1990-02-14

['Mr. Speaker, not only is 1990 the beginning of a new and exciting decade for Canada, it also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of our Canadian flag. On February 15, 1965, the distinctive red and white maple leaf flag was raised over Parliament Hill for the first time. Since that historic moment, the flag has truly become an emblem of our nation. When the people of the world look upon it, they immediately think of Canada as the land of opportunity and as a caring and compassionate country.\nWe must not overlook the importance of our flag. It is symbol for each of us, one which portrays the peace and justice that all Canadians share. Future generations will be able to look proudly upon our flag as the embodiment of Canadian ideals and of the country, and honour it in a variety of ways as unique and colourful as Canada itself.\nI urge all hon. members to do their utmost to participate in the events of February 15 and to promote our Canadian flag throughout the whole year. Together we must inspire our fellow Canadians to join us to honour and celebrate our flag and to be always aware of what it represents to each of us as members of Parliament and as proud citizens of Canada.']
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, there are large numbers of tin cans held together by lead solder in our grocery stores. The poisonous lead from these cans is absorbed by the food we eat. In small amounts it can cause loss of intelligence in children.
A study of cans purchased in Canada showed non-lead soldered cans with lead levels of 17 parts per billion, but the lead-soldered cans averaged 227 parts per billion. In one case the levels for one serving for a child had three times more lead than allowed by the World Health Organization.
Not all companies use lead solder and these companies must be congratulated for their concern for the consumer, but this government cannot be congratulated. It is the job of Health and Welfare to monitor lead levels in food, but the department's regulations cover only eight products, and allowable lead levels range from 80 parts per billion to 15 parts per billion.
Experts say that these standards are 20 years out of date. When this government says the lead levels fall below the acceptable amounts, we know that they are using meaningless standards.
What will this government do to assure people like Meagan Walker and other Canadians that they are not eating food with unacceptable high levels of lead contamination? Will this government set new standards that protect the Canadian consumer from domestically produced and imported lead-soldered cans?



Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, the Open Skies Conference, while a good idea and successful in itself, was also a timely opportunity for ministers of NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to sit down at the same table with a common purpose and, in so doing, to prefigure the Europe of the future.
In this respect, I think it is important that the debate about German unification not be captive to the language of the cold war era now ending. We must go beyond debate about whether the new Germany will be part of NATO or whether it will be neutral. Both these ways of looking at the issue presuppose the continuation of a Europe divided into two camps.
Instead, we should be talking about a new common security system for a Europe that extends from the Atlantic to the Urals, a common security system into which NATO and the Warsaw Pact must be absorbed and joyfully disappear.
Common security in Europe must be accompanied by common security elsewhere, particularly in the Arctic, and in this Canada has a special role to play. Perhaps NORAD should also be absorbed some day soon into a common security regime that involves Canada, the United States, the U.S.S.R. and, indeed, other circumpolar nations who share the goal of a demilitarized, non-nuclear zone of peace in the Arctic.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make you aware of the great benefits the goods and services tax will bring to those parts of Ontario that are industrial areas. Notable in those areas are the automotive centres of Oshawa, Oakville, St. Catharines and Windsor.
When the existing 13.5 per cent federal sales tax is removed from the price of an automobile, domestically produced cars will go down in price, making them more competitive with imported cars. That means more sales

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of cars produced in Canada with a direct benefit to the communities where those cars are produced. More production means more jobs.
The MPs of the Oshawa area, as well as those in the Oakville and St. Catharines areas, understand this significant benefit for their constituents.
With such a positive result on the economic health of their constituencies, what is wrong with those MPs who represent the Windsor area? Why are they not standing on their desks in this place admonishing those in opposition to the GST to get on side?
I hope the people of the Windsor area remember that their MPs are not willing to allow their constitutents to benefit from the GST. Fortunately, they are a small minority in this place and those with a vision for Canada will decide in the end.


TRIBUTE TO EDOUARD JANNETEAU
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, today on behalf of all those who knew him, I wish to pay special tribute to an extraordinary man from Riviere Heva in Abitibi, Edouard Janneteau, who died on February 11, 1990 after a long illness. His career was long and impressive, so I will mention only a few of his many contributions to the well being of his fellow workers and the community. He worked at Noranda Mines for five years, was group leader for the union, and from 1964 to 1990, was the United Metal Workers of America union representative for Abitibi, Temiscamingue and James Bay. He helped establish credit unions in Val d'Or, Rouyn-Noranda and Malartic, and one that will open shortly in Riviere Heva. He was concillor for two years and then mayor of Riviere Heva from 1985 to 1989.
Mr. Speaker, Edouard Janneteau was known as a man who listened to what people had to say and gave good advice. Personally, I will never forget the advice he gave me when I was a member of the metal workers union in Matagami and recently as a member of Parliament. I wish to offer my sincere condolences to his wife, Anita, his children and his family.


YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, the students of this country deserve better than they are getting from this government. First of all, the government takes away a lot of the equalization payments, thereby reducing the funding for education. Now the Minister of Employment and Immigration has said that she is going to cut the SEED program to make funding for a program to keep young people in school.
She says that the cost of providing jobs for students during the summer months has been taken over by the private sector and does not need to be financed anymore. That may be the case in Toronto, but it is cold comfort for students in Atlantic Canada. As a matter of fact, this is going to run contrary to the intention of the minister because students who find that they do not have summer jobs when they go to university are not going to stay in university.
Why is this government taking from one needy program to give to another? When is the government going to live up to its responsibility to the students of this country?


OPEN SKIES CONFERENCE
Mr. Ross Stevenson (Durham):: Mr. Speaker, the broad agreement for the Open Skies treaty announced yesterday by the 23 foreign ministers from the Warsaw Pact and NATO nations is truly a revolutionary achievement in international arms control.
The holding of this historic conference at Ottawa reflects the long-standing commitment to world disarmament by our nation, our Prime Minister and our Secretary of State for External Affairs. This Canadian advocacy is exemplified by such commitments as our leading role in seismic detection of underground nuclear tests.
It is singularly appropriate that our non-militaristic nation should host this landmark meeting which not only paved the way for aerial surveillance of disarmament but also provided a forum in which superpowers could achieve breakthroughs in troop reductions. This is a
February 14, 1990

week when the entire world hears good news from Ottawa.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of pride in my hometown that I stand in this place today to report to this House the decisive step taken by the city of Hamilton in reaffirming minority language rights.
Last night city council overwhelmingly re-affirmed its commitment to respecting minority language rights in Hamilton. The message is clear and echoes the words and beliefs of the commissioners of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism who, in 1967, stated in relation to bilingualism: and I quote:
The history of countries with more than one language and culture shows how often rigid attitudes held by majorities have made common life difficult, if not impossible. For the majority to hold back from acts within its power or to allow events it would be able to prevent, out of respect for the minority, is not a product of weakness but a step forward in civilization.


VIA RAIL
Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court of British Columbia ruled last month that rail passenger service on Vancouver Island was a condition of B.C.'s entry into Confederation.
As a result, Vancouver Islanders have managed to defeat the government's destructive policy and to keep their passenger trains operating. Unfortunately, what the government could not do legally it is now trying to do through the back door. It has increased fares by 32 per cent, downgraded the service and has not maintained the cars to proper standards. In short, it is sabotaging the service.
Last week I filed an appeal against VIA's fare increase on Vancouver Island and my colleagues and I are asking municipalities, chambers of commerce, labour councils and individuals on the Island to support the fare appeal and to call on the federal government to change its policy.
If VIA's passenger service on Vancouver Island is properly maintained and properly marketed with appropriate schedules and fares, we on Vancouver Island will
prove to Canadians that not only can VIA reduce the need for subsidies, it may even make a profit.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, the latest attempt by the Mulroney government to fill the Prime Minister's promise of generous assistance to the Atlantic fishery would be laughable if it was not so cynical. After mismanaging the fishery into a state of collapse, the government has the audacity to come in and announce a rescue plan which will effectively close the port of Canso and cut the workforce in its fish plant by up to 70 per cent.
Where is the generous aid package promised over and over again by this Prime Minister? What about the people of Lockporte and Port Mouton who lost their plants last spring and have watched their communities slowly die while the Tory politicians from Atlantic Canada twiddle their thumbs in Ottawa?
The Deputy Prime Minister has stood in his place and bragged about the $21 billion given to western farmers over the past five years. How does that compare to the east coast fisheries? We have yet to see one red cent or one new program. So much for the Prime Minister's rhetoric for equal and generous treatment.
We may be plain folk who fish by the sea, but this government should not mistake our sincerity for stupidity, for we will continue to stand and stand together in demanding that this government come up with the programs and funds necessary to save our communities which face extinction because of this government's indifference.
Mr. Prime Minister, do the right thing, treat Atlantic Canada as an equal partner in this confederation of ours and do so today.


ETHIOPIA
Hon. David MacDonald (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, several weeks ago people around the world were very appreciative of the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he was able to announce that there was a relief corridor agreed to by the government of Ethiopia that would allow relief supplies to those who are in the

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principal province of Tigray to receive assistance during this critical famine period.
Unfortunately, during the past few days, war has again taken over and the principal port of Massawa has fallen. There is a threat to the other port of Asab, and it appears quite likely that relief supplies may again be constricted.
It is to be hoped that both peoples, governments and organizations will use every effort to persuade all the combatants that these relief corridors be opened up in order to save the lives of millions of innocent civilians.


NATIONAL PARKS
Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, this government may be on the verge of making one of the largest wildlife management decisions in the history of this country. Agriculture Canada has recently put forward an unrealistic proposal calling for the complete eradication of bison herds affected by brucellosis or tuberculosis in Wood Buffalo National Park.
While perhaps satisfying the concerns of ranchers encroaching on the park, this recommendation ignores the fact that large questions remain about the geographic occurrence of the diseases, the genetic significance of the bison and the ecological impact of such a policy of eradication.
Yet despite these important deficiencies in the Agriculture Canada proposal, this government has refused to fund research into alternative resolutions to the problem. There is almost no federal funding available to look into alternative policies such as herd control or vaccination programs. Moreover, the aboriginal peoples of the region affected have not had the opportunity to participate effectively in the environmental assessment process.
Therefore I urge the Minister of the Environment to implement a six-month extension on the public hearings looking into the issue of the Wood Buffalo National Park bison herd and further, to provide intervener funding so that all interested groups, and especially aboriginal peoples, can participate effectively in managing this important wildlife resource.


THE FLAG
Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, not only is 1990 the beginning of a new and exciting decade for Canada, it also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of our Canadian flag. On February 15, 1965, the distinctive red and white maple leaf flag was raised over Parliament Hill for the first time. Since that historic moment, the flag has truly become an emblem of our nation. When the people of the world look upon it, they immediately think of Canada as the land of opportunity and as a caring and compassionate country.
We must not overlook the importance of our flag. It is symbol for each of us, one which portrays the peace and justice that all Canadians share. Future generations will be able to look proudly upon our flag as the embodiment of Canadian ideals and of the country, and honour it in a variety of ways as unique and colourful as Canada itself.
I urge all hon. members to do their utmost to participate in the events of February 15 and to promote our Canadian flag throughout the whole year. Together we must inspire our fellow Canadians to join us to honour and celebrate our flag and to be always aware of what it represents to each of us as members of Parliament and as proud citizens of Canada.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr,
Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Ministre. The minister knows that the Federation de T&ge d'or du Quebec which represents more than 200,000 people, has submitted a brief to all parties, describing the disastrous impact of the government's policies on senior citizens. The federation has asked the government to withdraw its proposed goods and services tax. This new tax, as the federation so accurately said, will cause unprecedented hardship for senior citizens, especially those on fixed incomes.
February 14, 1990

Will the government listen to our country's senior citizens and drop its GST proposal? How many times will we have to ask this government to drop this unfair tax proposal?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, as the Minister responsible for Seniors, I met the Federation de l'age d'or du Quebec yesterday, and this was only one of many meetings we have had during the past year. I would urge our opposition colleagues to support the GST bill, Bill C-62. If you have a heart for seniors as you seem to have for so many things, please support our proposal because it respects Canada's senior citizens.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, if the minister had really listened to the demands of Quebec seniors as stated in this brief, she obviously would not give such an answer.
Mr. Speaker, the 200,000 members of the Federation de l'age d'or du Quebec are in a good position to know that the GST is not the only bad government project affecting them. They also denounced the planned clawback of their pension cheques by the government, which calls into question the universality of pensions. They feel betrayed by a government and a prime minister who called social programs a "sacred trust". So I ask the Deputy Prime Minister: Will the government finally listen to seniors and today abandon its plan to claw back pensions, which is a very unfair measure?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I repeat that I find it regrettable and very serious that seniors are given such misinformation. I have met seniors, I repeat, and as my colleague the Minister of Finance has said so well many times, the measures we are proposing with the GST are part of tax reform, and this government's philosophy is to respect people who need support. As a minister and Cabinet member, I support this measure we are proposing and, please, let's give seniors the correct information so that they can make the right decisions.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, we in the Liberal caucus also received the Quebec seniors and I again repeat that they obviously do
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not accept the minister's answers. One may also ask why the minister does not have enough respect for the intelligence and judgement of the seniors from her own province.

The minister is not telling the whole story. Why did she not tell Canadian seniors about the flaws in the clawback provisions of her legislation and the negative impact of its sales tax project on seniors in this country? It is absolutely shameful that the government is deliberately taking from seniors the pension benefits they deserve and have a right to expect. It is doubly shameful that the government-


Some hon. members:: Order.


Some hon. members:: Question.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. gentleman to complete his question.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the government is also bringing in a sneaky hidden sales tax.


Some hon. members:: Order, order.


Mr. Speaker:: I ask the hon. gentleman to complete his question.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Why will the government not scrap its new sales tax? Why will the government not claw back its clawback of seniors' pensions? Why will the government not stop picking on senior citizens?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I certainly have no lesson to learn on my ability to listen to seniors in this country. I listened to them. We explained our measures and I will always support a fair and equitable social and economic measure that will enable us as a responsible government to maintain our social programs, to improve them and especially to allow room for new measures for seniors who really need them. I repeat, if you care about seniors' interests so much, please support the GST!


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Will the minister and his government continue to insult the intelligence of the senior citizens of this country who are very well organized and who are telling

February 14, 1990
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the government that the GST is an unbearable burden for people living on a fixed income?
Are you going to listen to the senior citizens who are very well organized and who understand perfectly what the GST means, and are you going to respond to their claims?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, as I have said on many occasions in this House, we have listened very carefully to senior citizens and we have designed this tax having in mind the interests of senior citizens and the position that they are in. As I have said, 75 per cent of senior citizens will be better off after sales tax reform than is the case today.
I will take the hon. member through the figures again. A single senior citizen earning $25,000 will pay $220 more GST than FST, that is before the rebate. There is an increase of $81 in the indexing on their old age security, then there is an increase in the credit of $278, a difference between the GST credit and the credit that is being paid to them today for sales tax. The net difference is that they will be better off by $139.
These facts have not been prepared by me. They have been prepared by the experts in the Department of Finance. If my colleague disagrees with those figures, let him put on the floor of the House exactly how he disagrees with them and if he cannot, then he should stop misleading senior citizens.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, if it was just a question of a disagreement between the Minister of Finance and myself that would be one thing.
Does the Minister of Finance really believe he is doing a service to the country when anyone who questions the goods and services tax is practically insulted by being told they do not understand it; whether it is small business represented by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, senior citizens represented by organizations across this country, the Canadian Labour Congress, students or the Treasurer of the Government of Alberta, where we will be next month.
Is it just a question of stonewalling no matter what is said by anyone? Is the Minister of Finance the only person in Canada who understands the goods and services tax? Why does he not understand that Canadians do recognize that the goods and services tax is unacceptable?


Mr. Speaker:: I think the question has been put.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says that I am insulting Canadians when I explain the specifics of this tax. It is quite clear to me that there are many Canadians who have not had the opportunity to go through the information that he and I have. That is why we are providing this information, the brochures and pamphlets that we have been sending out to Canadians.
The only reason I am making this point in the House is because I would expect my hon. friend to have the honour to either disagree with the specifics of what I have to say or not go on repeating things that he knows are not true.


THE BUDGET
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance. I am sure you are aware that no Minister of Finance in the history of this country has increased taxes by as many millions of dollars as the minister who is sitting across the way. In fact there have been some 31 or 32 separate tax increases in the last four and a half to five years.
In response to this, back-benchers and his rich business friends are going across the country saying: "Cut back on social programs. Cut back on government spending".
What I want to know from the Minister of Finance today is whether or not he can assure us that not one single dollar will be cut back from social programs in his budget on February 20. Can he make that assurance and make it now?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the hon. member that no Minister of Finance was presented with such a large
February 14, 1990

fiscal problem than we were on this side of the House on September 4, 1984.
There were things that we had to do. I have never denied the fact that we have had to increase taxes, but I have also said that we have to cut spending. About 70 per cent of what we have done in dealing with the deficit problem has been cutting program spending. We are going to continue to do this because we know we have to get rid of this problem.
Members of the New Democratic Party have their heads in the sand. They say: "There is no deficit problem. Ignore the fact that we have got a debt which is too high". They go on pressing, pressing, pressing to continue to increase spending.
This cannot go on. Under this government it will not go on because we must get this deficit and debt problem under control-and we are going to get it under control.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the minister has just referred to his problem with the deficit.
If the minister has so much difficulty dealing with this problem, why did he make a $160 million present to his Boeing friends and why is he also wasting $14 million in advertising costs to push his GST? Why is he playing Santa Claus with his rich friends here in Canada? Why is he spending so much money trying to sell his GST, instead of reducing the taxes for ordinary people?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the hon member still has not come to terms in his own mind with how this government should deal with the deficit and the debt problem. There has never, ever been any reasonable discussion from that part of the House as to how we are going to deal with the deficit and debt problem.
We are committed to doing this because we know it is absolutely the right thing for the country. It may not be popular, but it is the right thing for the country.
Members of the New Democratic Party continue to bury their heads deeply in the sand. They ignore the problem that is there. They come up with these shibboleths as to how the deficit can be dealt with when they
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know in their hearts that that is not true, that it will not happen the way they would like it to happen.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, it has been reported that the National Council of Welfare, a citizen's advisory body, has been told by the deputy minister of National Health and Welfare that its budget is in danger in next week's budget because of critical comments made about government policy. The staff of the council have been directed not to speak publicly on any issue. How truly horrifying. What happened to freedom of expression? This is censorship of an advocacy group.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Can he assure this House today that advocacy groups in Canada will not be the victims of budget cuts just because they do not agree with the Tory government's policies?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can be permitted to respond to the hon. member's question in view of the fact that she alleges my deputy minister made such a suggestion to the national council.
Any such suggestion is false. If the hon. member had bothered to listen to the radio this morning, for example, when my deputy minister was interviewed, she made it abundantly clear that no such suggestion has been made.


REAL WOMEN
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, one year ago REAL Women received more than $20,000 in funding from the federal government. This year they are looking for more than $400,000 in funding from the federal government.
Today, REAL Women filed a formal complaint against Madam Justice Bertha Wilson with the Judicial Council of Canada because she had the nerve last week to suggest that judges in Canada might be sexist.
Would the Secretary of State stand in this House to assure the women of Canada that no more federal moneys will be forthcoming for REAL Women?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, we have a very effective program that promotes equality and social justice. The Women's

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Program has participated very actively. We know there are still many areas of inequality in the country.
The program that I partly funded last year was one of thousands.
Requests are made to fund projects that meet the criteria as established by the Women's Program. What will happen once the budget is announced? We will have to wait for that to take place first.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the cabinet ministers are talking to each other because the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the minister responsible for the status of women agreed with Madam Justice Wilson.

My supplementary question is for the Minister of Justice. Since his colleague failed to answer the question, could he reassure Canadian women? Will the Minister of Justice refuse to financially support the REAL Women organization?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, we have implemented a program to promote equality and social justice. In the past, we subsidized a number of organizations. There are a great many other organizations whose projects we have supported, and I suggest that as soon as the Minister of Finance announces the government's program, I will do everything in my power to work with these groups to promote equality and social justice.


POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION
Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, today the Canadian Federation of Students, representing 400,000 post-secondary students throughout Canada, is holding rallies and information sessions under the theme, "If you love education".
The Minister of Finance must agree that education, research and development are crucial to Canada's future.
Why has this government decided to cut back almost $7 billion to post-secondary education funding?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, again I think this is an indication of how the Liberals are twisting figures. My colleague knows full well that we have been increasing substantially the funds that we transfer to the provinces for post-secondary education and health care.
We are very committed as a country to the principles of improving education and improving our commitment to research and development. This is something that has been well known across this country in the number of policies we have followed.
My colleague should understand that we have cut back on the growth in transfers to provinces for a very simple reason. We have a serious deficit and debt problem.
I think this is an example of Liberal party members burying their heads in the sand ignoring this basic problem. If we do not deal with this problem and continue to ignore it, the people who will be the most affected are the very people for whom the hon. member is purporting to speak today-the students of today who will pay more taxes in the future if we do not get this problem under control.


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Mr. Speaker, even on Valentine's Day this government has no heart for the students of this nation.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Maurizio Bevilacqua: Last week, 24,000 summer jobs were affected by cuts to the SEED program. At a time when 88 per cent of Canadians believe the government should not cut its payments to the provinces for education, will the minister for once listen to what Canadians are saying and abandon this regressive and parochial vision of nation-building and restore sufficient funding for postsecondary education?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member refers to my vision as being parochial and narrow-minded. What we are trying to do is broaden the horizons of this country by getting us out of the mountain of debt we have which has been growing in recent years.
The only way that we can get the burden of debt down is to get the deficit down. The only way that we can get the deficit down is to spread the burden of controlling that deficit as broadly as possible.
February 14, 1990

I for one believe that that should involve the students of today because they are going to be major beneficiaries of the improvement in our fiscal and economic positions as we do this. That is why in recent years we have cut back on the growth in transfers.
We have not reduced the transfers, as my colleague has said, by $7 billion. In the last five years there has been a $25 billion increase in the transfers for health care and post-secondary education, and at a growth rate of 6.5 per cent per annum.
If that is a reduction my friend, you have got to go back to school and learn some arithmetic.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the members' attention the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Mr. Eduard Shevardnadze, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Deputy Prime Minister.
At this time 2,000 residents are being evacuated in southern Ontario because of a massive tire dump fire which is spewing benzene and other cancer-causing agents into the air.
What is this government doing to respond to what experts have called an environmental disaster?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I will respond on behalf of the Minister of Environment.
Two thousand people have been evacuated. From what I understand the fire may burn for a week or maybe up to three weeks. There is a waste tire problem.
We have significant research to which the department and the Minister of the Environment has contributed which is examining new technologies.
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I understand the situation is under control. We have officials on the scene offering assistance to the provincial ministry. We are very comfortable at the moment that everything that can be done is being done. We will continue to monitor the situation.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that this government says it is comfortable facing this kind of situation. We have here a case of somebody who was told three years ago to clean up his operations, and not a single bit of work has taken place since that date. That is shameful.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Steven W. Langdon: I want to ask how the minister can possibly explain that we as a country should be so spineless, so powerless in the face of a work order like this that it can simply be ignored.
Is it the case that two years after Saint-Basile-le-Grande this government has still not learned a blessed thing about protecting the environment and protecting people?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, as in both cases, this is a provincial matter. The storage of tires is within provincial jurisdiction.
We are doing all that we can to be helpful. We do know that there are some 25 million tires, only about five million of which are recyclable.
We are looking at newer technologies. Some $2 million were advanced.
This type of experience has happened in the United States, without any significant dilatory effect, without any damage. We are consulting the Americans.
At the same time, the provincial ministry is taking samples to confirm that all is quite carefully being handled in a way to limit danger.
Let us be very clear. This is within provincial jurisdiction. Our officials and staff are on the scene to provide all the assistance we can to make sure everything is being done to be helpful.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Secretary of State.
I was wondering if he along with the Minister of the Environment would cause persuasion to take place amongst environmental ministers of the provinces so that we might have an example such as is now being undertaken in the Province of Alberta, specifically in the community of Trochu. All used tires are brought to a

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central place where they are ground, reused and put into new products to develop energy by heat systems that will come from it.
Would he and the Minister of the Environment undertake to put that pressure on to make every province in Canada get rid of what is potentially a very serious problem for all Canadians?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: The member certainly has an excellent idea. I will be sure to discuss it very carefully with the Minister of the Environment shortly.


FIREARMS
Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. A vast movement is building in this country against the possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. In fact, today, Mr. Speaker, Alain Perreault, President of the Association des etudiants de I'Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, released the results of a campaign to petition for changes in the current legislation, in the course of which 300,000 signatures were collected.
Could the minister inform the House whether he intends to table legislation to change the present situation very shortly? And what would these changes involve, besides reducing violence?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice, Attorney General of Canada and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, I announced that I intended to table amendments to the provisions of the Criminal Code with respect to firearms. We are faced with a very serious situation. I have also looked into certain aspects of the administration of firearms acquisition licences. Most of that work has now been done, and I hope to be able to table legislation very shortly.


FOOD BANKS
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
I have in my hand correspondence from the Daily Bread Food Bank, one of 11 such food banks in my riding of Parkdale-High Park.
According to this correspondence, the greater Toronto area now has more than 84,000 people turning to charitable food programs for emergency assistance each month. The executive director goes on to say that one child in seven in Metro Toronto belongs to a food bank family.
Nationally, on an annual basis, it is estimated that 1.4 million different people, including 560,000 children, use food banks.
In light of these shocking revelations does the minister not realize that it is his government's policies that are driving more and more people to use food banks on a permanent basis? What will he do to reverse this trend?
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and
Welfare): Mr. Speaker, I am rather pleased that the hon. gentleman has given me an opportunity to say exactly what is being done to reverse the trend.
Since his party was voted out of office, some 760,000 Canadians have escaped from poverty. That is what we are doing to reverse that trend.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, if they have escaped from poverty why are they lining up more and more for food banks? Since the minister does not even know what a food bank is, Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
He knows that his government has approximately three years left in its mandate. Can he give assurance to Canadians today that at the end of three years there will no longer be any need for food banks anywhere in Canada?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, as long as there is any Canadian who lives in poverty it is unacceptable to this government.


Mr. Peterson:: Do something about it!


Henry Perrin Beatty: The hon. gentleman opposite says do something about it. Taking some three-quarters of a million Canadians out of poverty is something pretty concrete that has been done about it.
Members opposite cannot have it both ways. They attack any attempt that is made by the government to restore Canada's economic health. They pretend, on the other hand, that they are concerned about the plight of the poor.
These statistics show that we are on track. We are continuing to make progress in terms of fighting poverty. We will not stop until we have made further progress in fighting poverty in Canada.


TOURISM
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau -La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for tourism.
Yesterday, the minister responsible for tourism criticized the Leader of the Opposition because he cited American tour organizers' warnings of severe reductions in the numbers of American tourists visiting Canada. Mr. William Duron, president of the Metropolitan Toronto Convention and Visitors Association, has stated: "If United States convention organizers have to live with an additional tax they will close the door on Canada".
In view of the overwhelming evidence that has been given in the last few days by the tourist industry of Canada, I would like to know from the minister why and how he can continue to say that the Canadian tourism industry will not be hurt in the years to come.


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Mr. Speaker, it is important that we listen closely to all the tourist organizations in Canada when we bring in a replacement tax.
It is very important too that we realize this is not an additional tax. I wish members of the opposition would get this through their heads. It is a replacement of an old tax.
Oral Questions
The National Tourism Association of the United States is going to put together a suggestion and a mechanism on rebates that it would like to recommend to the government. That would not have been possible unless the Minister of Finance had said-and this is unique among countries with a VAT or a GST-that we are going to have a special rebate on accommodation for visitors to Canada.
Other organizations in Canada that are concerned with convention centres are putting together some proposals as well, which I hope to take to the Minister of Finance, to help with the rebate in that dimension.
All of this is progressing. It is progressing with a replacement tax, not an additional tax.


Mark Joseph Assad: Mr. Speaker, if this is a replacement tax, what about a statement by the Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr. Dodge, who said, and I quote:

"Ordinary Canadians travelling on holidays will face higher prices, no question".

If it is true that Canadian tourists will have to pay more to travel in Canada, how does the minister explain his statement that this will be a replacement tax? The Minister of State (Finance) says it will cost more. Do you agree with that statement or could you explain why the situation is so complex?


Thomas Hockin: Mr. Speaker, there is a two-part answer to the hon. member's question.
First, something that we did not mention yesterday when we were discussing the whole tourism question is the question of business travel. When a business person travels after the GST is in place, the GST they pay for accommodations, restaurants and other things of that sort will be virtually immediately rebatable, something that is not the case now. That is very good news for the tourist industry and very good news for the hospitality industry.
In terms of the cost of running a tourist establishment, the hon. member constantly talks about the 7 per cent tax. What he forgets is the fact that the input tax credit will diminish that by 2, 3 or 4 per cent. So we will have a

February 14, 1990
Oral Questions
slight increase. The Conference Board tells us after this tax is digested in two years we will have a net increase in tourism in three years, a greater increase than we would have had if we never had the GST in the first place.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Yesterday, Bombardier announced that it would seek federal assistance to start up a high speed passenger train between Quebec City and Toronto. It says such a service would be profitable with 5.3 million passengers a year. It says that it can still charge less than airlines.
Bombardier has just confirmed what we have been saying all along. Passenger rail is the way of the future.
If the private sector has that kind of confidence in passenger rail, why doesn't the Government?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the decision made in October, 1989, was a good decision. I believe that Canadians understand that we did what we could afford.
If the private sector can put $3.5 billion into a high speed train, then it is up to the private sector. Obviously, the government does not have that money to put into such an option.
I said yesterday that we will listen to what the private sector has to say about what it can do. We are interested by the proposal. However, once again, we do not have the money today to put $1.7 billion into any kind of train.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, the minister will remember that VIA Rail made a similar proposal last year for such a system. The minister's response was to cut VIA's services in half.
Given the comments the minister just made, that if the government at some point is prepared to consider financially supporting this particular proposal, will the minister give his assurance that instead of giving Bombardier-a private sector company-the funding, that he will invest that money in a public system so that all Canadians can share in the profit instead of just a few?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I will not give any assurance to anybody. I will just wait for the royal commission to provide a few recommendations about passenger service in this country.
It is absolutely normal that we wait for the proposals to be made. That is why I think it would be wise for everyone to wait for the recommendations of the royal commission.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard) Mr. Speaker, the report, which was presented last November by the Committee for the Economic Recovery and Revitalization of Employment in Southwest-End Montreal, asked for a major contribution on the part of the federal government to play a major role. So far, the government hasn't done anything; it has not even revealed its intentions.
My question is this: Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us when we can expect a reply from this government.
Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as soon as we received this report in mid-December, we advised the authors that we would be responding around the end of March, and that is what we intend to do, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, this report establishes two very important precedents. The first is in the amount of self-help which it calls for. The second is in the degree of local control over financing. Both of those depend enormously on morale, morale which is being sapped by the stall to which it is being submitted.
The only thing that CREESOM has received is an acknowledgement, nothing else. There have been no further discussions or negotiations, something which was promised.
When will the government sit down with CREESOM?
February 14, 1990


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I will repeat the answer that I just gave in the other language.
We have informed the author of this report in December that we would be responding around the end of March. We have already done so.
A similar report was presented to the government in the past concerning the east end of Montreal. We have responded to this report so well that all the people who formed that group have expressed their great satisfaction.


TRANSPORT
Mr. Harry Chadwick (Brampton-Malton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
As he will know, an environmental assessment is currently under way at Pearson International to determine the impact of additional runways on surrounding communities. Recently doubt was placed on the assessment by a December 14 column in The Toronto Star which suggested that the Minister of Transport had indicated there was no way the environmental assessment would prove unfavourable for expansion.
Would the Minister of Transport rise in the House today and assure us that this assessment is without influence and that its integrity is still intact?


Benoît Bouchard: course, Mr. Speaker, I will. I wrote to the chairman of the environmental assessment review panel to say that I never said that.
Second, I consider that the processes is moving along normally. We should have the results in due course. Once again, I never said that there was any influence on the panel, and it will not have any influence on the panel.


BOEING CANADA
James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, with Canadian taxpayer assistance de Havilland developed the Dash-8 and was producing it in Canada for some 14 months before de Havilland was privatized to Boeing. As
Routine Proceedings
the government admits in its press release of February 9, the Dash-8 is "the most advanced regional turbo-prop in the international market-place".
I have a question for the minister of industry. Since the Dash-8 is such a world leading aircraft, why must we the Canadian taxpayers pay Boeing over $100 million just to take it off our hands?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and Minister of State for Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, in 1984, when we took over government, one of the things we inherited was de Havilland, into which the taxpayers of Canada had poured $800 million and were looking at another $300 million at least before it could approach some sort of viability.
We had a choice of continuing that kind of contribution of taxpayers' money, closing it down for a cost of $300 million, or selling it to a private sector operator that could do a better job.
At the time, if the hon. member will take a look at the press releases, there was unconcluded liabilities that had to be met to the tune of $63 million. We have used DIPP to help fund the next generation of Dash aircraft. The plant has 1,000 more employees.
The taxes of those employees who are now working as a result of what we did will more than make up for the extra contribution. The hon. member should be applauding us, not criticizing us.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to table today, in both official languages, the first annual report to Parliament on the operation of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act.

This report, which I am tabling now pursuant to Section 8 of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, covers the 1988-89 fiscal year.

February 14, 1990
Routine Proceedings


THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA ACT
Mr. Marcel Danis (Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the first report of the Special Committee to review the Parliament of Canada Act.
If the House agrees, I intend to move the adoption of this report later today.


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-25, an act to amend the Geneva Conventions Act, the National Defence Act and the Trade-marks Act, without amendment.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


CRIMINAL CODE
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-287, an act to amend the Criminal Code (order restricting the publication of the identity of the accused).


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the hon. member have leave to introduce the bill?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to introduce this bill.
The purpose of this bill is to prohibit any publication or broadcast of the identity of a person charged with theft when the value of goods stolen does not exceed $100.
We have seen the harm which becomes an accused of prominence when identity before conviction occurs. The effects can be even more devastating when the accused is a small town ordinary citizen whose accusation is published by small town media.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, if the House agrees, I move, seconded by Mr. Hawkes, Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Angus:
That the first report of the Special Committee to review the Parliament of Canada Act, presented to the House today, be adopted.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move this motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt this motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Hon. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce a motion to refer a late petition to committee to consider whether the petition should be received. I move:
That, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 140, the petition of the Eastern Canada Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, filed after the time limit specified under Standing Order 132, be referred to the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedure and Private Members' Business, together with the Fourth Report of the Clerk of Petitions thereon, presented to the House on Thesday, February 13, 1990, for any recommendations the Committee deems advisable.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the hon. member have unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the please of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
February 14, 1990

Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I have petitions on three different subjects which have been sent to me by people from my riding.
The first petition calls upon the government to abandon its proposed goods and services tax. It proposes that the government reject the GST, cancel tax breaks for rich individuals and corporations, apply the present tax on goods manufactured in Canada equally to imported products, reduce the need for a sales tax by reducing the bank interest rate by 2 per cent, and increase employment in such useful work as protection of the environment, restoration of needed roads, sewers and bridges, air traffic control, VIA services, and industrial research and development.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I also have a set of petitions from people in the riding who call upon the government to support VIA Rail, to abandon any plans for further cuts to VTA's budget, and to provide the necessary resources to allow VIA to operate as a modern effective transportation company rather than as a museum.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, the final petition is addressed to the government and is opposed to the government's proposed tax back of old age security and family allowance benefits.
The petitioners call upon the government to abandon this proposed measure which singles out old age security and family allowance benefits as a.tax source tied to the level of income.


Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane -Superior):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 and certified correct by the clerk of petitions. It is from a large number of constituents of my riding of Cochrane-Superior, more specifically from the towns of Longlac, Smooth Rock Falls, Val Rita, and Geraldton.
These residents are very concerned about a task force report on tax benefits for northern and isolated areas.
Routine Proceedings
This task force would see 37 communities in my riding no longer eligible for the tax benefit, thereby draining $2.5 million from the economy of Cochrane-Superior.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to reject the task force report in its totality.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and the responsibility to table three petitions signed by residents of metropolitan Toronto surrounding Pearson International Airport.
As Your Honour knows, there has been much controversy in respect of the government's action on Pearson Airport, particularly with the continued expansion of the airport to the detriment of residents, their livelihoods and their investments in and around Pearson International Airport.
These petitioners who number in the hundreds, suggest and demand that the Government of Canada come down with a policy on three issues specifically.
First, that all aircraft must climb to 4,000 feet before banking over residential areas.
Second, that there be a strict enforcement of the night guidelines so that aircraft do not come in at all hours of the night and the morning as they do now and that they only permit emergency flights to do so.
Third, that they do not build an additional runway which will cause havoc in the surrounding areas, but rather that they suggest alternative airports be utilized in order to make passenger flights more comfortable and convenient for Canadians and that there must be a sensitivity to those surrounding communities.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition, signed by several hundred residents of my constituency from the communities of Courtenay, Comox, Cumberland, Port Alberni, Coombs, Errington, Parksville, Qualicum Beach and Royston, among others.
They request the government to reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax, to reform the taxation system so that there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations, and to cease with a proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.

February 14, 1990
Routine Proceedings
I also have a petition which was put together by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, through one of its associate members, Clarence's Brake and Repair, in my riding. There are several hundreds of names attached to this petition, but unfortunately it is not in a form that could be certified.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from my riding which was circulated by the seniors organization One Voice. It calls on the government to scrap its proposal to claw back pensions and family allowances and begin to treat seniors and family members fairly in the tax system.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan - Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure to rise in the House to present a number of petitions from British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
The petitioners voice their opposition to the goods and services tax proposed by this government. They petition the government to ensure that, if and when there is a broad public consensus on a sales tax measure to replace the manufacturers' sales tax, this reform not be an opportunity for the government to impose a massive tax grab.


Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour and duty to present a petition according to the Standing Orders from a number of residents of the province of Ontario who oppose the government's proposal for a goods and services tax. They ask for a tax system that will give an effective minimum tax on wealthy individuals and corporations and ensure that there is no taxation on goods and services such as haircuts, fast food, piano lessons and other non-luxury items.
The petitioners wish Parliament to cause the government to cease the proposal that will tax diapers and coffins, taxing Canadians from the cradle to the grave.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from a number of residents of Toronto who are concerned with the government's proposed
increase of low-level flights in Labrador over the land of the Innu.
The petitioners ask that this Parliament join with the Assembly of First Nations and the Innu people in demanding that the Canadian government end NATO-NORAD low-level flight training, oppose the establishment of NATO operations in Canada such as at Goose Bay, redirect Canada's NATO-NORAD funding toward enabling Canada's aboriginal peoples to regain control of their lands and their livelihood, and promote sustainable development for all Canadians.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Speaker, I also have petitions from a number of residents of Ontario in Stratford, Hamilton, Chatham, Sudbury, Timmins, Orillia, Brampton, Windsor, Belleville, Toronto, Downsview, Cayuga, Westhill, Barrie, Ottawa, Welland and Kitchener.
They are concerned with the government's proposal to reduce VIA Rail service. They ask this Parliament to reject all reductions, to modernize existing equipment so that VIA Rail can provide a world-class service and to build a high speed passenger train between Montreal and Windsor.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions from people of my constituency representing various groups: farm and ranch groups, hotel and motel operators, restaurants, fishing and hunting resorts, a variety of small businesses, arts groups, student groups, environment groups, bowling associations, A&W and McDonald's patrons.
They point out the unfairness of the goods and services tax. They feel that it is an unfair tax and simply make the point that the government should go back to the drawing board, try again with real fair tax reform and stop proceeding with this 7 per cent goods and services tax.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I also have two petitions with quite a number of signatures. Some of them are from people in southern Ontario and others are from citizens of British Columbia.
I think they epitomize the fact that people right across this country are asking the government to reject the proposed goods and services tax, to reform the tax system so there is an effective minimum tax on wealthy

individuals and corporations, and to cease with a proposal that will shift the burden to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, I too have the privilege of rising under Standing Order 36. Many residents within my riding of Essex-Kent also suggest that the goods and services tax is inappropriate and one that is going to cause them difficulty with thenway of living.
They humbly ask the government to withdraw its proposed goods and services tax.


Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present petitions on behalf of my constituents from the riding of Mississauga East who are outraged at this government's heavy-handed manner in imposing additional runways at Pearson International.
My constituents are concerned that this action will have negative impact on their quality of life. They humbly pray and call upon Parliament to start heeding their concerns.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I would like to present a petition signed by a number of British Columbians, including a number of residents of my own riding of Surrey North.
It states that the government has not addressed the unfair tax system currently in place which permits wealthy individuals and corporations to pay little or no federal tax, while forcing low and middle income taxpayers to bear more of the national tax. They call upon this government to institute genuine tax reform.


Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today, under the provisions of Standing Order 36, to present a petition concerning the government's proposed goods and services tax.
Routine Proceedings
The petition is signed by concerned Canadians who feel that this tax will cause serious and unfair hardship to lower and middle income Canadians.
The petitioners call upon Parliament to reject the goods and services tax.


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


Mr. Boudria:: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that I have to rise again to bring this matter to the attention of the Chair.
Question No. 162, standing in my name, has been on the Order Paper, not for 45 days but since October 30, 1989, which is against the rules of this House. Your Honour will note that the question is properly identified as being one of those it is compulsory for the government to reply to within 45 days.
I want further to bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker, that there is another question in exactly the same situation, that being Question No. 197 in my name, which was placed on the Order Paper on December 6, 1989.
In fact I have four questions on the Order Paper in my name, all requiring answers. Because the government is failing to respond to these questions I cannot place new questions on the Order Paper. In other words, I am prevented from doing my work as a member of Parliament because of the inaction of the government.
I alert the Chair to this issue. I have brought it to the attention of the Chair before. This is a new Standing Order. It has only been with us for a few years now. The government just cannot say that it answers appropriately a certain percentage of the time. This rule is quite clear. It must do so 100 per cent of the time.
I asked the parliamentary secretary to bring this matter to the attention of the officials in question, to make sure that they get off their duffs, or however the Minister for International Trade refers to it, and attend to these replies in the manner they are required to according to the rules of this place.

February 14, 1990
Routine Proceedings


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the hon. member had to stand again today. I must say, as I have had to say before, in this particular case the hon. member has asked some detailed questions that require detailed work. I have been doing my absolute best to get those questions answered on time.
At the moment there are four questions that are running late. We have been averaging about 91 per cent return on the regular questions.
I have a dilemma. I can give the member an answer tomorrow, but it will not be as complete and as detailed as was his question.
I beg the indulgence of the House and of the Chair. We are doing our best to answer these questions seriously and in what we think is the very serious spirit of the member who asked the question. We are going to do our best to make sure he gets good answers to those questions.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all the Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.


Mr. Milliken:: Mr. Speaker, for weeks and weeks Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers have been stood, and there has been no explanation offered as to why the government takes this attitude.
I noticed that one of the motions has been on the Order Paper since April 4 of last year. One of mine has been on it since October 25 and another since November 24.
I do not understand why the government is so reluctant to produce the documents that have been requested. These are simple questions. This is a simple stonewall.
I invite the parliamentary secretary to indicate whether or not the government is going to produce these documents. I think it is a simple request. If the parliamentary secretary stands up and says "no, we decline to
produce certain of these things", members have a remedy. However, instead of that, the parliamentary secretary simply says he wants everything to stand. It is a stonewall, and I respectfully request a response.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I think the member has made a reasonable request. I will investigate to make sure that my hon. friend gets a very decent answer to his question, and I will get it for him as soon as is possible.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the Notices of Motions for the Production for Papers stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair has received a notice for emergency debate pursuant to Standing Order 52 from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of Standing Order 52, I rise to request that the House engage in an emergency debate. The issue is one of the substantial reductions that the government has proposed in the SEED program for employment of students during the summer months.
Representing as I do a constituency which has two universities in it, I am particularly mindful of the cuts that have in fact taken place in this program, not just this year, but in past years. The cuts this year have been a further erosion of the funds available for students. I believe it is a matter of urgent and pressing necessity. 'Hie government's announcement came on Friday. So far nothing has been done on this matter.
I would request that Your Honour consider permitting a debate this evening on this important matter so that it can be discussed for the benefit of all Canadians.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: As I said earlier, the Chair has received the proper notice from the member for Kingston and the Islands. The Chair recognizes it is a most serious matter. However the Chair does not believe that it meets the requirements of Standing Order 52.
Therefore I must refuse the request.
February 14, 1990



THE BUDGET


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing 83(2), I ask that you designate an Order of the Day for Tuesday, February 20, 1990, to allow me in my position as Minister of Finance to present the Budget.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: If I may, Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that tomorrow the business of the House will be to deal with report stage and possibly third reading of Bill C-38. This may sound like I am going to deliver a lot of legislation, but there have been discussions between myself as Minister of Justice and the critics on the bills.
That will be followed by a reasonable short debate on the B.C. court reform bill, the Ontario court reform bill, the amendments to the Criminal Code on arson, and the amendments to the Divorce Act vis-a-vis the Jewish Get.
In the afternoon, after Question Period, it is the government's intention to call the motion on the Order Paper as item No. 2:
That this House reaffirm its commitment to support, protect and
promote linguistic duality in Canada, as reflected by this House in
the Constitution Amendment, 1987 and the Official Languages Act,
1988.


Mr. Gauthier:: I can confirm that indeed there have been negotiations concerning the work of the House tomorrow. I take it we are going to proceed with Bill C-52 this afternoon. That is the only business today. Having settled that, I give the minister my undertaking that this party, on the question of Bill C-38 and the other four bills, is disposed to pass those bills after reasonable debate and without holding up the House on them.
As for the resolution, I think the minister knows that I had a letter delivered to him today suggesting a compromise solution that possibly the House would like to address in due course.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, we are looking forward to beginning debate on Bill C-52 later today and we will see
Business of the House
how progress is made for tomorrow. There have been discussions and like my hon. friend the House Leader for the Official Opposition, we too will attempt to expedite this legislation which we support in terms of needed legislation. I want to make that clear. Whether we can deal with all the legislation in that short period in the morning remains to be seen, but we will endeavour to co-operate on this legislation which we feel strongly about.
However, now that the government House leader has given notice that in fact we will be proceeding with the debate on the motion tomorrow, I want to say on behalf of the New Democratic Party that we recognize the important principle involved in that motion. I am not convinced in my own mind that there is a need for a long debate. I am not certain what it is we are debating. If there is some question on the government side of where it stands on this issue, I can understand that in terms of the need for debate, but as far as my party is concerned, there is no need for a lengthy debate. We would be anxious to get into the debate and to the motion itself in terms of a vote if the government would like to see that.
I realize that the government House leader did not suggest that we were going to be having a lengthy debate but he did not say we were not either. I want to make it clear that on this issue, as far as we are concerned, our position is clear and I am concerned that a lengthy debate would simply fan the fires that we are now seeing burning in various place across the country. I do not think we want to be throwing gasoline on fire at this point on this incredibly sensitive issue. I want to make that point clear. We are anxious to begin whenever the government decides.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to add that since the House leader of the New Democratic Party made some comments on the proposal to begin debate on the government's resolution dealing with linguistic duality, we in this party also think that in the public interest, it would be better if a firm commitment of this House were clear and precise and adopted quickly, so as to turn back the tide of intolerance which seems to be sweeping the country now and show the real leadership of this House by passing this motion speedily.

February 14, 1990
Government Orders


Nelson Andrew Riis: I do not want to prolong this but I think it is important that the government House leader recognize that as the House leader for the Official Opposition indicated, he had been in communication with the government in terms of a suggestion on how to proceed most appropriately tomorrow on this critical issue. We too have been part of that communique and we feel very strongly that this be approached in the most serious manner possible, dealing with one of the most sensitive issues that our country has always faced and faces today.
I simply want to associate myself with my hon. friend, the House leader for the Official Opposition, and we too have joined in a communique with the Government House Leader in an effort to resolve this in the most appropriate way for our country.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, these are negotiations which naturally take place at House leaders' meetings. I would be glad to convene a House leader's meeting with my hon. friends.


POINT OF ORDER
Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a point of order in reference to a statement that was made in the House of Commons on February 8 by the hon. member for Ontario who stated that members of the Liberal party were consistently not at the finance committee meetings.
I went through the records to check the attendance of all members at the finance committee hearings on the goods and services tax. I found that the average attendance of Liberal members was well over 80 per cent. This was a better ratio than members on the government side.
I realize the member did not wish to mislead the House, so I am presenting a correction on the facts of the attendance records of that committee.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, January 23, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-52, an act to amend the Income Tkx Act and related acts, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance.
Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with my colleagues in the New Democratic Party to oppose second reading of Bill C-52.
Bill C-52 is fundamentally a bill to make changes in the RRSP legislation and other similar tax assistance schemes that have prevailed in this country for almost 20 years. The bill increases the current limits under which Canadian taxpayers can get tax assistance or reduce their taxes by virtue of investments in RRSPs and provides that the increased limits will be indexed over a period of time.
The current limits for RRSPs are about $7,500 or 20 per cent of income. The proposed limit would increase over a period of time. Starting in 1991 the limit would go to $11,500; in 1992 to $12,500; in 1993 to $13,500; in 1994 to $14,500; and by 1995 the limit would reach $15,500. After that period these limits would be indexed to increases in wages and salaries. The bill also provides for what is called a "carry-over" provision so that in a given year those who cannot contribute or choose not to contribute to an RRSP can pick up that difference for a period of time.
This bill affects a transfer of tax money in the order of $5 billion to $6 billion yearly, when it comes into full force, from lower and middle-income taxpayers to the wealthy and better off income tax payers in this country. It undermines the possibilities of improving the Canada Pension Plan, the Quebec Pension Plan and the Old Age Assistance Program.
It undermines the possibility of developing a proper public pension plan system in this country to provide fairness and equity to the people of Canada. It encourages the development of privatization of pensions and contributes to a tendency which appears to be the

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underlying philosophy of this government; to make the rich richer and the middle and low-income groups poorer.
Let us take a step back in the history of the development of public pension policy in this country. We in this party are proud of the role played by our predecessors in this House, starting with J. S. Woodsworth in 1926 who used his position in Parliament to force out of a reluctant Liberal government the first old age pensions in Canada.
Canadians will be familiar with the long battle led by the former hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre, Mr. Stanley Knowles, to make old age pensions universal and to eliminate the means test. That battle was won.
Then there was the battle to develop a proper Canada Pension Plan into which employers and employees would contribute and which would provide a further basis for a secure future for seniors in this country. This was achieved in 1964.
Then, in the early seventies, came the first RRSP program. Originally the RRSP program was designed to provide opportunities for those who were not covered by employer sponsored programs, the normal pension programs that employees could participate in to provide those people with an opportunity to build their own pension plans and their own economic security in addition to the Old Age Security system.
It was also expected that those who had employer sponsored programs could use the RRSP program to supplement further their retirement income because at the beginning, and as presently prevails, the Canada Pension Plan together with Old Age Security still does not meet the full retirement needs of Canadians. It only brings the retirement income up into the order of 40 per cent to 50 per cent of pre-retirement income. All those who have studied this field say that a good system would provide closer to 75 per cent of pre-retirement income as the basic level of retirement income that would provide for a secure future for senior citizens.
The RRSPs had these two objectives: to provide an opportunity for those who are not covered by employer sponsored plans, and to provide for a supplement to the Canada Pension Plan or Quebec Pension Plan in the
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event they were insufficient which, of course, has happened and was predictable.
Those at the lower and middle income levels whose incomes are barely sufficient and in some cases insufficient to meet their daily, weekly and monthly income needs do not have any money left over to respond to the myriad of ads that we now see on television and in the media encouraging Canadians to invest in RRSPs. It is only those with extra income, the upper half of the income group, who can begin to think of taking advantage of the RRSP provisions in the Income Tax Act. As a result the experience has been that the benefits of RRSP programs go in the largest measure to the top 5 per cent of the income groups in Canada.
This bill will make that inequity even worse. Under the provisions of this bill the single mother on welfare can, if she chooses, contribute $11,500 of her income every year to an RRSP. Her income does not even meet $11,500 a year. Therefore, it will come as no surprise that what we have here is a bonanza for the financial institutions in this country and a bonanza for those in the upper income group who can afford to take advantage of this tax assistance scheme.
The government is introducing legislation which is a benefit for the rich and is simply not available to the poor and middle income groups in this country. It is going to cost the Canadian taxpayers $5 billion to $6 billion a year to implement this scheme.
Next week we are going to hear from the Minister of Finance-we have already seen the balloons go up-that this budget is going to be a Draconian, cut-back budget. It is going to cut again at public services to this country. Yet merely a week before the budget the government is persisting with a bill which is a $5 billion to $6 billion give-away to the upper income group in this country. This bill must be defeated.
It is important for this House to understand as well that the way this bill is structured, the government is persisting in using the device of tax deductions rather than tax credits. The $11,500 under the RRSP that is included here becomes a deduction from income. The government is not using a tax credit system. Most Canadians will now understand the significance of that difference. A tax credit system means that regardless of income the benefit of the particular provision is equal-

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ized. A tax deduction system benefits, again, those at the higher income levels.
Once again, the provisions of the bill in keeping with the reactionary philosophy of this government assists those in the highest income groups.
Let me refer the House to an editorial from The Toronto Star which commented when this bill was first floated on October 16, 1986, that: "The distribution of income in Canada is highly unequal. In 1981, the 20 per cent of Canadian families with the highest incomes ended up with 41.8 per cent of the total income pie. By contrast, 20 per cent of the families with the lowest incomes get less than 5 per cent."
The editorial goes on to state: "Under Wilson's new proposals, Ottawa would provide tax assistance to all employed Canadians to create a nest-egg that would allow them to maintain their incomes in retirement, up to a pension limit of $60,000 a year. To do so, he would provide the greatest assistance to those at the upper end of the income scale. Someone earning $20,000 a year, would get an annual tax break worth about $1,200, compared to a break of about $7,500 for those earning more than $86,000 a year."
I may add that the break for the person earning $20,000 a year is only available, of course, if that person has the spare cash at the end of the year to contribute toward an RRSP or one of the other plans covered in this bill.
In a fair and proper pension system, instead of investing the $5 and $6 billion that this government is prepared to give away to the top income groups in this country, this money would be used to strengthen the Old Age Security system and the Canada Pension Plan. In 1983, there was a parliamentary task force on pension reform. It became very clear from that task force that the real reform in this country needed to be the strengthening of the Canada Pension Plan. Virtually every member of the paid workforce, with earnings from employment or self-employment, is covered by the CPP, in contrast to those who can afford the benefits under RRSP provisions.
Many witnesses before the task force, including those representing workers and women, recommended a doubling of Canada and Quebec Pension Plan benefits to 50 per cent of pre-retirement earnings, up to the annual amount allowed. This increase, of course, has to be phased in over a period of time. But if we have those
kind of changes, we would be spending public money in accordance with proper principles of public policy. A pension program in this country should produce a fair and equitable distribution of income at retirement. It should produce a satisfactory level of income and should be contributed to in a fair and just manner.
In this case the lower and middle income taxpayers who pay the largest portion of taxes in this country are contributing to the ultimate income advantage and short-term tax benefit of the highest income groups in the country.
The parliamentary task force noted that only half of men and fewer than one third of women who are in the paid workforce are covered by the Canada Pension Plan. That should be changed. They note that when people change jobs it is difficult to get the additional coverage because of long waiting periods.
Benefits in the private pension system are barely covered by inflation. The real reform in this country should come in the area of the Canada Pension Plan. That is the policy of this party and that is the policy that we urge upon the House.
My closing remarks will deal first with one other specific problem with this legislation, and that is its complexity. In May 1988 the joint committee on taxation of the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants described these amendments as "perhaps the most complicated tax rules ever devised".
These provisions will employ chartered accountants, any who are left over after the GST, in years and hours of complex analysis because of the complexity of the new rules. In fact most individual taxpayers will not be able to calculate the allowable RRSP contributions. At the beginning of each tax year the federal government will provide to each taxpayer a statement of available RRSP contribution room. To determine this amount, pension plan administrators will be required to submit a detailed report of each plan member's earnings for the year and the amount of the plan member's pension adjustment.
Revenue Canada will use this information based on previous contributions to calculate the following year's RRSP contribution availability. This situation makes it virtually impossible for individuals to engage in any kind of long-term financial planning. In addition, the rules will make it extremely difficult for small pension plan

administrators to function without hiring additional staff solely responsible for pension adjustment reporting.
The Canadian Council on Social Development has stated in respect of a predecessor to this bill:
We are starting to replace a progressive and visible benefits system with hidden subsidies that are in fact regressive. For example, we may eliminate the Old Age Security benefits among higher-income people -
That is the clawback:
-but for the generation who will be seniors when this measure has its full impact, we are more than replacing them by increasing the limits on RRSP deductions and by putting in place a capital gains exemption. These kinds of measures provide high levels of subsidy, higher than the cut in the Old Age Security to high-income people.
Bill C-52 allows high income earners whose Old Age Security will be clawed back to more than compensate for the lost income by making increased contributions to RRSP. Meanwhile, because of the lack of inflation indexing in the clawback, future pensioners will see their Old Age Security clawed back at lower and lower income levels.
These policies, when fit together, spell the true intention of this government. It is to serve the better off in this society. This bill does not meet the test of what it will do for the least of these in our society. This will provide no assistance for the least of these in our society and therefore this bill is wrong in principle, wrong in practice, and must be opposed.
I would like to move an amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting therefor:
"This House declines to give second reading to Bill C-52, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act because:
(1)	the full benefit of the increased registered retirement savings plan limit will accrue only to the less than 1 per cent of Canadian taxpayers who earn more than $86,000 annually;
(2)	it fails to include provisions which would assist middle and lower income Canadians to provide for a stable income in retirement years.


Mr. Kristiansen:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Victoria. I am sure he was here for Question Period and undoubtedly heard the Minister of Finance and other ministers and members on the government side state over and over both on and off the record about how we have to "get a handle on the
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deficit". They were accusing the NDP and the Liberal party of not caring about debt, of not caring about deficits and of being financially irresponsible. They said we have to wrestle this whole deficit problem to the ground and so on.
I am in a bit of a quandary and somewhat puzzled about that. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can square that kind of lecturing about financial responsibility and the importance of reducing the deficit and debt while at the same time coming before this House this afternoon with a proposal which in effect will increase the deficit by some $5 billion or $6 billion. I would ask the member from Victoria how he would square this posturing with the government's action in this bill. Does the government really care about the debt?


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, it will not come as any surprise to my friend that I have great difficulty squaring the circle that he has identified. In fact, far be it from me to tiy to explain the approach of this government, except to say that if one looks for a logical, fair and reasonable analysis of the fundamentals of this government's policy, it ultimately becomes clear that this government is not concerned about the deficit. This government is not concerned about reducing government expenditures generally. If it were concerned about those matters, it would be reducing interest rates, which is the largest expenditure the government has. It would not be putting forward this bill at this time, because this bill will cost the Canadian taxpayers between $5 billion and $6 billion annually.
Instead, the government is picking the kinds of expenditures which it wishes to cut because of its philosophy and its point of view. This government does not favour public expenditures for transportation; this government favours the use of the automobile which is, of course, environmentally damaging compared to other forms of public transportation, rail in particular. This government does not favour public broadcasting. It cuts back on the CBC. This government does not favour the public pension system, it favours the private pension system in this country. The government's works are to be judged by what it does, and in this bill it clearly demonstrates where its preferences are.

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Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I heard the hon. member say he would like to get interest rates down. I appreciate that that is a very worth-while objective. How would he do it?


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, the government has the fundamental direction of the economy of this country, including the Bank of Canada.


Mr. Thacker:: Let's hear what you would do.


John F. Brewin: You make it very clear to the Governor of the Bank of Canada that interest rates in this country must be dropped. Interest rates in this country are not governed by the market-place, they are governed by the Bank of Canada and it is the responsibility of this government to be concerned-


Blaine Allen Thacker: Then what happens?


John F. Brewin: And then what happens? Then we find that first of all, instead of a deficit of monumental proportion, the deficit begins to come down, business confidence begins to return to this country, investment begins to happen again, we avoid the recession, and revenues from salaries and from other sources improve so the deficit comes down. The economic encouragement for this country improves and the world is a better place.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, the particular bill which is before the House raises the limits to $15,500, which means that people on the upper end of the scale get the benefit of this. It appears to be a fact that there is a continuing feminization of poverty within Canada. This trend, I believe, has continued over a good number of years. It seems to me that the thrust of this bill has done nothing to assist women to ensure that they will have adequate pensions or retirement savings because usually women are paid at the lower end of the scale, some 65 per cent less than men. Would the hon. member comment on the feminization of poverty and the impact of this registered retirement savings legislation has on that aspect of the women's lives.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, my friend makes a good point. The fact is that poverty is a particular problem for women in our country. In 1986 women made up 56.1 per cent of all low-income Canadians, compared with 57.3 per cent in 1981. All indications are that the percentage is even higher today.
Only 16.5 per cent of female taxpayers, or 1.3 million women, contributed to RRSPs in 1987, compared to 24.1 per cent of male tax filers, that is, 2.1 million men. That actually inflates the number of females who contributed to RRSPs because that is based on women who actually filed tax returns. It also does not take into account income splitting where it is legitimate and possible under current regulations. While women represented 39 per cent of the total number of RRSP contributors in 1987, they contributed only 32.8 per cent of the value. Men made up 61 per cent of the contributors, holding 67.2 per cent of the value of the RRSPs.
The fact is that it is the women who are most seriously disadvantaged under the present system of pensions in the country. It is senior women who suffer the greatest impact from a lack of an adequate pension system in this country. Many women do not obtain even the benefits of Canada Pension Plan or, if they do, they obtain minimum benefits.
This particular bill offers no assistance to women and the increasingly distressing trend under which women are disadvantaged.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kempling):: The amendment put forward by the hon. member for Victoria is in order.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I feel fortunate to be able to speak on the amendment which the hon. member has moved. I think it is important for us to take a look at its contents. The amendment clearly gives reasons as to why we do not want this bill to be read a second time at this point. It states that the full benefits of the increased registered retirement savings plan will only accrue to less than 1 per cent of Canadian taxpayers who earn more than $86,000 annually and that it fails to include assistance to middle and lower-income Canadians to provide stable income in their retirement years.
We have to recognize that there are a couple of trends relating to the elderly taking place in this country. I have had the opportunity in the last several weeks to attend hearings of the health and welfare committee. This committee is studying the question of aging in Canada and health services as they relate to the elderly.
The first thing that comes from all demographic information is that the number of people living to an old age in Canada is increasing dramatically. The percentage of elderly people in this country is also increasing dramatically. There are many reasons for this; improvement in health care, improvement in the workplace and changes in nutrition which have lead to an increase in the life expectancy of people. There are also some
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things that have not changed dramatically. One of them is the number of elderly women who live beyond the age of 75 far outnumber the males.
I am quite interested in the question of services for the elderly because I come from a family which lives a very long time. My grandmother lived to 96, my great-aunt was 94, my mother is in her mid-eighties and has seven sisters, all of whom are alive. The youngest sister is in her late sixties and the oldest one is approaching 90 years of age.
In my father's family, my father passed away a year or two ago at the age of 93. One of the myths in the family, which we are having difficulty documenting because records in southern Russia are hard to come by, is that my great grandfather lived to be 109.
So I am vitally interested in what kinds of services are going to be available for the elderly not only in the next 20 or 30 years, but in the next 40 or 50 years. The position of the elderly in Canada has improved, particularly when it comes to income and financial security. It has improved mainly through the introduction of old age security and the Canada Pension Plan. Those are the two vehicles that Canada has used to provide universal and equitable pensions.
The only problem with the Canada Pension Plan and old age security is that initially it was intended to be extended. In the last number of years the scope of the Canada Pension Plan and the contributing factor has been diminished and the government has more and more looked on private pension plans, whether they are run by unions, by corporations and upon the RRSP program to allow the elderly to look after themselves in their old age. That is fine for people in the unionized workforce where they have good private pension plans. It has not worked for those who are in non-union or service jobs where there is no company or government-sponsored pension plans.
The RRSP has been nothing but a tax grab for the wealthy. It has nothing to do with providing universal high-calibre pensions for all Canadians.
If we look at the whole question of who contributes to RRSPs, one of the first things we will find is that not all Canadians are involved. Those on very limited incomes do not contribute. In fact, those with total incomes of less than $5,000, only .9 per cent contribute; those with incomes of $5,000 to $10,000, 3.7 per cent contribute. When we get up to those earning $25,000 nearly 33 per cent of taxpayers contribute to RRSPs. Those with incomes up to $50,000, 57 per cent contribute to RRSPs. So there is a disproportionate rate of participation in RRSP programs based on the level of income.
It is very simple. There is nothing mystical about it. The family man earning $25,000 does not have additional money that he can put in the bank for his old age regardless of whether there is a tax break or incentive to do that. The person earning over $50,000 has disposable income and he puts it aside for his old age. But he does not do it on an equal basis as the person earning $25,000. He does it with tax incentives that are much greater.
One of the real anomalies in the question of RRSPs is that if a person in the lower tax bracket of $20,000 makes a contribution of $1,000, he gets $264 back in a tax break. But if a person on a low income can afford to contribute, he or she will get $264 back for every $1,000 contributed. If a person in the highest tax bracket contributes $1,000, he or she gets $450 back. What kind of system gives the wealthy twice as much cash back as the poor?
That is the whole structure of the RRSP program. It is really an incentive for the wealthy to put aside money for their old age so they can have their retirement in comfort in Hawaii, Florida or the Bahamas. It is not designed to ensure that women who have worked all their lives at jobs paying $15,000 a year can afford to have adequate housing, food, clothing and transportation when they reach an elderly age. That is why it is so unfair.
I do not know why the government, if it is going to continue with an RRSP program, does not turn it into a credit system so that the person earning $20,000 a year gets the same benefit as the person earning $50,000 a year. If we really believed the Conservatives wished to do away with poverty in this country, particularly poverty for the elderly, they would reverse it. They would give twice the tax credit to the person in the lowest income level

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than to the person in the highest income level. Unfortunately, I do not see that in the proposal.
The other thing I want to discuss are the proposals put before the Elouse by the Conservatives. Basically, there are two. There are a number of technical ones which are of benefit and some which are not. One is to lower the rate from 20 per cent of earned income to 18 per cent of earned income and to increase the ceiling from a maximum effective earning power of $37,500 up to something like $86,000.
In this amendment the Conservatives are reducing the amount of RRSP contributions and, therefore, tax rebates for people earning less than $37,000 or $40,000. For people earning over $45,000, the contribution and, therefore the tax refund, cash in hand, is the same as writing them a cheque for $7,500. This has been increased for those earning over $50,000.
Today the person earning $20,000 can contribute $4,000, 20 per cent. Under the new proposal they can contribute 18 per cent which is $3,600, a reduction of $400 that they can contribute to RRSPs. In other words, the ability of that person to contribute to RRSPs and to shelter their tax or to get a tax rebate is lessened.
A person earning $86,000 today can contribute $7,500. Under this proposal they would be able to contribute $15,000, an increase of $7,500. So what is happening is the government is reducing the amount people with low incomes can contribute, thus reducing the tax rebate and giving a windfall to those earning between $37,000 and $86,000. I do not know why I am surprised by what this government does. I make enough that-


Blaine Allen Thacker: How much do you make?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: -if I were not paying pension plans, I would contribute to an RRSP. If this government would bring in the same pension program for all Canadians that they made sure they brought in for the members of this House, I would be most pleased.
The reality is that this is an incentive for those earning between $37,000 and $86,000. At the same time it is punishing those earning below that amount by reducing the amount they can contribute. This is going to cost us another $350 million to $400 million.
The Minister of Finance stands over there and says we have a debt problem. Well, there is $400 million he can save today by simply withdrawing this bill. Withdraw this Ml.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: You are wrong. Read the bill.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: It is an additional $350 million to $400 million which will bring the total to over $10 billion for tax incentives for the wealthy in this country.
I say to the Minister of Finance if he has that extra money I have some better suggestions relating to pensions and income, particularly for the elderly. The minister could save $350 million and increase the monthly income of the 600,000 women in this country who rely solely on old age security and GIS. He could increase it by $30 a month. That is $360 a year. That is a lot of money. That is nothing compared with the extra $7,500 he is giving the person earning $86,000 in a tax incentive program like this RRSP proposal. If he has this extra $350 million to spend he can put it in the pension program to guarantee that Canadians can have dignity in their old age and afford to live in some comfort. Do not put it into a program which will make sure the wealthy are holidaying in Hawaii while women with minimal incomes are living below the poverty line.
Myself and the New Democratic Party are in favour of pensions. We are in favour of pension reform but we are not in favour of another tax grab for the rich.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I think I distinctly heard the member make a case against RRSPs. Is it the New Democratic Party's policy to do away with registered retirement savings plans in the nation?
Second, he argued against the tax deduction and in favour of a tax credit. Does that mean the NDP now realizes and accepts that the earlier tax bills that switched from deductions to tax credits were good bills?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, let us look at the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction. If the Tories are really interested in whether this is a tax reform or helping people save for their old age, why do they not give at least an equal break to those earning $20,000 and those earning $86,000? Right now, the government is
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giving twice the amount of tax back to the person with a high income as to a person with a low income.
One of the things we have to look at in our whole tax structure is what are the tax advantages for tax credits? That is one of the reasons why the NDP is calling for a royal commission on taxation in this country. Repeatedly the government has taken steps which have increased the tax burden on the low and middle income and have decreased the tax burden on the wealthy. The NDP is saying: "Look, let's quit playing piecemeal games with tax reform. Let's throw out this GST. It is not a sustainable tax reform program. Let's not play around with Mickey Mouse juggling of changing RRSPs here and there. Let's look at real tax reform. Let's have a royal commission on tax reform".
We oppose this legislation that increases the tax write-off for the wealthy at the expense of those earning less than $37,000.1 would ask the Conservatives: how do you go back into your ridings and explain to the person earning $30,000 that next year their contributions are going to be less, while at the same time saying that their friend down the road who is earning $86,000 is going to get a tax credit of $7,500. The government is going to give him cash. That is the same as $600 a month back in his pocket. Flow do you explain that?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I notice that the hon. member did not reply to my colleague's question. I assume that the policy of the NDP is that RRSPs are bad, as he clearly stated in his speech, and that if it was in government it would scrap RRSP legislation.
The second point I would like to make is that the member refers to only one-half of the bill. He has not made any comments on the substantial closing of loopholes that the existing pension legislation has provided in a number of areas. These are very clearly set out in the notes describing the bill. I ask the hon. member whether he is not in favour of this when he says they want to scrap this bill? Is he saying let us leave those loopholes open or is it again a question of the NDP closing their eyes to loopholes and not giving the government the opportunity to close these to make for a fairer tax system?
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James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, if all it did was close loopholes I think you would find our party supporting it. This bill is creating a bigger loophole, the biggest loophole you can, by giving a tax incentive of $7,500. This is not an incentive but cash in the hand for someone earning $86,000.
The NDP position on RSPs is very clear. We would freeze the program at its level and put it into a credit program so that people on low incomes would have the same tax advantage as people on higher incomes. Personally, I would like to see our party go further and make the tax credit twice that for the person who earns $20,000 than for the person who is on an income of $50,000.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify something for the information of the House. When we heard the family history of the hon. member, it may have sounded as if he had a vested interest in this program. I assure the House that he has a very long experience and is an expert in the field of social services, particularly in administrative and policy matters.
He referred to older women and I could not agree more and support him in that the real tragedy still faces older women in the country. He pointed out very clearly the unfairness of the present RRSP in this bill as it impacts on older women.
Our leader heard from seniors in Toronto who, of course, were very concerned about the impact that the GST will have on them and she heard from seniors in Quebec and their concerns about the clawback.
He has mentioned other things. I also want to refer to the fact that very few older women in Canada are eligible for the Canada Pension Plan because many of them have been homemakers or they have come into the labour market very late. They have not been able to build up sufficient points for adequate income from that source.
I cannot recall myself, but I wonder if he would clarify that the GIS is not indexed. I think that is correct. Certainly, the Conservatives tried to deindex the old age pension itself and seniors said they would not have that.
The other thing perhaps he might comment on is the fact that, and this is an item he is quite an expert in, we hear very worrisome rumours that the federal transfer payments for the Canada Assistance Plan are likely to be restricted. This will have a tremendous impact on social services of all kinds and, particularly, income support

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programs for older people. I wonder if he would comment on those items.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the hon member for Vancouver East has raised a number of very critical questions in areas that I could spend another half-hour discussing.
I want to comment on the last one particularly because it is going to be one of the major issues that this House has to deal with in the next period of time. It is the rumours that the Canada Assistance Plan, which has been an open-ended, cost-sharing program with the provinces, is somehow going to be limited.
The people who are going to be hurt are those on various types of social assistance programs or those who are on supplementary programs for the elderly. The provincial governments can and do supplement through the Canada Assistance Plan types of income support and care programs for the elderly. I keep coming back to the fact that one of the things that we still have not fundamentally addressed in this bill is the discrepancy in income security between men and women in this country, particularly over the age of 65.
I would just like to point out a couple of figures. In 1971, the average income from all sources for men was $12,500. For women it was $6,183. By 1986, for men it had increased to $16,700, which is getting up to $1,500 a month. For women it was still just over $10,000, which is $800 a month. You cannot live in metropolitan areas and pay rent, buy food, have transportation and medical care on that level of income.


Mr. Atkinson:: Mr. Speaker, in the member's comments he referred to benefiting the rich in our society and hurting the lower income people. I wonder if he would comment on the fact that there is a seven-year carry forward in this particular act resulting in a young family, or someone going into the labour force, having this seven-year carry forward of an unused contribution. As well, the limits will be frozen until 1995. If you look at 1995, it is interesting to note that the $15,500 limit in that year will be the same fraction of the average industrial wage as the limit of $4,900 in 1976 when the limit was $5,500.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the member raises a point of this carry-over. That is all very nice. The trouble is that if you cannot afford to do it this year, you cannot afford to do it next year or the year after, the likelihood that in seven years from now when you are still supporting your family and still on an income of $27,000 that you could then afford to do it not only for that year but for the past ten, seven or five years is just nonsense.
All it is going to do is make sure that the wealthy, who maybe for some reason this year have a little problem with cash flow because they bought another investment or they put money into an apartment block, can pick up on it next year.
I do not see it as any incentive for the poor, or even the people on middle incomes, I see it just as another give-a-way for the wealthy to make sure that their cash flow is not hurt when they invest in RRSPs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kempling):: The time for questions and comments has expired. On debate, the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the amendment. I think it is a valid amendment in that it points out with some clarity the New Democratic Party position on this particular bill. I would like for the record to read again, for emphasis, the two points that are made:
(1)	the full benefit of the increased registered retirement savings
plan limit will accrue only to the less than 1 per cent of Canadian
taxpayers who earn more than $86,000 annually.
I will comment on that in a minute.
The second point:
(2)	it fails-assist middle and lower income Canadians to provide
for a stable income in their retirement years.
Now, I think the first point is the crux of the whole problem with this government's thrust toward tax reform, toward many of the programs that we have seen instituted over the last five years. Whether it be the Unemployment Insurance Act changes, free trade, or the clawback, it emphasizes to all Canadians what is happening.
The program that we see before us, as was emphasized to me as I travelled across Canada with the finance committee, emphasizes the polarity between the rich and the poor. This is of major concern to me and the New Democratic Party and to many Canadians to whom I and
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others have spoken with regard to the direction in which this government appears to be going.
The government should be ensuring for future generations some balance in the incomes of Canadians, an equality of life for Canadians, whether in their own homes, their communities, their provinces or their regions. Canadians should be able to hold their heads high with the knowledge that there is economic and environmental equality. Instead, we are seeing this polarity.
The rich appear to be getting the benefit. As my grandfather used to say, "Them what has gets". I think that is exactly what is happening here. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. If we continue with this particular agenda, fewer and fewer middle-income people will to be able to live with their heads high. By this type of legislation we are forcing those who are a little less fortunate into becoming poverty stricken and increasing the distance between the middle income-earners and the rich, those who have.
The major thrust, I would suggest, to the New Democratic Party's position is not to increase or expand upon this polarity, but to move toward the equality that we in Canada have come to expect of each other and of our governments. The thrust in any legislation, whether it be social or pension legislation, should be a thrust of equality, a thrust of fairness, something that people can look to and say: "That will help all Canadians, not just a limited few".
The suggestion of the New Democratic Party is that we should not be looking at the upper end of the scale. We should be looking at the over-all picture of universal pensions for women, for men, for rich and for poor alike, something portable, something that we can hold on and look forward to so as to ensure that we can live comfortably in our golden years. We do not have to live with all the baubles, bangles, gold and silver and all that glitters. It is a matter of comfort and having what is necessary or essential to be able to carry on and live in dignity in those retiring years.
I would suggest the way to do that is through our Canada Pension Plan system, ensuring that that plan is portable and adequate and treats men and women alike
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with equality. We have seen for too long all the problems which women have run into with husbands' pensions.
As I said earlier, women make 65 per cent of what males make on average. I would suggest that this in itself shows the inequality within our system. We must strive for greater things than simply looking to a small section with blinders on. It is a broader perspective. It is something that we should be working toward together too ensure the equality and fairness that I spoke of earlier.
At present, under the proposed legislation, at the end of 1995 those who make $86,111 will be able to put in the maximum $15,500. This scales up over a five-year period. Again, it emphasizes that those who will be able to use the upper limit are those with the higher incomes, those who probably already have other investments, who have put money away in other things, who are looking after themselves and have the maximum Canada Pension Plan.
I am not saying that they should not put money away for their future in Registered Retirement Savings Plans and the New Democratic Party is not saying that we are against Registered Retirement Savings Plans. We have never said that. We are saying that we are looking in the wrong direction. We should be looking at the area of universality of our pension plans.
There should be a cap placed on those pension plans. I do not think the dropping from 20 per cent to 18 per cent of earnings assists the middle and low-income earners. That, it seems to me, tends to hurt the low and middle-income earners and assists those in the upper-income area.
I would suggest that the seven-year carry-forward contained in this legislation again, as has been emphasized by my friend from Surrey North, is more an advantage for those people with higher incomes and the ability to invest. Yes, from the perspective of a small business person who one year, if the economy picks up, may have a little bit of extra money, it has a certain flavour of advantage.
But if we look at who uses the Registered Retirement Savings Plan area, I think it becomes fairly clear that those who will use the seven-year carry-forward provision are in fact those who want to use their money for some specific tax advantage investment one year and then pick it up a year or two later when they reap the

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benefits of that investment. But the low-income earner, unless he wins a lottery, is not going to have the money that is required to take advantage of that seven-year carry-forward.
So while I am saying that the carry-forward will assist some of the middle-income earners in some way, it is going to be a small percentage of those earners. The rich, again, will be the ones taking advantage of it.
I have referred to the number of tax filers who contribute to RRSPs in trying to emphasize my point of the carry-forward. In 1987, the last year for which I have figures, 57.8 per cent of those with incomes of $50,000 and over made an average contribution was $4,700. If we look at the other end of the scale, 3.7 per cent of those who earn from $5,000 to $10,000 contributed to RRSPs. Let us take a look at the middle incomes, $30,000 to $40,000. The proportion of tax filers who contributed to RRSPs in that tax bracket was 40.4 per cent, contributing an average contribution of $2,480. The maximum in 1987, of course, had just gone up to $7,500, so that is well below the average. It is apparent that these people are not going to be able to afford to use the seven-year carry-forward.
There are other problems in this bill. This is a complex bill and I do not pretend to totally understand everything about it. I do not pretend to know all there is to know about Registered Retirement Savings Plans as I am sure the Minister of Finance, who is working in this area constantly, would not claim to know everything about it.
The minister points out that the government is trying to cover loopholes. That could well be, but I am sure the minister knows as well as most lawyers, that as soon as you change any legislation there are minds out there that are quick and sly like the fox, able to ferret out and find loopholes. Being a lawyer I can confirm that every time new legislation comes up it leads to a wide range of new technical arguments. The tax area, which is one of the most complex areas of law in Canada, I would suggest, certainly leads to that.
In May of 1988, the joint committee on taxation of the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants called the amendments perhaps the most complicated tax rules ever devised. In order to calculate tax-free Registered Retirement Savings Plan
contribution limits for those who are members of retirement savings plans, the legislation establishes a formula. You take the Registered Retirement Savings Plan limit, which is 18 per cent or the dollar maximum, and subtract from it the pension adjustment. In the case of the money purchase plans, the pension adjustment is simply the annual total of the employer-employee contributions. For defined benefit plan members, which are 90 per cent of those covered by private plans, the pension adjustment equals the annual benefit earned multiplied by a factor of nine minus 600. Clear to you, Mr. Speaker? And that is the simple part of it.
I would suggest that because of the complexity of the new rules, most individual taxpayers will no longer be able to calculate their allowable RRSP contribution room. At the beginning of each tax year the federal government will provide to each taxpayer a statement of available RRSP contribution room. To determine this amount, pension plan administrators will be required to submit a detailed report of each plan member's earnings for the year and the amount of the plan member's pension adjustment. Revenue Canada will use this information, based on the previous year's RRSP contributions, to calculate the following year's RRSP contribution.
This situation makes it virtually impossible for individuals to engage in any kind of long-term financial planning. In addition, the rules will make it extremely difficult for small pension plan administrators to function without hiring additional staff solely responsible for pension adjustment reporting.
We are asking the government to take the blinders off, to quit looking through this limited vision tunnel and to look at the broader expanse of where we are going in this society in this country. Let us get some real reform. Let us get proper pension reform so that, as I said earlier, people can feel there is equality and fairness in Canada for all Canadians, regardless of how they have made out income-wise in their younger years, so that they can live adequately in their golden years, with respect and dignity. Let this government hear the people of Canada. Let this government recognize that the future is not in this narrow vein. The future for Canadians, as has been set out by our forefathers, is one of assistance and equality for all.
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Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, the NDP often speak as if there is a huge group of people in this country who make vast amounts of money and are very rich. I would refer him, as a new member, to the income tax statistics. They are exactly the same, percentage-wise, over the years. If a Canadian makes $30,000 total income, not net, that person, in terms of taxpayers, is already just over the 85 percentile. So less than 15 per cent of Canadians make over $30,000 gross income.
If a person's income is $50,000, that person is at 98.15. So less than 1.5 per cent of taxpayers make more than $50,000. That tells you there is not some huge number of vastly rich people out there. We are they. We make $60,000, and we are 99 per cent. Nobody makes more than us. So this whole pension plan is to let people like us take a deduction during our working years and build up a pension. If that does not work we will have to be content with the Canada Pension, for what that is worth, and the Old Age Security and the GIS.
My specific question is this: Is it NDP policy to be opposed to the RRSP? That is a major policy change. I admire them, but I want to be able to go up to the doorsteps and say: "Is it your policy, or is it not"?


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, even though my friend was there, I think what he has emphasized to the people of Canada, what we have been telling them in the House of Commons and what the people of Canada have been telling them ever since I was elected here in 1988 is: "You are listening, but you do not hear". If the hon. member had not only listened but heard, he would have heard me say that it is not the New Democratic Party policy to do away with Registered Retirement Savings Plans.
It is obvious that the hon. member has done exactly what the Minister of Finance has been doing, what the Minister of Employment and Immigration has been doing and what the Prime Minister and his party have done in the free trade debate. They have listened and they have listened well, but just like the dopes that I believe they must be, they have not heard. I would suggest to those members that they should take out the earplugs, open their ears, quit sitting there in their fog and listen to the people of Canada and hear what they are saying.
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I would like to turn for a minute to something this hon. member has told us. I think he has made the point very well, that is, this government is controlled by 1.5 per cent of the people of Canada, those higher income earners. It is the other 98.5 per cent to whom this government should start listening. They have been ignored for too long. People can only be pushed so long before they revolt. This government more and more is heading for that revolt.
That is the case not only in taxation but in other areas such as racial discrimination. This polarity is pushing people into economic hardship. As the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair said yesterday in his wonderful speech, this government's policies are causing problems across Canada and it is time that it started hearing the people.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, on rising to speak in opposition to Bill C-52, which would raise the limits for RRSP purchases to $15,500 over a five-year period, I could not help but think that politics is about making choices.
We are constantly lectured by people on the other side that we on this side of the House do not give a damn about debt, do not give a damn about deficits. That is not true. If anything points out the reality, if there is anything in this House which does not take deficits and debt seriously, it is this bill proposed by that bunch over there.
What is the impact of this legislation in terms of cost? Currently tax assistance for retirement savings costs the federal treasury an estimated $5 billion to $6 billion each year in foregone tax revenues. This new legislation will cost an additional $300 million to $350 million in 1991-1992 alone. That does not seem like a lot of money to some people in accordance with the size of the entire federal budget. However, to give an example, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is being junked by this government to save $10 million a year. That serves millions of working Canadians and their employers and is one thing that this government is shoving into the garbage can, along with the lives of thousands of Canadian workers, all for a measly $10 million, while here it gives $300 million to $350 million a year to people in our income category who do not really need the extra help.

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Politics is about making choices. The title underneath this bill should be a paraphrase of the old quotation that the law in all its majestic equality provides that rich and poor alike may put $15,000 a year into RRSPs in order to avoid paying taxes. That would be just as hypocritical as the original saying that rich and poor alike are forbidden to sleep under bridges. It is exactly the same message.
This government is scrapping the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to save $10 million a year. It has, to save some $500 million to $600 million a year, just about double what it is throwing away by this mechanism, ditched a rail system from one end of the country to the other. This has ended up effectively isolating many small resource communities in areas that do not have other effective means of transportation. Despite what the government says about some of those communities, they do not.
The government would not listen. It said that we have got to save the money. Yet here it is giving away half that amount of money because people in our income categories need its help so much. Like hell we do. We don't need that kind of help.
At the same time the government has sabotaged the UIC system to increase premiums for employers, whether or not they are making a profit, and employees alike, supposedly to save money, thereby creating another total aberration and turning upside down any idea of a progressive tax system. Withdrawing any support of the UIC system from general revenue has removed any incumbency upon the government to keep employment levels high and removed the incentive to keep employment levels high, because the government wants to save money. And then it gives away $300 million or $350 million a year to people like us who do not really need the additional help.
There is one last thing I want to mention because it really draws some of the priorities of this government into question. The government has recently imposed increases in municipal radio licence fees from one end of the country to the other.
In my community alone volunteers in fire departments and individuals who sacrifice a lot of their time, money and effort in order to provide emergency services to their
neighbours find that their municipal, regional or county governments are being slapped with increased radio licence fees to provide for those basic emergency services that are health providing and life saving.
For a small community like my own in Nelson, British Columbia, that increase is 1,200 per cent this year. For the city of Trail, it is a 970 per cent increase in those radio licence fees. For the regional district of Kootenay boundary, it is a 1,789 per cent increase.
It is not enough for people on the government side to say: "Oh yes, but we have to encourage people to save a little more". Politics is about making choices. The government is constantly preaching that. This is one of the choices it has made.
The government has said that those who provide basic emergency services in local communities can go out and hang themselves. They do not count. They can pay extra. It is telling the workers and small employers of Canada who need information on health and safety that their problems are not important, that they ought to pay for their own health services and for their own health information.
The government is telling the unemployed and small employers across the country that they can afford to pay more in UIC premiums, and that people in our income category can have extra incentives to help ourselves at the expense of the general public.
I for one cannot buy that that is an intelligent political choice, a rational political choice or a moral political choice. It is immoral, it is impractical and it is wrong. Members opposite are making the wrong choices. We believe that there are better choices in maintaining and building an improved public pension system in Canada.
We are not talking about scrapping RRSPs. They are now an integrated part of the Canadian pension system, and it is appropriate, but the extent to which the government is going to increase their availability is damaging. Many people within the pension and insurance industry are telling them and have told them that they are damaging the very public and private pension system in this country upon which thousands and millions of ordinary Canadians depend.
Their choice is wrong. It is wrong headed. It is immoral. That is why we oppose this bill. I would ask
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members opposite to remember why they are here, who they ought to be representing, and vote accordingly.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. In 1983 Doug Frith was the chairman of a task force that looked very extensively at pension review. Would the hon. member let us know what aspects of this bill are in accord with the recommendations of the Frith commission and which ones are not?


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, I was here in 1983. A number of years has gone by since, including four years off for good behaviour during which time I had other priorities.
I am afraid I cannot recall the provisions of Mr. Frith's proposals in order to be able to answer the question clearly as to whether or not this falls within that ambit.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: I suffered the same fate for four years.
It dealt with the portability of pensions. It dealt with the indexing of pensions. It dealt with tax credits for pensions, particularly for the low income pensioner. Were any of these provisions included in this bill?


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, from my perusal of this bill the answer would be no.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I find it odd that we should be debating this bill. That is to say I find it odd that this measure should have been a priority of the government, when I remember the Conservatives in opposition making political careers, some of them, out of promising various groups of pensioners in Canada that once they came to power they would address the needs that had gone unmet under a Liberal administration.
The group of pensioners that I am thinking of in particular, probably because I have so many of them in my riding-indeed, I probably have more of them than any other member of Parliament, I would be willing to bet-is CN pensioners. Perhaps some of them now live in the riding of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt. I know some of them like to migrate out there in order to escape Winnipeg weather.
The fact remains that many promises were made to the CN pensioners by the Conservatives leading up to the election of 1984. The only thing that happened was that in the early years of the last Parliament in 1985 there was a special subcommittee which concerned itself with CN pensions. It made a number of recommendations. The
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report as a whole was not exactly what the various CN pensioners associations and advocates like Earl White and others wanted. Nevertheless had the recommendations been approved it would have been an improvement on the situation.
It is now six years since 1984 and not a blessed thing has been done about CN pensions. We do not even hear anything about it any more. It is like it is a dead issue, something that belongs to prehistoric political time. It is not because CN pensioners are all gone. They are still out there watching their pension incomes, their retirement incomes, progressively decline because their pensions are not indexed.
This problem is understandably more severe for those who retired a long time ago and whose retirement incomes have been progressively eroded by inflation and the rising cost of living. Yet nothing is done for these folks, unless one is able to imagine that the majority of people on CN pensions are in the category of people who would be able to take advantage of the increase provided in this bill vis-a-vis money that may be used for RRSP purposes.
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, there are very few CN pensioners in my riding-in fact it would be difficult to find any-who would say: "Oh, boy, I can put up to $15,000 a year now in RRSPs, so I don't have to worry that there is no improvement in the CN pension plan and that the Conservatives haven't lived up to their promises to CN pensioners. I can now take advantage of the provisions in this particular bill".
You know as well as I do, Mr. Speaker, that those kinds of CN pensioners do not exist. They are only a representative sample of many other working people who have worked for other companies, private or public, and who have pension plans that need to be improved and also need to incorporate indexing which has not happened to date.
The government has not moved on that broad front of pension reform on which, I must say, in the early eighties there seemed to be some momentum toward doing. We had the report of the task force mentioned by a member just a few minutes ago. Doug Frith, the former member for Sudbury, was the chairman of that task force. We had a number of other commissions and task forces. In fact, we were buried in these kinds of reports and analyses. A

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great deal of good work was done at that time by one of our own colleagues, the hon. member for Beaches.
It seemed that we were at the point where we were going to have some genuine pension reform and that some of the problems that had been accumulating and worsening in the seventies and early eighties were going to be addressed. Then what happened? It is clear what happened. The Tories were elected in 1984. They made Liberal stagnation with respect to pension income look like movement.
The whole question of pension reform simply dropped into the political Bermuda Triangle called the Tory right wing agenda. Never again did we hear anything about comprehensive pension reform. Never again after the subcommittee report on CN pensions did we hear anything about reforming the CN pension plan or any other pension plan of that sort.
Instead, we had the Minister of Finance saying things like: "The problem with Canada is that we do not have enough rich people". Do you remember when he said that, Mr. Speaker? It is not that we have too many poor people. It is not that we have a massive problem with child poverty. It is not that we have the feminization of poverty in elder years with respect to elderly women. It is not that any of the problems that have been pointed out by so many people with respect to the problems of ordinary Canadians are our greatest problems.
No, as far as the Minister of Finance is concerned, the problem with Canada is that we do not have enough rich people. I will never forget what I think was the most revealing moment, the moment that in a way will never leave me.
I saw clearly into the consciousness of the collective Conservative mind, and it was a dark thing to behold. It was the night of the first budget of this particular government when the Minister of Finance announced the $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption. For the first time that evening all members of the government rose as one and gave the Minister of Finance a standing ovation because he had finally done the thing that would be so beneficial to the kinds of people who really run the Conservative Party.
I did not see any standing ovation in Transcona. I do not know anybody that was yearning, that felt punished by the fact that there was not a $500,000 lifetime capital gains exemption.


Mr. McKnight:: Check with the member for Humboldt-Lake Centre.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: There is no one there who would be in a position to benefit from such a measure. Yet that was the high point for the Conservatives.
The member for Kindersley-Lloydminster brings up the old Conservative bug-a-boo about capital gains with respect to farmland. He knows, as well as I do, that we have always said that that falls into a different category.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: How is that different?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: But the Conservatives make no distinction between that and flipping condos in Florida, which is regarded by Conservatives as useful economic activity. When humans are at their best is when they are flipping condos in Florida and making money without doing a damn thing. That is what Conservatives live for.
Ordinary folk who are working eight hours a day, nine to five, doing the things that make the world go around, do not count. It is the people who are flipping condos in Florida and making big money. They are the people who have to be protected by capital gains tax exemptions. They are the people who have to be protected so that they can take what they make and put it away in expanded RRSPs. They are the people who have to be protected by the whole tax system. That is why we have a deficit in this country. It is not because of social spending or health care or education. It is because that for too long the whole tax system has been a big scam. The real impact of RRSPs, if you ask me, Mr. Speaker, has been to cut elements of the middle class in on the scam and, in so doing, hopefully silence them about the whole system. The problem with the deficit is tax expenditures, not government spending.
When I was elected in 1979 the Conservatives, under the right hon. member for Yellowhead who had the integrity to live up to one of the promises made by his party, released what was called a tax expenditure account. In that the government did what many people have been requesting for years. They said it is not just a question of taxes collected and money spent. There is also this third element, this unseen element in our
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finances. It is what money is out there that we could have collected, but we did not what is technically called tax the expenditures.
Mr. Speaker, you remember; you were there. The Conservatives brought out this tax expenditure account, to their credit. The tax expenditure account, if I remember correctly, for that year showed that in that year the Government of Canada forfeited in the form of tax expenditures $32 billion. In that same year the deficit was $14 billion.
In that same year, when people were hysterical about the deficit even then, the fact remained that what the government did not collect in the form of tax expenditures was more than twice the annual deficit. It is not to say that all tax expenditures are wrong. For instance, the child tax credit is not. This is not a blanket condemnation of all tax expenditures.
But we know that many of those tax expenditures have taken the form of various kinds of incentives for business. At that time there was a lot of money being spent in terms of super depletion allowances, depletion allowances, write-offs, you name it, in the north to get oil companies to go around making the Arctic look like a pin cushion. They were getting $1.10 for every dollar that they spent. They could not lose, whether they ever discovered any oil or not.
Those kinds of things continue. A Conservative government might come along and clean up a few things that the Liberals were doing, but with the other hand it would create other opportunities for the corporate community to farm the tax system, to farm the taxpayers' pockets, to farm the pockets of ordinary Canadians so that their position, whether it be individual or corporate, could be enhanced.
What are we faced with? At the same time as the government is enhancing a provision that already costs the government $5 billion to $6 billion a year, ordinary Canadians, like a lot of the CN pensioners in my riding, cannot even get to their cottages any more because they cut the train. Ordinary folk cannot take the train any more because even on the trains that are left the fares have sky-rocketed.
All this is done in the name of fiscal restraint, while with the other hand we need to make life a little easier for those who might have $15,000 to put aside in an RRSP. It makes you want to puke, Mr. Speaker. It
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absolutely makes you want to puke when you think about the priorities of this government.
What are we going to see in the budget because the government has to give away more money in the form of RRSPs? We are going to see, we are told but we hope not, cut-backs to Established Programs Financing, transfers to the provinces, which are transferred to the provinces for the financing of health care and post-secondary education. The health care system is already strained to the absolute limit. The federal government is being criminally irresponsible with the medicare system by constantly, budget after budget, unilateral decision after unilateral decision, putting more and more of the burden on to the provinces. At some point the system will break. It will be these same people the government likes to cater to through the tax system who will be the first ones to call for a private health care system alongside the public health care system.
Who will be on the losing end of that? It will be the people who will have to use the public health care system, the people who do not qualify for RRSPs, the people who like to use the trains, the people who are not part of all the frequent flyer clubs with everybody going back and forth to Singapore and everywhere else because they are part of the aircraft culture that leaves people who use trains in a hole somewhere.
They ask what this is all about. It is a totally misguided and immoral direction that this government is taking the whole country in and the middle class, what is left of it, will be eliminated. The upper middle class might survive, but the middle class will be eliminated. We will all be running around cutting each other's throats for jobs that are paying less and less.
The kind of people that this country has been built on-decent, hard working, honest, organized people- who have managed to make a good living because they have strong trade unions and have worked in traditional industries actually producing something, are the people who are on the hit list of this government. These are the people who have to disappear because of international competitiveness and because of the free trade agreement, because of privatization and all of the other things that this government has visited on the Canadian people like an affliction. It is similar to the way the Egyptians were afflicted with the seven plagues. We have been

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afflicted as a country with the various plagues that this government has brought down on us.
Just the other day I learned that Varda Batteries, a company in Winnipeg, was closed down because Investment Canada approved its purchase by an American company. Five days after the purchase was approved the battery plant shut down. That is what I call real good policy on the part of the Conservative government.
The other day I heard that Air Canada, now privatized, is going to contract out its commissary services, its food service industry. The jobs of 450 people are threatened because Air Canada has to be like everybody else. They have to contract out here, contract out there, and contract our there.
Do you know what it is, Mr. Speaker? It is all just union busting. It is nothing else other than union busting, taking people who have been able to make a decent living because they have been paid a decent wage and putting them in a position where they go from $12 to $6 an hour or $18 to $9 an hour, or whatever the case may be, and that is called progress. We in this party call it despicable.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned the seven plagues in Egypt. I thought that the Conservative attitude was much more that they expect the taxpayer to be like Job and suffer repeated humiliations.
I want to ask about RRSPs as they relate to capital investment funds. I wonder whether one of the motivations behind this move is not that the Conservatives have been told by their friends in the investment business, particularly those in mutual funds, life insurance, and all those types of financial organizations that are using the pools of RRSP money for their investment purposes, to make sure that there is this pool of investment. The person gets such a great tax benefit from it. It gives all this amount of captured money which can then be spent in investment. This is opposed to what they really should be doing, which is to increase dramatically the contributions to the Canada Assistance Plan. That would, then, give the government a pool of money it could use for capital investments which would benefit all Canadians, not just the ones who had control over pools of capital investment.
I remember talking with a person in the life insurance industry. We were talking about private life insurance programs, many of which are pawned off as pension plans by the private industry, and the business about the Canada Assistance Plan. He said: "They are going to make sure the Canada Assistance Plan is never going to be adequate, because if it is it would mean the death of private pension funds, life insurance programs and that they could not raise the money to liquidate if they had to".
I am wondering if the hon. member has any comments as to how much of this is part of a structure simply to make sure that mutual funds and other life insurance companies, particularly American ones, have an adequate pool of investment capital at their disposal.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member points out is that this is part of an ongoing struggle between those who would like to see investment decisions in Canada be part of a larger public decision-making process and those who feel that investment decisions are purely a private matter that should be in the hands of insurance companies or the corporations, or whatever. That is why there is so much resistance to accumulation in the public sector of funds that might actually be used in some intelligent way, according to some rational plan about what the Canadian economy might look like.
They hold to the view that the best form of plan is no plan at all, that all the random individual and corporate decisions are cumulatively the invisible hand of Adam Smith which will look after everyone in the final analysis.
Tell that to the thousands of homeless in Canada. Tell them that Adam Smith's invisible hand has looked after them.
Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of children in this country who are in poverty. Tell them that Adam Smith's invisible hand has looked after them. It has not been an invisible hand; it has been a mailed fist.
One of the things that has always amused me with respect to investment capital is many of the countries which free enterprisers across the way have always held up as examples of economic productivity. I would not want to hold them up that way, because I have other criticisms to make of them.

Take Japan, for instance. One of the reasons it has been as successful as it has is that it has influenced investment, because there has been a political will on the part of government to make collective decisions about investment vis-a-vis a long range plan for the country. What happened in Japan in the last 30 or 40 years was not the result of a whole bunch of individual investment decisions. It was the result of government influencing investment decisions.
In Canada this has always been regarded as Communist or Bolshevik, or whatever. That is why in both Canada and the United States we are going down the tubes economically because we do not have the political will to have an industrial strategy, or even a post-industrial strategy, or any strategy at all like they have in Europe or Japan or in other places. We are going to pay a price for not having that political will.
We have tied ourselves to a falling star called the United States of America, which has even less political will to have such a strategy. Until the people of Canada say to the Canadian government that they want some sort of political accountability for investment decisions, we are going to continue to have the kind of problems we have and the kind of pension system we have.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to hear the speech of my hon. friend from Winnipeg-Transcona and hear the more particularized aspect of some of the other things. When I spoke, I spoke on a more broad perspective. I would like to refer briefly to the hon. member's comments about CN pensions and the particularization of that. I note that two members from our party, the member for Burnaby-Kingsway and the member for Nickel Belt have not forgotten, as the government has, about CN pensions and the problems with them. I point out and ask for the comments of my friend as to whether the following motion put forward as Motion No. 427 by the member for Burnaby-Kingsway would do something toward fixing the ills this government has been ignoring in so far as CN pensions are concerned for the last six years. The motion states, in part:
- the government should consider the advisability of introducing legislation concerning the pension fund of Canadian National Railway, which:
(l)would provide that pensions be indexed to the extent thatsuch indexation is actuarially viable with the funds that have been paid into the plan, the unfunded liabilities of the company, and the funds that are being paid into the plan on a current basis; and that, in any event, the minimum indexation to be paid should be indexation to
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the consumer price index commencing on the retirement date of each pensioner, including those currently receiving pensions; and (2) would provide that excess earnings on money contributed by employees and former employees must be distributed on an equitable basis to employees and further employees only, and not go into corporate coffers.
Would this go some way in assisting my friend?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it certainly would. What the hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen has outlined, as part of a motion submitted by the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway, is precisely the kind of measure that the government should be taking in respect of CN pensioners and also with respect to many other pensioners.
Here we are again talking about people who can take advantage of this expanded RRSP limit. If they have $15,000 a year they can put it in an RRSR Yet all the employees of Route Canada ended up with no pension at all. No pension at all, after some of them having worked 20 years or 30 years, because this government privatized CN Route. It sold it to one of its buddies who turned over some of the assets and made a lot of money in New York somewhere. The people in Transcona and elsewhere in the maritimes who worked for Route Canada were left with absolutely zilch. That is the definition of justice for pensioners that we get from this government.
Looking after pensioners like the people who lost their jobs with Route Canada and looking after the people from CN is the type of action that we need, and it is the kind of action that we have not been getting.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kempling):: The time for questions and comments has expired.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I am not pleased to participate in this debate today, but I feel that I must because there is something very sinister going on in this House today.
I have just come from the Standing Committee on Finance where members of the New Democratic Party said that since most Canadians do not understand the details of the proposed goods and services tax and they cannot get answers when they phone the GST hotline, they thought it was appropriate to travel so people could express their views and ask questions about matters which concern them, whether they be ranchers, community groups, native people, small business organizations or simply individuals. It would appear that the committee is going to say no, that it does not want to have any more input into this. Although 80 per cent of the people are opposed to it, the committee says: "That is okay, we are

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just going to ram it through the House of Commons by ramming it through the committee first".
That exposes what is really going on in here. The government is of the mood that since it has the majority, in terms of the last federal election, it can do anything it wants and it gives them carte blanche to just do whatever it wants, whenever it wants and in whatever way it wants.
Mr. Speaker, you are sitting in the chair today, and government members largely sit on that side of the House and the opposition members sit on this side of the House. It is a balance, and that is our parliamentary system. The government expresses its views on certain pieces of legislation or motions that it puts before the House. The opposition has an obligation and a responsibility to provide an opposition viewpoint to critique legislation or motions in a positive way or, in some cases, to congratulate the government on certain initiatives and vote with the government to send a message out to the people of Canada, such as the message on linguistic duality. We feel strongly about that. I hope that the motion comes before the House tomorrow and we rally around and say that this is something we believe in, that it is important and we unanimously support this motion. What a wonderful message that will send to people who are perhaps wondering where members of the House stand, where certain political parties stand or where certain individuals stand. We will send a clear message.
We could have a whole list of areas where the government has simply said: "Listen, we are the boss. We are big brother. We know what is best. We know what taxes to introduce. The fact that 85 per cent of people do not agree with the goods and services tax, that is okay. We will just ignore that. We are going to use closure, time allocation, cut off debate and curtail debate because we are the government. We can do anything". Well, we are about to see that that is not the case.
I know the government does not think that that can be done. Let me put the government on notice right now that we believe it can. We believe that when the rights of
the opposition are trampled upon and ignored, when the rights of the opposition are simply laughed at by the government, it is going to be in for a major surprise. We will have to wait for a day or two to find out what that surprise is, Mr. Speaker, but I think the government is going to be very surprised that it simply cannot act in this big government way.
Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, what this goods and services tax is going to mean. Thousands of new tax collectors are going to be hired, not 10, not 100, not 1,000, but thousands. John Bulloch, the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the person who has studied this legislation from one end to another says that probably, in the end, 25,000 new tax collectors will have to be hired. For every tax collector there will have to be secretaries, researchers, filers, and so on, so we are not talking about 25,000, but maybe 50,00 to 70,000 or more bureaucrats, plus their offices, jet fares, and travel allowances. My goodness.
However, this is not a discussion of the goods and services tax. We are discussing something equally silly. Those people who are watching on television, whose incomes are $85,000 or more annually, are sitting on the edges of their chairs because this legislation is for them.
If you are an ordinary working person, retired person, or a person on an old age or disability pension, this is not for you. This is for an upper income earner in our country. If your income is in the $85,000 bracket, finally you have some good legislation coming your way, because who is going to benefit from this? When you look through the list, the main beneficiary are those folks who are providing for their retirement whose incomes are $86,111.
When I think of all the letters I get from people who are concerned about their pension incomes, I hardly get any letters from people whose incomes are $86,000 plus a year who are worrying about their pension. As a matter of fact, I do not know if I get any letters. I do get a lot of letters from people who are unable to live a dignified life on their existing pensions. I am serious. I get a lot of letters. I am sure all my colleagues in the House get
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letters from people living in major metropolitan areas whose only income is Canada Pension and the OAS and who just cannot get by. They have to rely on other sources of income, relatives, friends, the food banks or thrift houses just to get by.
What does the government do? Do they bring in increases to the old age security? No, no. Do they bring in an enhanced CPP? No, no. Do they bring in more support for people on veterans' pensions and disability pensions? No, no. They want to help those people whose incomes are $85,000 a year so they can provide for their pensions years.
We have got everything really haywire here. On whose side is the government? This is not pension legislation, it is tax legislation. What this is going to do is enable people to avoid paying income tax now, set aside thousands of dollars and the idea is that they pay it later. Mr. Speaker, you and I know that that is not necessarily the case, because later means that you will be paying it at a much lower rate. Many people, particularly those people whom this legislation is aimed at, will move to a tax haven in their retirement years. They will move to one of the Caribbean Islands where they do not have to pay income tax. They take their money and they do not pay taxes on it there. The old argument that they would eventually pay tax does not hold water. For some, yes, but for many that is not the case.
What does this legislation do for the problems of portability of pensions? Absolutely nothing. What does it do for the 90 per cent of people on private pension plans with no indexation to combat increasing inflation? Absolutely nothing. What does it do to for people who have been waiting years and years for homemakers' pensions? Nothing. There is no mention of homemakers' pensions for those who stay home to care for an ailing family member or relative or a disabled person in their home. There is no concern for those people who need a homemaker's pension. However, for those people watching whose incomes are in excess of $86,000, this is for you. This is the government's pension scheme for you, because presumably those people are in desperate need.
This is going to cost the government millions of dollars. We do not know exactly how many hundreds of millions. What I have here in terms of some of the early
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analysis is that somewhere between $300 and $350 million will be lost next year. In other words, these people are not going to pay taxes. If they do not pay then-fair share, we know who is going to be paying more than they should. It is the ordinary working people of the country. The small business people and the farmers will be paying more than they should. This is really a tax dodge in many respects for upper-income people. We are going to lose from the federal treasury about $300 or $350 million a year.
If we are going to wilfully lose that, rather than give it to those whose incomes are in excess of $86,000, it would enable the government to give a $30 a month increase to the 600,000 elderly single women who have no other source of income and who are now living below the poverty line. Is that not interesting? If the government would amend this legislation, we could assist 600,000 elderly single women who are living below the poverty line by giving them an extra $30 a month. Perhaps to many people that does not sound like a lot of money, but for a single elderly woman living below the poverty line an extra $30 a month would go a long way. The government states that we cannot afford that. We cannot afford to consider a homemaker's pension. We cannot afford to look at portability. We have to help these people in the upper income brackets. That is what the Conservative government does.
There is another creeping bit of hypocrisy in this. I remember the Minister of Finance standing up not long ago saying: "Listen, you know those wealthy people who presently get pensions, we should get some of that back. They do not need the pension." So the government introduced legislation that the Minister of Finance called clawback legislation. I thought that was an appropriate name. If you earn a certain income and receive the old age security, the government claws back either all of it or part of it. In other words, the government said that upper income people do not need any pension plans, they can deal with it on their own.
Then along comes Bill C-52 which states that people in the upper income brackets need help, they need to have tax incentives to provide for their retirement years. There seem to be some double standards and a certain amount of speaking out of one side of your mouth one day and the other side another day. There does not seem to be any consistency here, unless the government is

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trying to fool people into thinking that they are actually doing something worth while.
I have been sitting here for a long time listening to the Conservative members explain one aspect of this legislation. Today, if your income is $20,000 and you want to set aside money to contribute to an RRSP, you can set aside $4,000, if you have the $4,000. However, in 1995 when this legislation kicks in at the most advantageous level, if your income is $20,000 you cannot contribute $4,000. You can contribute only $3,600. In other words, if you earn $20,000 this legislation is going to penalize you in terms of RRSP accessibility. It penalizes people at the low income level, while at the same time at the upper income level one can now contribute $7,500 and in 1995 will be able to contribute $15,500. The lower income earner is going to be penalized by this RSP legislation.
I have been listening carefully to hear from hon. members why the government is doing this and so far I have not heard any reasonable explanation. It puzzles me why we would be making it more difficult for low income people to set aside money via the RRSP programs.
There are whole other sets of reasons here that various researchers have indicated why this is bad legislation. My colleagues before me have explained that at some time, but perhaps I should mention one small thing. I notice my good friend from Toronto is here. He has been a good friend for many years. He gave a very elegant and eloquent speech against this particular initiative. As a matter of fact, it was one of the better speeches I have heard and I applaud him for those remarks.
However, I want to remind my hon. friend that I remember in 1984, and I am sure he does too, that there was a Liberal government at that time. Marc Lalonde was the Minister of Finance. He said that we have to help these upper income people save for their retirement years. We have to bring in changes to the RRSP.
In the Liberals' green paper on pension reform of 1982 they recommended what we are essentially doing here in Bill C-52. In 1984 the Liberal government introduced legislation that was essentially the same as what we have here today. Even my friends opposite on the Conservative benches went on for days and days against this Draconian measure that was helping the most privileged
in the country at the expense of those at the low income level.
At that time the Liberals thought this was great legislation. We have now flipped across the way and the roles are reversed. We now have my hon. friend articulating very well all of the down sides of this legislation and wondering why on earth why the government would do this, and those members now on the government espousing the advantages and the need to help those in the upper income brackets with their pension savings.
I mention as a point of interest more than anything how people can change their views on things whether they are on the opposition benches or the government benches.
Let me summarize by suggesting that this legislation is not going to help many people at all. As a matter of fact, only a certain portion of Canadians take advantage of RRSPs. Today, 20 per cent of Canadians use the RRSP in terms of a method of postponing paying taxes and/or providing money for retirement years later. Naturally, this is largely a result of the tax planning of people in the middle or upper income brackets.
When one looks at the number of people in the veiy low income brackets who file for RRSPs, less than 1 per cent actually file RRSPs, virtually no one. When one gets up into $50,000 and plus incomes, the number of tax filers contributing to RRSPs is nearly 60 per cent. In other words, the overwhelming majority of people in those brackets find that to be a useful way to defer taxes to some time later, if at all.
Let us recognize what we are doing. The government is asking us to pass legislation that will benefit those in the upper income brackets. It will cost the federal government about $350 million a year in lost taxes and this is all happening on the eve of the budget. People are fanning out across the country to try to put a certain spin on the public mindset about what is going to happen. They are saying that the deficit is too large and we must curtail a whole variety of social programs.
One of the toughest days I have had lately was in my hometown of Kamloops. The Y in that community asked the federal government for support to enlarge and expand the women's shelter in our community. There was a long list of people requiring shelter because of various forms of abuse. I do not want to go into the details, but it is a very tragic situation. The government said it was sorry, but it does not have any money, those hundreds of women and those hundreds of families each
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year will just have to be on their own and find some way to deal with their very serious abuse problems.
All that was sad, Mr. Speaker, but I find it rather odd if you cannot have a few thousand dollars to help a community group establish a women's shelter in the community of Kamloops, and the same argument could be made in many communities across Canada, and in the same breath say that we are prepared to forgo $350 million in income because of the changes to the RSP program to help those people in the upper income brackets. I just find it rather disgusting. If people knew this and understood what is going on, I do not think they would feel good about this at all. This is the kind of thing that makes the people of Canada curious about what this government is doing.
On the one hand it seems to be trying to curtail expenditures and on the other hand providing handouts and financial bonanzas to a very select, privileged few in our society. I guess, without being simplistic, Mr. Speaker, that is what one would expect from the Conservative government. That seems to be the basic theme that one hears whenever there is a Conservative government in office.
In conclusion, there is no question that we have been taxed too much. This last year has seen the thirty-second tax increase initiated by this federal government. In other words, in five short years this government has increased taxes 32 different times with the GST.
When people write to me they say that we cannot take it any longer, we pay so much tax. The government slaps another one on, and 32 tax increases in five years is too much. I just want to make the point that there have been 32 tax increases in the mandate of this government to date. I cannot imagine what the mandate is going to result in if we have another two or three years of this government left. In conclusion, let me say that I am against this RSP legislation.
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Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, just a quick comment and a question for my colleague from Kamloops. Ele is probably aware that in response to our allegation that this will cost some $300 or $350 million a year in terms of loss to the public treasury, which could be used in alternate programs, the government has suggested that that is not really accurate. That has not been suggested today because government members are noticeably absent from this debate this afternoon, as is the Official Opposition, but they have said on other occasions that this will be mitigated in part at least by the fact that it will plug up some of the loopholes in the system.
When I heard that I could not help but think of an old Donald Duck or Goofy cartoon that I read when I was just a little tyke about three feet tall. Donald Duck or Goofy was out in a boat on the lake and it had a leak in the bow. He thought he could stop the boat from sinking by chopping a big hole in the stem and letting the water that was coming in in the bow out the aft end, but it did not work. A government that says it is as concerned about deficits as this one is going to find out that chopping another hole in the other end of the boat does not work either.
My colleague may also be aware that Frank Speed, vice-president of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association states: "The new tax rales with their pension adjustments and pension adjustment reversals seem likely to be another administrative nightmare that will squeeze more pension plans out of the system."
Also, in May 1988 the joint committee on taxation of the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants called the amendments: "Perhaps the most complicated tax rules ever devised."
It seems obvious to me at least that if you are creating that much more gobbledegook and complications around the tax system, with any loopholes you are plugging on the one hand you are probably kicking more holes in the system on the other. My recollection is, and perhaps my colleague from Kamloops will clarify it for me, that this is the same party that said in 1984 and in years before and since that one of their major crusades was to simplify the tax system.

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The question I want to ask my colleague is in light of both of these, does he think that the members opposite simply do not care about tax simplification? Were they not telling the truth at that time, do they not care about debt reduction or are they just misled?


Nelson Andrew Riis: There are a lot of questions in there, Mr. Speaker, from my hon. friend for Kootenay West-Re-velstoke. Let me begin with his reference to the fact that there were no Conservative members speaking on this RRSP legislation. I am dismayed and a bit disappointed in that because I would have liked to have heard their explanations, particularly because of the fact that those in the $20,000 bracket will actually lose as a result of this legislation in terms of the amount of money they can set aside for their pension years.
I am not surprised, but I do hope when we pick up this debate first thing in the morning that we will hear a number of Conservative members. If nothing else, I can ask them some questions. It is hard to get at the people over there when nobody speaks.
With reference to the complicated tax rules, I tried to make the point that with 4,000 new tax collectors, and perhaps that will be up to 6,000 or 7,000 with all of the other people, it is going to be a red tape nightmare that will descend on this country and on an already over-complicated tax system. This is tax filing time. I sat down to begin the process the other day and got totally depressed. I do not know if anybody has started their tax filing yet. I try to do it without an accountant and I blow it every year. I end up going to the accountants. I just cannot do it myself.
Going back to the question, is the Conservative government serious about deficit reduction? My hon. friend, who is the chairman of the finance committee, was here a moment ago and I see one of his colleagues from Edmonton is with him. Perhaps we can set aside some time in the finance committee to go through all the corporate tax expenditures and evaluate those expenditures on a profit and loss basis to see if we get the financial bang for those bucks that we lose. In those cases where we do, we can even enhance some of those tax exemptions. On the other hand, if we cannot demonstrate clearly that we are not getting good return for that tax loss, then we should shelve the whole thing. We have got to go through that step by step because if we do that, I think people in the country will have a lot more faith in some of the cuts that are being touted by the government.
Until we go through that process, and all the people of Canada know that there are literally billions of dollars, not millions but billions of dollars lost every year to the federal treasury because of corporate tax exemptions and various other exemptions, and I am just talking about the corporate taxes because that is where the big losses are, there will never be support for any tax reform in this country because they know who is going to lose and who is going to gain.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kempling):: Order please. It being six o'clock p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24 (1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, February 15,1990