are talking about whether they are strategic or not strategic. I have heard many people say that the Government of Canada should not be making these decisions and should not be involved in making these decisions. I think that kind of makes sense.
We should privatize Petro-Canada and give it the opportunity to compete on a level playing field. We hear that term often enough and yet we are trying to say that we should keep some hold-backs within it and keep the government involved in the process. I do not think that is what we are here for. I have heard talk about disposing of assets that might be strategic. We can carry this so far and be so silly in this argument that we can be talking about which comer gas station we are going to close at a main intersection, when four of them happen to be owned by PetroCan. That is how ridiculous this whole thing could be.

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I do think we have to be fair in this whole situation. We have to put it into the hands of the people who are willing to invest in PetroCan and give them an opportunity to have a fair return from their investment. I think that is exactly what we want to do. We want to be able to sell those shares in a free and open market. That is going to bring revenue to the Government of Canada to replace some of the money that has been spent and continues to siphon into this corporation, over the last number of years. It is very critical that we give investors the opportunity to get some of the dollars back and provide some of those dollars back to the Government of Canada.
Clause 9(l)(d) is intended to reinforce the individual and foreign ownership limit. That does not make it weaker and it does not take away from it, but it is not there to prevent the normal sale of properties, assets or small divisions of the company. It will give Canadians who purchase those shares and get involved in the system the opportunity to get money back, to show a profit. The dirty word, profit, again comes in. But that is what makes this system go. It makes capitalism go. It makes our country go. It makes us profitable. And I think that is very important for everyone. We all want to make a profit, in various ways, whether it is in our own business endeavour, in investment, or in whatever we happen to do. It would make it very difficult for any business to operate properly and to continue to be competitive if it was limited in its ability to buy and sell its assets. Often times, corporations will make strategic plans which will be beneficial to that particular company but will also be beneficial to the company that purchases, so I think that is a very positive step.
It is not the intention of Petro-Canada to stop being an integrated oil company; that is one of its big assets. It is there at the retail level and it is there at the processing level. I think that should be very profitable. It will encourage more people to invest in Petro-Canada. For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I will not be supporting Motion No. 15.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 15, standing in the name of the hon. member
for Scarborough-Rouge River. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the nays have it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76, the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: That Bill C-84 be amended by adding immediatly after line 44 at page 12 the following new clause:
"18. All undertakings and works constructed by Petro-Canada are, and each of them is declared to be, works or a work for the general advantage of Canada."
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is too bad I have only 10 minutes to speak to this very important amendment. In fact, it concerns a provision in our Constitution, Section 92, which deals with the right of the Parliament of Canada, or rather says that the Parliament of Canada may, on occasion-it has done so many times-declare, before or after their execution, that works, although wholly situate within a province and under its jurisdiction, shall be for the general advantage of Canada or for the advantage of two or more provinces.
Mr. Speaker, the effect of this amendment would be to declare that once privatized, Petro-Canada would have to recognize that what makes us distinct, what brings us together and what keeps us together in this country is that we have declared ourselves to be a people with two official languages.
And more than five members having risen:
Motion No. 23.
December 17, 1990

My purpose in amending Bill C-84 is to confirm that in the future, Petro-Canada will have to comply with the rules that customarily apply to federal institutions with respect to service to the public, language of work and participation of French-and English-speaking Canadians in the administration of the institution.
Mr. Speaker, it has happened many times before that Parliament, on the basis of its declaratory power, declared that it could modify, without the consent of a province or provinces, an area customarily and exclusively under provincial jurisdiction.
I would like to refer to a document by a respected constitutional expert, Senator Gerald Beaudoin, who said the following in a collection of essays for the University of Ottawa Law School, in Part IV on page 279, and I quote: "Declaratory power is exceptional. Nevertheless, Parliament has often used that power, as explained by Ms. Andre Lajoie in her remarkable book on the subject. She writes: "Parliament has specifically declared to be for the general advantage of Canada: dams, canals, battlefields, railways, companies, grain elevators, jetties, gas pipelines, slides, a piece of legislation, a subway, oil pipelines, bridges, including several international bridges, ditches and tunnels".
Mr. Speaker, declaratory power is nothing new. It has been applied to a number of works and institutions.
In the same text, Ms. Lajoie goes on to say, and I quote: "Declaratory power is applied to the following: company shares, harbour improvements, aqueducts, aircrafts, buses, ferries, basins, drydocks-" and there is quite an extensive list, Mr. Speaker. I will not list them all for lack of time.
That being said, it is my humble opinion that once privatized, PetroCan, our window on the industry, should be bound to the obligation to serve the Canadian people, its shareholders and customers, in the official language of their choice, whether French or English, as long as it is the customer's language.
However, all we find in Bill C-84 is a flawed and weak section, in my opinion, namely section 9(1) which states that the articles of amendment for PetroCan shall contain-these are, word for word, the obligations flowing from this amendment and I will quote the English
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text, because it is slighty different in French. So, section 9(1) reads as follows:

9.(1) The articles of amendment particularly shall contain
(e) provisions requiring Petro-Canada to ensure that any member of the public can, in either official language, communicate with and obtain available services from
(i)	its head office, and
(ii)	any of its other offices and facilities, and the head office of any other office or facility of any of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, where Petro-Canada determines that there is significant demand for communications with and services from that office or facility in that language having regard to the public served and the location of the office or facility;
Mr. Speaker, I say it is a weak clause because only the shareholders of a privatized Petro-Canada will have a right to demand and to ask the company to follow those-


John Horton McDermid: No.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I hear the minister say no. Did I hear the minister say no? If that is so I think he should stand and explain to me how he interprets this clause and how that clause will have the effect of obligating Petro-Canada to serve the Canadian public in both official languages.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the company answers to its shareholders. Therefore only the shareholders of that company will have the right to demand from the directors the answers to their questions.
I deplore the fact that the government has not seen fit to do with Petro-Canada what it did with other Crown corporations, in particular Air Canada when it was privatized.


John Horton McDermid: It's entirely different.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Oh, I understand the minister saying to me that Air Canada falls under the federal jurisdiction of transport and therefore is subjected to the general rules of safety and security, that language must be used in giving notices to the public and therefore Air Canada is obligated to follow those rules. I say to the minister that that is why I put this amendment which would declare a privatized Petro-Canada, and I would like to read it again:
18. All undertakings and works constructed by Petro-Canada are, and each of them is declared to be, works or a work for the general advantage of Canada.

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Mr. Speaker, there is no magic to this amendment. Strictly it makes Petro-Canada a company which will respond in our view, which will act in an active manner toward its clientele and give Canadians in French or English, the services they deserve from this company whenever it is privatized.
Mr. Speaker, I think this is a reasonable amendment and should be adopted by the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on a point of order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions and I think you would find there is unanimous consent for applying the vote on Motion No. 2A to Motions Nos. 6A, 12A, 15, 19, 20, 23 and 32A later on, when we proceed with the votes at the report stage of Bill C-84. The same vote will apply inversely to the adoption motion.
The vote on Motion No. 15A will apply to the vote on Motions Nos. 4A and 8A. After the vote I believe the hon. member for Beaver River will rise on a point of order concerning her vote on only one of the motions. I hope this proposition will have the unanimous agreement of the House.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, as much as I followed the point made by my hon. friend, I believe we support it. I will reflect on it for a moment or two, but as far as I can understand, yes, we support the suggestion.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if I understood the hon. member's fluent French, I am sure I will have no trouble supporting that. As I understood it, it is a vote on each of the amendments and then the government, of course, would be voting for the concurrence motion. We certainly do not have any problem with the proposal as proposed by the hon. member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House has heard the proposition of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. Is that agreed.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Agreed and so ordered.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I think the timing of this initiative from the government is one of the more curious aspects of this whole debate. We saw that the last oil shocks devastated our national economy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and here we are again in another situation where the oil companies are using the world situation to their advantage.
This Liberal amendment is worthy of speaking about. The whole privatization of Petro-Canada is an initiative that is one of those more curious aspects of the leadership role of this government.
Petro-Canada had such potential to be used as a national instrument for the betterment of Canadians, for the benefit of environmental policy and for the benefit of taking control of our economy and that potential has never been fulfilled. Now, if the government gets its way, it will never be fulfilled. It will be lost.
The hon. members on the other side of the House talk about we, as social democrats, putting a Canadian company at a disadvantage vis-a-vis foreign controlled companies. Another way of looking at it is that what Petro-Canada could be doing and is not doing, but should be doing, is using its role in the marketplace to the benefit of consumers. I know a number of my constituents who are hurting because of the price of gas going up and up and up, and they are hurting because there are no alternative transportation policies initiated by the government.
We need Petro-Canada to keep those foreign companies honest because we know in our guts that the reason those prices are going up is not necessarily because of decreased supply. We have supply in Canada. It is because they are using the timing of the current crisis regarding the gulf to their own financial advantage. Canadians know this and are going to criticize this government for not using Petro-Canada and not urging Petro-Canada to be used as an instrument of national policy.
It is ironic that we are now debating the privatization or selling off of a national instrument, just another one in a whole string of national instruments to bring Canada together.
We hear a lot of rhetoric about Canadian unity, but when the government has the tools for the job, it sells them off to foreign companies. Once Petro-Canada has been sold off at bargain basement prices, we can never

get it back because no succeeding government could afford to get it back. It is one of those ironies as well where this government is selling off not only what we have now, but the potential for leadership.
I read through many of the speeches on Petro-Canada by government members when they were in opposition. They talked about the need for Canada to maintain control over its resources. Petro-Canada is one of those means of maintaining control over its resources. So one wonders whether or not sitting on the other side of the House does something to your head. It sort of swivels it around and makes you see things backward. I hope not because I hope to be sitting on the other side-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I regret to interrupt the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, but I am still waiting for her to speak to the amendment introduced by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier. I am sure she will co-operate and stick to the subject of the motion. The hon. member has the floor.


Lynn Hunter: Perhaps I should have been more explicit. The amendment is regarding the general advantage of Canada. That is precisely what I am talking about.
I would also like to refer to something the current House leader said. He was the Conservative energy critic when he was in opposition. This is what I am talking about when I say members see things differently when they get to the other side of the House. On February 20, 1979, he said: "I agree with the Leader of the NDP. The corporate purposes of Exxon may not be synonymous with the best interests of Canada".
Well, that is quite an admission, Mr. Speaker. I think that that also states that there are some government members who understand that the best interests of Canada are not going to be served by the privatization of Petro-Canada.
As a member of the parliamentary committee on the environment, I am most concerned about this initiative of the government because nothing is clearer to me than the fact that energy policy is crucial for Canada's role in
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the future. Energy policy is crucial to the economic development of our country.
When we are talking about a global economy, as the government members are wont to do, they consider that we do not understand that. I instruct them to look at Japan and the kind of growth it has enjoyed. One of the reasons that it has enjoyed the growth that it has is that it has reduced the energy content of a unit of gross domestic product by about 40 per cent. It is estimated that that has given Japan a 5 per cent comparative advantage, just on energy savings alone, against U.S. made products.
This is the kind of potential that this government is selling off in its privatization move. We are not going to be able to have the flexibility to have those kinds of initiatives. I would remind the government members as well that the much touted and very disappointing green plan released last week talked rather circuitously about energy policy. It is crucial for the economic advantage of Canada. This government is losing that vision. It has no sense of vision. It is very short-sighted.
Petro-Canada should be used for the development of alternative energy sources; alternate fuels such as ethanol. Sitting on the environment committee, we have heard a lot of testimony about the dangers of global warming. The danger of this is confronting our world. We know that we have to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. We know that the dangers of fossil fuel consumption are enormous. The danger of fossil fuel transportation, especially for me coming from a coastal riding where tankers and the dangers of tanker traffic in Saanich and the Gulf Islands area, is only too apparent especially for those of us who had oil wash up on beaches.
A kind of alternate energy such as ethanol could be used, but no, the government members do not want to hear about that. Ethanol comes from plants. Why could we not use Petro-Canada to develop that kind of energy source?
The lack of vision that this government has demonstrated time and time again is tragic. The vision is lacking because what we are talking about here is a selling off of Canadian potential. I am not overstating it. It it is a

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selling off of a national instrument for the development of policy and it fits in-I see the Minister of State for Privatization across the way-with one of his initiatives; everything has got to be going through the market.
The market has gone beyond him. The market for the future is the eco-business. The kind of initiatives for the future are not the old views of the Minister of State for Privatization, but the new vision where environmentally friendly products are the ones that are going to be the money-makers. They are going to be the growth products for Canada.
But this government says no, "We have got to put our heads in the sand. We have got to get that deficit down. We have got to sell off our assets just like we have done in Canada Post and other initiatives. We have got to get that deficit down and we have got to see the bottom line". Focusing on that bottom line prevents the government from looking forward. It prevents it from having a vision for the future which will lead Canada to a better economy and an environmentally sustainable future.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I listened to that last speech by the hon. member of the socialist party. I notice that she did not touch once on the amendment presented by my friend from Ottawa-Vanier on official languages. I think the NDP is afraid to discuss this subject. Obviously it is. The hon. member did not mention it once, which was rather interesting.
We are debating a well-intentioned amendment that was presented by my friend from Ottawa-Vanier. I want to give the government's side on this because I think it is very important.
Once Petro-Canada ceases to be wholly owned by the Crown, it's business activities fall under provincial jurisdiction. That is the difference between an oil company and an airline company.
When Air Canada was privatized, it still was under federal jurisdiction. When Petro-Canada is privatized, it will come under provincial jurisdiction, just like its competitors.
Parliament has really no constitutional basis to legislate a privatized Petro-Canada directly in respect of language. Application of even a part of the Official Languages Act to a privatized Petro-Canada would put
the federal government in the untenable position of regulating an activity over which it has no jurisdiction. That causes us some problems.
The only way it could do this is to specifically override provincial jurisdiction in the manner suggested by Motion No. 23.1 am not sure that my hon. friend wants that. I know what he wants. He wants to assure that Petro-Canada maintains its bilingual policies, and so on. That is fair enough. Mr. D'Iberville Fortier made it veiy clear that Petro-Canada has done extremely well in the use of both official languages. He was very pleased with its performance. There is no reason why it would not cany that on.
However, the government does not believe it is desirable to infringe on provincial territory, nor does it believe that it is necessary to do so in order to ensure Petro-Canada continues to serve the public in both official languages. We have assured that through the section in the bill referring to official languages and through the articles which will be approved for Petro-Canada to ensure that both official languages are used in an appropriate way by Petro-Canada.
The hon. member asked me how the public can complain with regard to the official languages if it was found to be necessary. He is not listening to me right now, but I am trying to explain to him how the ordinary citizen, how he or I, can make a complaint against Petro-Canada if in fact it is felt that it is not doing what it said it would do. It is laid out very clearly in its articles as to what it will do and if a citizen feels it is not following what it said it will do, under the Canada Business Corporations Act the complainant can make a complaint that the company is not abiding by what it said it would do. So, there is an avenue for the public to complain if Petro-Canada is not following the articles laid out as to what it said it would do.
To be quite honest, we wrestled with this. It is something to which we gave a tremendous amount of consideration. I think the hon. member will agree that we all in this House are concerned about official languages and their application. The articles will spell out very clearly what Petro-Canada will do with regard to official languages, and I think the hon. member will be pleased as will the Canadian public.
I also think the member understands that we should not override the constitutional jurisdiction of the provin-

rial governments in this regard. Therefore, we feel that the bill as it stands covers the area of official languages.
We have spoken with Mr. D'Iberville Fortier on this subject. I have had correspondence with him. I explained the situation. He would like to see us override provincial jurisdiction. We do not feel it is proper to do that. Therefore we will vote against this well-intentioned amendment.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment that has been alluded to by the Minister of State for Privatization.
I find it rather ironic that the minister has acknowledged that the concept presented by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier is a valid one. He considers it an enlightened one. I certainly support it and it is a very well-intentioned one, as is the normal course of events for the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier. I would suggest that the hon. member for Brampton ought to listen because I assure him that the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier thought of all the questions that he asked, but also he is well aware of what is in the provisions of the Official Languages Act and the ability of that act to be effective in this regard. The hon. member went to great lengths to find the way to ensure what the minister has just said, that he wants to see official languages within the context of the privatized Petro-Canada. If he wants it, why does he not listen to my hon. colleague? If he looks at clause 9 (l)(e), he will recognize that the amendment being suggested by my hon. colleague will enable exactly what the minister indicated he wanted to have happen.
I refer the minister to la quatrieme partie du pouvoir declaratoire federal, because exactly what is called for by this amendment is a declaratory power. As long as Petro-Canada is a Crown corporation there is no question of its obligation to comply with the Official Languages Act. Mr. D'Iberville Fortier, the Commissioner of Official Languages, indicated that it was working very well in the interests of all Canadians. All of us can drive anywhere across this country with a great sense of pride. When we look at the identification and the signage that is outside Petro-Canada stations, we see the Canadian flag. We have a sense of participation and belonging all
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across Canada. Whenever there is correspondence or a logo that identifies Canada, it is a very vital matter.
As we are busy destroying all the national infrastructure across this land, whether it be VIA Rail, Air Canada or Radio-Canada, it is a serious matter. It is not just the signage; it is also the language in which one can be served. The minister indicated good will and good intent, but he did not seem to find the avenue to apply that intent. My hon. colleague has found that for him.
If the way it is written in the statutes is changed, will Petro-Canada be subject to the same obligations? If so, why has the government-and he seems to indicate that it will be-elected to include 9 (1) (e) since the Official Languages Act already covers language of service. Therefore there must be something there. If it will not, why can we not ensure it? It was put in there. Why was it put it in there? Was it to cover the fact that it was no longer under the Official Languages Act? He as much as said that. He does not want to trample on provincial relations. That is what you said.
It is not a matter of trampling. It is a matter of having a priority. It is a matter of having a vision for Canada. It is a matter of understanding that there are certain issues one makes a choice on which say that we belong to Canada.


John Horton McDermid: What about the Constitution?


Sheila Finestone: It has nothing to do with the Constitution. If the minister will listen to the translation, I will read to him what it has to say about le pouvoir declaratoire federal.

Knowing that the hon. member does not speak French, I can only hope that he will understand what I am about to say in that language.
The declaratory power is what enables the Parliament of Canada, under section 92(10(c), to change proprio moto, without consent and at the expense of the provincial legislative powers, the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces over the local works it has declared to be for the general advantage of Canada or for the advantage of two or more of the provinces.
Incidentally, paragraphs (b) and (d) deal with the nature of this power. It is a special power.

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If one believes in Canada, there are certain areas where one makes priorities, choices, and options.

Although this a special power, Parliament used it extensively, as Mrs. Andree Lajoie explained in her remarkable book on the subject. She wrote: "Parliament specifically declared to be for the general advantage the dams, canals, battlefields, railways, companies, grain elevators, landings stages, gas pipelines, slides, a piece of legislation, a subway, an oil pipeline, bridges-including several international bridges-trenches and tunnels."
Is is often argued that, and I quote: "The business or company is declared to be for the general advantage of Canada". We will examine the validity of this line in a moment. This line was used to exercice declaratory power regarding the following works, and I quote: "Company shares, harbour improvements, aqueducts, aircraft, buses, benches, basins, drydocks, water falls, docks, motor power, electricity, warehouses, companies involved in lumber, home building, railways, breeding, messengers, transport, terminals, garages, harbours, hotels, mines, mills, ships, works and undertakings-and on and on-of the federal district and later of the region of the national capital, oil refineries, restaurants, saw mills, telegraphs, underwater cables, telephones, theaters, tramways-of Montreal, Quebec, Ottawa and elsewhere-steel mills, brick factories, steel plants, pulp and paper mills, chemical plants, precious metal and gold refineries. This declaratory power enables the federal authority to redistribute unilaterally the legislative powers in a given field.
A distinction has to be made between, and I quote: "declaratory power", "emergency power" and "national reduction". These are three different concepts. We have already examined the first two.
In terms of exercise, that power can only be exercised through legislation. You must pay attention when I say through legislation, for you do not want to include it in legislation because you act as if you did not want to exercise your power in the field of activity at the provincial level. I have just read a list, exhaustive perhaps but it shows that you have taken the wrong road. You had an option, you had a choice but you did not make the right choice.

This is a government that does not know how to exercise options and choices or how to make an enlightened decision in the interest of all Canadians. Is that not just too bad. Another stubborn minister.


John Horton McDermid: Thank you, mother.


Sheila Finestone: You are welcome. I would not even acknowledge you as my son.
In the interest of national unity, in the interest of national identity, and in the interest of Canadians, I would suggest that this minister, if he would put his ego in his pocket and go and think about it, might see that there is an enlightenment behind the suggestions made by my hon. colleague from Ottawa-Vanier. It falls right now at a very nervous and sensitive time in the history of Canada. It would exercise for all of us an enlarged thinking and attitude toward the official languages of Canada and ensure whether one is in Moose Jaw or in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean-

-or in Gaspe, or on the North Shore you can be served in the two official languages of Canada, and it is in that respect that I speak of-

-national interest of Canada. One should be able to be served in both those languages and it should be within the law, not within the mind and heart of what is in the House.


John Horton McDermid: Every gas station, is that what you are saying?


Sheila Finestone: I would not mind that at all. That is the way it should be. But the minister would not like that. It might hurt him like the cereal box hurt him with French and English on both sides. He should not be ridiculous.
We do have a few people who have not evolved in their mentality, it is sad to say, on the other side of this House. I wish you, Mr. Speaker, as one of the hon. representatives from the other official languages, and a few of your ministers and backbenchers, would speak to this member and make him see the light of day.


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Manicouagan):: Mr. Speaker, I would like for a few minutes to take the time of the House to comment on amendment no. 23 moved by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier. I would also like to

give some clarification, which I am convinced will reassure the hon. member for Mount Royal, concerning the provision with regard to official languages which is found in Bill C-84.
Mr. Speaker, I had the privilege to sit on the legislative committee on Bill C-84 and I must say that I paid special attention to clause 9(l)(e), which deals particularly with the issue of bilingualism. The information that I received is to the effect that the provisions of that clause in Bill C-84 apply exclusively to Petro-Canada and not to other oil companies in Canada.
So, I got a very clear answer to the questions I asked to find out whether this clause only applies to Petro-Canada. Only this company must comply, under specific sections of this bill, to certain provisions concerning the two official languages.
Mr. Speaker, would it be possible to have a little decorum, please?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: It is your minister!


Charles A. Langlois: My minister and members of the Opposition.
So, Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, Petro-Canada is the only oil company in Canada where, when it is privatized and in the hands of Canadian shareholders, there are provisions which compel that corporation to give services in both official languages at its main office and at all its other places of operation where the public asks for services in both official languages.
The hon. member for Mount Royal certainly does not want this House to move amendments to Bill C-84 which will encroach on the rights of the provinces, particularly those of the province of Quebec. The province of Quebec already has a code and a legislation on both official languages. I do not think the hon. member for Mount Royal really wants that an amendment to or an article of Bill C-84, respecting the privatization of a Crown corporation, putting it into the hands of Canadian stockholders, to encroach upon the provincial jurisdiction. The minister has been very clear about that a little while ago. To include in Bill C-84 a provision that forces PetroCan to provide services in both official languages is already exceptional.
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So, I think the concerns of the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier and those of the hon. member for Mount Royal have been taken into account since they are already included in the provisions of Bill C-84.
Mr. Speaker, while we recognize, on this side of the House, that the amendment presented by the member for Ottawa-Vanier is well-intentioned, I will presonally vote against it, convinced as I am that the clauses of Bill C-84 are quite reassuring concerning the prospect that, contrary to its competitors who will not be required to implement such measures, Petro-Canada will, once privatized, continue to provide services to Canadian citizens and consumers in both official languages.
[English\


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I was under the impression that we were dealing with Motion No. 23, that the undertakings and works of Petro-Canada will be considered for the general good of Canada.
I am sorry the minister for privatization got to his feet so quickly to say that no, the government was not going to support this amendment. He referred almost exclusively to the requirement for Canadian works to offer their offices in both official languages. He also indicated that there was concern about interfering in provincial jurisdiction.
I think the government takes a bit of a hypocritical approach to this matter. There are a number of operations in the province of British Columbia, for example, designated as works for the general good of Canada. One of those operations, as the Minister of Transport is aware, is the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. It is a railway that starts in Victoria, in the suburb of Esquimalt on Vancouver Island, and terminates at Courtenay in my riding.
The reason the Minister of Transport is aware of it is that he has an action in court trying to shut down this railway service. One things the Government of British Columbia is proposing is that it take over jurisdiction of this railway and operate it because it begins and ends in British Columbia. It is a British Columbian railway service, especially because of the way it is being treated by the federal government.


An hon. member:: Then why are we paying for it?

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Mr Skelly (Comox-Alberni): Because you declared it a work for the general good of Canada. It was not done at the insistence of British Columbia. Many times over the last several years the Government of British Columbia has attempted to regain jurisdiction over this railway.
I am not saying that by passing this legislation when there is a crummy government in office one is going to get a well managed operation or responsible regulation of an operation. In fact, the Minister of Transport and his cronies are attempting to drive this railway into the ground.
It is a little hypocritical for the government to say on the one hand that it does not want to declare Petro-Can-ada a work for the general good of Canada. It interferes with provincial jurisdiction. Then, on the other hand, like a dog in the manger it wants to destroy that railway on Vancouver Island, that little railway that we want to make successful. It wants to retain jurisdiction so it can shut that railway down and drive it into the ground. This is a kind of dog-in-the-manger approach that this government is taking.


Mr. Lewis:: Your brother never looked so good.


Robert Evans Skelly: And Harvie Andre is looking at a much better House leader.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Robert Evans Skelly: Harvie Andre is a much better House leader is what I am saying.


An hon. member:: Harvie will be surprised.


Robert Evans Skelly: There is not really too much to compare between them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I would ask the member to confine himself to the matter at hand.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, if those members will stop interrupting and allow debate to proceed in an orderly fashion in this House, I want to say that it does not necessarily help for an institution or a company such as PetroCan to be declared a work for the general good of Canada because of the way the Minister of Transport has been treating the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway in British Columbia.
If he would let the Province of British Columbia assume jurisdiction over that railway then, when the NDP takes over in a very few months, we are going to operate that railway as if it were something of value to the people on Vancouver Island. We are going to promote it. We are going to expand its operations. Really, we have a vision to make sure that railway operates.
On the other hand, there is some justification for having Petro-Canada declared a work for the general good of Canada. This, after all, is a company that trades interprovincially. It has retail outlets in virtually every province in Canada. It trades into the international market by purchasing goods and services from international offshore suppliers. It also sells Canadian products on the international market. There is some justification for this nation-wide company, represented in every province and doing business interprovincially and internationally, to be a declared a work for the general good of Canadians and, for that reason, to be regulated by the Government of Canada and to be within the jurisdiction of this Parliament so that this Parliament can oversee and regulate its operations. There is some justification for that.
Obviously there is no justification for the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. I would encourage the Minister of Transport to listen to people in British Columbia who want to tell him to get his hands off it because he is doing nothing but destroying that railway and undermining the transportation network on Vancouver Island. If only we had a competent Minister of Transport federally, we would be looking forward to a better operation there. Unfortunately that is not the case.
I would hope members of the House would be persuaded by the arguments made by the hon. member from Montreal, that PetroCan should be declared a work for the general good of Canadians.


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say a word on this particular amendment.


Ron Fisher: Time is up.


William C. Winegard: I know you would like that. It seems to me that the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier really has a choice. If we are going to have one oil company with one set of rules and 2,500 energy companies with

different kinds of rules, I think it is unfair to the corporation.
I do not believe the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier wants this because my experience with him since I have come into this House is that he really is a remarkably reasonable person. In fact, when I first came to this House as a new member in 1984, I sat just down on the other side and he was very helpful to me.
But what my colleagues in the NDP would like is to have all of the oil companies nationalized and operating in their so-called "good for the government of Canada". They would end up with a lot of people losing money like all the other things they want for the betterment or the good of Canada.


An hon. member:: Very good point.


William C. Winegard: Their operation is if we own it as a government it is bound to lose money and that will be good for Canada. That is what they say: lose money and if you are losing money it will be grand for Canada.
Mr. Speaker, with respect to the motion of the member for Ottawa-Vanier, while I have tremendous sympathy for what he is trying to do, I think it would be unfair to have one corporation operating under a different set of rules than all of the other energy companies in the country.


Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak briefly to this motion as well. When we look at the words "for the general advantage of Canada", when we look at the privatization of Petro-Canada, I think what we see is that the base underlying the problems that we have in this country is that we need to get our financial house in order. Probably more than anything else that will speak to the general advantage of Canada.
To many Canadians in western Canada the privatization of Petro-Canada signals the dismantling of the last vestiges of the National Energy Program. Many Canadians have waited six years for this government to privatize Petro-Canada. I believe that the legislative actions of the government demonstrate the much-needed requirement for this reform.
It has taken six years to announce Petro-Canada's privatization, years which included Petro-Canada's buy-
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out of even more of its competition. It has taken six months to table the bill after the announcement and, of course, now only six days allowed for debate on it.
I support the complete privatization of Petro-Canada. It is one of the policies which the Reform Party of Canada has advocated since our inception. I am pleased to see the initial steps at selling the 15 per cent Treasury shares, but I and the market would be happier if and when the government had taken this opportunity to decide on a definite time frame in which remaining government holdings in Petro-Canada would be disposed of.
Unfortunately the fact that the previous government paid far too much for the assets and shares which were rolled into Petro-Canada means it is unlikely that taxpayers will ever get back their full investment in Petro-Canada. However, the fact that one government made a bad decision does not mean that every government should have to be bound by that bad decision. Again I speak to the motion that we are looking at "the general advantage of Canada", and I think nothing could be more simple and more fair than that.
I believe, as Reform Party members do, that business should be involved in business and that government should be involved in government. Government should be involved in regulating and making priorities for the long-term benefit of society. Today, unfortunately, instead we see government doing what it does best, trying to do everything else. Where has that gotten us, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately we are $350 billion in debt and the public is unhappy with practically everything that the government does.
When we are looking at the whole idea of this motion about what is best for Canada, what would be for our advantage, unfortunately what we have seen is that instead of the government ensuring that Canada's future is economically sound, many in Canada are concerned with maintaining the institutions of the past whether or not they have been contributors to the Canadian economy and society.
For many people it is unclear exactly what the government was trying to accomplish by starting Petro-Canada. Was it to ensure there was long-term exploration and development of Canadian energy resources? Was it to ensure that the industry was more competitive by buying

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out its competitors? Should it be to promote energy conservation, as some have suggested here today?
The public can rightly be confused. The politicians are confused over this issue as well. However, despite the confusion, the public can very well look at the size of our debt, the levels of interest payments and ask whether there were, and are, more effective ways perhaps to spend taxpayers' dollars to achieve the government's objective than for the government to spend billions of dollars to purchase a place in the oil and gas industry. This despite the fact that the government may find its private sector industry generally profitable and willing to compete without the government being one of the participants.
The taxpaying public may well ask whether there is a cheaper way to regulate an industry than by owning a company, which invariably becomes a political toy, a place to put old supporters as well paid directors and encouraging policy decisions that are politically expedient but perhaps not economically sound.
Finally, before concluding my thoughts on this particular motion on this bill, I would like to deal with two related issues, one of which is the claim first of all that Canadians already own Petro-Canada, and second, that Canadians will be surrendering control of their industry and economy by selling Petro-Canada, or what is generally called reversing Canadianization of the oil and gas industry which is in the national interest.
To deal with the claim that Canadians already own Petro-Canada, first many will point to the price tag which is in the billions of dollars that the government paid. However, if we look at the debt and interest payments it is very obvious that the Canadian government may have bought Petro-Canada, but it has yet to pay for it. As I have already said, there are cheaper ways to have achieved this objective.
Nevertheless, even though it has yet to be paid for, there are still the claims that Canadians do own Petro-Canada. To this, I ask what do Canadians own exactly? If a taxpayer owns shares in a private oil company such as Imperial Oil, that person owns the right to receive dividends, the right to sell his shares, the right to participate in capital growth. They own the residual
value of all the assets and they have the right to elect directors in proportion to the value of their holdings.
When we speak of Canadians owning Petro-Canada, we know they do not own the traditional rights which I have just referred to, at least not directly.
Taxpayers have the obligation to pay for the purchase of Petro-Canada but does Parliament even indirectly exercise stewardship in the operations of Petro-Canada? Today with the government increasingly distant and aloof, most Canadians do not feel as though they in fact do own Petro-Canada. The government might, but Canadians doubt that they own it.
Let me turn to the issue of Canadianization. It is perfectly laudable and understandable that Canadians should wish to be masters in their own home and to have control over their resources and their economic destiny. However, many of these Canadianization policies in tandem with the fiscal priorities which governments have had over the past 20 years have actually had the opposite effect.
The most effective means the government has of ensuring that Canadians are masters in their own home is ensuring that the government's policies, fiscal and monetary, as well as political, aid in ensuring the fundamental strength and vitality of the Canadian economy.
Again speaking to the motion, that is what will be of general advantage to all of Canada. Unfortunately, too much attention has been focused on politically short-run decisions which have added to our deficit and debt and which have hindered Canada's long-run capacity to compete and to be economically the masters in our own house.
I point out the increasing reliance that the federal government's own fiscal shortcomings are met by foreign source financing of our domestic deficit mess. Our reliance at the federal level has increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent in the last six years, during which time the actual debt has doubled, meaning that at the federal level it has recently increased four times in the past six years.
However, this may be alarming since the facts are that this parallels the early growth that has already occurred in foreign source borrowing at the provincial and municipal levels, and in the private sector because the federal
December 17, 1990

government took advantage of domestic borrowing first, so that our other borrowers have had no choice but to borrow from foreign sources, if they were to borrow at all.
Now the effects on the Canadian economy have been a high and unstable dollar, as well as high interest rates, and on historic spread between Canadian and U.S. interest rates. It is perfectly naive to suggest that Canada should arbitrarily set its own interest rate and a little bit misleading to suggest that those high interest rates are merely at such high levels to combat inflation with our heavy reliance on foreign-source borrowing.
As I have said, if those who are truly interested in ensuring that Canada's economic well-being is secure, that Canadians are masters in their own house, they should make sure government policy is consistent with achieving these ends.
The large deficit which the government has been running for years now, and increasing foreign borrowing, has been working opposite to the goal of ensuring that Canadians have control over their own economy.
As to the claim that owning Petro-Canada and the Canadianization of the oil industry is in the national interest, to many western Canadians that phrase, "the national interest', has become almost cynically associated with a particular phrase that we hear also and that is, "Trust me". To many Canadians in the less populated regions of the country, or what has become recently called "outer Canada", it has become increasingly questionable about why it is in the national interest to Canadianize the resource industries of outer Canada, but it is apparently not in the national interest to Canadianize some of the industries of the more populated regions of southern Ontario and southern Quebec or what is called "inner Canada".
I would like to conclude my remarks by saying that at this particular time of Christmas and when we are looking forward with good will and hope for a new year, I would recommend that our politicians make a commitment to reforming certainly the Senate, where legislation on Petro-Canada will have to pass through, and our political institution here in this House so that there is more fairness. I would recommend that we let Parlia-
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ment support the privatization of Petro-Canada and concentrate on ensuring that Canadians have a strong economy which benefits all Canadians, rather than institutions here and in the other place which provide questionable benefits and incur unaffordable costs.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt Motion No. 23?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.


Derek Vincent Lee: Motion No. 20
That Bill C-84 be amended in Clause 12 by adding immediately after line 30 at page 9 the following:
"(2) The Minister shall not refuse to promptly disclose all materially relevant financial information within his control, in connection with any transaction authorized by this Act, to and at the written request of the Auditor General of Canada, on such reasonable conditions as to commercial confidentiality as Petro-Canada shall impose in consultation with the Minister."


Brian L. Gardiner: That Bill C-84 be amended by adding immediately after line 44 at page 12 the following new clause:
"18.(1) Each time that Petro-Canada sells or otherwise disposes of ten per cent or more of its shares, it shall submit to Parliament a report indicating the proceeds received by
(1)	Petro-Canada

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(ii)	Her Majesty in Right of Canada, and
(iii)	the underwriters of the sale or disposal, pursuant to the sale or
disposal.
(2)	Eveiy report to Parliament made by Petro-Canada under subsection (1) shall be made by being transmitted to the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons for tabling in those Houses.
(3)	Every report laid before Parliament under subsection (2) stands referred to the Standing Committee on Energy, Mines and Resources of the House of Commons."


Derek Vincent Lee: Mr. Speaker, as we have very few minutes left to complete debate on these amendments, I am going to keep my remarks very short because other members, I am sure, will want to speak to this very important amendment.
As I pointed out earlier, it is sometimes difficult to propose an amendment trying to make a bill better when one disagrees with the principle of the bill or fundamentally opposes it. That is what is happening here.
This particular amendment I happen to take quite a bit of pride in. If we think back five or 10 years, we will recall the number of times that the Auditor General has had to go public, raise his voice and even in one period of time he went to court. He actually went to the courts in an effort to obtain information relative, in this particular case, to the Petro-Canada acquisition. The Auditor General is out there providing constructive comment and guidance as to how we show our public accounts. I think we in the House of Commons have to support the Auditor General in that effort.
Recalling the Auditor General's difficulties in getting information about the Petro-Canada acquisition, there were real reasons and real obstacles to his getting that information. They involved the principle of cabinet confidentiality.
I sit in opposition now, but I know that the events that gave rise to the Auditor General's initiative in this were events that occurred during a period of time that my party was in government. Yet I believe when the Auditor General went to court was when the Conservative government was in power. Both governments held to the same principle that you do not release matters that involve cabinet confidentiality. The reason is that we expect our cabinet ministers to be able to deal honestly and frankly with their advisers in cabinet without fear of having their discussions made public. The fear of that
would impair the process of governing. I accept that even though I am in opposition. I would love to know what goes on inside the cabinet room, but I accept the principle.
This amendment does not attack the principle of cabinet confidentiality. What it does is provide a ruling in advance. I will just read the relevant portion that the designated minister who would preside over the privatization shall not refuse to disclose promptly all materially relevant financial information within his control in connection with the privatization transactions. That would be at the written request of the Auditor General-and this is very important-on such reasonable conditions as to commercial confidentiality as Petro-Canada shall impose. As well, that permits Petro-Canada to impose conditions relative to commercial confidentiality which is important to it, I am sure. In this way, both the minister and Petro-Canada are obligated to provide that information to the Auditor General.
I believe that process of providing information is important. I think it provides some sunshine on an area of financial transaction that is not provided for in the act. The Auditor General may have a general mandate, but I know that we in this House have to provide the tools that the Auditor General needs to supervise, even if it is ex post facto, the accounting transactions of the government. I hope that members on both sides of the House will subscribe to this amendment.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I checked my very extensive briefing notes, and rise to make a few comments on the amendments proposed, one by the Official Opposition and one by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. I appreciate the opportunity to allow us to bring that motion forward on the hon. member's behalf.
I have some very extensive notes here and it is a very interesting question. This particular amendment is part of the reasonable package of amendments being proposed to this legislation. We know that if the government is reasonable it will likely support, or we hope it will support, this one.
This amendment simply requires the minister responsible to disclose to the Auditor General information when it is needed or requested by the Auditor General, and as it says in the amendment that reasonable condi-
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tions are attached as to the confidentiality of that information.
It is interesting that both the Liberals and the Conservatives in the past, from what I understand of the history of PetroCan and Petrofina, failed to live up to this amendment that they are now proposing. It is interesting to see the little twist perhaps of turning a little bit of Liberal history upside down given their failure to respond in the past.
The second amendment being debated, Motion No. 32A, goes back to previous and similar motions that we moved earlier during debate on the bill, which unfortunately, both the Liberals and the Conservatives voted against. It was a very simple motion at that time that would require an annual report to Parliament to talk about what happened with PetroCan, where it is going, the proceeds, and what have you. It is unfortunate that the Liberals again supported the Conservatives on this proposal. We hope they will support our proposal this time.
The proposal here is a very interesting and unique one, I think, and certainly bears some consideration from the House. I will read it into the record:
18.(1) Each lime that Petro-Canada sells or otherwise disposes of ten per cent or more of its shares, it shall submit to Parliament a report indicating the proceeds received by
(i)	Petro-Canada,
(ii)	Her Majesty in Right of Canada, and
(iii)	the underwriters of the sale or disposal, pursuant to the sale
or disposal.
I think that is very reasonable. It goes on, as you know Mr. Speaker, to report through you to the Speaker of the Senate and to yourself, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and also to refer each report that does come to Parliament to the energy, mines and resources standing committee of the House to review.
Again it gives this Parliament a chance to see exactly what has happened as a result of Bill C-84 and gives yet another challenge that I think the government, certainly this afternoon, has failed to take up, and that is to show exactly what it has done with Petro-Canada, to prove that it is right or we are wrong. This is their chance, and they are passing that chance up. For that we will all be worse off because we will not really know exactly what has happened with these proceeds.
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Let us hope it will be the usual news release that we get. At best I suppose that might happen. We have had some experience with this in British Columbia when the then Premier Bill Bennett brought in something called the British Columbia Resources Investment Corporation. Whatever it is called now, and whoever owns it now is sometimes hard to keep track of.
I think that given the debate, given what members in this House have had to say, and given some of the assurances, whatever they may be, from the government members of "Oh, don't worry; everything is going to be fine. Petro-Canada is not going to be bought up by anybody. Everything is going to go along fine", let us give the government a chance to tell this House exactly what the point is. Let us see if it is true to its word and prove its point on that.
I think in that sense it is an excellent amendment worth voting on tonight. As you know we will be moving on to more debate tomorrow, third reading I think it is, on Petro-Canada. Again it is giving us and the people of Canada through this House a chance to see exactly what this government is doing with one of the institutions of Canada. It is only something we hope to expect from this government. Certainly when the New Democrats form the next Government of Canada, Mr. Speaker, you can be assured we will account to Parliament and to Canadians when we run their Crown corporations for them.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for giving me a couple of minutes before we vote on these amendments.
We will have covered all the amendments that were brought forward by the opposition party.
First of all let me comment for a moment on the disclosure of information motion. Securities legislation across this country requires a company to issue a prospectus whenever it issues shares to the public. The regulations governing the contents of a prospectus require it to disclose the proceeds and the cost of the issue. It must all be there before it is permitted to go forward.
Funds received by the sale of Petro-Canada, the shares, will be reported in the public accounts which are tabled in Parliament. As we know, we have a debt of $4.3 billion on our books that has to be written off.

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Of course the minister will continue to disclose to the Auditor General information that he is required by law to disclose in connection with the Public Accounts of Canada. Those are all covered. So this amendment No. 20 is not necessary.
As far as amendment No. 32 is concerned, the information to be tabled in this proposed report that they are talking about is available from other sources that are required under other existing laws, so inclusion of this provision is redundant and unnecessary.
Security legislation requires a company to issue a prospectus whenever it issues shares to the public. That is well known. When privatization takes place, Petro-Canada will become a widely-held public company subject to all the requirements of a public company. We, of course, will report where the income goes from Petro-Canada as these shares are sold off. Both these motions are totally unnecessary and we will be voting against them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 6.45 p.m., pursuant to order made in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order 78(3) on Tuesday, December 11, 1990, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill.
Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is on Motion No. 20 standing in the name of the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the proposed motion stands deferred.

The next question is on Motion No. 32A standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion is deferred.
The House will now proceed to the recorded divisions deferred at report stage of the bill now before the House.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.

And the division bells having rungr.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. The first question is on Motion No. 2A. The result of this vote will apply to Motions Nos. 6A, 12A, 15, 19, 20, 23, and 32A, according to an order made earlier today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
[English}


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I walked in halfway through your reading of the amendment. Had I been here on time I would have voted with my party.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Jesse Philip Flis: I hear a lot of booing, but we do have on our TV monitors whether it is a 30-minute vote or a 15-minute vote. The 15-minute mark should have been on our screens.
However, I am here in time for the other amendments, so I hope that you will count me as voting with my party on the other amendments.


Deborah C. Grey: Mr. Speaker, in the interest of saving time, I would like to say that my no vote applies to all motions except Motion No. 20.1 would vote yea for Motion No. 20.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The next question is on Motion No. 6A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 12A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon.
Allmand
Anawak
Baker
Black
Boudria
Butland
Copps
de Jong
Ferguson
Fisher
Fulton
Gauthier
Jordan
Langdon (Essex-Windsor) Lee
MacLellan
McCurdy
Milliken
Murphy
Pagtakhan
Prud'homme
Robinson
Samson
Stupich
Vanclief
Young (Acadie-Bathurst)
Anderson
Atkinson
Belsher
Bird
Blackburn (Jonquifcre)
Blenkam
Bourgault
Browes
Cardiff
Champagne (Champlain)
Chartrand
Clifford
Collins
Corbett
Couture
Danis
Dobbie
Duplessis
Epp
Feltham
Fontaine
Friesen
Greene
Gustafson
Hawkes
Hockin
Homer
James
Johnson
Jourdenais
Koury
Langlois
Layton
Lewis
Lopez
MacDougall (Timiskaming) Marin
++YEAS
Members
Althouse
Angus
Benjamin
Blaikie
Brewin
Campbell (South West Nova)
Crawford
Dionne
Finestone
Fits
Gardiner
Hunter
Kilger (Stormont-Dundas)
LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso)
MacAulay
Marleau
Mifflin
Mitchell
Nault
Parker
Riis
Rodriguez
Skelly (Comox-Alberai)
Taylor
Whittaker
Young (Beaches-Woodbine)-52
++NAYS
Members
Andre
Beatty
Bertrand
Bjornson
Blais
Bosley
Brightwell
Cadieux
Chadwick
Charest
Clark (Brandon-Souris)
Cole
Cooper
Cote
Crosby (Halifax West)
Darling
Dorin
Edwards
Fee
Ferland
Fretz
Gray (Bonaventu re-iles-de-la-Madeleine) Grey (Beaver River)
Harvey (Chicoutimi)
Hicks
Holtmann
Hughes
Jelinek
Joncas
Kempling
Landry
Larrivee
Leblanc (Longueuil)
Littlechild
MacDonald (Rosedale)
Malone
Masse

Government Orders
McCreath
McDougall (St. Paul's)
McLean
Monteith
Oberle
Plamondon
Porter
Redway
Reimer
Richardson
Roy-Arcelin
Scott (Victoria-Haliburton)
Shields
Sobeski
Sparrow
Tardif
Thompson
Tremblay (Rosemont)
Timer (Halton-Peel)
Van de Walle Venne Vincent White
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-Winegard
McDermid
McKnight
Merrithew
Nicholson
O'Kurley
Plourde
Pronovost
Reid
Ricard
Rocheleau
Saint-Julien
Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth) Siddon Soetens Stevenson Tetreault Thorkelson Tremblay (Lotbiniere) Valcourt Vankoughnet Vien Weiner Wilbee -Assiniboia)
Worthy-123


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 15 in the name of Mr. Lee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question is on Motion No. 19 in the name of Mr. Lee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
Members
Allmand	Anawak
Anderson	Andre
Atkinson	Baker
Beatty	Belsher
Bertrand	Bird
Bjornson	Blackburn (Jonquiere)
Blais	Blenkarn
Bosley	Boudria
Bourgault	Brightwell
Browes	Cadieux
Cardiff	Chadwick
Champagne (Champlain)	Charest
Chartrand	Clark (Brandon-Souris)
Clifford	Cole
Collins	Cooper
Copps	Corbett
Cote	Couture
Crawford	Crosby (Halifax West)
Danis	Darling
Dionne	Dobbie
Dorin	Duplessis
Edwards	Epp
Fee	Feltham
Ferland	Finestone
Flis	Fontaine
Fretz	Friesen
Gauthier	Gray (Bonaventure-lies-de-la-Madeleine)
Greene	Grey (Beaver River)
Gustafson	Harvey (Chicoutimi)
Hawkes	Hicks
Hoc kin	Holtmann
Horner	Hughes
James	Jelinek
Johnson	Joncas
Jordan	Jourdenais
Kempiing	Kilger (Stormont-Du ndas)
Koury	Landry
Langlois	Larrivee
Layton	LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso)
Leblanc (Longueuil)	Lee
Lewis	Littlechild
Lopez	MacAulay
MacDonald (Rosedale)	MacDougall (Timiskaming)
MacLellan	Malone
Marin	Marleau
Masse	McCreath
McDermid	McDougall (St. Paul's)
McKnight	McLean
Merrithew	Mifflin
Milliken	Monteith
Nault	Nicholson
Oberle	O'Kurley
Pagtakhan	Plamondon
The next question is on Motion No. 20 in the name of Mr. Lee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question will be on Motion No. 23 standing in the name of Mr. Gauthier.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question will be on Motion No. 12A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question will be on Motion No. 14A standing in the name of Mr. Langdon.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I declare the motion lost.
The next question will be on Motion No. 8A, standing in the name of Mr. Langdon.


John Horton McDermid: that the bill be concurred in.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I declare the motion carried.


THE CONSTITUTION
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, December 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre (p. 16670).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: It being 7.23 p.m., pursuant to order made on Wednesday, December 12, 1990, the House will now proceed to the recorded division on the motion calling for the establishment of a Special Joint Committee to inquire into and report upon the process for amending the Constitution of Canada. Can we dispense with the ringing of the bell?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBLois):: I declare the motion carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, at the end of the vote, I heard some totally unacceptable words from some colleagues. I would like to give you notice that I may rise on a question of privilege about some comments made by members about other members concerning communism and so on. If this is reported in Hansard, I will rise at the appropriate time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 7.34 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.34 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Diesday, December 18,1990