1990-05-07

Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to an important international event that will take place this summer in Montreal, and I am referring to the 19th World Congress of the International Union of Forestry Organizations.
From August 5 to 11, scientists from 105 countries, representing nearly 700 affiliated organizations, will be meeting in Montreal. Since the 19th Congress will conclude IUFRO's first 100 years, this will be an opportunity for delegates to examine where forestry science is heading on the eve of IUFRO's next century.
The Congress will also be our chance to show others the abundance and variety of our forests as well as the technology that has made Canada one of the foremost countries in this field.
Canada is a full-fledged member of the world forestry community, and Canadians involved in forestry are very much aware of the need for international exchanges. The Canadian forestry industry, recognizing its responsibility for managing an invaluable resource, has therefore joined forces to organize this Congress.
Mr. Speaker, we extend a cordial welcome to all participants.


NATIONAL FOREST WEEK
Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane -Superior):: Mr. Speaker, May 6 to 12 marks this year's celebration of National Forest Week. The 1990 theme will be "Living Forest -Giving Forest ".
We are all becoming more conscious of the rich resources that we have at our disposal. At the present time approximately one million Canadian workers depend on the forest industry.
National Forest Week gives all Canadians a chance to reflect on how the forest touches our lives. Wouldn't it be great if in the next few months the Federal-provincial Resource Development Agreements were renewed. These agreements are essential to the viability of our forests if we are to achieve some of our environmental objectives as well as maintain forestry's economic contribution regionally and nationally.

All Canadians are environmentally conscious and want to help save the environment, including our forests. Forests have much to offer us, and it is therefore our duty to protect this resource.


WESTERN PREMIERS
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister must know he is on a sinking ship when his political friends run for the lifeboats. When the four western premiers arrived in Portage la Prairie yesterday for their annual conference they made it very clear that they are together on at least one thing. None of them are veiy happy with the federal government these days.
Whatever the topic-the GST, farm aid, the cut in funding for health and post-secondary education, high interest rates or the failure to re-negotiate federal-

May 7, 1990
provincial agreements on tourism, forestry or northern developments-the message is the same. The Conservatives in Ottawa are putting the screws to the west, and the west will not take it much longer.
Never mind that three of the four premiers are Conservatives themselves and the fourth is a closet Tory. Never mind that they all supported the Conservative platform in the last election. The federal Conservatives are now at a record low in the polls and it seems that these days the four western premiers cannot backpeddle fast enough to get away from their federal counterparts.
All the same, Mr. Speaker, I caution the voters in western Canada to remember that provincial Conservatives are Conservatives too, no matter what they complain about with regard to federal Conservatives. They are all the same, they do the same, they act the same, they just speak with different mouths.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Denis Pronovost (Saint-Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, five years ago, the government proposed a plan for sound economic management and better management of government operations.
I rise in the House today to pay tribute to the work done by employees of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.


An hon. member:: Hear, hear!


Denis Pronovost: At a time of budgetary restrictions when sound and efficient management is needed, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been able to meet the government's objectives.
Mr. Speaker, for the first time in ten years, the CMHC's mortgage insurance fund has succeeded in meeting its obligations without government assistance.
In 1989 alone, the CMHC deposited more than $62 million in the Treasury, in addition to providing Canadians with 627,000 housing units.
Mr. Speaker, in many respects the CMHC is indeed the efficient performer referred to by the Auditor General of Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


FORESTRY
Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, forestry employs 8 per cent of all Canadians and generates over $40 billion annually. Forestry is the lifeblood of many single industry towns in our country.
Despite these facts, this government neglects Canada's chief industry. The 15 per cent export tax on softwood lumber coupled with the strong Canadian dollar and high interest rates are crippling this industry in Canada and for small-town Canada. To date seven provincial forest agreements have been allowed to lapse.
But most important, the government fails to recognize that the key element to any environmental plan is our forests. In fact, its new framework for discussion on the environment devotes only one half page to the protection of forests in Canada.
As Dr. James Kayll, the renowned forester from Lakehead University in Thunder Bay says: "You can't discuss the environment without discussing trees and you can't discuss trees without discussing the environment". It is time we started to do both.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, restraint in government expenditures will reduce the burden on monetary policy in fighting inflation and create greater scope for lower interest rates and a lower dollar.
To date considerable progress has been made. Spending restraint has provided the largest share of our deficit reduction efforts. It has involved a number of necessary decisions, which are always difficult and sometimes unpopular.
We, as a government, must have continuing action to control expenditures. In our fiscal situation the government can ill afford examples to the contrary, such as the reported expenses at Ports Canada.
May 7, 1990

Indeed, we bear a responsibility to search out and eliminate wasteful spending, improve our efficiency and ensure the best value for the taxpayers' dollars.
Our government must continue to evaluate all government expenditures in this context. The end result is much-needed latitude for our monetary policy in curbing inflation.
Only at this time can Canadians, and in particular our exports, have the opportunity to benefit from lower interest rates and a lower Canadian dollar.


THE FISHERY
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, as you know, the spring lobster season is now one week old. Prices during the week were $1.75 for market lobsters and $1.25 for canner lobsters. These are the lowest season opening prices in years, but the fishermen's expenses have never stopped increasing.
People in the industry are not optimistic about the chances of the situation improving, mainly because of the large inventory currently being held by the processors. These prices are so low that many fishermen will actually lose money if they put to sea. This is the third consecutive poor season for the lobster fishermen of Prince Edward Island.
I realize that extensive new marketing schemes are being developed and that some have already been put in place, but these are plans which are expected to resolve the situation down the road. They will not solve the immediate problem.
I am asking the government to use the Fisheries Prices Support Board as an interim measure to establish prices which will allow fishermen to continue to fish in an economically viable situation.
This board is already in existence, so I ask the government to act quickly so that our fishermen will have a chance to salvage their season and the processors will continue to have a viable operation.


NATIONAL BANK OF CANADA
Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, since 1980, Quebecers have had the benefit of consumer
protection legislation. When they use a credit card to make a payment, interest is calculated only on the balance payable. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that the National Bank of Canada, which agreed to observe the legislation, has decided, as a result of pressure by other banks, to charge Quebec consumers $1.5 million more because it will be applying the same policy as the rest of the federally-chartered banks.
Today I want the federal government to order the National Bank of Canada, first of all, to appear before the Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Public Administration, to find out whether it is, in fact, proceeding in this matter; and second, to find out whether it would not be preferable for the federal government to monitor the way the chartered banks are calculating and charging interest.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


MENTAL HEALTH WEEK
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon -Souris):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians from all parts of the country took time during the recent national Mental Health Week to acknowledge the contribution of all those who serve in that field. I would like to endorse those statements, albeit belatedly.
Although these remarks have been prompted, at least in part, by the extremely thoughtful, attentive care which all members of the staff at Fairview Home in Brandon have been providing to a member of my own family who has been extremely ill for several weeks, I would like, as a member of Parliament, to express what I believe is our collective appreciation to the unknown legions of Canadians who provide health care, regardless of their area of specialization, each hour of each day of each week and who all too frequently receive little or no thanks for doing so.
Canada has perhaps the best health care system in the world thanks largely to the thousands of professional and dedicated people who serve the public so faithfully.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, on Friday, May 4, Latvia adopted a declaration to restore the republic's independence from the Soviet Union. The declaration states the Soviet annexation of 1940 as

May 7, 1990
Oral Questions
illegal, re-establishing portions of the 1922 constitution declaring Latvia an independent democratic republic.
The declaration also pledges an unspecified transition period to restore the republic's actual independence from the U.S.S.R., during which period it promises to abide by Soviet laws as long as those laws do not infringe on Latvian sovereignty.
All three Baltic states have now declared their independence. As a member of Parliament in a country that has never recognized the annexation of the Baltic states, it is my hope that this time it does not take as long for the two sides to come to the table.
Having just returned from the Soviet Union, it is also my hope that negotiations in peace and good faith will take precedence over economic sanctions. This is an opportunity, in the spirit of co-operation and confidence that is sweeping all of Europe, to rectify a situation that was a result of, at best, a dubious and questionable agreement.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
[English)

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Today, after holding their breath for more than a year, the people of Atlantic Canada were finally given a package for the fishery that is totally inadequate, judging by the magnitude of the problem. Yet, on December 13, 1989, the Prime Minister said:
- the Government of Canada will act in respect of the Atlantic fishery with exactly the same kind of generosity and enthusiasm that we brought to resolving the problems of the prairie farmer a few years ago.
Mr. Speaker, that was a billion dollar program for only one year. The government announced today a program of $587 million over five years and one-third of that, the government has already announced, is not even new money.
Why has the government not come forward with a truly meaningful program to maintain the fishing communities of Atlantic Canada until the fish stocks recover? Why will the government not recognize that we are dealing with a truly important, valuable and renewable resource?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada announced today, in addition to a significant contribution announced some months ago, the dedication of another $426 million to deal with the crisis that has been caused in Atlantic Canada by developments in the fishing industry, particularly with regard to northern cod but also with regard to other species.
It is designed to help ensure that people who make their livelihood in that industry, who contribute to the growth of Canada in that industry, will either be able to continue in that industry with the benefit of new research and the benefit of new projects being sponsored by this government, or will be able to make adjustments to other kinds of effective economic activity as effectively as possible.
It is a significant major step clearly comparable to the action that this Government of Canada took with regard to western farmers facing an earlier but different crisis.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs has just admitted that the government today has not announced the kind of program the Prime Minister spoke of when he talked about western farmers last December.

Mr. Speaker, when the minister talks about making adjustments, he really means phasing out. In other words, whole communities will disappear, and families will have to give up their traditional way of life.
I want to ask the minister this: How many families will have to lose their livelihood? How many communities, so far prosperous, must turn into ghost towns until the government realizes that the fisheries are a durable industry that should be promoted and not closed down? How many more Scheffervilles is the government going to give us?


Some hon. members:: Yes, how many?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, whatever the government's poli-
May 7, 1990

cies or statements may contain, we can count on the Hon. Leader of the Opposition to say it just isn't enough.
The reality, Mr. Speaker, is very clear. What has been announced today is a major program designed to rebuild the fish stocks at a time when there is a significant environmental threat to the stocks that make viable our east coast fishing communities. It is a major contribution to programs that will allow the communities and the people involved in the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada to adjust constructively to these kinds of realities and, also, a significant new contribution to economic diversification in Atlantic Canada.
Earlier the Leader of the Opposition talked about the comparisons between western Canada and Atlantic Canada. He will know that there are over 165,000 farmers in western Canada. There are 60,000 fishermen in Atlantic Canada. What has been announced today is a new $426 million program to help Atlantic Canada. That amounts, in total, to $584 million being spent by the Government of Canada over this period to help ensure that we maintain a viable fishing industry and viable alternatives for people who have been working in that industry.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the minister talks of the need to rebuild the fish stocks, which problem he says is due to an environmental situation.
The Harris report identified foreign overfishing as a major contributor to the depletion of our fish stocks. Yet, all we see in the government's announcement today is that it will continue "intensive, diplomatic and political efforts" to try to resolve the problem.
This means that the Spanish and Portuguese will continue to pillage our stocks and the European community will continue to set quotas far above what these stocks can sustain.
If the government is serious about foreign overfishing, why did it not declare today Canadian jurisdiction over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks? Why did it not stand up for Canadians just once? Why did it not speak for Canadians when it had the chance to do so?
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Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition should not be driven by his new responsibilities to abandon the reputation for seriousness that he has won over the years in this House of Commons.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: He knows far better than to make accusations of that kind.
Let me make a point about conservation. The Leader of the Opposition is suggesting by the tone of that question that the conservation issue is not an important issue in this debate. If, by chance, he is quoted in Europe with regard to those views which are at variance with the facts and at variance with the reports of the Harris committee and others, he will make it far more difficult for us to carry on a campaign that has already found some success. This is a campaign to persuade the Europeans to respect the environmental reality, to respect the arguments of Canadians, and to begin to play closer attention to the North Atlantic Fishery Organization quotas that have been set and that they have been ignoring to the detriment of Canada.


Mr. Fernand Robichaud (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister said here in the House that the government would act and announce generous wide-ranging programs for the problems we have in the Atlantic fisheries. But what the government announced this morning clearly contradicts the Prime Minister's words. Four hundred and twenty-six million dollars over five years for the Atlantic provinces comes to less than $21 million a year for each province. It is really making fun of us!
Can we then conclude, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister still believes that there is no crisis in the Atlantic fisheries and that everyone seems to be doing fine?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis and there is an answer to this crisis in the Atlantic fishing industry.
Several weeks ago, we announced part of the answer and today some of my colleagues in the Government of Canada announced other measures and programs to

May 7, 1990
Oral Questions
help Canadians in this industry so that they can find other ways to earn their living and also to help establish a strong and lasting industry in the Atlantic region.
Of course, other things must be done. My colleague, the fisheries minister, has called a meeting of the fisheries ministers of the five eastern provinces for Friday. The provinces will also have opportunities to participate in the program to help an industry that is important for all of Canada.
Today we took another very big step to assure Canadians that the industry can continue to play a major role in Canada's future.


Fernand Robichaud: Mr. Speaker, they simply want to force us in the Atlantic Provinces to move out.

In the fisheries package announced this morning we see that $130 million is from existing UI and ACOA funds and that $28 million is to replace the tracker surveillance from Summerside.
Can the minister assure us that the remaining $400 million for all the Atlantic provinces over five years is new money and not money being recycled or reprofiled from existing programs? Is that new money?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, that is a distinction that the hon. member has raised often in the House before and which means nothing at all to the people in Atlantic Canada who, prior to these announcements, were receiving no help and now, because of these announcements, will be receiving in excess of $500 million of help from the Government of Canada.


Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. The proposal this morning for Atlantic Canada talks of rebuilding the stocks in order to provide a more reliable economic base for the fishery.
The question is, for whom is this economic base being developed because, as we have already heard, there are people in many small communities who are going to be forced out of the business.
According to the government's own Canada Employment and Immigration Advisory Council: "The rebuilt
industry-" referring to the fishing industry in the Atlantic, "-should not be dominated by the giants of the industry to the exclusion of the existing participants".
Is this adjustment package not doing just that? In fact, in the long term, is it not simply adjusting the small operators out of the business and saving the field for the larger operators?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the short answer to that question is no. Unfortunately, the leader of the New Democratic Party has her own view as to the point she wants to make and she will not in this case, as in others, be dissuaded by the facts.
The facts are that this is a program designed to re-establish the strength of the Canadian fisheries industry, to re-establish our capacity to enlarge the stocks, or at least to understand more successfully the science relating to a very serious environmental problem that has industrial implications on the east coast of Canada. It is also designed to help individuals who are in the industry and communities that are in the industry, including small communities, look for alternatives that will allow them to maintain, in the fishing industry or in other industries in that region, the kind of viability that they and the people who work in them would like to have.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, the minister talks about economic diversification. However, he will have to acknowledge the fact that the people in the Atlantic region have already said that they want to see a system based on some kind of community allocation of the resource, not just enterprise allocation. Perhaps this government should listen to some of the experts in the field.
I would also like to raise a question with the minister about economic diversification. The same advisory council which I previously mentioned has said to the Minister of Employment, with regard to the regional development programs of this government, that "it appears that certain major negative effects will be experienced as a result of the following federal decisions". They included in that cut-backs to regional development funding and changes to the UI program.
How can the minister claim that economic diversification will work when the very policies of this government have crippled the region?
May 7, 1990


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the very policies of this government have contributed-let me check my figures-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Charles Joseph Clark: I confess, from time to time, to being overwhelmed by the volume of these figures.
This funding announced today, virtually an additional half a billion dollars going into Atlantic Canada, is in addition to the $2,125 billion the Government of Canada will spend through 1994-1995 on regional development in Atlantic Canada. That is a very significant investment in the economic future of that region. I am sure the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party would acknowledge that point.
It is also an investment designed to try to take account of certain realities that cannot be talked away and that have to be dealt with in Atlantic Canada. These are the realities that have to do with the jobs that are being exercised now by individual Canadians, that have to do with the problems of older Canadians who are in those industries and who need some help in adjustment, and the policies that will be designed to help some of the communities which cannot continue in a fishery where there are fewer and fewer fish and to help some of those industries make use of either other stocks or other attributes of Atlantic Canada.
We believe that there is a very strong and diverse future available to Atlantic Canada. We believe that we have a responsibility to face the facts about the threats and about the responses. That is what we are doing in this program. That is what we have been doing for the other programs this government has followed to help the development of Atlantic Canada.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, earlier the minister spoke about conservation and I want to raise another question about the ability of the government to deal with that particular area and particularly the surveillance of our coast.

This morning, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans was talking about the need to guard our coastline. Two years ago, his department admitted that the number of surveillance ships was not sufficient. Dr. Harris said the same in his report. How much money, in dollars and
Oral Questions
cents, is the minister going to spend on marine surveillance?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, we have already mentioned a number of programs to develop our capacity for airborne surveillance. That announcement has already been made. There have been further proposals, by Dr. Harris and others, for dealing with this part of the problem.
However, there is a point I would like to make, since the hon. member mentioned environmental issues. A question was asked earlier today about the reaction of European countries. We are now trying to convince the Europeans that there is a major environmental problem which affects both Europe and Canada. We hope to convince them that they must change the practices of their fisheries and start observing the standards set by the international organization. It is important that Canada speak with one voice on environmental issues concerning the Atlantic.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to members' attention the presence in the gallery of a trade delegation from Argentina led by Dr. Eduardo Angeloz, Governor of the Province of Cordoba, and Dr. Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, Governor of the Province of San Luis.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


FISHERIES
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin -St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
He will know that for 500 years the fisheries have been the soul and the life-blood of Newfoundland. Yet, in less than a half hour this morning at a news conference in St. John's, his colleague, the Minister of Fisheries, effectively placed in jeopardy five centuries of traditional history, an entire way of life.
Has the government actually taken a decision that dozens of our fishing communities must be wiped off the face of the earth? Is that the hidden agenda behind

May 7, 1990
Oral Questions
today's announcement? If so, I say to him, it was not terribly well hidden.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, it is important that the differences between the parties in the House be understood.
The hon. member has said that the fishery in Atlantic Canada is in jeopardy. That is not our view. He has suggested that an industry that has been of crucial importance to Atlantic Canadians since well before they were Canadians is in jeopardy. That is not our view.
We believe that there is an industry that can be made viable in Atlantic Canada. We believe that some realities have to be faced and the government is on the path to facing those realities by working with the people in the fishing industry, by being prepared to put up hundreds of millions of dollars to help, by being prepared to take a look at ways in which we can help older Canadians working in that industry who do not have many other options look at options that they can pursue, and by helping those communities particularly affected by a problem not caused by any government-it is an environmental problem that has reduced fishstocks-and determining ways in which we can help them meet the future effectively.
Rhetoric will not do it. Misreading 500 years of history will not do it. But preparing Atlantic Canada to be able to deal effectively with the next 10 years and the next 100 years is what the government is doing and that is what needs to be done.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, that was a marvellous speech. But it was caused by the government allowing the foreign overfishing.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. member to put his question.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, as the minister knows, it will be in jeopardy as long as he continues to use the wrecking ball against the Atlantic fishery.
There are thousands of fixed gear fishermen along the southwest coast who have had serious disastrous catch failures triggering plant shutdowns and thousands of
layoffs. The program today does not mention one solitary word about those people. There is no provision for them at all.
Was that omission an oversight and, if so, will he undertake to have it rectified immediately? Or, was it a deliberate act and part of the government's plans to ensure that these people will be driven out of their communities and put on the welfare rolls in Toronto? If that is what he is up to, he should tell us once and for all.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly tell the House and it is up to the member to decide whether it will be once and for all, or whether we will have to repeat it as we have before.
There is no program by the government to try to depopulate fishing communities in Atlantic Canada. On the contrary, what we are trying to do is to make it possible for those kinds of communities to find an economic future that will last well into the years to come.
The member raises a question as to other issues on the agenda. There certainly are other issues on the agenda, some of which we have to deal with, some of which have to be dealt with by provincial governments, and some by the industry and the people working in it.
My colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, will be convening a meeting of the Atlantic Council of Fisheries Ministers on Friday. There will then be an opportunity, not only to look at other elements of the challenge that remain to be met, but also to begin to discuss how we can fill in the details and the funding of some of the proposals announced this morning and, importantly, Mr. Speaker, how we can ensure that provincial governments, which also have a responsibility for this matter, are able to play their full role.


Roger Simmons: Why won't you talk to them? You walked away from the table.


Charles Joseph Clark: This meeting of the council on Friday will continue a pattern of consultation which has been undertaken by my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries, on behalf of Canada.
May 7, 1990


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: My question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Five weeks have passed since the government announced its program to assist western farmers facing one of the worst financial crises in history, certainly at seeding time, and yet not one dollar of assistance has gone out to farmers.
Western prairie premiers are meeting today in Portage la Prairie and have formed a common front, demanding that the government provide assistance on its own. In view of the common front adopted by the Prairie premiers in demanding that the federal government act on this issue on its own, how and when can farmers expect financial help from the government?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, it is quite true that the federal government has been there for some five weeks putting its money on the table. We have asked, in the spirit of co-operation and in the spirit of a shared responsibility, that the provinces become a party to the package of assistance that is being worked on.
I can only tell the hon. member that discussions are continuing with the respective agriculture ministers. I have had ongoing discussions with the Ministers of Agriculture for the Provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan and, indeed, the Province of Alberta. We are now at the stage where we have looked at the inventory of the provincial programs which are eligible for cost-sharing and progress is being made.
I can also tell him that, in the case of Manitoba, for example, we are at the stage that for an $8 million contribution by the Province of Manitoba, the producers could have something in the area of $72 million distributed almost immediately. So, I ask them to get on board, share their portion of the responsibility, and stop copping-out.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, most of the responsibility is with the federal government and the minister knows that.
Oral Questions
Every week, from the farmer's point of view, the news gets worse. The Farm Credit Corporation's interest rate goes up, the initial price of wheat goes down-almost by 20 per cent last week-and still there is no money going to the farmers. Canadian farmers are going to be receiving under initial payment almost one-third less than farmers in the United States.
When is the government going to stop jacking farmers around, stop blaming the provincial premiers, and make the payments to the farmers? Seeding is well under way, initial payments are down, and interest rates are up. When is the government going to make the payments?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, we are not jacking the farmers around. As a matter of fact, we are trying our utmost to ensure that the farmers get as much cash in their hands as soon as they possibly can.
The hon. member knows that the record of the government in terms of support for agriculture has been unprecedented.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Now, Don. When are you going to send out the cheques?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: In 1988-1989, for example, in Saskatchewan, the federal government put in $1.7 billion, compared to the Province of Saskatchewan putting in $176 million. That is ten times more than the province put in.
I can refer to Manitoba where in that same year $740 million was provided by the federal government. That is seven times more than that which was provided by the provincial government.
All we are saying, and I ask the hon. member to say with us, it is time that they paid their fair share. That is all we are asking them to do.


FORESTRY
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George -Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is pretty clear to all Canadians that the government is destroying our basic resources, our farms, our fish, and our forests. During National Forestry Week, it is important that we reflect on the importance of those forests.

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At the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association's annual meeting on February 2, the Prime Minister said, in reference to forest agreements, that their importance had not diminished around the Cabinet table and that the government was struggling to find funds for them. Indeed, it has been quite a struggle.
In light of the absence of the Minister of Forestry, I would like to ask the Minister of the Environment if he will give his support to those agreements, fund the required funding requested by the provinces, and ensure that the government does not treat our forests in the same manner by which it has destroyed the Atlantic fisheries.


Mr. Michel Champagne (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Forestry)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer my colleague from British Columbia. He should be aware that the federal government has done a great deal for forestry. Since 1984, we increased funding by over 300 per cent; we renegotiated the agreements with some provinces, like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the negotiations are going well now and that the Minister of Forestry is very conscious of the need to give forestry its fair share, since it is one of the most important sectors of the Canadian economy.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert -Churchill River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister.
In his question, my colleague from Prince George- Bulkley Valley referred to unrenewed forest agreements. As the minister knows, in western Canada these agreements are only part of 26 agreements worth $671 million that have expired since March 31,1989, and have not been renewed. Valuable initiatives in forestry, tourism, northern development, infrastructure development and other areas are on hold and key personnel are being lost.
Therefore, I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister, when will the internal turf wars within the government between regional and sectoral ministries be resolved so that these initiatives can go forward?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that discussions are ongoing. We are very close to reaching conclusions with respect to the agreements to which the hon. member refers. I think I would be fair in saying that these announcements will be made very shortly.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to the Minister of Agriculture. He said in response to the question about support for western farmers that he wants the provinces to pay their fair share.
Is the Deputy Prime Minister aware that the province of Manitoba has already lost close to $100 million from federal government transfer payments? Is he aware that to meet the requirements of the federal cost-sharing plan, the province will have to double its agricultural budget over last year? Is he aware that over 30 per cent of Manitoba farms went up for auction over the past year, while this government is playing financial chicken with the provinces?
In other words, Mr. Speaker, is not the minister putting forward a formula that discriminates against smaller provinces that do not have the financial resources to meet that kind of formula? Will the minister not change the formula to give smaller provinces the chance to help their farmers because they need the help now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question. With regard to the reduction in the rate of increase in transfer payments, we are applying the same discipline to the provinces as we are applying to ourselves in the federal government. We think that that is fair.
With regard to doubling the budget, Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the hon. member. There have been ongoing discussions with the minister of agriculture. They
May 7, 1990

have some programs that would be eligible. What we are discussing are new programs that would help in overcoming the income deficiency for 1990. They have brought on a number of programs that will qualify.
I can assure the hon. member that we are within $8 million of coming up with a matching program. We are at the stage now that for $8 million provided by the province of Manitoba, the farmers would have $72 million in their hands. That money can be distributed in a program that would be designed by the provincial government in close co-operation with the federal government. We think it is fair. I think we are very close and hopefully we will be able to strike a deal very quickly.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I want to put this question to the Minister of Agriculture. Is it not the height of quibbling to put in jeopardy the farms of hundreds of Manitobans for the sake of $8 million? Why does not the federal government simply change its formula rather than pressuring and forcing the smaller provinces to meet its criteria?
The Premier of Saskatchewan has already offered a new eight to one cost-sharing formula. Is it not time for this government to show some flexibility, tolerance and a sense of compromise by responding to the real plight of western farmers at this time? Will the minister not begin to show some compassion for western farmers?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the generosity of this government towards farmers in comparison to the government of which he was a member, is as large as the difference between night and day.
We have provided close to $22 billion in income support to agriculture in the last five and a half years, almost $12 billion going to the western region.
The hon. member knows very well the difficult financial constraints the federal government is in. All we are asking is for the provinces to become a part of the solution.
There are programs that qualify. We said that we would be very flexible. We are being flexible. In fact, we have been able to negotiate with the province of Manito-
Oral Questions
ba to the point where we can get as much money as we possibly can into the hands of the farmers. That is the bottom line. It is not a matter of quibbling over $8 million. It is a matter of getting the greatest amount of money in the hands of the farmers as quickly as we possibly can. That is our goal and that is our objective.


WOMEN'S PROGRAM
Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State and it concerns the temporary restoration of funding for the women's program.
Provinces such as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia will be in no position next year or in the foreseeable future to fund women's centres.
Will the minister undertake to maintain core funding in the women's program permanently and thus relieve the feelings of insecurity of those women depending upon those moneys?


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister responsible for Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, the government has agreed to provide transitional funding for a one-year period to ensure that the services provided by women's centres across this country can continue. Beyond that, we will be entering into a review process involving various federal government departments, provincial governments, the women's centres and I would hope other partners to develop new partnerships to ensure the ongoing work of women's centres to assist women throughout this country.


Mary Catherine Clancy: It was a nice answer but it was not perhaps what I had asked. My supplementary is for the same minister, the Secretary of State.

The government did not restore research funds for the major women's groups.
Since these research groups are largely responsible for shedding light on the difficult situation of women in Canada, is the minister not prepared to go back on his decision and to restore these funds for research?

May 7, 1990
Oral Questions


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, we must live with reality. The budget left us less than $1.6 million for our program. We must not go back. We are in very difficult times. In our program, we have certainly set up a transitional process that will help find other solutions and give a little time to do so. We will try to build partnerships with the provinces and the private sector. But as I said, our program has less money and we have managed the program with the means at our disposal.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Amnesty International, with many other Canadians, has urged the minister not to deport Mohamed Ahmet Said to Kenya today, as is scheduled, because two other rejected refugee claimants deported by Canada to Kenya in recent months were imprisoned, beaten, and interrogated about other Kenyans in Canada by the Kenyan government. Mr. Said has offered to pay his own passage to any other country than Kenya, if Canada will assist him to go there and settle in safety.
Will the minister assure this House that Said will not be deported to Kenya but will be allowed to make other arrangements.


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his interest in this case, which I know is a very sensitive one. I have looked into the case, as have others, and I am not prepared at this point to provide the guarantee that the hon. member has asked for.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Mr. Said who, as the minister will know, has desperately resisted forcible removal, has also told the detention centre psychiatrist on the record, that he would rather die than return to Kenya.
He has also signed a stafgfnent, which I sent to the minister, saying that an immigration officer warned him that if he makes a noise during removal, and I quote, "the police and doctor will know what to do". He is
evidently referring to a practice of administering drugs without consent to make deportation easier.
Will the minister confirm that it is the government's policy to administer drugs without consent to make deportation easier?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, this is another very sensitive issue that I know both the hon. member and myself have some interest in. It is a very difficult one. From time to time, a medical attendant is required when people are being deported. This is not simply a practice of our people. It is a practice that has to do with the safety of the person involved and the safety of other passengers.
We certainly expect any decisions to be taken with sensitivity and that they are taken as a result of what the medical attendant views as what is required.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question which involves the Ministry of National Revenue. First, I would like to commend the government for its acknowledgement of the hardships experienced by the community of Summerside resulting from the closure of CFB Summerside and taking this opportunity to restore some economic balance to the community and to the region.
Given last Thursday's announcement that a GST data processing centre will be located in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, I would like to ask if a similar facility will be required in western Canada and, if so, will regional development factors be taken into consideration once this decision is made?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Not only will Canadian consumers and businesses benefit as a result of the change from the very bad federal sales tax, which is now going to be replaced with a much fairer GST, value added form of a tax, but all regions, provinces and territories will benefit equally.
[DOT]t*


FISHERIES
Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs who chaired a special cabinet committee on the east coast fisheries.
Since the needs of the Atlantic Canadian lobster fishermen were not addressed in the fisheries package, will the minister specify whether or not there will be a separate support package for the lobster fishermen?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, as I think the hon. member knows, that question is under active consideration by my colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who will be in the House tomorrow and the rest of the week.


Lawrence MacAulay: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister. Given that the fishermen will lose $30 million this year alone because of the American size restrictions and that the Prime Minister failed to keep his promise that he would protect the lobster fishermen, can the minister assure us that there will be meaningful and adequate assistance for the lobster fishermen in the Atlantic regions?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, with great respect, I think I responded to that question. The member added a new element to it when he talked about an undertaking by the Prime Minister. I take it that was the undertaking by the Prime Minister to raise the question of lobster size with the President of the United States.
The Prime Minister raised that question. We then followed with other trade actions. It was not a trade action that we won. There has been a preliminary decision that is causing concern throughout the industry.
I know the hon. member would not want to leave upon the record the false impression that unfortunately his question left that the Prime Minister had undertaken to
Oral Questions
do something which he had not done. The Prime Minister gave an undertaking and acted on.


PETRO-CANADA
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is again for the Minister of Energy. Last week, the minister told this House that he would discuss Petro-Canada's dealings with the dictatorship of Myanmar, commonly known as Burma, with his colleagues.
Has the minister had an opportunity for this discussion, and does he have any decision to report to the House?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I indicated that the position of Petro-Canada in Myanmar would be looked at. There was a review done by the officials of Petro-Canada. Mr. Folkes, who spoke on behalf of Petro-Canada, indicated that Petro-Canada was going to remain in Myanmar and fulfil the contract terms that they had signed.


Mr. Speaker:: A single question from the hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, my question concerns Environment Canada's wimpish record in the province of Ontario. Last year, not a single prosecution against polluters was pursued in Ontario. The government has now allowed new transport of dangerous goods across the Detroit River, starting today, despite objections from every single Canadian municipality affected.
I want to ask the Minister of the Environment why this government has refused to act against Ontario polluters and why it has rejected public environmental assessment hearings on this Windsor barge which threatens so many people in my community.


Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member refers to a report in today's newspaper about this question. The report mentioned that not more than one charge had been laid

May 7, 1990
Routine Proceedings
against the polluter involved with dioxins being discharged in the water.
The hon. member should know that there exists no regulations to control dioxins and furans. These toxins have been discovered quite recently. We are acting very quickly. The new regulations will be in force next month to virtually eliminate dioxins and furans from Canada.
As far as the fishery is concerned enforcement of regulations in Ontario is the responsibility of the provincial government, so the hon. member should put this question to the provincial government.


Mr. Speaker:: I express my apologies to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre who had a supplemental question.


PETRO-CANADA
David Walker: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. It concerns the same question.
Because of the seriousness of the human rights violations in Myanmar, a Special Committee of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has chosen to examine this country through a confidential procedure. Considering the seriousness under which the United Nations views the abuses, and given what the minister of energy just told us, what is the position of Canada on this UN procedure?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the position of Canada on UN procedures with respect to human rights has been to co-operate with them fully, even when they had to do with investigations into Canadian practices.
I would expect that we would participate fully in any UN investigation of the situation in Myanmar which, as my colleague and I have indicated in the House on earlier occasions, concerns Canada very much. It concerns Canada not simply with regard to the specific matter he has raised here respecting the commercial activities of a Canadian company but also the practice of that government of jailing the Leader of the Opposition and of making it virtually impossible for persons from outside to come in to observe the so-called election.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 38, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 93 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ORDER IN COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS


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



POINT OF ORDER


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, concerning Ministers' Statements on Friday last the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing, our deputy House leader, asked the government House leader whether we would have a ministerial statement from the Minister of Forestry in light of the importance of National Forestry Week.
I was not in the House on Friday. I have checked the record but I stand to be corrected. I am wondering, given the importance of forestry to the country and it being
May 7, 1990

National Forestry Week, if we can expect a statement from the minister on National Forestry Week.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated on Friday, you can expect the minister to be in touch with the person who originally raised the matter when the minister is back in Ottawa. He is away on government business at the moment.



COMPETITION ACT


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-299, an act to amend the Competition Act (class action).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the hon. member have leave to introduce the bill?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to provide for class actions. This would allow consumers to get together to bring a class action where they have received a collective injustice in the market-place.


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


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-300, an act to amend the Criminal Code (obscenity).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall the hon. member have leave to introduce the bill?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, subsequent to my statement in the House on February 8, I would like to introduce a private member's bill which amends the Criminal Code with regard to obscene mailings.
Late last year three Canadian forces bases in Ontario were the target of a catalogue mailing from a lingerie company. The catalogue was unwrapped and contained pictures that bordered on being pornographic. People on these bases were outraged and offended by this mailing.
Routine Proceedings
This private member's bill introduces amendments that would render the practice of delivering unsolicited visually obscene materials through the mail illegal.


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

Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I think this petition on the forest resource development agreement between British Columbia and Canada is appropriate. I know Your Honour understands the importance of it. I wish the Minister of Forestry who has made five commitments to sign this agreement would get on with the job and help replant our forests.
This agreement is critical to the province of British Columbia and the other provinces which have forest agreements that have expired.


Ms. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present petitions signed by thousands of Canadians opposed to the goods and services tax. I am submitting today over 3,000 petitions from Canadians who are angered at the callous indifference of this government to hear their plea to reverse such a regressive tax.
These Canadians are also calling on taxpayers to join them Saturday, May 12, at noon on Parliament Hill to show that Canadians everywhere are strongly opposed to the goods and services tax.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I have the honour and duty to present a petition certified correct by the clerk of petitions.
It contains the signatures of members of the United Senior Citizens of Ontario Incorporated who say in this petition that the Government of Canada has introduced charges that will reduce home keeping services to veterans and substantially increase the cost of long-term care.
Whereas our veterans have already given service to this country and should not be targetted by these

May 7, 1990
Routine Proceedings
measures, they call upon Parliament, therefore, to reject those budget measures that deprive veterans of proper services and increase their financial hardship.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36.
While looking at the tulip beds on the weekend I went around and talked to people asking if they would be interested in signing the petition against the GST. Everyone that I approached wanted to sign the petition, and some actually wanted to take copies home with them and get their family and friends to sign it.
This points out that obviously a lot of people oppose the GST and they have listed their names here.
I have another petition to present from Kamloops where the petitioners are curious that the government is taxing reading. I think it makes us the only country in the world that will tax reading by imposing the GST on reading material. They are obviously opposing this initiative by the government.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my privilege to present several hundred signatures from Canadians across this country. Your petitioners ask the government to withdraw the goods and services tax because it is a regressive tax that will increase inflation, cause interest rates to rise and have a negative impact on all Canadians. They therefore call upon Parliament and this government to withdraw a measure that is totally regressive and unacceptable.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 today to present petitions signed by Canadians opposed to the goods and services tax.
These petitions have been circulated by citizens who are calling on taxpayers to join them at the rally on Parliament Hill on Saturday, May 12, at noon, to show
that Canadians are opposed to the government's goods and services tax.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition, signed by Canadians opposed to the goods and services tax, calling on Parliament to reject the tax.
These petitions have been circulated by citizens who are calling on taxpayers to join them at a rally on Parliament Hill on Saturday, May 12, at noon, to show the government that Canadians are opposed to the goods and services tax.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a large number of veterans in the constituency of Notre-Dame-de-Grace. It asks Parliament to reject those measures in the budget which reduce home keeping services to veterans and substantially increase the cost of long-term care for veterans.
The petition goes on to say our veterans have already given great service to this country and should not be targeted by these cruel measures.


Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to deposit for the government's attention hundreds of petitioners who have written and urged this government to go back to the drawing-board with reference to the GST. Not only is it going to hurt average Canadians and their families coast to coast. It is also going to prove to be a hardship for the small business sector across this country.
We urge all Canadians, once again on May 12, at noon in front of Parliament Hill, to come and demonstrate some solidarity so that finally this government can listen and hear the voices and messages coming from average day Canadians right across this country.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table pursuant to Standing Order 36 a petition signed by thousands of Canadians living in and around the community of Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia. These Canadians are upset with the Canada Post decision to shut down their post office.
May 7, 1990

They humbly pray and call upon Parliament to instruct the government not to shut down the post office at Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia.
I would like to thank Gordon Wilson, leader of the Liberal Party of British Columbia, for circulating this petition which was so successful in obtaining so many names.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have another petition signed by 430 people from the great riding of Glengarry-Prescott- Russell who petition Parliament and call upon the government not to proceed with the GST, the grief and suffering tax.
These people also want to join all of us this Saturday, May 12, on Parliament Hill at noon, to oppose the goods and services tax. I would like to call upon all Canadians to join them in protesting this unfair measure on May 12, at noon, right here on Parliament Hill.


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add yet another approximately 3,000 names of individuals in the national capital region who have signed petitions asking the government to rethink, reconsider and withdraw its regressive goods and services tax.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, the beat goes on, and I would like once again, enthusiastically, to rise and present petitions signed by a total of 4,263 people-mostly in Edmonton and area-against the goods and services tax.
The people of Edmonton are just going to keep signing these petitions, and I am just going to keep presenting them in this House until the government withdraws that tax.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I have a total of close to 3,000 signatures of people from the constituency of Essex-Windsor, all protesting against the goods and services tax.
These constituents see this tax, very clearly, as a tax which will strongly hurt their communities, and unfairly discriminate against many people such as themselves.
I have a second petition, which is signed by approximately 300 people.
Routine Proceedings
This petition points specifically to the GST being levied on skating expenses. The petitioners are especially concerned about the significant financial burden on the families of young athletes, which will be the consequence of this.
Mr. Speaker, I know you would be especially interested in seeing a petition such as this presented to the House of Commons.


Raymond John Funk: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by people from several communities in Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan.
The petitioners call on the government to show some respect for aboriginal peoples, the traditional use of their lands and for Canada to seek new initiatives for peace through common security.
In order to give some substance to this, the petitioners are calling on the government to end all NATO and NORAD low-level flights in Canada. In particular, they oppose the establishment of a tactical fighter and weapons training centre in Goose Bay, Labrador.
Instead, the petitioners are asking that these funds be directed toward enabling Canada's aboriginal people to regain control of their lands and livelihood, and by promoting sustainable development.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Edmonton indicated just a moment ago, the beat goes on with the goods and services tax.
I would like, also, to stand pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present yet another petition against the government's goods and services tax legislation.
These petitioners have asked the government to withdraw this legislation and to come up with some reasonable tax alternatives and reasonable tax reform.
I might add that this is the 312th petition that I have presented, representing a total of almost 15,000 voters in my constituency, which is about 28 per cent of the registered voters in Okanagan-Shuswap. I think you can see from that, Mr. Speaker, that people in the interior region of British Columbia feel very strongly against this GST, and are asking the government to please withdraw the legislation.

May 7, 1990
Government Orders


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora -Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I would like to rise today to present a petition signed by Canadians opposed to the goods and services tax.
I think it is time for the government to start listening to Canadians as it relates to legislation that is not acceptable to them, and to not listen to the rhetoric of the Prime Minister who suggests that, no matter whether he is at 15 or 20 per cent, come election time he will be back to form a majority government.
Soon petitions will be presented in the House that say that if the government does not listen, it will stay at the rate it is at now and that it will not be climbing any higher.
Also, these petitioners would like me to inform the House that there will be a rally on Parliament Hill on May 12 at noon to again suggest to the government how much they hate this particular tax, and to ask the government to rescind it.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I too have a petition from a number of constituents with reference to the GST, whose battle is not over yet.
These petitioners are concerned, as I am, about the GST taxing a number of things including haircuts, coffins, diapers and so on. They are especially concerned about the tax on reading material, which would make us the first country in the western world to do that.
They have proposed an alternative to the GST; which is fair tax reform, an effective tax on wealthy individuals and corporations so that they pay their fair share. They want the government not to shift the tax burden onto ordinary Canadians through this regressive consumption tax, but to have thorough and real tax reform. I would like to table this petition.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition to this House, signed by a number of residents of Vancouver Quadra.
I note that the persons who signed this petition did so at the behest of the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, who knows of the strong objections that these constituents have taken to the clawback provisions proposed to
the old age pensions in Canada. These petitioners call upon Parliament to reject any legislation that would impose such a clawback.
I know that the legislation has passed this House, but it sits in the other place. Perhaps we will have the privilege of debating it again, if they follow the wishes of these constituents and reject it, as I am sure is urged by the members of the New Democratic Party.
I should add that these constituents are pleased to have a member in this House who will stand up and assert their rights, when so many of the members of Parliament from the province of British Columbia are on the government side and have voted for this pernicious legislation.


Albert Glen Cooper: If Question No. 230 could be made an an Order for Return, this return would be tabled immediately.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 230 be deemed to have been made an Order for Return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Saint-Julien: For each year since 1981, for each province, were funds allocated
by the government for research and development in the area of (a)
nuclear power (b) coal (c) gold, copper and zinc mines and, if so,
what amounts?
Return tabled.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to consideration of the Senate amendments to Bill C-21, an Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act.
May 7, 1990
Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to initiate the response from the government to the second message from the other place respecting Bill C-21, An Act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act.
I must begin by noting that once again,-a bill to provide new unemployment insurance benefits and to provide additional resources for training-a bill which meets the real needs of Canadian workers-has been needlessly delayed.

The benefits and the imperative to meet the needs of workers in Canada have been lost in the storm of rhetoric which has surrounded this bill. Many of our critics seem to believe that nothing in the world has changed, and that our training and unemployment insurance policies need not change either. Perhaps worse still is that the critics, both in this House and outside, are prepared to accept the argument of the unelected Liberal senators that the Senate has used, and ought to use, a power to change the spending priorities of an elected government.
Even those who, as a matter of principle, have traditionally opposed the exercise of power by an unelected Senate, have now given precedence to expediency because it suits their immediate purposes. We believe that the use of that power by the Senate is unconscionable on moral and democratic grounds, and that it is unacceptable on policy grounds.
If we in this Chamber, not just the government, but all of us, accept the message from the Senate, the situation of working Canadian women and men will deteriorate, and the powers of the House of Commons will be eroded for partisan, political and manipulative purposes. This Chamber, and all of us in it representing our constituents, have the opportunity to rise above such narrow and misguided thinking. It has the chance to help Canadian workers and their employers face the challenges of a world market-place as we head toward another century.
It is my intention today to draw the attention of members to the issues, and what is really at the heart of this government's bill. Members of this House must understand that continued inaction poses a very real
Government Orders
threat to Canadian workers from coast to coast. Members of this House must continue to oppose the shortsighted and opportunistic stance taken by the opponents of this bill.

After outlining the benefits that will come from Bill C-21,1 will then respond, in detail, to the message from the Senate.
First, however, I feel compelled to comment on the constitutional situation which faces all of us.
Let me remind hon. members that the Hon. Speaker advised that only we in this House can break the impasse over this issue.
This House, and this House alone, can define its rights and privileges and this House and this House alone can defend itself against the actions of those unelected persons in the other place.
This House must defend its historic right to initiate and direct the financial policy of the elected government. This is not simply a theoretical exercise, but a defence of one of the key principles of responsible government. The battle for this right was won generations ago and we must protect its integrity.
The budgetary power is not one that governments take lightly. It is one for which we are accountable to the Canadian people, as is every government which receives its authority from the ballot box.

Those in the other place do not have the same form of accountability and this House cannot let them take that authority from us. This government is simply not prepared to abandon its responsibilities by acceding to the demands of a group of Liberal senators who are caught in some historical time warp. This is not a time for anachronism, it is a time for action.

Let me remind members of the point raised in the ruling of the Hon. Speaker last Thursday, when he cited experts in the field.
The Senate has- accepted as binding on itself the proposition that it should not unduly disturb what has come to be called "the balance of ways and means" or, as Hopkins says, "that it would be inadmissible to tamper with the overall financial program submitted by the government in its budgetary proposals in such a way as to effect a material change in the budgetary surplus or deficit".

May 7, 1990
Government Orders

Yet, that is precisely what they wish to do with this bill.
Liberal senators claim that they have public support for their actions and their threats. We understand better than most that some people and groups do not support some elements in this bill. Thoughtful analysts all recognize that there is a very real difference between expressing concern about this legislation and supporting unelected Senators as they attack the rights of the elected Chamber. That understanding has been echoed in editorials and columns in newspapers all across this country as recently as this weekend. We have something from The Ottawa Citizen, The Toronto Star, The Gazette in Montreal. We have another column in The Toronto Star and we have something from The Financial Post. This is just in the last few days, Mr. Speaker. We have all these over the last few months.
That is the kind of thoughtful analysis around this kind of issue that is important to all of us on all sides of the House, and they have all called on the Senate to recognize that it is not playing its legitimate role in what it is doing in this debate. There is a large body of well-informed opinion that understands, even if some Liberals in the Senate do not, that what that Chamber claims it can do has no relationship to what it should do.
Perhaps most important, and perhaps what it should not do the most, is to presume to tell this House how many dollars to spend. Dollars, let me remind everyone, that come from the taxpayers who elected us in this Chamber. This House adopted the budget of April 27, 1989, and Bill C-21 is an integral part of that decision. With this message the Liberals in the Senate want us to increase those expenditures under that budget by about $1.75 billion a year.
On what basis, what authority? My colleagues say we cannot afford it. Also, on what basis and what authority can they make this claim? I ask that particularly of the members of the NDP to answer today. As the hon. speaker noted in Britain in the Mother of Parliaments, the Upper House ceded its right to reject or amend money bills like C-21 in 1911. Mr. Speaker, that is even before you and I were born.
Unfortunately we have yet to see such a concession to responsible and representative government in this country-at least officially. However, if one reviews the record of the other place and the decisions during periods of Liberal governments in the past half century, one finds a striking respect for the British tradition.

Our government has a mandate to act and Bill C-21 flows directly from that mandate. This bill is part of our commitment specifically to provide Canadians with the best training and adjustment programs possible and more generally with our policies for economic renewal.
Canadians understand that. While Liberal Senators appeal to special interest groups to make hollow claims about the support of Canadians for their anti-democratic actions, we know differently.

Recent public opinion polls have shown that a strong majority of Canadians support the idea of using UI funds to train unemployed people so that they can find and keep better jobs. Last year, for example, a Decima poll and a study by Environics each found that about two-thirds of Canadians supported our plans to shift UI funds to job training programs. A more recent Decima poll confirmed that degree of support.

Canadians want to know that the UI system is being used properly and effectively. Bill C-21 offers proper and effective uses and it builds on our experience with employment programs.
When this government took office in 1984, we looked at the range of programs and services in place to train workers and to support the economic development of communities across this country.
We saw that the old style of job creation and training programs simply did not reflect the needs of a changing economy. Obviously, programs which did not reflect genuine economic needs could not meet the needs of workers who looked to the government for assistance.
Our government recognized this problem and it acted. The result was the Canadian Jobs Strategy, which has been a successful response to the requirement for a modern workforce.
May 7, 1990

CJS has broken the "makework" stigma of previous programs. It has resulted in success stories all across this country-because those programs reflected real requirements for training and upgrading workers.
CJS marked the creation of a partnership between the private and public sectors to meet labour market challenges.
Still, with experience, it became clear that more could be done and more had to be done.

Something that we concern ourselves about is that worker productivity is one of the basic criteria for competitiveness in the world economy today. I think we would all agree on that in this Chamber. For that reason, it should concern all members of this House that the productivity of Canadian workers has grown much more slowly than that of workers in Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom.
When we recognize that investment in training is a key to increased productivity, we must ask how Canada fares. The sorry fact is that Canadian employers lag behind those in other countries when it comes to training their employees. We have had discussions on what comes from Statistics Canada as to which peoples and numbers are more accurate, the private sector's or ours, but however it is measured, the important point is that Canada is low. That is simply in today's world unacceptable.
The Canadian labour markets needs an active labour market policy, not a passive one, that assists the private sector, workers and employers, to respond to the increasing pace of change in the labour force created by the global economy. An active labour market policy draws on all tools to help workers and employers to adapt to changing situations.

On April 11, 1989, I announced plans for just such a policy, the Labour Force Development Strategy. Bill C-21 will give that policy life.
I would like to bring members up-to-date on some of the steps which have been taken so far with the LFDS, and to underline the important work which remains to be done, work which cannot take place until C-21 has been passed.
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The Labour Force Development Strategy is made up of a variety of components which build on our experience with training Canadian workers.
The success of CJS partnerships provided a foundation for more significant changes in labour market policy. These changes will assist the Canadian private sector in developing a training culture-an approach which places a real value on improving the skills which workers bring to their jobs.
Members should recognize that this partnership is at the core of LFDS, but until C-21 has been passed by both Houses, we can only take tentative steps.
Some have already been taken. To ensure the success of LFDS, I wanted advice not only from officials but from the people who depend most on the success of our employment policies. I wanted to hear what business and labour had to say, in concrete terms, about labour market needs.
To that end, we sponsored a series of task forces under the auspices of the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre. They have recently completed reviews of many areas of labour market policies, programs and services. They have provided me with valuable advice. But until this bill passes, it can only stay advice. In fact, if the Liberals in the Senate carry out their threats to defeat this bill, then the entire exercise will have been a waste, not just of time and energy, but a waste of the futures of many working Canadians.

Here is the report to which I am referring, full of good recommendations for Canadian workers. We urgently need to implement new programs for Canadian workers. We also need to expand existing programs which have proven their value.
First, we must do more in Canada in the area of human resource planning. Employers used to be able to count on an increasing stream of young workers who could learn simple jobs quickly and who, year after year, came out of school into the labour force. Those days are over. Occupations now require more skills and more training and at the same time the number of young people entering the work force is declining. Employers no longer have the luxury of that broad choice of young people.

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Effective human resource planning is a partial answer to those programs. Employers and workers need to know what skills are going to be required and how to prepare themselves accordingly. Our labour force development strategy will provide funding to encourage such planning.
We have already had success with groups in industries such as automotive repair and services, electrical and electronic manufacturing, in helping them to identify the skills that are needed in years to come and to take action to meet those needs. Passage of Bill C-21 will allow us to expand those efforts greatly.
Human resource planning also allows us to address another important issue, something I would think that the NDP also would be particularly interested in, and that is employment equity. Aboriginals, women, disabled Canadians, new Canadians and older workers have been shut out of many skilled jobs. That is wrong from the standpoint of fairness and it is also wrong for Canada economically. Human resource planning, making business and the workplace part of the solution can address this problem and it will ensure that all Canadians have a chance for the good jobs of tomorrow. However, the financial resources which we need to carry out this work are inadequate for the task as long as C-21 remains in limbo.
Another aspect of labour force development would be improvements to entry level training. Increased qualifications for jobs have meant that too many of our young people lack the skills to meet even the most basic requirements of employers today.
Some months ago I announced the Stay-in-School program that will encourage young people to finish their high school education. The LFDS will ensure that students have the basic skills needed to help enter a more complicated job market. For instance, LFDS will allow the government to quadruple its support for co-op education. That has proven to be a valuable program for youth.
We will work with the provinces and territories to improve programs like apprenticeship. Again, those programs need funds and, again, we need Bill C-21 to provide those funds.

Third, many members will be aware of the work of Employment and Immigration's Industrial Adjustment
Service. Staff from IAS work with employers and workers facing major changes such as large-scale expansions or layoffs.
Through LFDS, we have proposed to double the funds available to this service.

The fourth item, one that is of particular interest to members on all sides of the House in all regions of Canada, is Community Futures. It is one of our most productive tools to assist small and rural communities. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is one of the most productive tools of any government in the history of Canada. Experience proves that the best economic plans are those that are developed by the people in a community, wherever it may be, and members on all sides of the House have strongly supported and lauded the Community Futures Program. Bill C-21 would provide an additional $50 million for this program for over 200 communities.
I see people in the Chamber today who are looking for assistance for their communities, who have benefited from this program in the past, and, under Bill C-21, who will benefit from it in the future.
In addition to improvements in existing programs, we propose to do much more through the Labour Force Development Strategy to help those who are unemployed. The Unemployment Insurance Program has been in place in Canada for 50 years. But it is no longer enough today just to provide cash to the unemployed. We have to do more. We have to offer these people a way out of unemployment. We have to offer them a better future, more secure and more stable.
So what are we going to do? First, an additional 60,000 people could receive training, in addition to their UI benefits, if Bill C-21 passes. We intend to devote $350 million-are you listening over there?-


An hon. member:: Yes.


Barbara Jean McDougall: -to this training effort. That is $350 million to meet a demand that is evident across the country. Unemployed people have told us through our labour market surveys that they know themselves that they cannot get jobs because they do not have the skills and that they want those skills.
Second, many more Canadians would be able to start their own businesses through the use of UI funds, or to move to areas where jobs are more plentiful. That does
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not necessarily mean across the country, but maybe within their own region or province. We have proposed to set aside $45 million for those programs. We cannot act until this bill passes.
On another front, one of the most exciting developments that the government has introduced in job training has been the joint federal-provincial efforts to help social assistance recipients escape from the welfare trap. In towns and cities all across Canada, thousands of men and women have received the help they asked for to learn the skills necessary to improve their lives and the lives of their families in the future by getting themselves out of that welfare system.
The LFDS would allocate an additional $50 million to this program for some of the poorest people in our country. With matching contributions from the Canada Assistance Plan, from the provinces and territories, a total of 200 million new dollars could be right there, ready to go into action on behalf of these people. That money could be at work now if we had moved on this bill. It is not at work now and every day of delay impedes the abilities of Canadians in the most difficult circumstances, to build better lives for themselves and their loved ones.

Older workers represent a special case. Most members have been approached by constituents who have lost jobs that they had held for many years. Older workers can face a difficult time finding new jobs for many reasons.
LFDS contains measures which would help these people in addition to the other retraining programs. One hundred million dollars would be available-$100 million-if C-21 were implemented. We could be implementing these programs today. We are not. And every day that we are held back, is another day in which unemployed people are left to live with a situation we all know is unsatisfactory.

Members will be well aware that much of our training activity is done in co-operation with other levels of government. Community colleges and training councils across the country have the expertise so necessary for these programs. In the past, we have developed individu-
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al agreements with provinces and territories which respect the interests and the contributions of both parties.
In January, we embarked on negotiations for a new generation of training agreements that will represent what the provinces themselves have accurately described as a new partnership. There is general agreement that the prospects for this partnership are excellent.
Elowever, in the absence of Bill C-21, the resources that we bring to this task will be severely limited. That is why the provinces are anxiously awaiting this bill, so that we can get on with that job.
Since our debate today is a result of the action of Liberal senators, it is worth taking a moment to review what we have agreed to previously. I understand the role of the other place, as we all do. When the Senate sent its first message to the House, the government found some issues to which it was prepared to agree. We agreed to affirm explicitly that basic skills and literacy training could be funded. We felt that that was implicit but agreed to put that in for greater clarity.
We agreed to provide greater detail in the annual developmental uses plan which would show how the government intended to use the money provided under the UI Act, and we agreed that any proposed repeal of the system of UI benefits for self-employed fishermen would require parliamentary approval. We agreed.
Despite our sincere attempts to accommodate the concerns expressed, the Liberals in the Senate have simply chosen, virtually to reiterate all of their original demands.

Recommendations 2(a), (b) and (c) in the message would eliminate the government's ability to pay for some types of help to workers from the UI account.
In the bill, this House agreed that it was reasonable to call on the UI fund for certain types of payments-ones which were an investment in people's futures.
We agreed that the cost of training course, the cost of relocating people to areas where their chances of finding work are better, allowing workers to use UI benefits to fund self-employment or for earnings supplements were all appropriate measures.

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The Liberals in the Senate disagree. They prefer to see the deficit rise to pay for these improvements.

As a responsible government, we cannot allow that to happen. We believe it is better to use UI funds for this sort of active assistance to help people stay off UI permanently.
It is not only this government that believes in innovative uses. Let me quote the Premier of Newfoundland, Mr. Wells. When we proposed this change, Mr. Wells said: "I must say that I think it indicates that the federal government is going in the right direction-and that is just what I have been asking for."
Members in the House should reflect on Mr. Wells' other comments in which he saw this use of UI as a springboard for economic development. He said: "That is the kind of thing we will be using, what will otherwise be paid out as unemployment insurance to provide meaningful long-term employment."
I do not very often agree with Premier Wells, but I agree with him on this. I would think that people of the same political persuasion might take a look at this. I hope that Premier Wells' province and others will find ways to work with people who want to take advantage of the opportunities that Bill C-21 will provide. But first, we need this bill to become law.
We continue to oppose Recommendations 3(a) and (b). The latter is a minor wording change related to Recommendation 2. The other recommendation, 3(a), seeks to impose a new level of bureaucracy on the process of helping people to take advantage of the new opportunities that Bill C-21 will offer. By creating a complex appeal system on an issue that really does not lend itself to adjudication, precious time and money will be lost.
This recommendation also would prevent the government from designing the special programs needed to help the unemployed which is what this bill is all about. Let me give you an example.
A skilled worker is laid off from the factory where he or she has worked for many years. That worker has never been unemployed before and wants to go back to work. He or she has thought about the possibility of starting a business. The way the law is written right now, if the worker does that, he or she will be cut off from unemployment insurance because the act says that people have to be available for work. Clearly, self-employed people are not available to seek work from other people.
I do not think that my hypothetical worker should have to go through that. I think my worker should have that choice. The government thinks that that is only fair, and we want to have the ability to write special rules for cases like this. If the House accepts Recommendation 3(a), there will be no special rules to help these workers. Bill C-21 will give us that ability.
Recommendations 4 (c) and 4 (d) deal with issues on which we have made some concessions to the Senate during our last debate on this subject. We have agreed to provide greater detail in the annual developmental uses plan.

However, we cannot accept the degree of detail that the Liberal Senators have demanded. We cannot take a plan that is intended to be responsive and flexible to changing economic needs and force it into a kind of straitjacket that has been fastened by the people in the other place.
Let me explain that a developmental plan is just that. It is a plan that would be developed months before the fiscal year begins and while one could project probable expenditures by a province, it would be nearly impossible to try and estimate how much would be spent in each town or each economic region.
What the Liberals in the Senate want us to say is: "We're sorry, we would really like to help you, but when we developed our plan last year we did not really know that your main employer was going to require skill training to double his work force or was going to move his plant". That would be the impact of that recommendation.
Under our proposal we would have the ability to move funds to the areas where the needs are the greatest during the fiscal year. That is simply good management.
To do what the Liberals want is to force people and communities to fit our programs. We want programs to fit people. Further, we could never give those same Senators the veto over the developmental uses plan that they demand. They point out that there are precedents for Senate veto and they promised to use it judicially. I
May 7, 1990

think that members in this House can only reflect on our current debate to question that promise.
With recommendations 5(a) and 5(b) we come to the question of people who quit their jobs without cause and who expect the UI system to support them. More than $1 billion goes to these people annually. Right now they face a disqualification period of between one and six weeks. We are proposing to increase that to seven to 12 weeks and to restrict the amount of benefits they would get when they do become eligible.
We recognize that certain conditions can force people to quit jobs and that is why in the original bill we talked about "without just cause" because the assumption was that there is of course just cause. However, at report stage I accepted the comments made by many witnesses before the legislative committee regarding the need to identify and strengthen what those causes may be and those who quit for reasons such as, for example, sexual harassment, something to which we are very sensitive.
Once again, that had been our intent and we did it for greater clarity. It will protect claimants who had no reasonable choice but to quit. They will not have to serve a disqualification period.
Claimants who do quit jobs without just cause may find another one before the disqualification has been completely served. In those cases, we have proposed to carry over the unserved part of the disqualification to the next claim that the person makes. If the claimant works for 20 weeks we waive the penalty. But if not, we would propose to carry it over for up to six years.
The Senate had asked us in recommendation 5(b) to reduce this to two years and we agreed to this recommendation. We did not agree to it in the previous message because it will have some impact on our ability to fund the Labour Force Development Strategy. I would remind members that every dollar we take off the one side is not available for the other side. But we do recognize the value of compromise and we are committed to some very fundamental principles, but we are not intransigent. For that reason we are going to accept this recommendation.
However, I would like to underscore for this Chamber that in virtually every other country people who quit their job voluntarily never have access to unemployment
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insurance. We are one of the very few countries that does that at all, for cause or not for cause.
Recommendation six would inhibit our ability to form effective partnerships with other groups interested in training.
In the Labour Force Development Strategy we envision contracts with outside groups to provide training or other services. These are legitimate costs to program administration, as if they were being carried out in Canada Employment Centres. And we believe they should be treated in a similar manner to other administrative costs. Liberal senators think not. They would rather cut the money available for developmental uses by forcing these costs into that budget.
Every dollar for administration is a dollar not spent on training. For that reason, members will understand why this recommendation cannot be accepted by this House.
Recommendation seven is one which attempts to overturn the right of the elected House to set a budget and to act on it.
In recognition of current fiscal realities, we have decided that the federal government cannot continue to contribute to the UI account. We have determined that the people who benefit, whether they are workers who can count on support from UI when they become unemployed-remember it is employed people who pay the premiums-or employers who know that UI can help them keep good workers, can and must pay for the system which provides those benefits.
The Liberals in the other place have said that they do not agree. They believe that spending an additional $1.75 billion a year from general revenues makes sense. They believe that pushing up the deficit to pay for these benefits also makes sense.
It is exactly that kind of financial thinking that got this country into the mess we are trying to clean up. We cannot accept that kind of short-sighted thinking. I would remind them as well that in a way we are talking about the same pocket. Who pays taxes? Businesses and people who are working pay taxes. Who pays premiums for unemployment insurance? Businesses, employers who pay the higher proportion and workers who are employed. We are talking about the same pocket. We are talking about the same people. That is something that this government understands. There is only one taxpayer

May 7, 1990
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out there and he or she pays either way. By doing it this way we do not add to the deficit.
This government was elected in 1984 and again in 1988 largely because Canadians understood which party could be counted on to manage effectively.
I do not have to dwell on the strides this government has made in controlling the growth of public expenditures to bring the deficit in line. However, I should point out to hon. members opposite that they should tell their colleagues in the other place that recommendations like these can only weaken Canada's economy by driving up government spending, or driving up the deficit.
We cannot accept the demand that we spend more, nor can we accept what is a veiled claim to power. As you yourself, Mr. Speaker, stated in your eloquent ruling:
There are many Canadians-who have no idea whatsoever of the
awesome powers which the Senate claims to itself over the elected
lower House.
You also noted that the House for many years had defended its rightful role against these claims. Sir Wilfrid Laurier did just that in 1917 and we must do the same today. Some Liberal senators have said the same thing. I quote Senator MacEachen speaking on a borrowing bill in 1985: "I think if we did amend the bill in any serious way, or if we defeated it, I think that would be quite arrogant". Let me quote Senator Frith: "There may be 100 reasons why we should not in the Senate yield to the House and only one reason why we should, and if that one reason is that the Commons is elected and the Senate is not, then that is reason enough to yield". That is what we are talking about here today.
Let me go on to Recommendation eight, which deals with benefits for fishermen. Because of our continued concern about the viability of the fishing industry, our government has taken action on a number of fronts, as we have seen even today. Yet we still see Liberal Senators and other groups spread fear among people for blatantly partisan ends.
Let me state again what I have stated before. Fishermen will not see their benefits disappear. In the interests of conciliation however-and I am a conciliatory person,
Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you and many others would acknowledge- we have decided to respond to the Senate's continued concerns about the regulations which govern benefits for self-employed fishermen.
The government is determined to respond constructively to the needs of fishermen, and I say that in all seriousness. We recognize that UI plays an important role in the economies of their communities.
For these reasons, we will amend the bill to ensure that the House of Commons has a full opportunity to review and debate any changes to regulations on fishermen's benefits.
For reasons noted earlier, I cannot, in all good conscience, extend the power to review these regulations to the Senate.
Elected members, and remember that is what we have been talking about today, who are directly accountable for their actions to the people of Canada, are the people who should take those important decisions.
Those who owe their office to appointment, capable as they may be, and I would certainly recognize that there are many capable people in the other place, do not have the same accountability and they cannot be given the same powers.
With Recommendation nine, we return to the fiscal issue that I raised while discussing Recommendation seven. Whether Liberal Senators choose to accept it or not, the fact of the matter is that this government has had to make hard decisions regarding where best to use very limited funds.
Previous Liberal governments, including the one in which Senator MacEachen was Minister of Finance, shrank from those decisions when they had an opportunity to act responsibly.
What was the result? It was a veritable mountain of debt. Yet they lecture this House on fiscal responsibility. We do not find that acceptable. Also, we believe that the cost to UI premium payers for fishing benefits are so small, amounting to a little over 2 cents of every UI dollar, so let us keep this in perspective. Those benefits do not place an unreasonable burden on the UI account.
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In summary, for all of the reasons I outlined, we cannot accept the bulk of the message which was sent to us by the other place, although we are sending back some agreement with some of the things that they have suggested in a conciliatory mode.
Too many of the recommendations are based on the notion that the unelected Chamber can order the elected Chamber to make expenditures that the country cannot afford. We have rejected that view consistently in the past and we must reject it now.
Too many other recommendations seek to give the Senate powers it does not warrant in a democratic system of government. Having reviewed the contents of the message from the Senate and remembering the many valuable and necessary initiatives that are contained in the Labour Force Development Strategy, what course of action should the House follow?
Virtually everyone who has commented on this bill has supported the need for more training and more support for a training culture in Canadian business among Canadian workers.
They have been less forthcoming on how these initiatives should be financed. Even this report, which comes up with many recommendations that we are finding very useful, does not come up with an alternative way of financing the system that is going to be acceptable to Canadians. Virtually everyone who has commented on this bill is in the same position.
We believe that modifications to the UI system are an appropriate vehicle for this process. As I pointed out, both workers and employers will benefit from the LFDS, and through unemployment insurance we are asking them to pay for the benefits to which they are entitled. We think those should be good benefits.
As well, we have proposed some changes to the existing range of UI benefits. These will require claimants to work somewhat longer in many areas of the country to be eligible. The duration of benefits will be reduced slightly. Penalties for people who quit their jobs without good reason will be increased.
We have designed these changes with great sensitivity to regional differences. The greatest impact will be in places like Toronto and southern Ontario where unemployment remains low. We have been very careful to
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minimize the effects of these changes in regions where seasonal employment and historic structural problems have resulted in higher levels of unemployment. On the benefit side, that is where many of the benefits will fall.
Despite the exaggerated claims made by many critics of this bill, I firmly believe that the impact of these changes will be very modest. Certainly, compared with changes made in the late 1970s, they are not onerous. However they will be sufficient to generate the funds necessary for the progress that the LFDS will generate.
It is not sufficient merely to favour training. One must have a clear sense of how to pay for it in a way that is not administratively difficult or too costly. While there have been many suggestions, there has been no consensus on an alternative to the one we have proposed.
There is no time to waste in implementing the LFDS. Each day we continue with this discussion is a day in which our competitors on this continent, in Europe, and in Asia surpass us in their abilities to compete.
The real needs of Canadian working men and women will not be addressed by pretending that nothing has changed and that the same old policies must be maintained, that they are written on some kind of stone tablet. The real needs of the Canadian labour force will not be addressed by pretending that the public sector and the private sector have different agendas.

Mr. Speaker, this government introduced Bill C-21 to allow it to make some modest, but needed, changes in its unemployment insurance program and to initiate some major improvements in the development of Canada's labour force. C-21 recognizes that in a world of change, success will go to those countries which adapt best.
[English)
The government is determined that Canada will succeed in that new world. This government is equally determined that the Senate is not going to stand in the way of that success. And this government is determined to protect the rights and privileges of members of this Chamber not just on this side of the House but on that side of the House, all the way down both sides. To make the policy and program decisions that this country needs is what we intend to do.

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Therefore, I move:
Thai a message be sent lo the Senate to acquaint to Their Honours that this House agrees with amendment 5(b) made by 1he Senate to Bill C-21, an act to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Employment and Immigration Department and Commission Act, but continues to disagree with amendments 2(a), (b), and (c), 3(a) and (b), 5(a), 6, 7, and 9, because this House believes that they contradict the principles of the bill and undermine the objectives of 1he policy;
And that this House considers that some of the aforementioned amendments, by altering the nature of the financial scheme proposed for 1he Unemployment Insurance system, do infringe the financial initiative of the Crown in a manner at variance with parliamentary practice respecting the Royal Recommendation as it is recognized in citation 596 of Beauchesne's sixth edition, and citation 540 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition;
And considers, moreover, amendments 7 and 9, which would cause an increase to the budgetary deficit in the order of SI.75 billion annually and thus confound the balance of Ways and Means as approved by this House, to be for that reason in violation of the principle embodied in Sections 53 and 54 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and constitutional practice,
And, therefore, conscious in this of fellowship with its predecessors, reaffirms its sole and undoubted democratic right, which will not in this matter be waived, not only to grant aids and supplies to the Sovereign but to direct, limit and appoint for all such grants their ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications, none of which are alterable by the Senate;

And that this House agrees with the principles set out in parts of amendments 4(c), (d) and 8, but would propose the following amendments:
Amendment 4(c) be amended to read as follows:
'Add, immediately after line 6 on page 16, the following:
(2.1) In the estimates of the expenditures referred to in subparagraphs 2(a) (i) and (ii), the plan shall include the estimated expenditures to be made in each province."
Amendment 4(d) be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out line 18 on page 16 and substitute the following:
day.
[English ]
(4)	Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, the plan for 1990 shall be laid before Parliament not later than three months after the coming into force of this section."
Amendment 8 be amended to read as follows:
"Strike out lines 1 and 2 on page 33 and substitute the following:
53. Subsections 130(3) and (4) of the said act are repealed and the following substituted therefor:
"(3) The minister shall table any regulation made under subsection (1) in the House of Commons with three sitting days after the day on which it is made.

(4)	A regulation referred to in subsection (3) shall come into force on the tenth sitting day after the day on which it is tabled, or on any later day that is specified in the regulation, unless a motion to revoke it, signed by not fewer than thirty members of the House of Commons, is filed with the Speaker of the House of Commons before the tenth sitting day.
(5)	Where a motion to revoke a regulation is filed with the Speaker of the House of Commons pursuant to subsection (4), it shall be taken up and considered by the House of Commons within five sitting days after the day on which it is filed.

(6)	A motion taken up and considered in accordance with subsection (5) shall be taken up after the ordinary hour of daily adjournment, for a period not exceeding four hours and at the end of the debate the Speaker of the House of Commons shall, forthwith, without further debate or amendment, put every question necessary for the disposition of the motion.
(7)	Where a motion to revoke a regulation is adopted, the regulation is revoked and where the motion is defeated, the regulation shall come into force on the day after the day on which the motion is defeated or on any later day that is specified in the regulation.
(8)	Where Parliament is prorogued or dissolved before a motion to revoke a regulation is disposed of or, if no such motion has been filed, before the end of the period referred to in subsection (4), the regulation is deemed to be revoked.
(9)	For the purpose of this section, 'sitting day' means a day on which the House of Commons is sitting."


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, once again we are debating Bill C-21, this Conservative government's bill to cut back massively on our unemployment insurance program by $1.3 billion at a time when we still have over one million unemployed in this country and at a time when the Minister of Finance in his recent budget has predicted an unemployment rate of 8.5 per cent in this year.
The government is proposing these cuts at this particular time when we have such a large number of unemployed. The government intends to implement these cuts of $1.3 billion in our unemployment insurance program by first of all making it more difficult for Canadians to qualify for unemployment insurance by requiring a
May 7, 1990

longer period of work in order to be eligible for unemployment insurance. By doing that, of course fewer will qualify and the government will save money.
Second, in this bill the government is shortening the benefit period which will be available to unemployed Canadians under the unemployment insurance program. By doing that the government will save money once again.
Third, the government is withdrawing its contribution to the unemployment insurance fund which last year was $2.5 billion. I should point out that since the very beginning of unemployment insurance the unemployment insurance fund has been financed from three sources. It has been financed by workers who, when they are employed, pay a certain percentage each month to the unemployment insurance fund. It is financed, as well, by employers who pay a certain percentage each month to the fund, but it has also been financed by the government.
As I pointed out, in the last fiscal year the contribution was $2.5 billion, and in this bill the government is terminating that contribution to the fund. This means that from now on, if this bill passes, the fund must be totally supported by workers and employers.
Fourth, the government is cutting back on the program by increasing the penalties for people who voluntarily quit their employment, without, in my opinion and in the opinion of many Canadians, adequately considering the reasons for those voluntary quits.
As the minister points out, the government has bent a bit, has made a few amendments to recognize voluntary quits for sexual harassment and so on, but they do not go far enough and the penalty that the government has in place in still too high. As a result of this bill 155,000 Canadians will totally lose their unemployment insurance benefits, that is 155,000 who would have qualified under the present law will lose under this law, and 775,000 will partially lose their benefits.
The impact on our provinces will be severe. For example, according to the impact study of the Canadian Labour Congress-and the government has not presented an impact study to challenge the Canadian Labour Congress study-as a result of this bill Newfoundland will lose $51 million. In other words, $51 million a year
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that would go into that province will not now go in because of this bill. Prince Edward Island will lose $32 million. Nova Scotia will lose $29 million. New Brunswick will lose $148 million; Quebec, $224 million, and it goes on.
As you can see, those provinces with the highest rates of unemployment will be hit very hard and will lose a lot of money that otherwise would have helped maintain industry, individuals and families in those provinces.
What will be the result of these cutbacks? Through this bill the government is going to make it more difficult to qualify for unemployment insurance. The government is going to shorten the benefit period.
This will mean that there will be people without work who will not have the benefit of unemployment insurance. What will happen to them? Are we going to allow these people to starve? Are we going to force them to soup kitchens? Are we going to force them on bread lines? No, that is not our way.
As a result of this bill and these cutbacks, these people who are unemployed but who will not have unemployment insurance will be forced onto the welfare rolls. Who pays for welfare? In most provinces it is the provincial government. In some provinces, like Ontario and Nova Scotia, I believe, it is the provinces and the municipalities. Somebody will have to take care of these unemployed people but the federal government is shifting the burden from the unemployment insurance system to the welfare system where there are means tests, where the amount of support is lower, and where the province has to pick up the tab.
It is true that provincial welfare systems are financed to approximately 50 per cent by the federal government under the Canada Assistance Plan, but still, that is a cutback by the federal government with respect to assistance for the unemployed.
Many municipalities that appeared before the parliamentary committee pointed out that their welfare bills, as well as the welfare bills of the provinces, will increase considerably if this bill passes because there will be a larger number of unemployed Canadians who will have to live without the help of unemployment insurance.

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The minister admits, although she tries to hide it in her rhetoric-and I just listened to her speech-that the government is cutting $1.3 billion from the unemployment insurance fund. She tries to justify this bill by saying that $800 million of those moneys will be redirected to training.
The minister goes on at great length to argue how important training is. She is wasting her breath on us. We agree that training is important. Training is extremely important. We believe in putting large sums of money into training, but we believe in putting it into training as it was always done in this country, and that is out of general tax revenues, not out of the unemployment insurance fund.
The minister and the government members attempt to pretend that we must make a choice in this country between unemployment insurance and training. In other words, if you want to have training, you must cut back on unemployment insurance. If you want higher unemployment insurance, you will have less training. I just heard her a few minutes ago saying that if this bill is not passed, there will not be this kind of training or that kind of training.
That is a false dilemma. That is not the choice that should be put to Canadians. We have always had in this country a strong program of training, but we have also continued to improve our unemployment insurance program.
The government's commitment to training now, with this Bill C-21, is a phoney commitment, and I will demonstrate that. In 1984, when the Conservatives took over the government of this country, the federal training bill was $2.2 billion. Between 1984 and 1989 the government cut that training program by 32 per cent from $2.2 billion to $1.5 billion. It cut training programs by $700 million. This is a government that today would have us believe that training is a most wonderful thing and that it has always been committed to it. That is a phoney position of the government. The only reason it is now trying to put money into training is that it set up this de Grandpre commission to investigate how the government and the country was to deal with the threat of U.S.-Canada free trade on our Canadian workers. In that report Mr. de Grandpre and his commissioners, in several recommendations, said that more money had to
be put into training, otherwise jobs would leave Canada and go to the United States, that industries would shift from Canada to the United States.
So all of a sudden the government said: "Gosh, we have done the wrong thing for the last five years. We have been cutting training by 32 per cent, from $2.2 billion to $1.7 billion, by $700 million, and now we have to find money to put more money back into training". The highest priority of this government is not people, but the deficit. It said: "What will we do?" It looked around and found that the only place it could find the money for that was to take it out of the unemployment insurance fund. In other words, the government decided that in order to pay for training it had to reduce the money available to unemployed Canadians, money they need when they are out of work to pay for their groceries, their rent and to send their children school and so on. The government took that money, from a source that was never touched, to use as a principal means of paying for training. That is why we are opposed to the bill and why many Canadians are opposed to the bill.
When the minister stands up in this House and argues passionately for training, that is a phoney and false argument. None of us are opposed to training. What we are opposed to is taking money out of a fund that is supposed to support people when they are unemployed.
I mentioned previously that the government is also cutting its contribution to the unemployment insurance fund. I said that last year that contribution was $2.5 billion. The minister and other members of the government have alleged that the principal purpose of this bill is to shift money into training, by taking those moneys that were paid in premiums by workers and employers and putting them into a fund for training. Why should training only be paid for by workers and employers? On what principle should only workers and employers pay for training that is very much required if we are to have a modern, progressive economy?
We have never said that education should only be paid for by parents and by students. If we were to say that, that would be using a similar argument to that which the government is using. We say that education should be paid for by all taxpayers because education benefits everybody. Education not only benefits the student who studies and the parents who have children in school, it
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benefits everybody including parents who have no children, and corporations. By that same principle, training should be paid for by everybody out of general tax revenue and not out of a fund that was contributed to by workers and employers for unemployment insurance benefits.
The unemployment insurance program was established in 1940 following the Great Depression of the 1930s. It was established because it was found to be essential that when the economy went into a slow period there be a means of keeping workers and their families financially soluble so that they could pay for the essentials of life. As I said previously, the purpose of the fund was to make sure that unemployed workers would be able to pay for their food, rent, clothing, transportation to work, their children's schooling and the other essentials of life.
That is what the program has been since the 1940s. In the Great Depression of the 1930s, when we did not have unemployment insurance, workers who were unemployed had to rely on bread lines, soup kitchens and charity. It was thought that never again should we have to rely on that system but that we should have a progressive, substantial and sound unemployment insurance system. Since 1940 we have been improving the system, except now we have a government that is cutting it back.
The government says that this bill is essential because we must develop a better system of training, that we must put more money into training. None of the groups in the country that oppose this bill would oppose more money for training. They all say, as we say, that the money for training should come out of general revenue.
Let me put forward another argument which demonstrates how bad this bill is and why it is wrong to take the money away from unemployed workers to pay for training. In the hearings that we had before the House of Commons parliamentary committee on this bill it was pointed out to us time and again that many of the workers who are unemployed are already trained. They are skilled machinists, skilled electricians, accountants. In other words, they have many skills. The reason for their unemployment is not that they do not have skill,
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the reasons for their unemployment is that there are no jobs in the place where they live.


Mr. Kempling:: You are silly.


William Warren Allmand: The hon. member over there is saying it is silly, Mr. Speaker.


William James Kempling: I said you are silly.


William Warren Allmand: That is typical of the attitude of Tories in this country. They would have us believe that all the unemployed in this country have no skills and are not trained and that the solution to their unemployment is simply to give them training and they will have a job. That is total nonsense and anybody who knows this country knows that to be true.
We visited every province of this country and example after example was given to us of the fact that Canada has many resource-based towns. We have many towns and cities that rely on the mining industry, the forest industry, on fishing and farming. When that particular industry goes down, the whole community goes down, and the people who go down in that community for the most part are not untrained. Many of them have very high skills.
The government is suggesting that if we trained all the people in a mining town where there is unemployment, those people will find jobs. That is nonsense, unless they all move away from that community and go to Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary, and even then it is questionable whether they will find jobs. The fact of the matter is that the solution to unemployment in many cases is not more training. Even where the solution is more training, it also requires jobs.
Let us take the example of Canso, Nova Scotia, or Summerside, Prince Edward Island. If we simply retrained the people in those communities and paid no attention to putting jobs into those communities, what good would this new training be to those workers? I suppose the suggestion of Tories would be, again, to move to upper Canada or move away from your own town, your own city, your own province. That is wrong and Canadian after Canadian said it is wrong. That is the message they have been trying to give this government. They are saying that training is a good thing but we should not take the money for training out of the unemployment insurance fund and, in addition, training is not the solution to unemployment. The solution to unemployment is jobs because many of the people who

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are unemployed already are trained and even those who are not trained should not be forced to move to another community in order to get a job.
I have referred to this example before but I think it is important to repeat it over and over again. When the House of Commons committee on this bill went to Sudbury, Ontario, it was pointed out to us that in 1982 when we had a recession in this country and, as well, the nickel prices went down considerably, 10,000 people lost their jobs in Sudbury.


William James Kempling: Due to a Liberal government.


William Warren Allmand: The member over there says: "Due to a Liberal Government". Mr. Speaker, that is the depth of knowledge of Conservatives. They do not realize that nickel prices are set on a world-wide basis and only to a very small extent are determined here in this country. That demonstrates why the Conservatives are at 15 per cent in the polls. They keep on making those stupid, silly comments. The more they make those stupid, silly comments, the more they go down in the polls. I encourage the member for Burlington to keep it up because if he keeps it up we will keep going up in the polls and they will keep going down.
In any case, Mr. Speaker, in Sudbury 10,000 people were laid off in 1982 due to a drop in nickel prices but because we had a solid, substantial unemployment insurance system those people were able to take care of their families, pay their rent and keep their homes during that period of time. When nickel prices went up again, also under a Liberal government, the town was restored to its economic base and many of those people were taken back on their jobs. The unemployment insurance had sustained the community during that period of time, a community which, for the most part, relies on the mining industry.
One could repeat that example in many other parts of this country, whether the community relies on the automobile industry, the forest industry, the fishing industry, the oil industry or whatever it may be. When the prices go down you have a lot of lay-offs and a lot of hardship, but unemployment insurance sees those people through that hard period.
I was also amused today at how the government and the minister, in this case, says that this bill is necessary because we must take care of the deficit and the way we must take care of the deficit is by paying for training out of the unemployment insurance program. I have to
remind the government and the House that the unemployment insurance fund was not in a deficit when the government introduced this bill. As a matter of fact, in 1988, the year before the government introduced this bill, the unemployment insurance fund had a surplus of $2.8 billion.
It is true that the total government funds were in deficit, the country was in deficit, but the unemployment insurance fund had a surplus of $2.8 billion. Of course, that is the reason why the government decided to pay for training out of the unemployment insurance fund. It saw a fund with a surplus and decided to take the surplus away from the unemployed and use it to pay for training. That was a very good objective but the wrong method of carrying it out.
The minister spoke a lot about the role of the Senate. In referring to the amendments proposed by the Senate she said: "We cannot accept the views of an unelected body". In saying that she suggests that the amendments put forward by the Senate were in some way conceived on the floor of the Senate. That is not true. The Senate held quite extensive hearings on this bill and the amendments that it put forward are to a great extent based on the views of those who appeared before it at those hearings. In other words, the amendments put forward by the Senate to this bill are amendments which have broad support in this country. They are not amendments that simply reflect the views of the unelected Senators. In this case, the unelected Senators are better expressing the views and public opinion in this country than is the government.
I must point out that in the hearings that were held by the House of Commons legislative committee on this bill, 157 of the 202 groups appearing before the House of Commons committee opposed this bill. That is an extremely high percentage of groups opposing the bill. The same thing happened in the Senate.
The minister this afternoon tried to give the impression that the premier of Newfoundland favoured this bill. I have not checked with the premier of Newfoundland. It may be that he favours more money for training, but I doubt very much if he favours paying for training out of unemployment insurance moneys. I was with the committee when it was in Newfoundland and not one witness group in Newfoundland supported this bill. I believe it was the same with the Senate. I believe it was the same with the Senate. I can assure this House and
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the minister that Newfoundlanders do not support this bill.
In referring to the Senate and the fact that senators are not elected, and to who really represents the people in this country, I have to repeat again that during the election of 1988 this proposal to cut back on unemployment insurance was not part of the Conservative party platform.
As a matter of fact, when the Minister for International Trade was asked in Newfoundland whether there would be any cuts to the unemployment insurance program, he said absolutely not. He went on to say that he spoke to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister assured him that there would be no changes or cuts to the unemployment insurance program.
Here we have a government which pretends to speak for the Canadian people but a government which did not get a mandate from the Canadian people to make cuts in the unemployment insurance program. One must recall that the government party, the Conservative party at that, only got 48 per cent of the votes of the Canadian people. The two opposition parties combined got 52 per cent of the vote.
I hate repeating this, but since the election the support for the government has declined week after week. As a matter of fact, if it keeps at it, it will be into a negative position very soon. It has dropped from 48 per cent to 15 or 16 per cent in the recent polls.
On the weekend the Prime Minister admitted that it is not over. He is right on there. One of the few times I have agreed with the Prime Minister is when he said that this drop in the polls will continue. It will continue as long as the government insists on putting before Parliament this kind of legislation for which it has no mandate.
If the Senate is so bad in its present form, as the minister and the government members pretend, then why has the government not taken steps to reform it? In the last Parliament, in 1985 or 1986, the Conservative Minister of Justice was quite angry with the Senate and he put a bill before the House to reform the Senate. But that bill sat on the Order Paper and was never moved ahead and when the session ended, the bill died. Instead of reforming the Senate, every time there was a vacancy
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the government appointed senators, their favourite people.


Some hon. members:: You are wrong. You are absolutely wrong.


William Warren Allmand: I am absolutely wrong, they say. I could name a whole list. That is such a ridiculous comment it is not even worth answering.
It is true that the government has not yet filled all the vacancies, but after presenting the bill it did in the last Parliament and not proceeding with that bill, it went on to appoint Conservatives to the Senate. It has not filled all the vacancies, but it did not do one thing to reform the Senate which it now says is so bad.
I have heard some of the Conservative members in their speeches saying that these cut-backs in unemployment insurance are necessary because unemployment insurance is an incentive to laziness, that if you have an unemployment insurance system that really helps the unemployed to pay for their groceries and rent, there will be a tendency for these workers to quit their jobs or not to look for work and to just loaf around all the time.
I have to remind our Conservative friends that we have the same unemployment insurance system right across this country, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, in Ontario and in Prince Edward Island. It is the same program. Yet we have a 4.5 per cent unemployment rate in southern Ontario and a 17 per cent unemployment rate in Newfoundland. Are these Conservatives saying that unemployment insurance is an incentive to laziness in Newfoundland but not in Ontario? Is it an incentive to laziness in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, but not in Calgary or Vancouver?
If unemployment insurance was an incentive to laziness, it would be an incentive to laziness everywhere. That is a nonsense argument. The answer to that is that some of the most progressive countries with social programs in the world have sound, substantial, unemployment insurance programs. West Germany, Japan, Scandinavian countries, France, and Great Britain all have strong unemployment insurance programs and many of them have very low unemployment rates.
Unemployment insurance is not the cause of unemployment. It is not an incentive to unemployment. People want to work. I referred to Newfoundland where the unemployment rate is around 17 per cent and the real rate is much higher than that. Many people are

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forced to leave that province to seek work in other provinces because they want to work so much.
I already referred to this, but we have to remind ourselves over and over again that the economy of Canada is strongly based on resources and seasonal industries. When you have an economy based on resources and seasonal industries, no matter how much you want to work there will be times when you will be unemployed because of world prices for those resources or simply because it is winter.
We had an argument in Prince Edward Island as to whether the fact that a large percentage of the Prince Edward Island economy was based on the tourism industry had anything to do with unemployment in the winter. Well, anybody with any sense would know that there are fewer jobs in Prince Edward Island in the winter than there are in the summer because of the fact that the tourism industry has to close down to a certain extent. It is true that they are trying to get conventions to the island and they are trying to replace the summer tourism with other things, but nevertheless seasonal conditions have a great impact on unemployment in this country.
Although the government has condemned the Senate in this debate, I think we have to be thankful to the Senate because by its persistence the government has finally accepted some of its amendments. If the Senate had not taken the steps that it did, we would not have had the two amendments the government accepted the last time, one having to do with training people who have problems with illiteracy. This time the government has accepted three more amendments.
That is not nearly good enough, but it points to the fact that the sober second thought of the Senate has either forced or convinced the government that certain changes were necessary, and not only were they necessary but they were worth-while amendments. I repeat again that these amendments which the Senate presented were not ones they conceived in their own minds on the floor of the Senate, but were amendments which had been sent to them and suggested to them from all over the country by a large number of groups. As a matter of fact, many of them were similar to amendments we put forward in this Chamber but which were defeated by the large majority of Conservatives on the other side.
In responding to the government's arguments with respect to the Senate, the government keeps alleging that the Senate blocked this bill or that the Senate turned back this bill. The Senate did no such thing. The Senate could have, because there is a Liberal majority, defeated this bill. It did not do that. It did not defeat the bill and it did not delay the bill. As soon as it received the bill and received the message from the House of Commons, it dealt with it immediately in both cases. It had public hearings, it considered the bill. The Senate did not defeat it but made amendments to the bill; amendments which, as I said, were based on wide ranging public opinion in this country, and it sent the bill back. So it did not obstruct or defeat or turn down the bill, but simply attempted to improve the bill.
We in the opposition are willing to support the Senate's amendments, but only as a minimum. We do not think the Senate amendments go far enough. As a matter of fact, our preference was that this bill be totally withdrawn by the government and sent back to the drawing board and that it come up with something much better and much more beneficial for Canadian unemployed.
In the last Parliament the government appointed the Forget Royal Commission to study the unemployment insurance system, a commission that cost $18 million. The commission sat for more than a year and presented a report with recommendations. The government did nothing with those recommendations. These changes in Bill C-21 do not reflect the suggestions made by Mr. Forget and his commission. This is not to say that we the Liberal opposition agreed with all of Mr. Forget's proposals. We did not. The fact of the matter is that the government did not accept any of his suggestions either and Bill C-21 is contrary, as a matter of fact, to many of the recommendations made by the Forget Commission.
Furthermore, in the last Parliament, the Standing Committee on Labour, Employment and Immigration studied the Forget Commission report and the unemployment insurance system and we made 71 recommendations for improvement and change in the unemployment insurance system. It was a unanimous report on all but two recommendations. It was a unanimous report on 68 recommendations by a committee with a Conservative majority and the government has not implemented any of those recommendations or suggestions. It ignored a royal commission that it set up,
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it ignored a House of Commons committee where it had the majority of members, and it is proceeding with a bill which is opposed by social, religious, and trade union groups all over the country.
The purpose of this bill is not to help the unemployed or to reform the unemployment insurance system. The real purpose of this bill is to help the government deal with its deficit and also to harmonize its social programs with the United States as result of the free trade agreement.
In the United States, where unemployment insurance is a state matter, a state responsibility, the total amount spent on unemployment insurance is $13 billion. That is the same amount that is spent in Canada.
It is very significant that many of the changes that the government has in this bill are similar to provisions contained in the the American unemployment insurance laws. One has to admit that there are some states which have a fairly sound and substantial unemployment insurance system, but there are other states where it is a scandal for a modern, progressive country, where unemployed people must still rely on relief and charity.
The purpose of this bill is not to help the unemployed. It is not to reform the unemployment insurance system. It is not really to deal with training because, if the government really believed in training, it would not have cut the training program by 32 per cent between 1984 and 1988. The real purpose is to deal with the deficit and to harmonize our social programs with those of the United States.
In conclusion, we are willing to support, as a minimum, the amendments suggested by the Senate, but we really do not think that is the solution to the problem of the unemployed in this country. The solution is, of course, training, but it is also jobs, economic development, regional development and a better and more substantial unemployment insurance system because, no matter what, when people are without work they have to pay for the essentials of life.
This afternoon I have tried to deal with some of what I consider to be ridiculous nonsense arguments put forward by the minister. I did not deal with the questions of procedure or constitutionality with respect to the Senate.
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Our House Leader will deal with those arguments in due course.
I urge the government to listen to the people of this country. At the present time, the views of the people of this country are being expressed through the Senate and, I say, thank God for the Senate.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the many points made by my hon. friend who has just spoken. He raised some very good points.
In general, we have to be very cautious as to what is occurring in the House at this moment. I think we could make the case that we are actually in the middle of a major battle, a battle between this House and the Senate, a battle between the Prime Minister's and Privy Council offices and the duly elected members of this House, and a battle between the government and Canadian workers. I think it is fair to say that there have been a lot of casualties in these battles. We do not have many foreign correspondents in the gallery or the International Red Cross, but I think we can still make the case that casualties abound.
At the top of the list in terms of casualties on this battleground is the delicate balance of our parliamentary democracy. Tragic casualties in this process has been the balance between the rights of the majority to govern and the rights of the minority to be heard, and the balance between the responsibilities of both Chambers in this Parliament to protect and to provide a democratic legislative base.
Today, I listened with interest to the minister responsible for this legislation as she pretended to defend democracy. She read part of the motion that the government has brought forward which, once again, introduces a form of closure on debating further regulations regarding people in the fishing industry. To agree to the motion would be to agree to a form of closure in terms of debate in the House in future years. That is not what democracy is all about.
The government is asking us to agree to a motion today that asserts that only the elected House has the right to study meaningfully money bills. It is asking us to defend the rights of the elected members of this House. Yet, it is this government that has done more than

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people could ever have imagined to diminish the rights of these same elected members time and time again.
I only have to think of those two Conservative members from Alberta who decided to do the democratic thing and represent their constituents on this important economic matter. It was not a moral issue, because I think we all recognize that, when it comes to moral issues, people ought to have the right to express freely their moral position on issues. However, when it comes to economic matters or government policy regarding taxation, surely, members of Parliament have some obligation to represent the views of their constituents.
When the member from Edmonton and the member from Calgary asked their constituents what they felt they should do in terms of the goods and services tax, 70, 80, or 85 per cent of their constituents said that they should stop the tax dead in its tracks. So, they spoke out against the tax. They said that they could not support a tax opposed by almost everybody in their constituency, everybody they knew in the country, and most Canadians by far. They could not go ahead and pass it.
What did the government do? The government that is now arguing that we must listen to the democratic voices speaking in the country and that we must emphasize the democratic basis of this institution? It kicked those members out of the caucus. They do not sit over there any more. The Prime Minister said: "You cannot represent your constituents. We do not want anything to do with democracy in this party. You are out. I do not want to see you again." So they sit with members of the opposition.
Here is the minister, shedding crocodile tears, on bended knee, pleading for democracy, when in her own caucus she supports the most undemocratic act we have seen in years.
The elected members on this side of the House, and Canadians, will not be deceived by this particular request. We know that the motion before us today will do absolutely nothing to revive or restore the health of parliamentary democracy ip (.fie country. We have seen what the government has done since it has come to office in terms of eroding what we have come to know as parliamentary democracy, our parliamentary system.
This motion will not restore the privileges of elected members to represent freely and openly their constituents' interests, unfettered by threats of closure and time allocation. We have seen something historically never witnessed before in the House. Since the last federal election, the government has threatened the House in terms of using some form of closure on legislation, on average, every eight days that the House has sat. Every eight days closure has been threatened when it is averaged out over the entire term.
This motion will not restore the privileges of elected members by the dictatorial rulings of certain committee chairs. A committee chairman is sitting here today. There have been dictatorial rulings. It is not going to change that.
This motion will not restore the privileges of elected members of the House to have the opportunity to present petitions and bills on behalf of their constituents during Routine Proceedings. Day after day we have seen the government curtail Routine Proceedings. Those of us who have stacks of petitions to present on the goods and services tax are denied that right. Elected members cannot present their petitions. This government, the most undemocratic government the country has ever witnessed, has the gall to plead for democratic understanding.
The motion before us will not make this government responsible to this House of elected members. It will not make the government come to this House to announce to elected representatives its new programs and policies.
Do you remember, Mr. Speaker, when the government decided it was going to introduce what it thought was a great environmental plan, The Green Plan? Did it introduce it in the House of Commons, before the duly-elected members representing the people of Canada? No, it was done at a press conference some place.
It will not make the government fulfil its moral responsibility to come to the House and implement policy by legislation, instead of by administrative fiat and regulatory change, as it did when it slashed VIA Rail from existence. Was that done in the House of Commons? No, that was done in secret. It was the same kind of secrecy when the government said that it did not like the priest who was standing outside the House. It did not like the fact that some protesters were out there calling
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government members to task. In secret, it passed legislation prohibiting a priest from standing outside the House. That is not democracy. That is undemocratic. That is why this government has the audacity to stand-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


William James Kempling: You were on the Board of Internal Economy. Why didn't you speak up?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Kamloops has the floor.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it seems that I have touched a nerve. The government does not seem to want to be reminded of the fact that while it pleads today for democracy-


William James Kempling: If you would only tell the truth.


Nelson Andrew Riis: May I suggest to my hon. friend from Burlington to get a dictionary and look up the term "democracy".


William James Kempling: Look up the term "truth".


Nelson Andrew Riis: I suspect that the only terms he recognizes are "totalitarian" or "dictatorship". Those are his favourite words because that is certainly what he practises.
This motion before us will not restore the confidence of Canadians in our parliamentary system. How could that confidence be restored when the government has ignored the pleas of Canadians to reduce interest rates? It totally ignores those calls. People are saying: "Reduce interest rates." Financiers are saying: "Reduce interest rates." Does the government listen? No, it knows best. Big government and big brother knows best.
How could the confidence in the government be restored when it has ignored the pleas of Canadians to provide leadership on the environment? When it has ignored the pleas to withdraw regressive tax programs? And when it has ignored the pleas from fishermen, farmers and those living in the regions of Canada?
The motion before us will do nothing to restore the trust that Canadians once had in their government. I must say that it is no coincidence that since the government launched its offences against parliamentary democracy, there has been a tragic increase in intolerance, bitterness and cynicism toward government in the coun-
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try. It is as though the people have lost faith in their government.
Today's skirmish is against the Senate. I want to refer to the Senate, not to the other place. Let us call a spade a spade. We are talking about an impasse with the Senate. The message before us a missile against the Senate. The Prime Minister and the rest of his war room are trying to remove the rights of the Senate to oppose, to amend, or to improve legislation, just as they have removed the rights of elected members in the House of Commons.
Unfortunately, there are many civilian casualties in this battle, including thousands of Canadians in depressed regions who for four months have been deprived of unemployment insurance benefits to which they are entitled, because the government has repeatedly refused to separate the variable entrance rate component of this legislation and give it the rapid passage that we have offered. They would rather see Canadian workers in the maritimes, rural Canada, and in the west and north live in poverty than admit that the Senate has the constitutional right to study Bill C-21.
Other casualties include Canadian mothers whose rights to maternity benefit equalities were fought for in the courts and were won. These rights are now held hostage in the battle over cuts to unemployment insurance that have nothing to do with maternity benefits.
I ask the members opposite to lay down their arms for a brief while during this debate and take the opportunity to reflect on how we arrived at this very unhappy situation. If you look back over the last year and a half, Mr. Speaker, you will see a number of events that lead us to today's debate. In the cold autumn of 1988 the Conservatives took the country to the polls on an election that became a one issue campaign, free trade. Most Canadians were opposed to free trade on November 21. Some New Democrats say that is why the government lost the moral right to impose the trade deal. The view of democracy did not suit this Prime Minister and free trade was forced through the House in unprecedented time through the use of closure at every single stage.
I acknowledge that many Canadians voted for the free trade agreement, but they did so believing that they had a commitment from the Conservatives to provide training and adjustment programs. They trusted that the government would assist those who would inevitably lose their jobs as a result of this realignment of our economy.

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Some Canadians voted for free trade believing promises that the Conservatives stated again and again; that our social programs would not be affected, that they would not be harmonized with the harsher, stingier programs offered to American workers.
Five months after the Conservatives were democratically elected to fulfil these commitments they instead turned against Canadian democracy. They did so by abrogating their election commitment to training programs and introduced Bill C-21, which is what we are talking about today, which removes any federal government contribution to training.
Think of the federal dollars that go into assisting lawyers to be trained. Thousands and thousands of dollars from the general treasury go to help lawyers get training. Why not the same for machinists? Why treat certain kinds of people differently in terms of the training and education they receive?
The government also turned against Canadian democracy by abrogating its election commitment to maintain social programs, by introducing Bill C-21, which harmonizes our unemployment insurance program more closely with that of the United States program.
It also denies the government's responsibility to help unemployed Canadians, even though they lost their jobs as a result of the government policy to push consumer interest rates up past 15 per cent and unemployment to more than a million people, to say nothing about the cuts to student programs for the summer. Many students are trying to earn money for their own education and training options.
Bill C-21 is a massive policy change in that it destroys an institutionalized and complexly woven social security net in our country. No attempt was ever made to hide the fact that the Conservatives planned for months before the election to destroy this program and some suggest it might have even been part of the discussions around the free trade deal.
Was it a democratic act to make specific commitments during an election campaign and then introduce a long-planned strategy that was the very opposite of those commitments? Obviously not. Was it not an act against democracy when the government forced closure
after only five hours of debate on this very sinister legislation? Was it a service to free and open democracy to severely restrict hearings on this bill? Was democracy helped when almost one-third of those groups who wished to appear were denied an opportunity to express their concerns, or when the testimony, including crossexamination, was restricted to less than half an hour? Was it remotely democratic to listen to witnesses and then ignore their testimony? The vast majority, 157 of 202 witnesses strongly opposed this bill, yet their opinions counted for nothing.
When the minister of the Crown responsible for the bill finally appeared before the committee, was it a democratic act to give members of this House less than one hour of questioning time with the minister? Were the democratic privileges of this House and the rights of its members aided when time allocation was imposed at both report stage and third reading stage? No, they were not. Was it a democratic act when members were denied even the opportunity to explain the proposed amendments and present short arguments as to why they should be adopted?
It was an affront to democracy for the government to blithely ignore the mandate it was given to provide training programs and to protect social programs. I suggest that it was an affront to parliamentary democracy for the government to blithely ignore the rights of members to debate the principles of the bill, to engage in meaningful committee review, and to offer proposed changes.
I must say that Canadians knew what was going on. They saw the House was being denied its historic rights in a free and democratic society. They saw the rubber stamp that has now become a symbol of Conservative democracy. They then turned to the Senate. I know many Canadian political activists were surprised to find themselves knocking on the Senate door asking Senators to do the work that members of the House had been prevented from doing. I know many people had to re-examine their view of the Senate. New Democrats were among those who looked again at the role of the Senate.
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New Democrats watched intently the assault on democracy which took place last year. We exercised our democratic rights within our own party and voted at our December convention to change our party policy on the Senate. Whereas once we were satisfied that the Senate had to be abolished, and that was it, we are now in the process of looking at a variety of options to provide and promote better regional representation in the Parliament of Canada, including but not limited to, proportional representation, an elected Senate, and other options.
New Democrats who voted for that position are ordinary Canadians who were looking at what this government has done to parliamentary democracy in our country, Canadians who want protection from the kind of totalitarian behaviour we have seen with this Conservative government.
New Democrats were among those who went to the Senate and requested that it block the imposition of Bill C-21. Through their labour councils, social councils, churches and women's groups, they asked the Senate to protect the unemployment insurance program that their fathers and mothers and fellow social democrats had fought so hard to establish. These ordinary New Democrats and ordinary Canadians generally, told the Senate of the importance of maintaining a healthy unemployment insurance program, of the need for government to play a role in training programs, of the responsibility of government toward unemployed workers.
Unfortunately, the Senate is not full of ordinary New Democrats or ordinary Canadians. It obviously did not understand the arguments that were put before it. Instead of amending Bill C-21 in a way which would ensure the integrity of our Canadian unemployment insurance plan, the Senate offered a few minor improvements to a very bad piece of legislation.
I remember seeing Liberal Senators on television with tears in their eyes, who were so emotional at the stories they were hearing that they could not speak. Did they really do anything to change that bill? Did they stop the legislation? Did they suggest major changes? No. Did they answer the call when witness after witness came to them and pleaded for the same changes to Bill C-21? Surely not. No witness asked for the version of Bill C-21 which the Senate voted to send back to this House. It is
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not surprising to me that the Senate failed the test put to it by those Canadian individuals and groups which came to it, cap in hand.
The point I want to make is that the Senate failed Canadians. When Canadians made their case before the Senate committee hearings, obviously the Senate did not hear those cases. They ignored the pleas being put forward by individuals and groups across the country.
I do not know that we should be surprised at that. When you look at the Senate, as it will be at least until June 23, it was the Liberals who five times between 1975 and 1985 cut back the unemployment insurance program. The Liberals cut back on benefit levels. The Liberals abruptly changed entrance requirements. The Liberals removed the federal responsibility for unemployment insurance, except for regionally extended benefits. The Liberals developed the policy now implemented by the Conservative government that high unemployment is an acceptable price for stabilized prices.
Clearly, the Liberal Senators were not interested in helping Canadian workers. Liberal Senators were not interested in protecting a program which had been so undemocratically removed. Clearly, they were taking Canadians down the Senate path, promising hearings, hinting at a meaningful review, but in the end doing virtually nothing.
All along, the Liberal Senate only seemed to be interested in a showdown with the House of Commons. It chose to hold this showdown over a few relatively insignificant improvements to a very flawed bill. So we are back to the old battle between this House and the Senate. The debate today on this government's motion which states that the Senate has no right to improve money bills-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Under Standing Order 43, the first two speakers have unlimited time with no questions or comments, but the third speaker has 20 minutes plus questions and comments. I must have unanimous consent to allow the hon. member to carry on after 20 minutes. Do I have unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions or comments, the hon. member for Prince George-Bulk-ley Valley.

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Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments made by our House leader and member for Kamloops on this legislation. It is a regressive bill. I think the member put some of the points very clearly concerning the situation in which government has placed us.
Given the large number of inquiries we have had in our offices from people who are concerned about this legislation and other employment matters, what advice does he have for us to give to our constituents in terms of a message that we can bring to the government? If we can get the Liberals to support us in this cause to fight this legislation, where can we go from here?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, one thing that has become clear in the message we can deliver to our constituents and to the people of Canada is that a battle is taking place between the House of Commons and the Senate. It is a war, but it is an absolutely phoney war. The Liberal Senators gave the impression that they cared about unemployment insurance legislation changes. As I said, there were tears in their eyes. They could not speak at press conferences. They were moved. It was phoney. I am not saying that individuals were phoney, but when it came down to the crunch, did they change the legislation significantly in light of the material before them? Absolutely not.
Did the Senate stop this regressive legislation? No, they did not. They made a few minor changes, but I think that way down deep the Liberals in the Senate want to pass this legislation. It will pass. We will send it back now and Allan MacEachen will say, "They agreed on a couple of our amendments, now it is time to pass it".
Let us be careful when we see these people standing up and fighting against the changes to the UI legislation. If the amendments sent back are the Senate's idea of what this legislation should look like, it is pathetic. It is disgraceful. That is why I call it a phoney war. The Liberals in the Senate are playing games. While they were called upon by witness after witness to stop the legislation, they did not have the courage to do so.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Are there any further questions and comments? The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I was amused, to put it mildly, to hear the hon. member for Kamloops try to express his party's repentance on the Senate, saying like St. Paul on the Road to Damascus that they had seen the light and decided that the Senate, after all, was a worth-while institution, that they were no longer in favour of abolition, particularly when it is dominated by members of our party whom he knows are such staunch defenders of the common person in Canada, the ordinary Canadian.
Hon. members in the New Democratic Party laugh, but they know that in the long history of Canadian parliamentary tradition, the New Democratic Party has never been able to do anything to successfully defend the average Canadian. The defence has been provided by this party. The hon. member for Kamloops knows that. I can see that even as he looks, he knows that what I am saying is correct. What he would really like to do-and I suggest some of his colleagues would like to do it-is take advantage of the great Liberal majority in the Senate and have that Liberal majority do the work that we as an opposition in this House are unable to do because of numbers and because of the rule of majority votes in this House.
Having said that and having done our duty as best we can, the two parties, our party and the New Democratic Party, have worked assiduously to fight this legislation from the day it was introduced. What he is now saying is: "We in the New Democratic Party have changed our view on the Senate and we no longer think it should be abolished. However we wanted to stop this legislation. We now want this non-democratic, unelected Senate to go the full length and stop this bill."
The member did not say that but that is what he is implying. What he is saying, on the other hand, is they did not do enough damage to this bill to make it worth while. I do not understand it. They have improved the bill. The government itself says that the cost of these Senate improvements is $1.75 billion. That is the cost of the improvements the Senate has made to this bill.
The hon. member for Kamloops is on the one hand saying that these improvements are not good enough because they do not do everything they should do. On
May 7, 1990

the other hand he is saying that this group of unelected people in the other House should can this bill entirely.
But he does not quite say that. Now which is it? Does he want the Senate as an unelected body to block the will of the majority of the House of Commons? Or, is he prepared to make a compromise, which we in the Liberal Party are prepared to do in this case, settle for less than perfection but fix the bill to some extent so the government does not run roughshod over the workers of this country as it is doing with this bill now.
We agree that the government is wrong. We agree that Bill C-21 is a flawed bill. It should never have been introduced in this House.


An hon. member:: You supported the bill.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: We did not support the bill. The hon. member says that we supported the bill. He should look at the record. We have opposed this bill at every stage just as he has. I am not suggesting for a moment that the New Democratic Party has not been good in opposition. Heaven knows it has been in opposition long enough to be very good at it.
The fact is that we have opposed this bill and the senators have opposed this bill. Instead of stopping it because a group of appointed people feel it is not in their power to stop it and instead of exercising that right, they have changed and improved it.
It is not as good as it should be. It is not as good as the old law that was introduced by a Liberal government, I might point out. But it is better than what we got with Bill C-21 that this bunch of penny-pinching Conservatives introduced.
All I can say to the hon. member for Kamloops is: why will he not defend the Senate and say what a great job it is really doing for Canada and praise the Liberal senators and say that we want to support those senators in their efforts to defy the will of this government which is so wrong.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note a slight hint of hypocrisy in the air. Every Wednesday morning when the Conservatives have their caucus meeting, all of the Tory senators are attending the meeting. When the Liberals have their caucus meeting and take positions on legislation, all of their Liberal senators are part of their caucus. They are part of the Liberal Party; they are part
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of the Liberal caucus. I made the assumption that when Liberals stood in the House day after day, individuals from all parts of Canada, the spokespersons, and in a very eloquent way said "we Liberals oppose the legislation" they included the senators as well. I thought it included senators, not just the folks here.
I guess I made an error in judgment. I thought when Liberals said that they opposed something they meant as a Liberal Party, not just a few folks here and there. Maybe some do; maybe some don't. I made the assumption that Allan MacEachen and the Liberal majority in the Senate also opposed the bill. When it came back, they said: "We agree with it in principle". First of all it was second reading.


An hon. member:: They had to.


Nelson Andrew Riis: "They had to", my hon. friend says. Is there some law requiring that? I challenge my hon. friend from Kingston and the Islands who is very knowledgeable on constitutional matters particularly when it comes to the Senate and the House of Commons. Does my hon. friend from Kingston and the Islands have a shred of evidence that says that the Senate of Canada does not have the authority to stop this legislation if it wanted to keep its promise to the people of Canada?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. Minister for Science.


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted today to rise and make clear to this House my support for the motion of my colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Cabinet solidarity forever.


William C. Winegard: The motion before this House contains two important themes, and I would like to speak to both of them. The first is the need to assert the legitimate rights and privileges of this House, those rights and privileges that are under attack by Liberal senators for blatantly partisan purposes.


Mrs. Maheu:: Abolish the Senate if you don't like it.


William C. Winegard: The second is to reaffirm our support for the many improvements to the Unemployment Insurance Act and to programs designed to help Canadian workers.

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Let me touch on the first of these themes. In 1984 and again in 1988 the people of my riding had a full slate of candidates from which to choose.


Mr. Volpe:: Did they make a mistake?


William C. Winegard: Those candidates represented various parties and perspectives on the way in which this country should be governed. Voters had a choice. On both occasions they gave me the privilege of representing them.
That privilege is one that I do not take lightly either as a member of this House or as a minister. Every decision I make, I make knowing that my government and I personally will be held accountable during the next election.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They're getting their boots polished now.


Mr. Lewis:: Bear with us.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: We have to.


William C. Winegard: I understand and believe in that system. It is democracy. If the voters some day decide that someone else with different views should represent them, I accept that too. But in the meantime it is my obligation to accept the consequences of government policy and my own personal voting and comments on these issues.
I think I am speaking for most members of this House. We owe our places here to democratic decisions made by millions of people across Canada.


Shirley Maheu: If you don't like the Senate, get rid of it.


William C. Winegard: We all know that we will be called upon to defend the policies that we promote or, indeed, the policies that we do not promote. When the next election takes place the people will have an opportunity to judge once again.


An hon. member:: They will.


Mr. Fisher:: Bye-bye.


William C. Winegard: I heard that bye-bye in 1988, Mr. Speaker; a lot of people who said it are not here any more.
But now we have a new and I think rather unsettling influence in the total process. We have senators claiming the same rights as members of Parliament. As elected, not appointed, members we have been given a mandate to govern by the people of Canada. It is in this elected
Chamber that the force of public opinion can be brought to bear. It is here that pubic opinion receives its true reflection because we are elected and we can be reelected or thrown out.


Shirley Maheu: You're at 15 per cent.


William C. Winegard: Therefore, our rights and privileges to govern must be defended as a group not just because we are on one side or another of a particular issue. They must be defended especially when we are looking at money bills. That is surely a basic issue in parliamentary democracy.
To accept the Senate's claim to power is to establish in money bill situations a very dangerous precedent. Members are well aware of the guidance we all take in this Chamber from precedents established over many years of responsible government. Senators, in seeking to expand their own power, can do so only at the expense of elected members and the government.
Regardless of our personal or party views, can anyone really support the intrusion of appointed senators into decisions regarding expenditures?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They are but the sole defender against the tyranny of the majority.


William C. Winegard: Can anyone really ignore the precedent? Will all the interest groups who suddenly have decided that Liberal senators are their champions believe the Senate could not use those same new-found powers to attack legislation which those interest groups might support sometimes?
This is an illustration where interest groups are saying the end will justify the means. That has always been a very dangerous precedent for democracy. It remains one. For us it is not a question of expediency; it is a question of who has the moral authority to set a budget and determine expenditures. That is the House of Commons. We were elected to govern. We accept the accountability that goes with that, and that is the issue, Sir: accountability.
How could anyone in this House defend the action by the Senate except on the grounds that it meets their particular needs today? Nothing could be more dangerous to our system of democratic government.


Don Boudria: Who wrote that for you?
May 7, 1990


William C. Winegard: Isn't it marvellous? Because they do not wish to write their own speeches about democracy, they do not believe that anybody else in this House can do it.


Shirley Maheu: We feel we don't have to talk about it.


William C. Winegard: I think members of this House, including those on the other side, owe it to the people of Canada to resolve this issue in a manner which builds upon our system of government, our parliamentary system.
It is in that sense that we as a government have agreed to some changes in the bill. We want this to be passed.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We know.


William C. Winegard: We think that the spirit of compromise we have shown by assenting to some of the recommendations coming from the other place should help move this through.


Mary Catherine Clancy: An hour late and a dollar short.


William C. Winegard: During the last debate on this issue this House agreed to include basic skills and literacy training among the many types of training offered using unemployment insurance funds.
We agreed to provide greater detail and annual development uses, all those plans which would show how the government intended to use the money provided under the UI Act.
Finally, we agreed that any proposed repeal of the system of UI benefits for self-employed fishermen would require parliamentary approval.
With the motion before us now we have decided to strengthen our commitments made during the last debate and make additional changes to the legislation.
In particular, as members of this House know, we have agreed to change an aspect of the rules affecting people who quit their jobs without just cause.
The Senate asked for lighter penalties for those people. It stated that we were being too hard on those people who quit, that they should not have to wait as long for UI benefits. It asked for change in two areas and we have agreed to one, because this is a compromise that does not weaken our emphasis on workers who quit jobs, an important principle behind this whole bill. We also understand, even if we do not share, the Senate's
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concerns regarding fishermen's benefits. These benefits are safe.
As I noted, the government has already agreed to eliminate a provision in the current Unemployment Insurance Act which would have allowed a government to eliminate these benefits by proclamation. This provision was originally placed there by a Liberal regime.
The government, in this motion, has modified Senate recommendation 8 to provide for a formal review process for any proposed changes to UI regulations pertaining to fishing benefits. We can agree that such a review is appropriate, but we firmly believe that this review process must be conducted in the House of Commons, and not in the Senate.
The government has made these concessions in a spirit of conciliation. We have not asked for, nor provoked, the current situation. It is disappointing that it is only this House and this government which has shown a willingness to compromise on this bill. We cannot go further without making fundamental changes which would undermine the basic principles of the bill that we originally brought forward.
One of those basic principles forms the second theme in this debate, the need to support and reaffirm our concept that the benefits that will flow from this bill will flow for training and for workers.
Bill C-21 will allow the government to implement the labour force development strategy, which provides many improvements to Canada's labour market polices and to its unemployment insurance program. These improvements are part of a well planned strategy to meet the challenges of a world economy which is being driven by scientific and technological change. Mr. Speaker, we cannot stand still.
Advances in science and technology have affected an extremely wide range of jobs. Let us use one simple example. Consider the impact of computers whether it be in the factory, in the store, on the farm or anywhere. Not only do they affect the way jobs are done, but they affect the skills that are required to do those jobs. That is the reason why no one argues about the importance of training and education.
Last year, the Conference Board of Canada found that two out of every three Canadian firms reported difficulties with employees who were illiterate and unable to carry out their assigned work. In fact, half of all Cana-

May 7, 1990
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dian firms have trouble finding workers with the appropriate skills.
Someone has said that the economic race between industrialized nations is a competition not between industries but between various educational systems. To make use of modern technology, as we must do, requires a modern, trained workforce. We need to have it built on a solid educational system linked with training and development that will meet the changing needs as they arise.
We will have to improve the training available to our workers. Otherwise, we will not be able to generate the kind of wealth that this country needs, if we are going to have the programs that Canadians want. Surely by now, we recognize that most of that training will have to be done by the private sector.
Employers benefit greatly from a well trained staff. They have the responsibility to train their employees, and to ensure that the skills are kept current. While we apparently understand that, it is generally agreed the one area which Canada must improve is industrial private sector training.
We, in government, believe it is necessary to promote a training culture in Canadian business. We know that the private sector must do its share in bringing about the kinds of skills development on which it all depends.
One major goal of the labour force development strategy is to bring the training efforts of our own private sector up to levels which match those of other countries. The bill now before us is directly related to that goal. It will make $230 million available to increase training by the private sector, where it needs to be. That money will be invested in projects which will, in turn, trigger even more investment by the private sector.
We believe the labour force development strategy can help lead to a $1.5 billion additional expenditure by the private sector over the next four years. At that level, which we are trying to achieve, on a per capita basis the private sector training in Ggpttda will just match that of the United States. For that to happen a strategy is necessary. That is why we introduced Bill C-21 in the first place.
In a very real sense, what we have before us is enabling legislation. Changing the Unemployment Insurance Act is only a part of what we have to do. In making the changes we are talking about, it provides both the legislative basis and the financial means to pursue one of the most critical goals facing any nation today, the development of a work-force which will remain competitive in world markets and ensure prosperity at home.
This legislation is a kind of ignition key for the labour force strategy. It will address some of our most pressing problems. We have a mandate in this Parliament, as in any Parliament, to improve training and adjustment programs to bring about better training and a fairer system of unemployment insurance.
Let me remind the House that Bill C 21 will increase the federal funding available for labour force development by some 45 per cent. That is one of the purposes. Without this support, tens of thousands of Canadians may not receive the assistance and training they need to change and adapt to a new labour market and will not become productive members of that labour market.
The labour force strategy is also designed to reach those Canadian workers who most need assistance. It is about the young, the 30 per cent who have dropped out of school, who need access to better entry level type jobs. It is about women, native people, visible minorities, and the disabled, all of those who can benefit from inclusion in an equitable human resource planning concept. It is about older Canadians who need training to cope with changing job demands. They are not getting enough training now. We have to make some changes in direction. I think the strategy will clear away some obstacles. We need human resource planning, more co-operative education, and better and more apprenticeship training.
The successful nation has to have significant training opportunities for its youth, the elderly and for those people who are going to change their jobs several times during their lifetime. We have to be part of that changing work-force strategy. We think a more focused training and career development program can help unleash a great untapped pool of talent and skill, but it can only happen if we are prepared to plan for and work towards it.
May 7, 1990

We know there is a need to build organizations involved in training; business associations, unions, vocational schools, colleges and others. We need to plan together at various levels so that we can adjust our market forces, let people have the training they need to be useful members and have the pride of having a good and valuable job. That is why I support this legislation. I want that kind of opportunity for the people of this country.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, when the minister talks about training, training programs and how this bill will be beneficial, I want to bring up a specific example that has been brought up many times before by people on this side of the House. I bring up the example of Lockeport, Nova Scotia.
Lockeport, Nova Scotia is a one industry town, and the industry is gone. The fish plant is closed. It is finished. Lockeport is a two hour drive from Halifax where employment is reasonably steady but does not offer that much for these workers. I assure you that a two-hour commute on Nova Scotia highways in the wintertime is impossible. If the minister is going to retrain the workers from the closed plant in Lockeport, what would he and his colleagues train the people of Lockeport to do? Would he train them to move to Toronto?


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I am really delighted that question was asked, because it is so marvellously reminiscent of what has been the Liberal philosophy for so many years.
According to their philosophy, if an industry or a factory shuts down, the people are paid to stay in that location for however long it takes for the jobs come back. You pay people to wait until that industry comes back. We do not believe in that.
We believe in looking at what opportunities and alternatives are available in the community, what community future plans may be used and how that community can use its own resources and the ones we can provide, such as community futures and training, in order to give it a new kind of future. We do not believe in simply pouring in money for people who can only sit and wait, without any pride. We want them to have new jobs and their pride.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the beginning of my hon. friend's
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speech when he was particularly concerned about what the Liberal Senators were doing in seemingly frustrating the government's efforts.
Not long go the Minister of Justice introduced legislation in the House to curtail the powers of the Senate, to limit its ability to stop or hold up legislation. The government introduced the bill, we spent a few hours debating it, and never saw it again. The government never brought it forward. There was no more debate and it died on the Order Paper. Can my hon. friend explain to me why the government did not use that opportunity to follow through with the legislation to curtail the powers of Canada's Senate?


William C. Winegard: It is quite simple. What we wanted the Senate to realize its true place in the parliamentary process. We had hoped that sometimes they would have a sober second look, get on with the job and pass it back here for us to go on with. We really hoped that the Senate would do what it had been doing constitutionally over many years. But no, what it has done is not sober second thought-


Mr. Duhamel:: A bit more sober thought would be helpful.


William C. Winegard: It is trying to rule the country, at an appointed base. Our hopes as to what would happen have been frustrated once again. Do not legislate what you do not need to legislate. We had hoped the Senate would come to its senses but regretfully it did not happen.


William James Kempling: I am kind of tempted to get into an interchange with the hon. member for Kamloops, but I have another question. In fact, I am quoting from a comment made by the hon. member for Kamloops when he said: "Quite frankly, I am very disappointed with the Senate because I do not think it has the right to hold up legislation". Put that in the context of his earlier remarks.
I want to ask the minister about the social assistance recipients, SARs. We have quite a good program in place for them and we want to expand it further. As you know, the largest growing group of disadvantaged people in this country are single mothers and many of them fall under the SAR program. I wonder if the minister could expand a little on what the legislation will do for them.

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William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary does, of course, focus on a very important part of this bill. The social assistance recipient initiative has become over the years a major program representing about one-quarter of the Canadian Jobs Strategy expenditures.
Both the provincial governments and territorial governments, along with the federal government, under the Social Assistance Recipients agreement, are now currently authorized to spend something like $600 million. What we are doing in this particular bill is expanding that important initiative again in co-operation with the provinces and the territories by something like an additional $50 million. With the $50 million that we spend ordinarily on income assistance under the Canada Assistance Plan and the matching provincial-territorial fund, we will have something like another $200 million available to improve the employment prospects for up to at least another 20,000 social assistance recipients.
These training programs in this particular category have a remarkable degree of success. Something like 50 per cent of the people in these training programs end up with jobs, or three months later they have moved on to even further educational training programs. Why would you not want money to expand that kind of program? Of course we do, and that is why it is such an important part of this bill.


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


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I would like to touch on that particular item that the minister has raised, but I would first like to address the two points that he and the Minister of Employment have raised, and that is the rights and privileges of this House and also the changes to the format of the unemployment insurance. We jotted down some notes as the two ministers spoke. In response, the Minister of Employment says the unelected Senate is blocking this legislation and in so doing is immoral in its action and is violating the authority of the House and this Chamber.
The Tories have imposed closure at each stage of this legislation and on a variety of other important bills. That constitutes a lack of morality and a lack of respect for the democratic wishes of this House.
Second, the minister says that we must respond to the changing times regarding employment and training demands. Nobody objects to that. Nobody disputes the need for change. What is in dispute in this legislation and in this resolution is the government's withdrawing of its contribution from those program needs.
The third item the minister raises is that the government has received a mandate to govern, and therefore it must put forward a program consistent with its own philosophy. Upon reflection, as my colleague for Notre-Dame-de-Grace has noted, the Tory campaign of 1988 and the Conservative philosophy during that campaign indicated that there would be no changes to this legislation.
The public gave its support to the Tories and we are going to respect that, but I do not know whether there has been a change in philosophy or whether we have a different definition for morality and respect for democratic wishes.
A fourth item came to mind when the minister said we have to offer the unemployed a better future than one that just gives them cash. I do not think anybody has disputed that. The point is that making unemployment insurance benefits less accessible to Canadians in need and taking money away from UI beneficiaries to pay for federal ideas and projects is not the mandate of this income maintenance insurance scheme.
The minister says the money is sitting there waiting to be used for legitimate programs, but that it is being stalled by the opposition in the Senate. I never heard so much gobbledegook. The opposition is not stalling the programs. If the government really believes in these programs, let it propose legislation that is consistent with something other than violating and pillaging a program not designed to take money from premiums contributed by workers and employers for training.
The minister also says: "We have the Decima poll indicating that the majority of Canadians support using unemployment insurance money for training purposes." I thought we were governing in this House on the basis of the support we got from Canadians in a mandate at election time and continuously. Maybe the government is changing because of the way the polls read today, yesterday, the week before or the way they will read next week.
May 7, 1990

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Both ministers who have spoken so far suggested that what we ought to do is consider that 80 per cent of Canadians do not want the GST, and therefore we should withdraw the legislation. I think that element of seriousness demands consistency in approach. If the argument is good for this, then it should be good for the other.
What really galls us is that the minister flaunted the Labour Market Productivity Centre surveys and said: "Look, here is the ultimate authority. It says that training is good for workers and good for Canada". I did not hear anybody argue, but since we have the bible of truth on the table for reference, it would serve the purposes of further debate to recall that the document she flaunted unanimously, through all seven task forces, said that unemployment insurance funds were not to be used for training.
Moreover, that task force indicated that there were two alternatives to funding. One is tax credits for businesses that got involved in training, and the other is a tax on all industries with a rebate if they participated in training. Then she says: "Well, we have not got the money. We do not know where to get it". The document that she says is the bible of the new labour strategy for the future is giving her the ideas and she ignores them.
What this tells us is that the real question to be discussed today is not so much the inconsistency of the minister's arguments and the minister's programs-I think they have been well documented-but that what we should be addressing and the minister should be addressing is not simply one of skills training. Nobody refutes the value of developing a highly skilled labour force, not anyone in this House and not anyone outside of this House. What everybody wants to hear is what this government's programs are with respect to job creation. It is important to understand that over the course of this last year, since the electorate gave this Chamber a mandate to initiate new legislation, with one of the government's initiatives, the free trade agreement, we have gone from a job creation rate of 383,000 in 1988 to, on the government's own admission, a mere 193,000 in the last year. Yet they trumpet that as an achievement. There has been a drop of about 100,000 jobs in terms of creation over the course of this last year since that government's initiative and they say what we need is skills development. What about the jobs that have been lost?
I can see the parliamentary secretary nodding his head. Those are the statistics they have given us.
I refer to something we learned just recently. Biltrite Upholstering of southern Ontario, a manufacturer of furniture, closed its doors, citing high interest rates as the main factor, putting 400 people out of work and losing $65 million in operational revenues. That is just one example of what is happening to the furniture and textile industries and other manufacturing enterprises in southern Ontario and elsewhere. This government still talks about skills training. People in those industries are highly skilled. They have a particular function they have been performing over a course of years and they have been extremely productive.
I add to them a group of skilled labourers in the construction industry that is slowly but surely collapsing as a result of the government's high interest rate policy and its high dollar. In southern Ontario in the great metropolis of Toronto alone, where we have seen 3,000 laid off over the course of the last few weeks, we have predictions of an additional 30,000 being laid off; plumbers, electricians, carpenters, bricklayers and other masonry workers. People who have a high skill level, people who are normally high earners and have good job prospects are going to be without jobs. It is not because we do not have good skill training programs but because the government's economic policies are depriving them of an opportunity to work. If the government had a sense of decency and if the minister had a sense of vision about what to do with our labour market, she would address that fact first and foremost. She has not been addressing that.
The statistics that give us an indication of the unemployment picture. Keep in mind that this minister has as her first mandate to deal with the unemployment and with the unemployed. Developing skills strategies is just one component of that. The rate of growth in the labour force has fallen from 3 per cent in the 1970s to 2 per cent in the 1980s. I remind all members of this House that the last eight years of this decade have seen unprecedented growth in the country.
Second, in 1989, to make things a little more particular and more immediate to us, the pace of employment growth fell by 35 per cent for women and 40 per cent for men. The prospect of finding employment decreased on

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the help wanted index from 154 in April to 135 in December of that same year. That does not mean that we need skilled labourers before we need everything else. What it suggests is that we have to provide a labour opportunity before we begin to talk about the quality of the labour we need in it.
The other component of this development of unemployment is that part-time workers and part-time work has increased over the course of the period I just mentioned, the last eight years, from 13 per cent to 15 per cent in 1989. The growth in part-time employment accounts for about 50 per cent of all jobs created in the most prosperous period of Canadian economic history. Why is that significant? Those part-time and low-level jobs being created, on average, pay less than 75 per cent of the national average.
In Metropolitan Toronto, employment was increasing at the rate of 4.4 per cent per year as recently as 1986-87. For 1988-89, it has dropped to a mere 2.5 per cent increase. In 1989, manufacturing and warehouse jobs decreased by 22 per cent over the 1983 level.
We are not making headway in the creation of jobs, which is what the primary mandate of this minister should be. We are not doing that at all. She sends in a little red herring. I notice that some of my friends from the Atlantic are here and they will appreciate that a lot more than some of those who do not understand double entendres.
The minister sends in red herring called skills development, when she should be talking about job creation.


Roger Simmons: She should be here listening to you right now, too!


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: She should! Over the course of the last five years, the number of so-called discouraged workers has been on the increase. The discouraged worker is that worker who drops out of the labour market because there is no opportunity for employment as a result of the economic conditions. Just how serious is that?
The minister a few minutes ago said: "You know what? If we put this thing into effect, we could provide opportunities for development for 60,000 Canadians." TTiat is an impressive figure. It is. How much more
impressive is this figure? It is impressive by what it does not say.
The number of discouraged workers totalled 83,000 in 1979. In March of 1990, just a month and a half ago, according to Statistics Canada, 91,000 people dropped out of the labour market because they were discouraged from finding further jobs.
I do not know whether the Minister of Transport has a plan to hire many of those 5,000 laid off as a result of VIA cuts by his department. I do not know whether he has a plan in place in order to provide employment for those discouraged workers who find that the economic prospects are so bleak that the skills development programs will do nary a thing for them.


Mary Catherine Clancy: There is no program at all.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: The ministers are wont to say: "Listen, we are going to provide a better environment if we have skills development." It is needed. Real income for the average worker since 1980 has dropped by 14 per cent. What we are looking at is not necessarily a government that has a sensitive program for skills development and training. We are looking at a lot of rhetoric that is not backed up by substance.
We should be, not only taking a look at the nature of our unemployed, but addressing employment needs of the country and the government, and its sincerity in addressing those needs.
When we speak of sincerity and what is available with respect to what the government should do, I refer to one component of Bill C-21. It purports to say that it addresses some charter requisites imposed by court rulings, recognizing the rights of senior citizens, mothers and parents in terms of leave.
This minister and the government moved at a snail's pace to correct some of those imbalances. Not until the Supreme Court told the government to respect the rights of seniors, parents, and mothers under the unemployment insurance scheme, did the government finally insert that in Bill C-21. It is still holding back. Now it is blaming the Senate for something with which it has been extremely remiss.
Not only that, but one year ago we had a Federal Court of Appeal decision stating that the government, through its department, was being absolutely unfair to those who were unemployed and had received severance and vacation pay. It was being unfair in the application of a decision with respect to whether those two items should
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be considered continuous pay and was depriving workers of an additional $100 million per year. If the government is acting with such bad faith, can one expect that it is going to be very sincere about some of the skills training programs?
On that level, I would like to refer to some of the other items with respect to training. It is important that we understand who is going to be affected by training. I know the Minister of Transport is listening and he might be interested in knowing this. It is one of the things that the minister has not said. One cannot qualify under Bill C-21 for skills development programs unless one qualifies under the new requirements for unemployment insurance.
Keeping that in mind, I am going to pick a couple of places. My friend from Saskatoon who sat on the legislative committee with me will know and verify that the new entrance requirements and the new requisites under Bill C-21 are going to affect 60 per cent of those people from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who become unemployed. Sixty per cent of them are going to suffer a reduction in the rights that they normally would have enjoyed under the unemployment insurance program. Those people are not going to qualify for the skills development programs.
If we are going to help the unemployed in the country, if we are going to increase their employability, if we are going to increase the standards of their labour productivity, why would we not allow them to qualify for those programs?
I will tell you why, Mr. Speaker. Bill C-21 under sections 19(3), 26(1), (2) and (4) deprives any claimant of the right to appeal the decision of a department official to qualify for any of those programs. What is the purpose of having a program if the very people who are supposed to benefit from it are going to be deprived of it, and then without an appeal? This particular minister who just spoke has the unmitigated gall to talk about a Senate that deprives the people of the opportunity to exercise the democratic right. Does hypocrisy reign totally and always unabated on that side of the House?
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Douglas Grinslade Lewis: The weaker the argument, the louder you yell.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: I know that I have awakened a few of the semi-somnambulant types on the other side and I am going to take that opportunity to point out something about our training programs.
Employment training, as my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grace pointed out earlier, has decreased by 27 per cent over the last five years. This is the government that cut $700 million from such programs over the course of the last four years and says: "Now we are going to put in $1.3 billion." We want to take a look at-*


An hon. member:: They all want jobs.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: They do not have jobs. I just said what kind of jobs they have and what has happened to those discouraged workers. I raise my voice so that even the dead and even the stones could hear, and the member says: "Well, we do not know if they all got jobs". Wake up! There must be something over in Cambridge. I do not know what it is. It must be something in the water. They will get rid of that for the next election.
The Tories are taking $1.3 billion from the unemployed. It is important to understand it is coming from premiums. It is not coming from government funds. It is coming from premiums, from the people who contribute to that program because they expect that they will have income maintenance in rough times. The government is taking that money from the unemployed and using it to set up a skills training program based, as the minister says, on local control with representatives from business, labour, and government. Since the government is withdrawing its own funds from those programs, what will be the success and the utility of those training programs?
Experience in Britain reveals that similar initiatives have resulted in over 90 per cent of all moneys being directed to low-level training for school drop-outs and long-term unemployed. That is a response to demands created by lay-offs and high unemployment, not by actual market demand arising from skill shortages.
Of comparable American programs, one of the more successful local training initiatives, has been able to raise only 5 per cent of its funding from the private sector. How can any local business be willing to voluntarily devote valuable resources, time, senior personnel, and money at a time when the federal government is setting a poor example by reducing its involvement and maintaining high interest rates and a high dollar? It has been

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decreasing business profit margins and thereby hindering businesses' prospective generosity and ability to respond to the new market-place. If we are truly to respond to the needs of a new market-place, then we have to have a government that is going to take the advice given to it by the Senate and by members on this side of the House who say: "Change this thing completely or throw it out."


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I rise to compliment my colleague, the hon. member for Eglin-ton-Lawrence, and to ask if, perhaps, he can answer the same question I asked the hon. Minister of Science and Technology earlier, and which he was unable to answer.


Roger Simmons: You will get a better answer.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That is what I am attempting to get.
When we talk about this retraining and the people of Lockeport-I mentioned the people of Lockeport in my comments after the hon. minister's speech- I say again that there is no other industry in Lockeport. Lockeport is a one-industry town. The fish plant is closed. They are too far away from anywhere else to commute and retraining programs are not going to help the town of Lockeport. Has the hon. member for Eglinton-Lawrence any idea whether the government has even considered this?


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to answer for the minister opposite because, obviously, the government does not have any of the answers. This is a government-in-waiting and we should be prepared to offer the alternatives.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: My colleague, the hon. member for Halifax, raises a very important point. First, in this country do we want to allow people to live in an area of their choice with an anticipation that they can derive from the benefits of this country, the same benefits that accrue to those in other areas of the country? To do that, we have to have ready an industrial strategy that will allow them the opportunity to develop the enterprises necessary to capitalize on the resources available.
If Lockeport's main resource is fish, I would like to see a government program that capitalizes on the marketability of fish and fish by-products, renewing the resources, and providing for people in that area something that would be long-lasting and long-term.
What the hon. member for Halifax also points out is that there is an unwillingness on the part of the government to recognize the other realities to which it makes allusions. One of these realities is that the government's economic policies are virtually destroying one-industry towns. The only alternative for those living one-industry towns is to move to those areas of Canada which are more highly industrialized and more diversified. What the government is encouraging is the process of urbanization. In encouraging that particular process, it is ignoring some of the consequences that accrue as a result to main centres like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities throughout the country.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: There is no infrastructure.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Absolutely none. The government, as the hon. member from Renfrew has said quite correctly, has no infrastructure for absorbing massive urbanization. Canada is well on the road to becoming the most urbanized of all countries in the western world. In order for us to do that, the government has to assume a responsibility from which it has shirked. In shirking from that responsibility, it has ignored another important factor in the whole concept of employment and unemployment.
I hope the Minister of Transport and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration were listening when we talked about the nature of the employment that is taking place and the focus on part-time employment, service-sector employment, and low-paying employment. Sixty per cent of the jobs that were created in the last five years are in the category that pays less than the $10 average.
I can give you the statistics, but you cannot say that I am wrong just because you do not want to accept those figures. I have given you more figures than your research department has provided, and you have not contested them.
The other point I was addressing was that in areas like east Montreal the unemployment rate is greater than 15 per cent. We have unemployment rates that are unac-
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ceptable throughout the country. East Montreal is an example. The typical unemployed individual has less than a grade nine education and no savings in the bank to tide him over. These people are unaccustomed to holding long-term positions.
Under this government it is not surprising that the kinds of jobs being created are short-term, part-time, low-paying, dead-end positions from which one must go elsewhere. They are transitional jobs. What is required, succinctly for the hon. member from Halifax, is a government that is willing to put in place an industrial strategy, and in the context of that industrial strategy, talk in terms of labour developments and labour needs, not in isolation.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I was driven to my feet by the rhetoric of my hon. friend. I could not figure out whether he was teaching a grade 11 geography class or a grade 12 history class.
I have just one question for my hon. friend. Is he saying that unemployment insurance should be paid to each according to their region, or to each according to their ability to be retrained to find work and feel good about earning a living?


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, I would have felt very proud to be teaching a grade 11 geography class or a grade 12 history class. Because I was speaking to the members opposite, I had to speak in very elementary terms. I do not want to insult children in my son Massimo's class. He is only in grade 4 and they have a lot of very bright young kids there. What they do know is that when you pay into an insurance scheme you pay your premiums and your employer pays his premiums-


An hon. member:: Insurance?


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: -insurance. Unemployment insurance. When you are paying into an insurance scheme, you receive benefits according to what you paid and what the program calls for you to receive in the event that you require income support and income maintenance. When the government is deliberately changing the conditions, arbitrarily making economic decisions that impact negatively on one's employability, on one's labour market, then the hon. minister would do well to remember that you honour the commitment you made to them under that scheme.
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The minister will know that withdrawing government support from an insurance scheme is both unconstitutional and inconsistent with the higher moralities of a democratically elected government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Burin-St. George's, just on a one minute question or comment.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I compliment my friend and colleague from Eglinton-Lawrence. He has put the issue very succinctly-
I know the minister is having some difficulty with this whole procedure. If he would only listen to what the member for Eglinton-Lawrence said, he would grasp for the first time why there are so many concerns, particularly in rural Canada, about this Bill C-21.
One solution is to scream your head off so you do not hear anything, but a more constructive solution is for the minister to listen to the devastation that Bill C-21 is going to cause.
I want to ask my good friend for Eglinton-Lawrence, a man who obviously has his head around this particular issue, does he not agree that the decision by the government, if this bill goes through, to completely get out of the unemployment insurance business, in effect spells the death knell for the fishermen's unemployment insurance program. Does he not see that the program cannot last any more than three, four or five years if the government persists in putting this infamous piece of legislation through the House of Commons?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will allow the hon. member a minute to answer, although his time has expired. I will recognize the hon. member for Eglinton- Lawrence.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague for Burin- St. George's is absolutely right. The government, by withdrawing support from the unemployment insurance system, has left to the vagaries of the marketplace the government's contribution which would be about $2.9 billion. The hon. member is absolutely right. This is a very devious way of reneging on its obligations to the people on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts who rely on the fishing resources for their livelihood.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. The hon. member for Burlington. The hon. member for Burin-St. George's on a point of order.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you heard the comment from there because I heard the minister just a moment ago. I have a point of order, and if the member for Burlington can just hold his fire for a moment he will understand that I have a legitimate point, even he will agree with that.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure you heard the Minister of Transport, just a few short seconds ago, with his usual sarcasm malign every person out there who, through no fault of their own, have occasion to receive unemployment insurance. I wrote his words down because I did not think without the actual words you would believe what he said, but Hansard will show-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That is not a point of order, it is debate. The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor on debate.


Roger Simmons: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want on the record what was said and you can decide if it is a point of order. May I have the floor on a point of order?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member has taken two and a half minutes now to try to come up with his point of order. I will listen for another 30 seconds.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, with respect, I have no difficulty coming up with my point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: With respect I will hear the hon. member's point of order.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago the Minister of Transport did not have the courage to say these words into the mike, but I heard him. He said what should we do, pay them UI, unemployment insurance year around? In that statement he maligns every person in this country who has received UI and that man should withdraw-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor on debate.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I wish at the outset to answer the question put by the
member for Halifax about Lockeport. You probably know if you went through the bill, Mr. Speaker, that there is tied up in Bill C-21, a Community Futures Program. Lockeport, along with 400 other communities in Canada, are lined up to apply for the Community Futures Program but they cannot get it because the bill is held up in the Senate. That is the answer to your question.
Before I get into the main body of my comments, Mr. Speaker, I would also like to reply to comments made by the member for Eglinton-Lawrence regarding the Canadian Labour Market Productivity Centre. The minister saw this report, read and reviewed it with her officials. Indeed, the report recommended that the UI premiums not be used for training. That is one of the recommendations. It is in the report. Nobody can deny it.
The minister recognized this and she made it clear that there is no other source for funds right now. All we hear from the member is, "Delay it. Do something else". The fact is that the Minister of Employment and Immigration made it clear that the Canadian Labour Market Productivity Centre recommended worthy medium and longterm goals. She does not disagree with it on principle, but Canadian workers need help now. That is why we are proceeding.


Ron Fisher: Withdraw the bill.


William James Kempling: The member says, withdraw the bill. The member for Kamloops, your House leader, said, "Quite frankly, I am very disappointed with the Senate because I do not think it has the right to hold up legislation". Your finance critic, the member for York-ton-Melville said, "I believe the Commons should have the final say. I do not think the unelected body should usurp the elected body". How do you deal with that?


Ron Fisher: Withdraw the bill.


William James Kempling: I am pleased to rise in support of the motion by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. In the throne speech last year this government set out its intention to build a strong economy that was fully competitive among the world's trading nations.
We further announced our intention to amend the unemployment insurance program to improve its effectiveness and its fairness. This would result in more resources being directed towards active training, leading
May 7, 1990

to more opportunities and a more productive, experienced workforce.
At this point I want to ask the hon. member for Eglinton-Lawrence if I could have his attention for just a moment because I want to give him a little bit of history. When I came to this Parliament in 1972, we had before us in 1973, amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. At that time, if the minister overran his allotment in the Estimates by $400 million, he had to come before Parliament and ask for an extra allotment. In 1973, that figure was doubled, from $400 million to $800 million. In 1974, we took the lid off altogether.
Your comments about stealing money from the unemployment insurance account to pay for training is not valid. The statute and information states that if an unemployed worker needs money and there is nothing in the fund, it comes automatically from the general revenue fund. You should remember that because you are not being valid in your comments.
We were elected in 1984 and re-elected in 1988 with a mandate that includes controlling federal spending in order to maintain economic stability, continued growth, and to prepare Canadians for participation in the international economy of a wide new world.
We will help meet that mandate through Bill C-21. It sets in place a human resource strategy for the 1990s that will address the imperatives of the modern economy. Unlike the Senate, which is prepared to add at least $1.75 billion annually to the deficit, we will do so in co-operation with the private sector without expanding our debt.
The individual worker is still the most vital part of any workplace. It is in this regard that Canada faces its greatest challenge. In 1989, the world competitive scoreboard ranked Canada well down on the list with respect to managerial talent, R and D, personnel and skilled labour.
The Conference Board of Canada last year found that two out of every three Canadian firms reported difficulties with employees who were illiterate and who were unable to carry out their assigned tasks.
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In fact the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre estimated that more than 600,000 job vacancies go unfilled in Canada despite the relatively high unemployment in many areas because workers do not measure up to the skill demands in the job.
This is a comprehensive program that we have involving all parts of our educational and training system. We have had to re-examine our whole approach to developing our human resources in this country, from basic education through to skills training, to labour market programs on adjustment and on unemployment insurance. This is now taking place.
The Prime Minister has called for a national debate on education in Canada and its relationship to economic productivity and competitiveness. He has further called for discussions with provincial ministers of education on the mechanism to set up a task force on resource development.
The national initiative on education complements what we are doing with Bill C-21, which amends the UI Act. It allows for a 45 per cent increase in funding for labour force development and gives life to the Labour Force Development Strategy. This strategy is to fulfil two objectives: first, to increase the quality of training and skills development in Canada with a greater commitment on the part of the private sector and, second, to increase the quality of training so that it is more relevant, hands on and committed to excellence.
Canadian industry spends less than one-half of the amount that U.S. firms spend on training, which is a fraction of what other countries such as Japan spend. Bill C-21 makes $230 million available to increased training by the private sector, which is leverage money that will trigger an estimated $1.5 billion in addition to investment and training over the next four years. Our goal is to create a training culture where employees and companies practise skills development on an ongoing basis. That means working in partnership with community colleges and the provincial government to provide quality training that is relevant and market oriented.
The Labour Force Development Strategy is designed to reach those workers who most need assistance. It is about young people, the 30 per cent who have dropped out of school and have trouble accessing the labour

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market. When Bill C-21 is passed we will be dedicating $100 million for the purpose of setting up new entry level training programs primarily directed at young people. This will supplement existing programs such as apprenticeship which, by the way, will be examined in consultation with industry and the provinces to accommodate the growing demand for skills in the service sector.
Moreover, we will be quadrupling federal expenditures on co-operative education, a popular program among young people which is growing in demand. Our intention is to expand this program into the high schools.
Unemployed workers will see more assistance to help them get into the workforce. The passage of Bill C-21 will enable the federal government to spend $350 million a year to reach an additional 60,000 UI recipients this year. We are also aiming to help those Canadians who are on social assistance and who have been left behind. Bill C-21 will see $50 million added to the current training and other employment programs which have been operating in co-operation with the provinces since 1986.
I do not need to remind the House that each success means another pay cheque for families in the local community, as well as the satisfaction of a worker who is able to look ahead to future opportunities. Let me add also that Bill C-21 will allow for increased training allowances to bring them up to today's standard of living.
We have difficulties with older workers. Older workers will also receive more assistance. The bill has earmarked $40 million to encourage employers to hire and retain older workers who would otherwise lose their jobs. About $50 million is intended for skills and training education upgrading to be conducted through Section 26 of the UI Act. Natives, women, visible minorities, the disabled-all those who are often denied their full place in the workforce-need the benefits that will come from a better equity based human resource planning. More focused training and career development can tap a great pool of talent and skill, but that can only happen by the building of networks and organizations involved in training, business associations, unions, vocational schools, community colleges, and others. We need to plan together at various levels; most importantly at the local level.
These are the goals of the policy on which Bill C-21 is based.
The status quo is no longer acceptable for Canada. Quite simply, to stand still is to fall back.
That is the big picture, but the human side is quite simple. Canadians want to work. They want to own homes. They want to raise families. They want their children to get an education and have jobs, and they want to provide for a secure retirement of their own. Wanting these things, Canadians expect and indeed deserve the kind of help this legislation will provide.
Canadians understand the government's efforts to make the UI a more constructive, pro-active program. Recent polls show a strong majority of Canadians support the idea of using UI funds to train unemployed people so that they find better jobs and find them sooner.
We have an opinion from the Department of Justice that we are quite legal in using the funds in this way. Two Decima polls and an Environics study found that approximately two-thirds of Canadians supported the government's plan to shift a percentage of UI funds to job training through Bill C-21. It is obvious, as well, that Canadians support the bill's measures to ensure the UI system is being used as efficiently and as effectively as possible.
This general support is also reflected by opinion makers in the media and elsewhere.
Canada has one of the most generous UI systems in the industrialized world. Fine tuning that system to make it more efficient and constructive has been generally seen in the media for what it is. What we are doing has received positive comment from across the country.


An hon. member:: What papers are you reading, Bill?


William James Kempling: Well I am glad the member asked. Editorials across Canada have decried the unjustified delays imposed on Bill C-21, while demonstrating support for the legislation's refinements to our UI system.
I could quote from literally dozens of editorials, but a representative cross-section will perhaps indicate some of the response to the obstruction to this important bill.
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Here is one from the Saint-John Evening Times Globe. The editorialist writes that "to delay enactment-would hurt, not help the unemployed". This was written in November and the hurt continues.
From the Financial Post: "the Senate delay has forced new UI applicants to wait an additional four weeks" and "the delay also ignores the urgency of getting more job training and retraining programs up and running".
The Woodstock Daily Sentinel Review:
The unemployment insurance system will be helped by the changes proposed. The changes should cut down on some of the abuses (while) still taking care of legitimate claimants.
The St. John's Telegram:
The federal government has stopped making a contribution to the UI fund. It has kept the clamps on the civil service. It is proceeding with the-Goods and Services Tax. It means business.
The Montreal Gazette:
The Senate may well deny thousands of unemployment people the benefits to which the new law would entitle them.
That is a tragedy. The Regina Leader Post:
The proposed changes-are clearly designed to make the unemployment safety net more sensitive to the job market.
The Calgary Herald:
The federal government has set out to turn UI into what it is supposed to be, an insurance policy for the genuinely unemployed job seeker.
Finally, from the Vancouver Sun:
The Senate committee members didn't have a single question for Barbara McDougall when she gave them the opportunity to quiz her about the bill. That shows that they have run out of excuses for stalling it.
There you are, Mr. Speaker. That is what many members of the media said about the stalling of this bill. I noticed as well that members opposite have quoted Global Economics, a think-tank in this country. Members quoted these studies when we travelled with the committee across the country.
It was rather strange that when Global Economics representative, Mr. Patrick O'Grady, appeared before the Senate committee, he said: "I believe that Bill C-21 will make the UI system better and it ought to be passed". These are the very people that the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace talked about, and the study they produced which said that we were all wrong. Yet, when the people who wrote that report came before the
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committee, he told them that it would improve the bill and they should pass it.
Canadians are also very aware of the financial implications of continuing to play games with this important legislation.


An hon. member:: Don't drink and talk at the same time.


William James Kempling: I wish it had something stiffer in it than water.
If the government accepts the Senate amendments $1.75 billion will be added to the deficit; $450 million is at stake for maternity, parental and sickness benefits; and $45 million is being risked by the Senate for self-employed entrepreneurship and mobility assistance.
Members talk about the small village here and the small village there. We would all like to go back and retire in a small village. But the reality is that Canada is populated by people who have moved from small villages to big cities across the country. Members can go to Cambridge and ask the hon. member for Cambridge how many Newfoundlanders reside there. He will say that half the community comes from Newfoundland.
In and around the Hamilton area, there are all kinds of people from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. They came to where the jobs were to make some money and perhaps retire. We have to balance this thing. People move to where the jobs are. We are not going to move the Steel Company of Canada to Lockeport, Nova Scotia.


An hon. member:: I moved to Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. I followed the jobs.


William James Kempling: The hon. member for Hamilton West, the only time he ever got a callous on his hand was holding a microphone; he never worked a day in his life.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


William James Kempling: One-third of the increase in the Community Futures Program is being delayed, hindering 200 rural and small town communities.
The lower 10-week variable entrance rate is not in effect, which will hurt fishermen and other seasonal workers across Canada.
The Budget Papers in April 1989 stated:

May 7, 1990
Government Orders
The financing changes (under C-21) will contribute SI.9 billion to
deficit reduction in 1990-91.
That is the key issue behind this motion. The paramount fiscal policy objectives of this government is to get the public debt under control through deficit reduction.
Let me explain how this will happen. The UI program has been financed on a tripartite basis from employer to employee premiums and from general government revenues raised by taxation and borrowing.
The proportion of benefits paid by general government revenues has varied over the years. For example, in 1989 the government paid out an estimated $2.9 billion in unemployment insurance expenditures out of a total of $12.6 billion. This was used to finance extended benefits, clients taking training, or benefits for self-employed fishermen in excess of premiums they pay. However, after Bill C-21 is passed all the UI expenditures will be financed by premiums.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When we return to debate on this bill, the hon. member will have 10 minutes for questions and comments.


PLANT BREEDERS' RIGHTS ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, May 3, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-15, an act respecting plant breeders' rights, be read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being seven o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division at the third reading stage of Bill C-15, an act respecting plant breeders' rights.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.

Blondin	Bosley
Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean)	Boudria
Brightwell	Browes
Cadieux	Campbell (Vancouver Centre)
Cardiff	Casey
Champagne (Champlain)	Charest
Chart rand	Clark (Yellowhead)
Clark (Brandon-Souris)	Cole
Collins	Comuzzi
Cook	Cooper
Corbeil	Corbett
Couture	Darling
DeBlois	Della Noce
Desjardins	Dobbie
Domm	Dorin
Duplessis	Fee
Felt ham	Ferland
Flis	Foster
Fretz	Friesen
Gerin	Gibeau
Gray (Bonaventure -Iles-de-la-Madeleine) Greene	
Guilbault	Gustafson
Halliday	Harvey (Chicoutimi)
Hawkes	Hicks
Hockin	Hopkins
Hughes	James
Jelinek	Johnson
Jourdenais	Kempling
Keyes	Kilger (Stormont-Dundas)
Koury	Larrivee
Layton	Leblanc (Longueuil)
Lee	Lewis
Littlechild	Lopez
MacDonald (Rosedale)	Malone
Marin	Marleau
Mazankowski	McGuire
Mitges	Monteith
Moore	Nault
Oberle	O'Kurley
Pagtakhan	Plamondon
Plourde	Porter
Pronovost	Proud
Reid	Reimer
Ricard	Richardson
Robichaud	Saint-Julien
Schneider	Scott (Victoria-Haliburton)
Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth)	Siddon
Simmons	Soetens
Sparrow	Stevenson
Tardif	Tetreault
Thacker	Thompson
Thorkelson	Tremblay (Rosemont)
Tremblay (Quebec-Est)	Tremblay (Lotbiniere)
Tlirner (Halton-Peel)	Vanclief
Van de Walle	Vankoughnet
Venne	Vezina
Vincent	Volpe
Weiner	Wenman
White	Wilbee
Wilson (Swift Current -Maple Creek-	-Assiniboia)
Winegard	Wood-135
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, had I been present for
Government Orders
the vote I would have voted with the government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 7.24 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.24 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, May 8, 1990