1990-02-05

["Mr. Speaker, I am a Francophone and a Quebecer, and I am helping to build this country, together with my colleagues in the House of Commons. However, while we Francophones say yes to English Canada, while we Quebecers want to enter the Canadian federation, provided it is recognized that Quebec is a distinct society, shots are being fired on all sides: by Jean Chretien, who couldn't care less whether our country stays together or not, as long as his personal ambition prevails; by a number of provincial Premiers who probably have not realized what the impact will be in dollar and cents if Quebec separates, and now we have municipalities insulting Francophones by banning their language.\nWhat will this lead to, Mr. Speaker? Although I am still confident that Meech Lake will be ratified, I am starting to wonder!\n1%.", '\n\nFebruary 5, 1990']
Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should
consider the advisability of reinstating funding for the Canadian
Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of privilege that I rise in this House today on my motion which calls upon Parliament to urge the federal government to reinstate funding for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety located in Hamilton, Ontario.
At the outset of this debate I would like to thank the members of the Standing Committee on Elections, Privileges, Procedures and Private Members' Business for allowing this motion to become a votable item. I believe the decision shows not only the strength of this motion but the strength of parliamentary reform as well.
This motion speaks for all Canadians. While the Conservative government slashes through what it sees as the jungle of needless public expense, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the CCOHS, is headed for disaster. For ten years the federal government has made a wise business decision by investing in the CCOHS.
Through its preventative role, the centre has saved the federal government, Canadians, millions of dollars a year in health care costs.
According to a poll carried out for The Toronto Star and CTV, Canadians strongly oppose reductions for, among other things, health and education. However, instead of investing in Canadians, in their health and in their future, the Conservative government is divesting itself of what is rightly its responsibility.
The CCOHS was established by Act of Parliament in 1979, as a national institute concerned with the study, encouragement and co-operative advancement of occupational health and safety. The centre has traditionally provided Canadians and the international community with cost-free, impartial and unbiased information on occupational health and safety matters in both official languages. Through the use of its telephone hotline services, technical publications and on-line computer data bases, people can obtain information from the centre virtually trouble free.
The important and valuable role of the centre is obvious. Occupational hazards rank as the number three cause of death to Canadians, right behind heart disease and cancer. Compared to the U.S., Japan, West Germany and Great Britain, Canada has the highest rate of fatalities due to occupational hazards. In 1987, 894 Canadians died as a result of occupational accidents; 25 million person days were lost as a result of work related accidents and injuries.
The Minister of Labour acknowledged in the House of Commons that work related accidents entail direct and indirect cost to Canadians in the amount of $17.5 billion a year. Considering the dividends to the Canadian economy in preventing such occupational related accidents, Canadians cannot afford to lose such a valuable institution. Clearly, public funding of the centre has illustrated that old axiom, "An ounce of prevention for a pound of cure".
The responsibility of the centre in providing accurate and non-biased information to Canadians is becoming increasingly important. In 1988-1989, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety received over 26,000 requests concerning hazardous chemicals. A

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significant number of these enquiries was received immediately after the PCB fire in St. Basile le Grand, Quebec, from Canadians concerned about the effects of PCBs and other dangerous chemicals.
To give you an idea of the centre's workload, last year alone the CCOHS provided Canadians and the world with over 350,000 copies of 1,000 different technical publications and over 1,200 Canadian companies connected with the centre's computer over 40,000 times.
However, the fuel which drives the centre, that vast pool of information which it provides may soon dry up. Much of the information which the centre disseminates to the public is provided free of charge by international business, foreign governments and the United Nation's World Health Organization and Environmental Program as well as the International Labour Organization.
Because the centre's core funding was slashed in last year's budget and will be completely withdrawn by April of next year, the centre has already resorted to user fees in order to keep itself afloat. The introduction of user fees across the board has wide ranging implications for both the public and for the benevolent organizations which provide information through the centre.
In order to survive in the long-term, the centre's council of governors has established a business plan which would see the introduction of user fees in virtually every case and would redirect the centre's efforts toward the search for new products and services. There is little doubt that user fees would soon turn a profit for the CCOHS. However, I urge this House to recognize today that those profits will just as soon destroy the credibility of this organization, making its role in the promotion of health and safety of workers virtually useless. In many ways this shift to the profit motive will sound the death-knell of this important national institution.
The problems associated with user fees are not only in relation to the worker but to the various bodies which supply information to the centre. User fees may discourage benevolent organizations from supplying information to the centre. Only a small portion of the centre's data bases are actually developed by the centre itself.
Most of the centre's information is derived from a mixture of national and international organizations which have a direct interest in the free flow of information in occupational health and safety matters. Some of these organizations have not yet been informed of this plan by the CCOHS to charge for their information.
One of the centre's contributors, the International Labour Organization, has shown concern that it has not been involved or informed of the desire to introduce user fees for information which, in many cases, is supplied free of charge. In fact, most of the information from which data bases have been created is provided free of charge by the goodwill and commitment of these non-governmental agencies.
The question I would like to address today and which must be asked is what would the willingness of these non-governmental organizations be in providing cost-free information to the centre once they learn that the CCOHS is projected to make millions of dollars from their goodwill and commitment. In addition, the U.S. Congress has questioned the level of involvement which its equivalent, the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, should have in providing information to the CCOHS if the centre in turn charges its customers for it.
The implication of user fees is greatest for those whom the centre was first established, the Canadian worker. User fees essentially violate the right of Canadians to access to information on potentially life-threatening situations, free of financial barriers. As the Council of Governors state in their draft business plan:
The centre must become a commercial organization while
operating under its basic mandate of serving workers.
In my opinion the two are not compatible as any reduction in services will, in turn, affect Canadians through a reduction in accessible information. One can only imagine that under a profit-driven business plan it would not be safety that would be the first concern but the edict of the Conservative government itself; the bottom line. The proposed business plan which the Minister of Labour was to receive on January 31 of this year calls for the introduction of new services and projects. Heavy emphasis is placed on the marketing of existing products and services. A portion of the business
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plan blatantly exposes the intention of the Conservative government. I will quote from that plan:
Based on the belief that the centre has the capability of increasing its existing revenues and -new revenue sources, the Minister of Labour announced -that funding to the centre will be-completely eliminated. The centre has been mandated by the minister to develop a business plan that will show how-the centre will achieve selfsufficiency through the sale of products and services.
I believe this statement illustrates the new philosophy being forced upon the centre. There is no mention of finding the proper balance between self-sufficiency and the rights of the worker to know.
I would like to bring to the attention of the House the following section of the business plan which is a case in point regarding the way in which the centre is evolving. Under the section entitled "Strategies" the draft plan states:
The centre's strategy will be to favour the sale of products as opposed to the delivery of services, because of the revenue generation that can be achieved through products. Once the investment in product development is made, the profit potential is far greater than for services, which require far greater commitment of human resources and generally offer low profit margins.
There you have it, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Flis:: Profits before health.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Exactly. Profits before health. The centre, originally established as an institution to help people and to promote occupational health and safety, will now focus on the bottom line and promote its products. The draft plan goes on to explain that a lucrative market for safety-related products exists and that the centre should focus greater energy and resources on developing products and services for sale.
Other aspects of the business plan include a subscription service on occupational health and safety matters targeted at small and medium sized businesses and to develop new and existing markets for the data base information.
The problem I foresee in relation to this business plan is the direction the CCOHS must take under such a market-driven philosophy. The plan will compromise the centre's mandate to promote occupational health and
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safety in the workplace in Canada and the physical and mental health of working Canadians.
It is the worker who, in the end result, will be compromised by the centre's drive for new products and new services. Surely the Conservative government must be aware that not everything could or should be privatized, especially with regard to the health and safety of workers.
The CCOHS will not be able to serve the very people it was mandated to reach, if, instead, it must apply its energies to potential buyers and potential suppliers of data bases. Worse, Mr. Speaker, those willing to pay the highest price could find their information and their ideas privileged at the expense of the health and safety of workers.
Workers deserve a more objective, arm's length, voice in the selection and distribution of the information, not on the basis of the highest bidder but on the basis of real concern for health and safety in the workplace.
On top of all this is the fact that for all of the new plans and the charges the centre expects to raise, the figure hidden behind it all is that ever present goods and services tax. Under the proposals in the technical paper the centre would have to charge the GST on all of their products making the cost of communicating with the centre just that much farther out of reach for small businesses and the individual labourer.
I would like to note that the total advertising budget for the GST, even before the tax comes into effect, would pay for the operation of the centre for an entire year. Is this what the government means by deficit reduction or wasteful expense? In essence, the CCOHS of tomorrow will be entirely different from the CCOHS of today. It will be profit-driven. Canadian workers will come second to the centre's obsession with marketing and pricing. It will seek the bottom line. It will become complacent as opposed to being on the leading edge of occupational health and safety measures.
The elimination of public funding will jeopardize the tripartite relationship of the centre. This relationship has been the backbone of the centre. The credibility of the CCOHS depends on the trusting relationship between business, government and labour.
Now that the CCOHS is faced with relying on private financing, labour has stated that it does not want to be part of a new commercial operation concerned with

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profit more than safety. As the vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress stated:
We are only talking about $10 million a year to provide occupational health and safety to all Canadians. That is the job of a federal government, to protect the citizens of the country. If this plan goes ahead, I do not think we are going to have any choice but to withdraw our support from the centre.
This will mean that user fees will hurt those people the centre was designed to protect. Because of the cost to small companies and workers without unions user fees will discourage inquiries leaving business to provide their employees with safety information.
Many critics have argued that placing the burden on small businesses and labour is scrimping on a false economy. One expert in the occupational health and safety field recently stated:
The direct savings contributed by the centre could be estimated at more than three times its budget. This centre is already paying for itself hundreds of times over every year. The government now says that due to the national debt, the centre must find alternative financing. It will save $10 million a year by cutting off subsidies to the centre. Simple arithmetic shows that the real cost if the centre closes will probably run into hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Simple arithmetic also shows that the government could and should pay for the centre's operations by cutting needless expenses elsewhere. For example, the federal Department of Public Works directed the purchase of a facility for a customs and excise training facility even though Customs and excise said that the facility in question did not suit their purposes. The facility, located in the federal riding of the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, was purchased for $5 million.
As the Auditor General stated in his recent annual report to Parliament:
In our opinion, the initial contracts did not provide for a realistic evaluation before the decision to proceed. When construction began in 1986, it was to meet needs established in 1976 and not re-examined since then. Although the consultant's report stated the property would be adequate-with some renovations-the cost of renovations has so far been $35 million.
The Auditor General also describes the fact that there are many loopholes existing in the income tax system which the government could close. These loopholes amount to some $350 million in lost revenue every year. For a government that preaches fiscal responsibility, it would be easier to support measures that would save on
needless expenses, but not on cost-saving institutions such as the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
In short, the CCOHS needs public support in order to fulfil its mandate. Under the proposed plan Canadian workers would be compromised by the centre's desire for stability and profit.
Canadian workers need adequate information regarding workplace hazards. We know that. The fact remains that if the centre is unable to survive, if workers and small businesses cannot afford to contact the centre regarding workplace hazards, the real loss will be to the Canadian taxpayer and Canadian workers.
So I am asking my colleagues on all sides of this House to seriously consider my proposal urging that the federal government reinstate funding for the Canadian Centre of Occupational Health and Safety.


Mr. Ken James (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to the motion of my colleague for Hamilton West. I know that he has long had an interest in his community and that he is veiy interested in the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, as he should be. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is a tremendous organization. It has proven itself over the last 10 or 12 years as it has developed an excellent record in the dissemination of important information in the field of health.
The information that the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety receives, as the member for Hamilton West mentioned, comes from other organizations. However, he forgot to say that the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety puts that information into a form that Canadian workers and employers can understand it and puts it to use in a very efficient way. The member speaks of this important information and then talks about profit. It will be a long time before there will be profit because even though this is a tripartite government organization the federal government or the taxpayers have been paying almost the full load for the operation of the centre; over $67 million over the last 10 or 12 years. That is a substantial investment.
There are other players, other people at the table in this tripartite organization that governs the centre. The centre does operate autonomously, it makes its own
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decisions and it develops without being told what to do by the government.
It has built up a tremendous reputation, as the member for Hamilton West indicated. But there comes a time under good fiscal management when the government and also the board of governors believes that there should be some cost recovery developed into a plan. And the centre has been doing that over the last number of years consistently, albeit slowly. The federal government believes that that should be accelerated to a certain extent and so we have said that the centre should move into more of a cost-recovery mode and it has now developed a plan to look at doing so.
As a result of receiving government funding only-although it had a good reputation and did a good job-I think that a lot of people did not know what the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety did. There are a lot of school boards and fire departments and so on which did not know. I see the member opposite from northern Ontario. I am sure he knows about it because he was involved in assisting workers.
Were we really spreading the word? As a result of not having to worry about where the funding comes from there may have been a less than an adequate job done on that. The business plan that is just now being developed will have to do an even better job with the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety by spreading the word and being helpful in a much better way.
The member opposite indicated that NIOSH and other organizations would not continue to give the centre information because it is moving into a cost-recovery mode. He used the word "profit". I use "cost-recovery" because the discussions that the centre has had with those contributory organizations have indicated that it was in a cost-recovery, or pay-for-the-cost, situation. They have no trouble with that at all.
I might be very surprised about what the International Labour Organization thinks about this very important plan. I think the plan is very exciting. It looks at the opportunities for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to spread out, to move. It has been mainly concentrated on the health side, as I think
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members opposite who are interested know. It will now have the opportunity to move in a much more direct way into the safety side. Members will agree that it has been mainly operating on the health side and not as aggressively and helpfully on the safety side as it perhaps could be. I see that developing under this important business plan that has been brought forward.
We want the centre to carry on and expand. My colleague from Hamilton West mentioned that the centre is going to have to move into new product development. What is wrong with that? I think it is absolutely great that it is going to move into new product development. It will be putting on leadership seminars and conferences, as is proposed in the plan, as well as moving most certainly and directly toward becoming a self-sustaining organization, first, in connection with the CCINFO disc, that tremendous technology which it has that gives so much information to the worker and the employer. It will carry on from there developing new products and getting into conferences and seminars.
The cost projection is nothing tremendous. It looks like a 70 per cent or 80 per cent cost increase over the next few years on the CCINFO disc side. However, as is stated in the business plan, the centre will ensure that certain services will continue to be provided at no charge to clients so as not to impose barriers to access to information by individuals across the country. This will also act as a tool to assist the centre in marketing other products and services.
The person who phones for information will receive that information and get a publication and/or data sent immediately. That is what the minister and the government have committed themselves to.
So I look forward to great things. There is certainly great support for the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety on the government side. I have visited it a number of times and as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour I have had close contact with this centre since last May. I know it is going to continue and I know the member opposite for Hamilton West wants that to happen too. We will all work together so that this centre can carry on with its good work.

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Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins -Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today in support of the motion put forward by my friend for Hamilton West. The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety was established in 1978. It was established to supply crucial research and information, which is duplicated nowhere else, to all workers in this great country.
It is very obvious to us on this side of the House that the government has a very blatant plan to privatize the CCOHS. In order to privatize an industry you must have a product to sell. In this case, Mr. Speaker, the product is information, information that relates to the health and safety of all workers across Canada. The information is contained on a computer disc which the government tells us can be sold at a high price. And that is what this is all about, profit line.
This is information which was donated and shared by institutes like NIOHS in the United States. Therefore this government is proposing, not only to sell something that we do not own to begin with but also to increase the price of the service.
I listened with interest to the member opposite when he said that it is not profits, it is cost recovery. That kind of says the something to me-the bottom line. I wonder at times why it is that whenever we talk about health and safety in the workplace we have to say "profits" or "cost recovery" in the same breath. Surely somewhere down the line we have to put the health and the safety of our workers before profits.
The member opposite and the government are saying that employers are paying millions of dollars in contributions to these services. I must point out that workers are paying with their health and their lives. When we can offer a service that will educate them so that they know more about what they are working with and what the ramifications are of working with these products, I think this is more in line with what we really want to offer our workers.
We hear it said that we have done well in the health related issues and now we have to look at the safety related issues. Every time I have talked to someone in the business industry about safety the first thing that is said is that it is the worker's fault, he was not paying
attention, or the worker was hung over. It worries me when we talk about safety in that context.
The government has to make a commitment to workers to maintain the CCOHS to ensure that workers and their representatives have free access to this information. If we insist on privatizing this service, which is exactly what we are doing, we are taking that right away from them.
I urge all members of this House to disregard what was said by the other side and support this motion by our friend for Hamilton West.


Mr. Ken Hughes (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the chance to speak on this important question today for two reasons. The first is that the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety is a very important institution in this country and an institution to which this government is fully committed.
The second reason is that the chairman, Maureen Shaw, is a constituent of mine from the beautiful southern Alberta foothills. She established credentials in this field over a period of several years and she now commutes to Hamilton at great personal sacrifice to provide able leadership for the centre in this challenging time.
In the past decade the number of occupational accidents and illnesses in Canada has continued to be a major concern to employers, to workers and to all levels of government. In this period of time we have witnessed an increasing willingness and capacity on the part of organizations of employers, workers and governments to co-operate in efforts to reduce these losses, both in terms of human suffering and economic losses. We must increase our efforts and continue to work together to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for all Canadians.
Today we face enormous challenges in the area of occupational health and safety. Fortunately we are equipped with an information centre that was envisaged some 12 years ago by the three social partners in order to meet the future challenges which are now upon us. I am referring, of course, to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety which was created by an act of Parliament in 1978.
Since its formation the CCOHS has worked towards the objective of reducing the number of occupational accidents and illnesses in Canadian workplaces and has become an increasingly important component of this activity throughout Canada. Within its mandate it has
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assumed the role of being a national information resource on occupational health and safety matters. The CCOEIS gathers, evaluates and distributes occupational health and safety information to all decision-makers; workers, unions, management, governments and professionals in the field.
The CCOHS information and advisory service answers inquiries from any source about workplace health and safety and related matters. It has developed automated databases on occupational health and safety topics which permit direct access by federal-provincial and territorial government agencies, employers and unions from any part of Canada.
The current economy in Canada dictates a critical need to reduce government deficits and to improve productivity and efficiency. The need to compete internationally also highlights and adds impetus to greater productivity and efficiency. All levels of governments in Canada are finding it necessary to restrain some of their services and some of their programs.
My friend opposite, the hon. member for Hamilton West, referred to a CTV-Toronto Star poll released just last evening. Unlike my hon. colleague, I have no desire to suggest that we should base all public policy on polling data. However, he will have noted also that a huge majority of Canadians also support cutting money going to Crown corporations. The bottom line is that all sectors in society must tighten the belt.
Concerns for rising costs of Worker's Compensation Board programs and of health care in Canada, and the concurrent concern for improving the health status of Canadians, are focusing attention on health promotion, disease prevention and accident prevention.
Occupational safety and health in Canada is a complex field. It embodies a combination of economic, scientific and ethical issues. The field is further complicated by the fact that it is regulated by 13 different occupational safety and health agencies across the country. The importance of this field in Canada and in other countries is becoming increasingly recognized because of the impact of economic, social, technological and demographic trends in this area of activity. It is also recognized
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because of the impact of trends related to the working environment and to the health field in general.
The impact that these trends are having on the field of occupational safety and health is also opening many opportunities for the CCOHS in performing its mandate. The rising awareness and understanding of health, occupational and general environmental issues is generating an increasing demand for information on these subject areas.
Perhaps the biggest problem facing people who need information in this field is the fact that there is so much information. There is so much that it is very difficult to find that piece of information which is useful to a particular user when they need it.
The CCINFO is the Canadian centre's computerized information service. It provides fast and user-friendly answers to a wide spectrum of occupational health and safety questions. It is also available on-line, the CCINFO line, through a telecommunications link to the central computer at CCOHS. A telephone link also provides user support as well.
The disc, read-only memory, is for microcomputers. It includes data bases, publications and videotex packages in a new application of current technology that requires only a microcomputer to access a very large volume of information. The set of information discs now comprise three discs; two contain chemical information and a third contains occupational health and safety information.
I would like to give hon. members a better appreciation of the capacity of this innovative product. The computer literate members of the House will know that one single three and a half inch compact disc could contain the entire copy of the departmental estimates tabled in this House last spring. A single compact disc can hold up to 300,000 pages of information. So, the application of this technology to the proceedings of this House could contain Hansard and the Canada Gazette would also be a very useful source of information for researchers.
Labour Canada, in conjunction with the centre, has developed a special application compact disc containing federal legislation and standards. This disc is currently undergoing operational trials in Labour Canada and after two to three months it will probably be put into full operation. Labour Canada currently is considering broadening the usefulness of this new tool to incorporate

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operational program directives on the disc and to explore an application in computer-assisted training.
Other federal departments are also exploiting the use of this innovative product which permits gains in efficiency within their own operations. For example, environmental protection, as we all know, is a major concern to Canadians. The effective implementation of environmental protection measures requires partnership among a number of sectors in the Canadian mosaic. This partnership will help preserve and protect the environment by the co-operative contribution of abilities and knowledge. A joint venture between Environment Canada and the centre includes a joint presentation at the Globe 90 exposition planned for Vancouver this upcoming March and will focus on this unique CCOHS information system and complex chemical information.
A direct indicator of the success of this innovative product of the centre is the peer acclaim for its quality and demand, both domestically and internationally, which demonstrates its utility. Several Ontario universities recently approached the centre to resolve a problem related to management of collections of material safety data sheets for the system in many different locations. The CCINFO database responded to this identified special need. These are just some examples of the kinds of products that can be developed in a new and reinvigorated centre.
Both the Canadian Manufacturers' Association and the Canadian Chemical Producers Association have assisted in the development of the CCINFO database for several years. They have also actively promoted the database among their member firms. This encouragement has included establishing the database as a voluntary central repository of material safety data sheets from manufacturers and suppliers of chemicals and by encouraging their member firms to use the database for such related information.
The CCINFO disc has also recently received accolades from Yale University. Yale's medical library in a detailed review of the disc, called it an information resource that is global in scope.
In addition, as a further demonstration of its wide acceptance and marketability, the centre recently signed
an agreement with Geneva-based International Occupational Safety and Health Information Centre, an arm of the ILO, the International Labour Organization. This agreement strongly boosts the centre's ability to market the CCINFO product internationally in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The centre has excelled in the performance of its mandate and in the information services provided to Canadians at a very low cost.
I wish to assure the House that the centre will continue in its role as a disseminator of occupational health and safety information in Canada. The government will continue to support the centre in its mandate and its role of performing this important service for the benefit of all Canadians. The government is simply asking that other sponsoring partners and the beneficiaries of the centre accept and shoulder their share of the responsibility for funding the centre.
It is a uniquely Canadian institution, created by Canadians to reflect the needs of the country, its industrial milieu and the people of this country. It has been given the task to provide specific occupational health and safety functions and services within a climate of increasing fiscal restraint. The present context of this restraint also requires the creation of a more business-like environment for the efficient management of scarce resources.
I would like to affirm the government's continued commitment to occupational health and safety, and specifically to the work of the CCOHS. This has not changed. The centre has become renowned both internationally and throughout Canada as a dependable source of unbiased and highly professional information. There is no question that the vital task of delivering this information service relating to the health and safety of Canadians in their workplace will continue. I believe it will provide a better service in the future. It will provide a service that targets very real needs.
Mr. Speaker, recognizing your signal-it will provide an effective and efficient service in the future.


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora-Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to commend my colleague for Hamilton West for bringing forward this motion. It shows the insight and the initiative of this particular side of the House in understanding exactly
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what the Canadian Centre for Occupational Elealth and Safety was really put in place to do.
Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the issue, I would like to read to members opposite, who seem to have swallowed the canary in believing everything the hon. member for Sarnia has said as it relates to this centre, because there is one particular problem here. When this centre was created by all-party support, that is, this side and that side and it just so happens we were on the other side at the time. When that took place there were certain individuals who spoke and one of them happened to be the hon. member for Vancouver South, who we all know very well as a respected member of the House. This is what he had to say: "As I understand it the only funds going into the centre come from the federal government". That will only change if there is agreement with the provinces.
The objectives of the centre-and I will read them for you-do not state, as members opposite have referred, that it is simply to send information out to those who request it for a fee. There is a little more to it than this.
The first and most important part of the mandate is to promote health and safety in the workplace and the physical and mental health of working people in Canada and through that, to facilitate consultation and co-operation among federal, provincial and territorial jurisdictions. Further, participation is necessary by labour and management in the establishment and maintenance of high standards of occupational health and safety appropriate to the Canadian situation.
If you take away that particular ability by removing funding from this centre, what you do is completely remove the mandate. That is, it is not possible to cany out the mandate. No member on the other side in this House has had the nerve to say that. Basically, what the CLC has said in their own way is that they cannot continue in their tripartite arrangement if the mandate changes. Once the funding is removed, then basically what has been done is remove the mandate and that is the enhancement of health and safety. It is easy enough to send out a fee. We could start up a company that could very easily do that for Canadians, that is to buy different discs of different issues and different health hazards all across the world and then sell them to people who are interested. That is not the intent of this centre. The
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intent of this centre was to provide up-to-date unbiased information. It would go to whoever needed it. Access of information was based on the fact that you were Canadian, not that you had a dollar in your pocket to pay for it.
One of the reasons I thought it would be important for me to rise today is that I have taken the liberty of writing every premier and every minister of labour in the country to ask for their opinion of this, whether they thought it was a good idea to change the mandate of the Occupational Health and Safety Centre in Hamilton. I did this to find out if they agreed in essence with the government opposite and if it was nothing but opposition rhetoric that we have disagreed with the change in mandate.
I would just like to read a few into the record. From the letter from the Department of Labour of the great province of Prince Edward Island, I will read a few of the major paragraphs: "This decision will extremely prejudice the delivery of trustworthy and impartial information to individuals, unions, employers and governments which is so critically important in providing safe and healthy workplaces in the nation. The recent proclamation of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, a system that has been heralded throughout many nations of the world as progressive and far-sighted, is now being placed in jeopardy with this financial decision."
We go to the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador which is always willing to give us its advice on different issues. They state to us: "I have previously indicated my support for maintaining the status quo with respect to funding for the Canadian centre. The centre is an important national clearing house of occupational health and safety information and represents a major tangible effort to co-ordinate and harmonize occupational health and safety issues in Canada".
The important part is "harmonize and co-ordinate", not just grabbing information and shipping it out for a fee. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about enhancing and improving our workplace hazardous information, our safety in the workplace and that is a continuing process. That is not something that we can just turn off like a tap and say: "It is done. Now we will sell it to you." It continues day after day as new materials are invented and new processes are put in place. Therefore we have to continue to allow the centre

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to do its work without the problems of trying to figure out where their next dollar comes from.
My colleague for Sarnia brought up an important aspect in his speech, that there are many different groups out there who know nothing about the Occupational Health and Safety Centre. For this reason, I thought it would be interesting to read comments of other groups that wrote to tell me what they thought of the government's particular move. One comes from a school board that the member said did not know anything about it. This is from the Dryden District Roman Catholic Separate School Board. "At a time when all levels of government are introducing new legislation regarding occupational health and safety, it would seem that this vital centre should receive adequate funding to continue its extremely valuable work. We have found CCOHS to be an excellent centre source of information on occupational health and safety matters and would urge you and your colleagues to reconsider the decision to withdraw its funding".
Again, I thought it was quite interesting when the member for Sarnia said that fire departments do not know what is going on and they have not got a clue about what this centre is all about. I have a letter here from the Kenora Professional Firefighters' Association, which states: "We feel health and safety is of great importance, not only to us, but to many people in the labour force. The occupational health and safety centre has been known during its tenure to expedite information quickly when requested by firefighting operations. This centre is vital for the health and safety of firefighters involved in what has been traditionally called the most dangerous profession, but continues to be needed for the safety of all Canadians who are reliant on the information available on short notice".
Short notice is the important thing here. Do we wait until we send a bill, get the cheque and then send the information? Or do we, in essence, send the information when they need it at that moment? It would be interesting for the members opposite to understand this, the little fire departments do not have the dollars available. Many of these fire departments are volunteer organizations that do not have the ability to pay for this type of information.
The mandate of this particular centre was simply that every single Canadian has the right to free access to health and safety information that relates to their workplace. We have now changed the mandate and I suggest very strongly that members opposite understand that before they vote against my friend's motion to change the approach and put funding back in place which was intended for this centre so we can continue our work as Canadians have done in the past and to be front and centre in the world and to try to make our workplaces safer and better places for us all.


Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval):: Mr. Speaker, I was listening carefully to the debate so far, and I realized that the hon. member for Hamilton West (Mr. Keyes) was accusing the Conservative Government of wanting to dismantle the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.
I would like to remind the House that since the Centre was founded in 1978, the federal government has spent $68 million on its funding, and that two-thirds of that amount was invested by the Conservative Government.
When the hon. member says we are against Canada's occupational health and safety system, I think he is wrong, that he should take a good look at his notes and that his researchers should work a little harder on their statistics.
Mr. Speaker, as we know, the Centre was founded jointly by the provincial governments, the federal government, the territorial governments, employers and the unions, to improve the quality of life and the safety of Canadian workers.
Mr. Speaker, so far, only the federal government has invested in the Centre. When the Minister of Finance brought down the Budget last year, everyone was asked to tighten their belts, and I think we have a right to ask everybody, including organizations, to do their share and try and be self-financing, so that we will no longer have to waste public funds on projects that benefit only a small part of the population.
We must ask everyone to do their share, to participate. Those who receive these services should at least have the decency to shoulder a small part of the financial burden.
Mr. Speaker, I believe my time has expired.


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

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the order is dropped to the bottom of the list of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

It being two o'clock, the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.



[Stage Direction]
Mr Gilles Rocheleau (Hull-Aylmer): Mr. Speaker, not long ago, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) announced that his government had decided to launch a major advertising campaign, estimated to cost about $9 million, no less, to try and make his GST palatable to public. We all know that this tax, which has been rejected by the vast majority of Canadians and by the Liberal Party of Canada, is pernicious and unfair.
At a time when Canadian unity should be this government's priority and millions of dollars are being spent on GST propaganda, what has this government done and what is it doing to inform Canadians about the crucial importance of Meech Lake?
I urge the government, as an example to the provinces and while there is still time, to act responsibly, to stop hiding its head in the sand, and take concrete action to show Canadians that it wants to see Meech Lake ratified as soon as possible.

Mr. Dave Worthy (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, this past weekend it was my great pleasure to fire the starting shotgun for the Cariboo Cross-Country Ski Marathon at 100 Mile House, British Columbia. Close to 1,000 skiers ranging in age from five to 77 and from as far
away as Switzerland and New Zealand took part in the event.
Fort McMurray should be very proud of Greg Inkster who came first in the male category. Prince George's Tracy Beil was the fastest female.
Many others must have taken time out to enjoy the scenery. One of the skiers, who probably had the most fun, proudly crossed the finish line eight and a half hours after the start.
The people of 100 Mile House are to be congratulated for hosting such a successful family-oriented event without the benefit of any government assistance.
On behalf of the organizers of the marathon, the largest of its kind in western Canada, I would like to wish similar success for all those who take part next weekend in the Gatineau 55, the largest ski marathon in Canada.


Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, the fourteenth Commonwealth Games concluded on Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand.
Referred to as the friendly games, they are conducted in the true spirit of international sport and friendship. Canadians can be proud of the performance of our athletes who earned a total of 113 medals, 35 of them gold, against the best in the Commonwealth.
While a winning performance is the goal of every athlete, we must continue to support the values of competing fairly and striving to achieve excellence through long hours of training and dedication to the ideals of amateur sport.
The Commonwealth Games in New Zealand were an excellent venue for Canada's athletes to begin a new sports era internationally.
On behalf of this House I would like to congratulate the Canadian team. I know we are all looking forward to the next Commonwealth Games scheduled for Victoria, British Columbia in 1994.


CANADA POST
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I have a message for the minister responsible for Canada Post. It comes as a motion passed last week at

February 5, 1990
the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association. That motion reads:
WHEREAS the Canada Post Corporation is currently establishing retail postal outlets which will unnecessarily duplicate the counter services offered by existing post offices; and
WHEREAS the Canada Post Corporation anticipates that retail postal outlets will be the appropriate vehicle for provision of postal service in the future resulting in the loss of existing post offices;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association demand that the minister responsible for Canada Post instruct the Canada Post Corporation to immediately halt the establishment of retail postal outlets in Saskatchewan.
I trust the minister is finally getting the message-Canadians want to keep their post offices.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton -Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, across the country Canadians of all walks of life are becoming increasingly aware of the need to take an active role in reducing the amount of environmentally harmful waste we generate.
It was therefore with great pleasure last Friday that I announced on behalf of the Minister of the Environment that an application forwarded by the Carleton County recycling project would receive funding under the Environmental Partners Fund. The partners fund will contribute $69,000 to a three year, $166,000 project which will see the establishment of a recycling project for glass, aluminum and other metal products, and will reduce the volume of material currently being placed in landfill sites.
I applaud the Clearing House Project, a group of 30 members of the local community who have played a leading role in putting together the application for this project.
I strongly believe that the future success of cleaning up our environment lies with projects such as this and I congratulate the applicants for their initiative in this regard.


BILINGUALISM
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, who would have ever thought the council of a city with a French name would outlaw French as one of the two official languages in the city of Sault Ste. Marie.
"From now on," declared Mayor Fratesi and most councillors, "English will be the official language of communication in the Sault." That is nothing new actually, but the decision of Mayor Fratesi has serious repercussions.
First, other municipalities such as Thunder Bay and Niagara Falls are following his questionable lead.
Furthermore, his decision has given defenders of Meech Lake new ammunition: "Sign or Canada will split".
We had a taste of this future when Premier Bourassa assured European investors that if pushed, Quebec would separate while maintaining economic association with Canada.
We believe the French language is as important as English in keeping Canada together. Across the land bilingualism and the respect for both languages in all cultures are the essential preconditions for a united and strong Canada.


ATLANTIC ECONOMY
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, over the past several months Atlantic Canada has been concerned as a result of the closure of CFB Summerside and the closing of the Canso fish processing plant.
All of Atlantic Canada is now relieved and pleased with the recent actions taken by the Minister of Public Works who is also responsible for regional development in Atlantic Canada. The minister, through co-operation with the government of P.E.I., the government of Nova Scotia, and with the co-operation of the private sector has helped keep both of these towns reasonably optimistic about the future.
Summerside has seen announcements by two potato processors which will result in major new facilities
February 5, 1990

generating close to $80 million of investment and hundreds of jobs. Although not in place yet, an agreement in principle to keep the Canso fish processing plant open is under consideration and will save the way of life for residents of this area.
Atlantic Canadians appreciate the efforts by the minister. In fact, with these very positive developments in the potato and fish industries the hon. minister is respectfully and affectionately becoming known in Atlantic Canada as the minister of fish and chips.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 31 to ask members of this government to acknowledge the disaster unfolding in rural Canada. Thousands upon thousands of farmers are being forced off their farms, particularly in Saskatchewan. This results in the service industries also being forced out of business.
This government and its members are closing rural Canada. I ask them to implement a moratorium on all mortgages and interest payments on those mortgages for one year. I ask them to implement immediately a farm-gate price for grains that will reflect their cost of production and a return on investment, management and risk.
I ask them to make a commitment to the producers of Canada that this government will match the subsidies on export shipments by the United States rather than leaving the farmers of this nation to shoulder the load.
Finally, I ask this government to lift its shroud of secrecy, the conspiracy of silence, so that the people of Canada know the disaster that is unfolding across rural Canada.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Cyril (Cid) Samson: Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of two of my colleagues on the other side, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and especially the Minister of the Environment, an article that appeared in The Gazette of Mon-
5. ft 31
treal today regarding an abandoned mine site in Joutel, Quebec.
According to the article, the waste at the Poirier Mine stands five storeys high. It has been accumulating since 1966 and left there when the mine closed in 1975.
What concerns me is the fact that there is a mention that the mine could be reopened in the future by another company and that the mess will not get cleaned up in the meantime.
Since the Quebec government has been trying unsuccessfully to get this site cleaned up since 1980 by the former owner, my hon. colleagues could look into the possibility of setting up through Environment Canada a committee such as the Equity Silver Public Surveillance Committee that exists in British Columbia.
The workers in the mining industry of the region must also live in that region. It is time for this government to show more leadership and not allow mining companies to come in, make their profits and leave the workers high and dry with no jobs and a spoiled environment to boot.


NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD
Mr. Lee Richardson (Calgary Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago a Liberal government turned its back on western Canada and launched the destructive National Energy Program which brought the oil industry to its knees.
This government killed that odious program. We are not sure that all the members of the National Energy Board were listening.
The National Energy Board has now turned its attention to gas producers. Last November the board refused to approve four export permits because, it concluded, the contract prices threatened the public interest. In effect, it has assumed the right to determine the price for exports based on a cost-benefit analysis divined from a crystal ball.
Furthermore, it is argued that these decisions fly in the face of both the free trade agreement and the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. In response to a legitimate protest from gas producers the NEB is reviewing its procedures for approving gas exports.

February 5, 1990

I strongly encourage it to drop the use of the cost-benefit analysis and to rely on those other elements of the review process which complement the free market. This would allow for the development of a well functioning, competitive market which will let all customers, domestic and export, compete effectively and equitably for gas supplies.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, more evidence that equal status for women is still being thwarted came to the fore last week.
Female members of the Governor General's own footguards were unfairly excluded from participating in the installation of their new commander-in-chief. The commanding officer, who knowingly decided to leave the women out of the ceremonies, had ample opportunity and discretion to include them. He chose not to. One militia spokesperson considered this "traditional" and "logical" because, after all, they are not infantrymen. That is a self-evident statement if I ever heard one. That is exactly the issue.
Why have women been excluded from the infantry? Why are they confined to traditional clerical and administrative roles? The women who protested were told not to bother taking their complaint to the Human Rights Commission. We may all look forward to the day when fairness and justice are so embedded in the values and practices of Canadian society that the commission will not be necessary. Until such institutions as the military abandon outdated attitudes, the Human Rights Commission is all that protects many Canadians against prejudices of the dark ages.
The Governor General is a symbol of our national values, including the equality of all citizens. His installation should have been a joyful occasion for all Canadians, regardless of gender.


NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, a vote will be taken at 6 p.m. today on the NDP motion to complete
the national parks system by the year 2000 and to implement the Brundtland report recommendations that Canada protect at least 12 per cent of land and marine ecosystems.
The real test of today's vote is whether this Parliament contains a sufficient number of MPs who understand what is at stake. We are the last generation which can make a choice on completing the national parks system. Our parks system is only one-half complete and a supportive vote will help, not hinder, momentum toward the goal of parks completion by the year 2000.
Protecting 12 per cent of land and marine ecosystems is described as the indispensable prerequisite to sustainable development by the Brundtland Commission. Only 2.6 per cent of Canada is fully protected. Another 3.7 per cent is partly protected. To reach the 12 per cent level requires federal leadership and co-operation at every level across Canada and around the globe.
The Prime Minister endorsed the Brundtland report two years ago. Let us hope that today's vote reflects reality. Ninety-six per cent of Canadians support strong action to protect and preserve our wilderness heritage.


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (Jonquiere):: Mr. Speaker, I am a Francophone and a Quebecer, and I am helping to build this country, together with my colleagues in the House of Commons. However, while we Francophones say yes to English Canada, while we Quebecers want to enter the Canadian federation, provided it is recognized that Quebec is a distinct society, shots are being fired on all sides: by Jean Chretien, who couldn't care less whether our country stays together or not, as long as his personal ambition prevails; by a number of provincial Premiers who probably have not realized what the impact will be in dollar and cents if Quebec separates, and now we have municipalities insulting Francophones by banning their language.
What will this lead to, Mr. Speaker? Although I am still confident that Meech Lake will be ratified, I am starting to wonder!
1%.



February 5, 1990



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Right Hon. John N. Turner (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to put a question to the Prime Minister.
Bilingualism is an essential element in the fabric of Canada. It is what makes us unique. It is what keeps us united. It is a principle, I believe, worth fighting for.
The Prime Minister is aware, as we all are, that recently that principle is being challenged. I wonder whether he would join me in sponsoring a unanimous resolution of this House in support of the principle of bilingualism and the linguistic duality of Canada. Would he respond in a positive fashion to that suggestion?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I entirely agree with my right hon. friend that the concept of bilingualism is a hallmark of the nation. It is one to be strengthened at every opportunity, which is why this government was honoured to bring in the first amendments in 19 years to the Official Languages Act which strengthened both bilingualism and minority rights across the nation and which, I believe, was supported by all political parties in the House.
The linguistic duality concept is, as my right hon. friend knows, an integral part of the Meech Lake Accord. It was supported by all three party leaders because it, too, strongly enhances the concept of linguistic duality and strengthens bilingualism across the country.
While I have not seen anything that my right hon. friend is talking about, if he is discussing a resolution that talks about bilingualism and a reaffirmation of support for the Meech Lake Accord to be debated and voted upon in this House, I would be delighted to do that.


John Napier Turner: Mr. Speaker, the spirit of bilingualism is wilting away- and I say this because of the Prime Minister's failure to give me a direct response-because of a lack of federal leadership. There is a lack of federal leadership not only in sponsoring the ratification of the Meech Lake Accord, but also in standing up to linguistic intolerance, whether
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that be in the English speaking parts of Canada or in the French speaking parts of our country, particularly the sign law in the province of Quebec.
In those circumstances I wonder whether the Prime Minister would outline what specific steps he intends to take as Prime Minister of this country to respond to the unacceptable resolutions at the municipal level in Ontario, resolutions which may well spread through that province and to other parts of the country.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that my right hon. friend would raise a question like this and suggest that it is because of a lack of federal leadership.
My recollection is that when Bill 101 was introduced into the Quebec National Assembly and passed, the federal Prime Minister of the day, while he regretted it, refused to invoke the disallowance clause, saying that the matter was something to be resolved by public opinion and by the courts. I had nothing to do with that, nor did my right hon. friend. I am surprised that my right hon. friend would suggest that there is something lacking in terms of federal leadership.
This government proceeded in Saskatchewan and Alberta and in the Province of Quebec because we believe that anything at variance with the promotion of language rights and the protection of minority rights across the country is at variance with the fundamental dimension of this country. That is why we have fought so hard to make sure that the Province of Quebec, which had been left out of the constitutional arrangements in 1981-82, was brought back into the family, so that these matters could be resolved by all Canadians within the constitution.
At all times, be it in Saskatchewan, Alberta or Quebec, I have carried the message. I have fought the fight from Manitoba to Rosemere in favour of the promotion of the protection of minority rights, English speaking in Quebec, French speaking across the country, and the building of a united Canada with tolerance, equality of opportunity, and through instruments such as Bill C-72, a greater protection for linguistic minorities and a greater role for the federal government in promoting that across the country.

February 5, 1990
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These initiatives, Bill C-72, the Meech Lake Accord and so on, all of which have strengthened minority rights, all of which promote bilingualism, were supported by my right hon. friend. I am surprised that today he would reproach me for doing something with which he is in fundamental accord.


John Napier Turner: We asked for the co-operation of the Prime Minister and we have asked for his leadership. We have been treated to a political charade here. The tone of the House is not the tone that I would have expected we could have brought together to deal with linguistic minority rights in this country.
f Translation ]
Mr. Speaker, I believe Canadians are determined to enforce the protection of linguistic minority rights. As the Premier of Ontario said on the weekend, when those rights are threatened in one part of the country, they are threatened everywhere.
Will the Prime Minister call a meeting with the Ontario and Quebec Premiers and the other provincial Premiers, to ensure that concrete steps are taken to stem the surge of intolerance reflected in recent municipal resolutions against bilingualism?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, like the Leader of the Opposition, I deplore any surge of intolerance, in Ontario or anywhere else in Canada. I think that protecting the rights of linguistic minorities where they are located across Canada is a noble obligation, and an obligation that all Members of this House try to fulfil and support at all times.
To get back to the basic question, the hon. member is asking me for support for bilingualism. Of course my government would support a resolution to that effect. In fact, the present Governor General of Canada, when he was Minister of Justice, tabled the first substantial amendments in 19 years to strengthen bilingualism and the protection of minority rights. In this connection, the hon. member for Vanier is to be commended, since I believe he fully approved this approach which was one of the major components of the federal government's linguistic policy.
That being said, since the hon. member mentioned linguistic duality, that duality is specifically mentioned in the Meech Lake Accord. Considering the Liberal Party's support, through the Leader of the Opposition, for
Meech Lake, I would be delighted to have a debate on these issues and to support a resolution in favour of bilingualism that, through this House, would support Meech Lake, which is also a very important document promoting Canada's linguistic duality.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE ACT
Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton-Lawrence):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Today, several national organizations, including the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Assembly of First Nations, the anti-poverty coalition and the Social Planning Council of Toronto, expressed their unconditional support for a complete overhaul of Bill C-21, a bill which is extremely hard on thousands of unemployed Canadians.
Since the bill, if it ever had merit, Mr. Speaker, is no longer reasonable and we are all concerned about its economic impact-the disintegration of the regional economies, the real destruction of Canadian manufacturing, increased unemployment and poverty-and since everyone agrees, why does the minister not withdraw her bill immediately?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of withdrawing this bill because it is in the interests of Canadian workers from coast to coast, including Atlantic Canada.
The reason that it is in their interests is that it does two things: First, it provides them with an opportunity to upgrade their skills during periods of unemployment and to enable them to get more permanent jobs in a new future in a way that they have not been able to before. Second, it is much more sensitive to changes in unemployment rates than the existing system that we have today.
I should think that the hon. member would be speaking in support of a bill that is in the interests of Canadian workers.


Giuseppe (Joseph) Volpe: Mr. Speaker, during committee hearings we attempted to speak on behalf of workers and what we got was exactly what people are saying today, that the 84,000 unemployed in the city of Toronto and the hundreds of thousands of
February 5, 1990

unemployed elsewhere do not agree with the minister. For them, the government's withdrawal of its $2.9 billion participation in unemployment insurance and the reallocation of approximately 15 per cent or $2 billion of income maintenance funds to training is just a trifle less than highway robbery.
I ask the minister again to reconsider her position on Bill C-21 and either accept major changes to the bill, or to withdraw it completely and immediately.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I have already said in response to his first question that no, I will not withdraw the bill.
If you look at the people who have come to speak to this bill both in the legislative committee and in the other place, what you see is that people who do disagree with the bill, and there is some honest disagreement, all disagree for totally different different reasons.
We have a balanced approach. The benefits are on the other side. You cannot tell me that young parents in this country are not in favour of this bill. They are in favour of this bill because it will extend the maternity and the parental benefits. You cannot tell me that people over 65 are not in favour of this bill because it gives benefits to them.
Tell me where we are going to find these benefits if we do not revise this act. What we have done is create a situation that is going to be better for workers in terms of the kind of economic future that this country has that gives them a better way to participate.


BILINGUALISM
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Prime Minister.
The Leader of the Opposition has raised what I feel is a very serious proposition and something that should be considered non-partisan. Canadians everywhere are concerned about the future of this country and the responsibility that we, as national leaders, have for nation building in this country.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister again: Would the Prime Minister support an all-party motion in this House that we accept and promote linguistic minority
Oral Questions
rights everywhere in Canada, whether that be English in Quebec or French in other provinces?
In my view it is not a matter for debate. I am not suggesting a debate. I would not have thought that it would require a debate.
Will the Prime Minister support a motion that this House support linguistic minority rights everywhere in Canada?


Mr. Bouchard (Roberval):: Why don't you support Meech Lake? That is what it does.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, since I have been in public life, either elected or non-elected, I have been a strong and unwavering supporter of the concept of bilingualism and the promotion of minority rights, linguistic and otherwise, across this country.
I believe that this is a fundamental hallmark of the well-being of the nation. I have spoken on this issue. I have gone, in different circumstances, to Winnipeg in 1983-84 when it was not particularly popular, and I have done the same thing in Quebec when it was also not particularly popular. I believe that it is a fundamental to the well-being of the country.
My hon. friend says that she is concerned about the future of the country and asks if I would support a resolution in terms of bilingualism. I will be happy to look at any resolution that promotes some of these fundamentals. My hon. friend says she is concerned about the future of the country. I am very concerned about the future of a country where we have a Constitution without the province of Quebec. That is why we brought in Meech Lake, which is why I hope my hon. friend will support that too.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are surely looking to this Chamber for leadership on this issue. I do not dispute the Prime Minister's statements that he does support minority rights in Canada. Therefore I am assuming that we will have the support of the Prime Minister if our House leaders meet later this day to form such a motion. I do not dispute the Prime Minister's intentions.
In the same vein, I would also ask the Prime Minister if he has contacted provincial premiers and territorial leaders about this issue, which is becoming a continuing

February 5, 1990
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and very serious issue in Canada this week? We have to take some real leadership in this Chamber.
I would ask the Prime Minister: Has he contacted his colleagues in the provinces and the territories to discuss this issue? Has he called a meeting to discuss this issue, or will he agree to do so?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, on the question as to whether I have begun to speak to provincial premiers, the answer is yes.


Mr. Riis:: On this issue?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Yes, on this issue.
My hon. friend expresses concern. This was a position, in terms of the hierarchy of concerns, that the previous Leader of the NDP expressed very eloquently and well on the floor of the House of Commons. He said time and time again and very persuasively that before some other important matters could be addressed we must repair the injustice of 1981-82 and bring Quebec back into the constitutional family.
The Meech Lake Accord, which deals with the fundamental issue of linguistic duality, English speaking minorities in the province of Quebec and French speaking minorities elsewhere, which spells it out very clearly, surely has to be part and parcel of any thought my hon. friend would give to any motion in promotion of bilingualism. So, clearly, if one came forward, I would count very much on her to express support for something which is so important to the province of Quebec and to Canada, namely, support for the Meech Lake Accord and all that it means to French speaking Canadians saying yes to Canada.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.

The Prime Minister must rise above all political partisanship. It is a question of national unity.
Why does he not support the suggestion made by the Leader of the Opposition for a unanimous motion of this House today?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, neither I nor the Leader of the Opposition made any partisan remark. He asked me a completely legitimate question and I gave him an answer which I hope was suitable. We will have discussions to see
whether some resolution could not be devised to promote the interests involved.
The Leader of the Opposition has always spoken and acted in favour of linguistic minorities, and so have I. The Leader of the Opposition has always acted and spoken in favour of the Meech Lake Accord because it will bring Quebec back into the Canadian Constitution. Talking about the problem of linguistic duality, which is mentioned in the Meech Lake Accord, and the problems of minorities, it seems to me that it is extremely difficult to present a resolution today that would ignore the problem of Quebec's exclusion, as in 1981. Nevertheless, it is a vital problem for Quebec, for Acadians, for francophones and for all of Canada.
So I agree with the Leader of the Opposition and perhaps with the Leader of the New Democratic Party that we should find a resolution honouring all our obligations for bilingualism nationally and for the Meech Lake Accord, which finally says yes to Quebec.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The government's earlier attempt to tie the variable entrance requirement to the new unemployment insurance bill is backfiring pretty badly, I think she will admit. The public's anger over that issue is focusing not on the Senate, as she had hoped, but on her and on the government.
Will she now undertake to do what she failed to do in December, what she and her predecessors have done every December for the last 11 years? Will she now bring in a variable entry requirement bill?


Barbara Jean McDougall: No.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, the minister is right in her earlier responses that everybody is against this new bill for a variety of reasons. There are many reasons that I could go into.
In view of the litany of opposition before the Senate committee and in the press and otherwise, will she now relent? Is she now prepared to cut her losses, to cut the government's losses, to heed the pleas of those who are going to be devastated and trampled by this bill and agree to send it back to the drawing board? Withdraw the

February 5, 1990

bill altogether. That is the sensible thing to do, I say to her.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, let me just say with regard to the hon. member's own province that what has been happening in the other place on this bill is hurting his constituents.
What we are doing with this bill is taking away the penalty for seasonal workers who repeat in the system quite aside from the variable entrance requirement, people who repeat through the unemployment insurance system. That is hurting the people in his riding. It is not just simply the variable entrance requirement. There are benefits to people in his riding that we cannot alter with a variable entrance requirement bill.
He knows that. He knows that more Community Futures are going to help people in his riding and other parts of Newfoundland.


Roger Simmons: Different issue.


Barbara Jean McDougall: No, it is not different issue. It is all part of this legislation and part of the Labour Force Development Strategy. It is a package. It is going to work for the people of Newfoundland, as it is going to work for the people of Atlantic Canada. I think it is time that he supported it.


CENTRAL AMERICA
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. In the speech he gave in the House on the Organization of American States, the Prime Minister committed himself to a new role for Canada in the western hemisphere.
I have recently returned from a trip to El Salvador and, amongst the tragedy of that country, sensed a new desire to move a peace process forward. But it needs the help of other countries.
Will the Prime Minister pledge today that the $100 million committed by his government over a year ago for Central America will not be cut in the next budget, but will be retained and in fact directed to the work of churches and other non-governmental organizations
Oral Questions
pursuing human rights conditions, pursuing the democratic process and adding to the peace process, so that this country can give a very positive signal to the people of that region that we do care what happens to them?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, given the interest of my hon. friend for the region, he will be pleased to know that yesterday I received a call from the President of Mexico, expressing gratitude to Canada for joining the OAS and, as well, for Canada's leadership on debt relief for Mexico, which he views as a very important instrument and which I think can be replicated in other countries of Latin America. I know my hon. friend would want to know that.
With regard to budgetary considerations, the Minister of Finance, at an appropriate time, will bring forth a budget which I hope will be able to satisfy the requirements and interests of my hon. friend.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister recognizes that conflict taking place in places like El Salvador. That is the key to peace in that entire region.
Is he prepared to use his good offices to make a representation to the Bush administration, which is presently looking at its own economic and military aid programs in Central America, and request that all U.S. aid, which is the major support of that country, be contingent upon recognition of human rights and upon the ability to bring the two sides to the table for a consecutive and ongoing negotiation toward a peace process? That kind of aid under that kind of condition would perhaps be the most important thing that could happen. Is the Prime Minister prepared to make that kind of representation to his colleague, the President of the United States?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we give a lot more aid on a per capita basis around the world than does the United States of America. Canada, on a per capita basis, is infinitely ahead of the United States of America, and we do not throw in military aid for the ends of the calculations either. I think the nation has an excellent record in terms of foreign

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Oral Questions
aid, without strings attached. That is what we propose to continue to do.
The Secretary of State for External Affairs and myself have already spoken to the United States many times in regard to this approach for its foreign aid. The parliamentary committee discussed $100 million in aid to the region. It is our intention to make sure that undertaking is respected.
As the President of Mexico indicated yesterday, through the leadership of the Minister of Finance as chairman of the interim committee of the IMF with his role in Mexico, with the role of the Canadian chartered banks, plus the high per capita contribution of foreign aid, second only to France of the major industrialized nations of the world, Canada has provided a leadership role and will continue to do so.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission -Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, there is growing evidence that Canadians will not accept cuts to social programs that would drag our programs down to the U.S. level. During the last election the Minister for International Trade promised Canadians that unemployment insurance would not be touched.
My question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. When will she and her government realize that the unemployed cannot be privatized?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, first of all there is no suggestion in any way, shape or form that this social program is about harmonization with the United States, which does not even have the kind of program we have.
We have done this in the interests of Canadian workers, in the interests of Canadian training for Canadian workers to face a Canadian future in a global economy. This is good for Canadian workers, good for Canadian industry, good for new parents and good for senior citizens who want to continue to work after the age of 65.
When is the hon. member going to look at what we are trying to do in a positive way? It is for the future of
Canada, the future of Canadian workers, not for the past.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, the minister has raised exactly my point, that it is not good for Canadian workers.
Will Canada join the United States as the only major western country which does not help fund unemployment insurance?
We are seeing the privatizing of training in this country. We are seeing Canadian workers forced to pay their own training expenses at a time when they can least afford it-when they are out of a job.
When will the minister stop making the unemployed pay for the mistakes of this government?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, it is not the unemployed who pay premiums. It is people who are employed and it is employers. It is for their own protection in hard times.
The government has committed to be there if the fund goes into deficit, as we have been in the past. That will continue into the future. The entire structure of the program is geared to help Canadian workers prepare for a better future for themselves in a world where people are going to have to train and retrain.
It is still there as a social safety net. We are talking about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of the program. Our own labour force surveys among unemployed people show that they feel that part of the reason they cannot get a job is because they do not have the right training. We are going to fix that.


PUBLIC WORKS
William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works.
There is no project that would have such a real tangible, positive economic impact on the entire Atlantic region like the fixed link project to Prince Edward Island. It will require local engineering, design, construction, support boats, labour, materials, and when complete it will attract tourists from all over the world. It will encourage efficient interprovincial trade.
If the report on the environmental review panel due in a few months is positive, will the Department of Public

Works move immediately to proceed with this important project? What is the time frame for construction?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague for his ongoing interest in this very important project. I know many members in this House share the feeling that it would be a veiy desirable thing for Atlantic Canada.
As soon as the environmental considerations have been fully met, it is our intention to proceed with the project at a time when arrangements have been made and it is feasible to do so.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture.
The farm debt crisis in Saskatchewan is continuing to deteriorate. Since 1985, 10,000 farmers have been served with foreclosure notices. The Farm Credit Corporation now owns some 475,000 acres in Saskatchewan.
Could the minister tell western farmers when he is going to bring in programs to keep farmers on the land rather than have their farms seized by the Farm Credit Corporation?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, just for the record, the hon. member might be interested in being reminded of the fact that when we came into office, as a result of the Liberal policies farm bankruptcies reached an all-time high of 551 in one year. That was in the year 1984. They have been reduced substantially, by at least 50 per cent. That is still too high.
The hon. member has been an ardent watcher of the agricultural policy review process that is being undertaken. I think that this government has truly acknowledged the fact that many of our safety nets and stabilization programs have been put through the supreme test over the course of the last five years because of drought, because of other natural disasters, and because of the low commodity prices. We are presently reviewing all these programs in an attempt to bring about a safety net, stabilization programs and improved crop insurance programs that will assist our farmers.
Oral Questions
In the meantime the farm debt review process is working very well. It has handled over 8,000 different applications and on 77 per cent of those occasions there have been satisfactory arrangements made.
All in all there is progress. We recognize the difficulty and the magnitude of the problem, but this government is working very closely with the farming community to try to bring about better policies to provide greater security and greater confidence for the future.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I would just point out to the Minister of Agriculture that in 1985 there were some 500 bankruptcies in Saskatchewan. Last year there were 1,106.1 should point out that the impact of the farm crisis and farm debt spreads far beyond the farm to small communities. Some 23,000 left Saskatchewan last year.
On December 19, the Farm Credit Corporation in Saskatchewan sent out a notice to all real estate agents in north eastern Saskatchewan offering them a finder's fee of 5 per cent to buy up farmland and put farmers off the land.
Will the Minister of Agriculture explain to farmers why they are hiring people to put farmers off the land rather than bringing in programs to keep farmers on the land?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows very well that under the farm debt review every attempt has been made to keep farmers on the land through short-term lease arrangements, through longer term lease arrangements, through consolidation, and through selling off some lands.
Every conceivable arrangement has been considered and the farm debt review board process has worked very well. This is where the creditors, the farmers, and the farm debt review board sit down together to try to work out the best available plan that can be arrived at. In some cases there is land that is put up for sale and there is land that is taken over by the Farm Credit Corporation.
We are attempting to sell off the land because it is not the intention of this government to hold on to large tracts of land. We are not in the business of owning land.

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Oral Questions
We are in the business of getting it back into the hands of the farmers, and that is what we intend to do.


Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the part-time Minister of Agriculture. The minister is aware that American subsidized wheat sales to traditional Canadian wheat markets are a devastating blow to the Canadian wheat farmer.
Will the minister make a commitment to this House today to stand up for the Canadian wheat farmer in the international trading community, to commit his government to matching the U.S. subsidies on wheat dollar for dollar so that the Canadian wheat farmers will be able to survive this year?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member was not a part-time critic over there, he would know that this government over the last five years provided $21.7 billion worth of assistance to the agricultural community and almost $12 billion tow grain and oil seeds farmers.
While he attempts to paint the Americans as the fall guy-and I make no apologies for him-he should also recognize the fact that in 1989 the European community budget for subsidies on cereal grains and oil seeds was almost $10 billion, amounting to $140 Canadian per tonne subsidy on bread wheat, and this year it is about $80 per tonne. There is a price war going on. It is important to note the leadership of the Prime Minister by bringing agriculture to the top of the agenda at the Uruguay Round. We must resolve the problem of trade distorting subsidies that is hurting this country and hurting other medium sized exporters. We are in that process.
I can assure the hon. member and the farmers of Canada that, as we have demonstrated in the past, in the course of pursuing this we will certainly not stand idly by and see our farmers go down the drain.


Robert (Bob) Speller: Mr. Speaker, what the minister is saying is that there should be one set of trade laws for the Americans and a lesser set for Canadian farmers.
The minister should be aware that there is a real crisis in western Canada. Over 10,000 Saskatchewan farmers are expected to lose their farms this year. Farm income
in Saskatchewan is expected to drop 101 per cent, and 90 per cent in Manitoba.
Will the minister make a commitment in this House today to provide the operating capital necessary for Canadian grain farmers to plant their crops for this season so as to stop this agricultural devastation in our agricultural community?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I said precisely the exact opposite. Again, if the member was not a part-time critic, he would know, as I have indicated in the House on many occasions, that we have at the present time a technical committee of assistant deputy ministers of the federal and provincial governments assessing the situation. I should remind him as well, in case he was not aware, that grain prices are about 50 per cent higher this year in the announced initial prices than they were in 1986. It is still too low, but there is some sign that prices are in fact strengthening.
We are examining the situation in terms of the impact of the lower commodity prices, the drought situation, the excessive moisture in some areas and the critical cash flow problems in others. The technical committee of federal and provincial ADMs is assessing this situation. We will have the interim preliminary data sometime later this month.
We hope at that particular time to assess the situation, to look at the application of the existing programs and, if there needs to be further assistance, the federal government and the provinces will come up with a package.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Due to the public outcry and the inflationary pressures of the 9 per cent GST, it has been reduced by 2 per cent. It has been reduced on everything except housing where it remains an effective 4.5 per cent, as originally planned. In light of the crisis of affordability of housing, particularly for young families and seniors, and the fact that many families are being driven into poverty by the high cost of housing, why did the minister not reduce the GST on housing by the 2 per cent?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member would like to mislead the House. There is a reduction in the GST from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. There is a 2.5 per cent housing rebate. But there are also taxes today on a number of the things that are used to build a house, including building materials, plumbing supplies, rugs, windows and other material, all of which amount to about 4 per cent depending on the community.
When the hon. member says there is a 4.5 per cent tax, he is only telling half the story. The existing tax is around 4 per cent so that there is a small increase of the order of half of one per cent in his community. It may be somewhat lower or somewhat higher in others. I think we have treated the housing industry quite fairly, and we have certainly followed through on the commitment I gave in September 1988.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the Minister of Finance.
There is a crisis in confidence about the government's statements that the GST will not affect affordable housing. The statements in its information pamphlet are pure garbage. The Canadian Home Builders Association and independent tax consultants say that the average price across Canada will increase $3,000; in Toronto $9,000. Housing consultants say that rents will increase by $300 and $400.


Mr. Speaker:: Would the hon. member put his question.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: In light of these facts, how can the minister say that it will not drive up the cost of housing?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member is quite aware, rents are not taxed under the GST. Existing houses are not taxed under the GST. The impact of the 7 per cent tax, less the housing rebate, is about equivalent to the amount of tax that already applies to a house.
I suggest that indicates very clearly we have followed through on our commitment in September 1988 that what we would be doing with the GST would not adversely affect the affordability of housing.
Oral Questions


MANUFACTURERS' SALES TAX
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Housing. All members know that the goods and services tax is intended to replace the existing manufacturers' sales tax. According to a recent Toronto Start article, it is doubtful that suppliers of building materials will deduct the manufacturers' tax from their prices and replace it with the goods and services tax.
Is the minister aware of this newspaper article? If so, what is he prepared to do to prevent this from happening?


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, I am certainly aware of the newspaper article. I am aware of the concerns of people that the existing manufacturers' sales tax will not be taken off many products, particularly with respect to building materials.
The hon. member and all members of the House should be aware that in the past there have actually been reductions in the federal sales tax on building materials and those have been reflected in the prices that have been charged to the public. In this case, with a very substantial reduction in the costs to the suppliers of building materials, that being the federal sales tax component, competition is obviously going to force that down just as it did in the past when there were reductions in the federal sales tax.
In addition to that, the Department of Finance will be putting in place a monitoring office to ensure that all consumers in Canada are quite aware of what prices should be once the manufacturers' sales tax, the federal sales tax, is removed. Also, that will operate as a complaint office once the new GST goes into effect and will be able to focus the spotlight of moral suasion on those people who persist in leaving the tax in place.


ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, over the last couple of years Canadians have been repeatedly shocked to learn that the justice system has failed aboriginal peoples. The Blood inquiry in Alberta, the Harper inquiry in Manitoba and the recent report of the

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Point of Order
Marshall inquiry in Nova Scotia confirm the abysmal failings of the provincial justice systems as they affect aboriginal peoples.
I want to ask the Prime Minister whether the federal government, with its overriding constitutional responsibility for aboriginal peoples, will establish a royal commission to examine the Canadian justice system and its tragic impact upon this country's first citizens, the aboriginal peoples.


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's concern about this issue. I can assure her that the government shares her concern. We are following, with interest, the commissions to which she referred. We have recently received the report of the Marshall commission and we are reviewing it actively at the present time.
I am not suggesting for a minute that a royal commission to examine the justice system is the answer. But I can assure my friend that we have every intention of acting on any suggestions that come up and reviewing them to see if we can improve the system.


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, how many more JJ. Harpers and Donald Marshalls, how many more aboriginal victims do we need to have this government take direct action? We need the government to assume and exercise its constitutional responsibility for its first citizens and establish, at the request of the aboriginal community, a royal commission to investigate and resolve this matter.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I think I can do no more than reiterate my first answer. This matter is being pursued very, very actively by the government in terms of reviewing the commissions to which my hon. friend refers, the most recent one being the Marshall Commission.
That report is with my officials now and, as I indicated to my hon. friend, we are studying it and we hope to be in a position to make recommendations upon which we can act. That is what I am interested in, acting, not further commissions. I am interested in acting on solutions which have been suggested rather than having another commission.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: 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 hereto.
While I am on my feet, I move:
That the House do now proceed to the Orders of the Day.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. During question period I had the impression there was agreement on all sides of the House on the matter of supporting and promoting official languages in this country. Considering the I believe unanimous interest in the House, may I perhaps suggest-
I have here a draft motion, a draft that could be used as the basis for consideration or consultation with members of the government and the New Democratic Party. Perhaps it would be possible to meet and discuss the matter, reach some kind of agreement and perhaps report back with the results so that both Chambers could vote in favour of a motion.
Mr. Speaker, the motion is very simple, and perhaps I could read it: "That the House renew its commitment to protect, support and promote"-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. I think it would be more appropriate for the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) and perhaps other members to have a discussion or perhaps a meeting with the government, as suggested by the hon. member. However, it is not
February 5, 1990

appropriate to have a debate now on the terms of this proposal.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the terms of the motion of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lewis). Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt this motion?


Some hon. members:: Yes.


Some hon. members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


Mr. Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: Call in the members.


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

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nunatsiaq (Mr. Anawak)-Proposed goods and services tax; the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants (Mr. Nowlan)-Treasury Board; the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Parker)-Cominco.

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MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S. O. 52 RECOGNITION OF OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, earlier this day-before 10 o'clock as a matter of fact-I gave you notice that I would like to propose, pursuant to Standing Order 52, a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter, namely, the deterioration of the situation across the country with regard to the recognition of official languages.
We have had a change of heart-let me put it this way-and during Question Period there was an indication of some possible movement toward a unanimous resolution of the House. I have given copies of my resolution to the House leaders of all the parties. I take it that within an hour or so we will be finding a solution to this motion and that we would not have to ask you today, Mr. Speaker, to rule on an emergency debate.
I take it that I will give notice tomorrow. But I will see how the government and the NDP react to my proposal.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, as much as I would like to allow my hon. friend to leave all that on the record unchallenged, I would like to say that we have now received in writing my hon. friend's suggested motion. Had we had that earlier in the day it could have been given the consideration that we want to give to it. It is not a question of a change of heart on the part of the government, because our determination on this issue has always been there..
We would like to flesh out the motion and have an opportunity to discuss it with my colleagues in Cabinet, and also with the New Democratic Party which will probably want to add something about Meech Lake into the motion. We will get back to the House later.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would just like to say that once the negotiations have been completed the Chair would love to know. Then we could carry on with this business.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I feel that it is unfortunate that the Minister of Justice felt moved to make those unnecessary comments on a very critical issue.
I just want to say to my hon. colleague for Ottawa- Vanier that we have received the draft of the proposed motion. We are also in the process of circulating a draft motion similar in nature. We think that this is something that ought not to be debated and discussed in the partisan sense that we just heard from the Minister of Justice.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Once negotiations have been completed hon. members could advise the Chair.
I think we should now proceed to orders of the day. When Bill C-62 was last before the House, the hon. member for Calgary West had the floor.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, January 31, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-62, an Act to amend the Excise Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Income Thx Act, the Statistics Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance; and the amendment of Mr. Turner (Vancouver Quadra) (p. 7569).
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, this is the fourth time that I have risen on this debate and been able to get perhaps a sentence out without points of order from the New Democratic Party. They seem determined that Canadians-


Mr. Parker:: Mr. Speaker, point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will recognize the hon. member for Kootenay East on a very short point of order.
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Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to have the record cleared up concerning the adjournment debate this evening. It should be the member for Kootenay East and not the member for Kootenay West.


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


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I guess there is nothing more precious about this place we call the Parliament of Canada than our capacity to speak in the Chamber, to listen to each other, to engage in vigorous debate on behalf of democracy and on behalf of good decisionmaking.
The last couple of weeks I have found particularly disturbing because of the extent to which tactics have been employed in the Chamber that bring the actions of the Chair into question but which, in the final analysis, are dedicated to reducing the possibility for us to engage in active debate.
I guess the best protection for us as a political party charged with the responsibility of governing this nation as we seek to do what is right but not necessarily popular, is that notion of free speech. Our protection lies in the facts and in the truth of the circumstances and the situation. It is what we predict will happen versus what the opposition predict will happen.
There are well over 100 members here today who were not here in 1984. That is when we announced our intention to examine the entire taxation system in this country and, in particular, the income tax system and the consumer taxation system.
We began a dialogue with Canadians back in 1984. We brought out a very extensive discussion paper close to three years ago. It was certainly available in my riding, and I would think in the ridings of all government members. We have made it available. Vigorously we went out into our communities and shared it with Chambers of Commerce, local business people and consumers groups. I am not sure that the members of the opposition did that. I am not sure that they want Canadians to know much about the current method of consumption taxation or about the possibility of proposed changes in relation to consumption taxation.
I am not sure they did because they knew that as we changed things for the better it would be hard for them to get the credit. They simply stood up and complained.
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A complaint is nice, it is abrupt, it can be colourful. Complaints are easy. Explanation of complex events is difficult.
We went through what I consider to have been the bitterest election campaign in my experience in September, October, and November, 1988. What made it bitter was the fact that members of the opposition and their partisans went out to senior citizen complexes to tell Canadians: "If you pass the free trade deal, your pensions will be gone, your health care will be gone. All of the good things that you value about this country will be gone." That is what they went out and said one and a half years ago. Where did it get them? It got them another term in opposition.
Now they have started the same tactic a little bit earlier. Instead of starting it the last six months before an election, they are trying to start it three years ahead of time. What are they doing?
They are going out to the senior citizens' homes and telling the seniors that they are going to lose their medicare because the government is going to change the taxation system and that they are going to lose their pensions because the taxation system is going to be changed. Canadians have a memory. Canadians do have a bit of common sense. All of these half-truths and misunderstandings that members of the opposition are spreading are going to come back and bite them and choke them by the time the next federal election comes around. They are not true. They are telling Canadians things that are simply not true.
I heard somebody on CBC Newsworld the other day. That person had been listening to the opposition say: "Everything in Canada on January 1, 1991 will be 7 per cent more expensive. Get ready for it". I said who is there, other than a very busy person who does not take the time to think, who could make a statement like that about this change? Is there anybody with a modicum of common sense?
It is a bit like this. Let us say that we have to collect 10 cents of tax. Under the current system, let us say we tax glasses and we do not tax pens. Then we have to get 10 cents off the glasses, if we have to have 10 cents, and we are getting nothing off the pen. That is what the manufacturers' sales tax is about.
It takes half the things we buy in this country and puts a tax on them, a tax of 13.5 per cent. It collects $18,000

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Government Orders
million that way, on half the things we buy in this country. The opposition comes along and says: "The dirty old government is going to put it on the glasses and the pen". We still have to collect 10 cents. If we are going to collect it on the glasses and the pen, we collect five cents on the pen and five cents on the glasses.

Then what happens? The pen is five cents more expensive, but the glasses are five cents cheaper.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Can the opposition understand that? Canadians can. If opposition members would pay a little bit of attention, they would know that we are going to put a tax on twice as many things and we are going to put it on at half as much. Thus half the things Canadians buy in the future will be cheaper and half the things they buy will be more expensive. That is the reality.
How can a 13.5 per cent tax be changed to a 7 per cent tax, a tax which is collected on twice as many things to gamer that amount of money, unless half the things we buy in this country are going to be cheaper in the future?
Is it just half? That is where the mathematics get a little more complex. I do not know who is coaching whom, whether it is the member for Calgary East or the Leader of the Official Opposition. Last week we had a lesson in mathematics from the two of them that was identical. Either that is a lucky break or one person on that side-the Leader of the Official Opposition-is coaching the member for Calgary East, or the member for Calgary East is coaching the Leader of the Official Opposition.
When I look around at the Conservative benches I am reminded that once upon a time I wanted to start a business. I had no customers, no machines, no employees, no warehouse, no nothing. It was to be an office coffee business. I went out and made sales and bought machines, employed people, met a payroll and I kept the books. I look at this tax and I say: "Gee, if I still had that business it would help me." I sold a product. I sold a thing. I sold coffee. The GST would help me. It would make the machines I bought cheaper. It would make the coffee pots I bought cheaper. It would make the soap I bought cheaper. All of the things that went into my business, the truck and the gasoline would be cheaper.
Therefore, I would have had to borrow less from the bank, pay less interest, and been in better shape.
I look around the Conservative benches and I see that there is somebody who owned a business, there is somebody, there is somebody, there is somebody, and there is somebody. I look over at the NDP and ask: "Is there anybody over there who ever owned a business?"


An hon. member:: Yes.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: budget. The Liberals and the NDP said it was an absolute catastrophe, it was going to cost this country hundreds of thousands of jobs and the unemployment roles would climb.
It is five years later. In every single province the unemployment rate is lower. There are 1.5 million more Canadians who have a job and pay tax than there were five years ago. These are the parties that stated: "You are going to lose your pensions. You are going to lose your health care if you continue free trade." There are almost 250,000 million more jobs in the first year of free trade. The jobs are better paid.
Did you see how much the average wages in this country climbed in the last 12 months, Mr. Speaker? It is an enormous increase. It runs to almost 9 per cent in some sectors. There are 750,000 people today who were on the poverty rolls when we came into office in 1984 who are not on the poverty rolls now. There are hundreds of thousands of children off the poverty rolls.
This is a government that has had a finance minister, instead of committees, instead of back-benchers, who has tried to consult with the Canadian people time after time to lay out the facts with the Canadian people time after time, and history says we are right.
Do all the senior citizens who are watching this program right now want me or my colleagues to explain in detail every little facet of the GST? Does that make sense? Do people need to know that? Do they need to understand it? I say, no, Mr. Speaker, but we are not afraid of that.
For the better part of a year we have had a hot line which has been advertised in newspapers. If anyone has a question about any little detail, he or she can phone that number free of charge. We are not afraid of the facts. We are not afraid of the details. How many members on the opposite side are telling their constituents to phone the number and get the facts? Or do they say: "Listen to me and my biased householders and my misinformation campaign?" Which is it? Phone the number and get the facts or listen to me and the nonsense I am sending out there?
Government Orders
I say to those senior citizens that they can listen to one party in this Chamber, just one, if they want to understand the future and the truth about the future. That is the party that has been right for six years in a row now.


Mr. Rocheleau:: What a joke! What a deception.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: There is a member who came into this House about a year and a half ago. I will bet you he campaigned in senior citizen's complexes, telling them they are going to lose their health care, they are going to lose their pensions.


Gilles Rocheleau: It's coming.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Now go back there and tell them that they lost their health care and their pensions. Their pensions are bigger today than they were then, and the health care system is in better shape today than it was then. These are scare tactics and Canadians will not be scared.
I do not know what it will take to convince members of the opposition that attempting to fool the Canadian people is a mug's game, a loser's game. Those of you in the Liberal party who were not here back in 1980 to 1984, for example, when your party was in power and finance minister after finance minister went public with an incorrect picture of the state of the economy. In 1984 it was the biggest defeat in the history of your party because consistently your finance minister and your back-benchers went forward with a picture based not on fact but on fiction. Canadians are a people with their feet on the ground, with an awful lot of common sense, and they can tell fact from fiction.
You have won a short-term victory, because you have had a lot of help. You have chambers of commerce that are out fighting on behalf of their members, you have had the Federation of Independent Business, you have had the "Axe the Tax", and many groups that have stated that they will fight this tax on your behalf, including your own parties, and "send me a donation". That is what all those groups have in common. "I will fight, but send me a donation that I can use to fight".
It is not a perfect tax. No one on this side believes that there is any such thing as a perfect tax. But we have an obligation as members of this House to determine whether it is a better tax, whether it is a better system of taxation.

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Mr. Speaker, if you cut through all the nonsense, they want to say to Canadians that a 13.5 percent tax is better than a 7 per cent tax. That is a hard sell. Canadians, they want you to believe that a 13.5 per cent tax is better than 7 per cent. They want you to believe, Mr. Speaker, that taxing a domestic business heavier than an import business is good for jobs. Raising the price on things we make in Canada while at the same time not raising the price on things we import is somehow going to produce better jobs and more jobs for Canadians. That is what they want you to believe, Canadians. I think that is a hard sell. In 1924 we were the first country in the world to bring in the tax. A lot of countries copied us. Every single one of them has got rid of that tax. In 65 years people copied us coming in. They found out the problem with it and stopped.
Popularity is not what governing is about. It is doing what is right, what is sensible. Using common sense on behalf of Canadian people is what governing is all about. They will and they have convinced the Canadian people in the short term that there is something wrong. Over the long term Canadians will discover there is something right about what we are doing, that it is logical, that it makes sense, that it is good for the economy and good for the social welfare system. When they find that out, they will not forget who was lying to them and those who lied to them will get their just desserts the same way they did in November 1988.


Mr. Althouse:: I have two questions for the hon. member who spent some time leaving the impression that he was speaking the undying truth and everyone on this side of the Chamber was lying. There are two items that I want to raise with the member. I note that in his party's outlook in 1984-85 when the Minister of Finance first began his taxation and expenditure program, he made the statement that if we continued to pursue the Liberal line of spending and taxation that within five years the deficit would have doubled. In fact, we have instead pursued a Conservative line of expenditures and taxation and the deficit has more than doubled.
Would he tell us what went wrong. Why did they point their fingers at the Liberals and then pursue an even
more onerous proposition? Perhaps he could explain that, since he is in a truth-telling mood.
Also, while he is in a truth-telling mood, would he please try to explain to the people of Canada, since the people in the House know what the answer is, why he attempted to mislead the people of Canada with his statements over the weekend about the cost of maintaining the House of Commons. He left the impression that when the House was sitting it costs $1 million a day and leaves the obviously wrong conclusion that if the House was not sitting the cost would be zero. I have looked back at a few of the records. I remember noting a year ago that the House did not sit for the month of February. It sat for the whole of the month of February the year before. The costs for the year we did not sit were actually considerably higher than when we were sitting.
I submit that the hon. Whip of the government side knows that the cost of the House of Commons goes on and varies barely a tiddle or a jot whether we sit or we do not sit. It is a fixed cost and not much can be done about it. The restaurants may cost a little less when we are not sitting, but there is no business coming through to offset their costs either. In fact, the practice and the facts are that when we do not sit, it has been costing us more than when we do sit. Why did he try to leave the false impression that somehow by tying up time in the House we are costing $1 million a day when he knows better?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, when the member gets a chance to look at the "blues", I think he is going to be a bit embarrassed about where he started. The deficit was $38 billion plus-


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: It was $150 billion.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Now he is talking about something different. He is certainly not talking about the deficit. He is talking about the accumulated debt over the last five years. That is a different figure. Maybe that is the way the NDP does it. They use one set of words when they are talking about something else and you are supposed to understand that when they talk about the deficit they do not mean the deficit, they mean health care; or when they talk about the deficit they do not mean deficit, they mean pensions. What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to listen or are we not supposed to listen?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: The numbers are $150 billion and $350 billion.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Now he is into accumulated debt. Let me explain deficit first of all, Mr. Speaker. With inflation and a bigger country and all of these things in between, it is 25 per cent less than it was when we came into office. So, it has gone in the direction we promised.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: It went from $30 billion to $28 billion and back up.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The Leader of the Official Opposition with a minority government took Canada from a position of basically a balanced budget, where we were not using any money for payment on interest, and into big debts.
They used that minority government period to create the big debt that grew and grew. When we came into office the government of the day, supported in large part by the New Democratic Party, was borrowing $16,000 million for programs, plus another $22 million for interest payments.
Well, it is five years later and we have a surplus. We have changed. We have cut to the point where on programs we do not borrow a dime. On a net basis over five years, we have not. We, in fact have $9 billion that goes to pay the interest on the public debt. The interest payment this year is over $38 billion, the deficit is only $30 billion. Where does the money come from if it does not come from a surplus on programs? Members opposite may not quite comprehend all of that because there is a lot of technical vocabulary in that, a difference between the words debt and deficit and surplus, and so on.
We have created 1.5 million jobs with our economic program. If we had listened to the Leader of the NDP, he was predicting a job loss of 184,000, let us say a couple of hundred thousand each year. That would be a million more unemployed, instead of 1.5 million working. That is a 2.5 million turn around. That is 10 per cent of the Canadian population, the difference between their prediction and our prediction and what it would do. That is why so many people are off the poverty rolls. That is why so many more people have a job. That is why the average wage is up so much. That is why the standard of living is up so much. That is why the productivity of the Canadian economy is up so much. To the Canadian people, I say: "follow our advice".
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With their behaviour in the last two weeks they have been trying to shut down Parliament. If they succeeded, they would believe that we should not have a democracy. Some of the people who provided some of the ideological thought for their party believed that a democracy really was antithetical to progress and good things. The member from Saskatchewan agrees that democracy is antithetical. If we closed this place up it would cost $210 million. We might have to spend $10 million to mothball some things to keep them in reasonable shape, but we could save $200 million. That is close to $2 million a sitting day, not $1 million. I thought it was a generous underestimate of what this place costs to simply say $1 million.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Why did it cost more when we weren't sitting last February?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: In any event, democracy, the chance for freedom of speech, the chance to debate is really priceless. To lose that is the real tragedy. Their behaviour in that regard of trying to stifle debate is really what I am angry about. I would hope most members of this Chamber and most Canadians would be angry about that attempt to stifle debate in this Chamber.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are two minutes left. I recognize the hon. member for Park-dale-High Park.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, I would give an A to the hon. member as his supervisor if he was a teacher making the presentation, but I would give him zero for the content of his presentation. In his preamble he talked about dialogue and how his party went across the country and listened to all Canadians, et cetera. I remind him that the definition of dialogue is two-way communication, not one way. His party listens but does not hear what is said. This is why over 70 per cent of the people are against this GST even though it was reduced from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. I would like to hear his comment on that.
In his example, he held up the glasses and the pen and mentioned how the manufacturers sales tax on the glasses was 13 per cent but nothing on the pen, again deceiving the public. What he did not tell the public was yes, 13 per cent on $50 glasses at the wholesale price. But when the glasses are sold for $100 the consumer is paying $7 tax. If they are sold for $150 the consumer is paying

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$10.50 in tax and not $6.50 in tax. He also forgot to tell Canadians that that pen had no tax on it and now it is going up to 7 per cent. Again, there is this kind of deception.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, sooner or later Gallup is going to get very clever and will ask a basic question. Do Canadians prefer a tax at 13.5 per cent or 7 per cent. Thirteen and a half or seven? I suspect they will come down on the side of 7 per cent. It depends on the question you ask.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: That is not true. Don't start comparing apples and oranges.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: I think the hon. member who just spoke-I was not sure if he ever owned a business. Now that he has opened his mouth, I am sure he never has. I am sure he never has sold a product and has never been responsible for the utilization of the concept of margin.
You start with what you pay and in the current system it would be 13.5 per cent on $50 and that is $56.75. That is what you start with and base your margin on. If you are doing a margin of 100 per cent, you are up to $113 instead of $107. He just handed me the example of why you would pay more under the current system than you would pay under the next system. I suggest to the member that he talk to the people in his riding who own the shoe store, the electronic store and the novelty store. Ask them how they price. Don't sit in your ivory tower.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired. The Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier on a point of order.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The Liberals, in the interest of getting more members on and having meaningful debate, would ask the House to concede to us the opportunity of exchanging our 20-minute slot for two 10-minute speeches followed by the usual five-minute question and comments, starting with the Hon. Member for Essex- Kent who will use his 10 minutes plus five. Then, I will go to the member for Restigouche-Chalour.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there agreement?


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The government side has no problem with that concept.


Mr. Nystrom:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Agreed.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that this is the International Year of Literacy, I would ask the government Whip in his request that Canadians telephone the telephone line to get information on the GST, if he would provide that phone number for those Canadians who cannot read the ads in the paper, for those who are watching television as well for those who cannot afford newspapers, so they can indeed get information on the goods and services tax.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, in English, the number is 1-800-267-6620.

In French, that's 1-800-267-6440. For telecommunications-

For the hearing impaired, it would be 1-800-267-6650.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is not a point of order, but it is informative.


Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker-


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Propaganda.


Jerry Pickard: More propaganda from the government. That is true.
I would state right now that the Liberal party has been the party that has led the fight against the GST.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Jerry Pickard: There has been absolutely no question that since the introduction of this measure until today, and certainly on in the future the Liberal party will be the party that opposes this tax.
We have listened to people all across Canada. According to some surveys, eighty per cent of the people in Canada have opposed this tax, and seventy per cent in other surveys. Eight out of ten people are opposed to this tax, yet the government says it is listening to the Canadian people.
I did some surveys in my riding. In September, 80 per cent of the people in my riding who responded to the survey said they opposed the tax. Just recently, in December, the result of another survey I sent out was quite astounding. Out of over 1,000 responses that I received, two were in favour, and the rest were opposed. As time goes on a much greater number of people are opposed, at least in southwestern Ontario.
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Why has the Minister of Finance not listened to Canadians? Why has the Department of Finance not listened to Canadians? Why has the Conservative government not listened to Canadians?
The government's track record is one of not listening. It's track record really speaks for itself because it does not see this to be a problem. It has stated right along that the Liberals left a legacy of high debt, of high interest payments. We should look very carefully at the government's record and try to examine what, in fact, really did happen. When this government took power in 1984, the debt was approximately $170 billion. Today, the debt is $350 billion. It has doubled the debt in five short years.
What about taxes? What about the gross income of this country, federally, in taxes? When the government took power in 1984, taxes through the federal government sources were $70 billion. Today, the taxes bring in $120 billion. It has increased taxes by $50 billion in this country, over 70 per cent.
Canadians are upset because in five years our taxes have gone up over 70 per cent. The debt has been doubled. The government talks about the debt charges. When the government took office, the debt charges were $22 billion. Today, they are $40 billion. It doubled the cost of paying those charges as well.
The government's track record, financially, is a fiasco. It doubled what Canada owes. It doubled the cost of paying that debt and it increased taxes over 70 per cent. Those are the simple facts that it does not talk about.
The government talks about how it has dealt with the deficit. The average Canadian knows that it has not really changed the deficit significantly. Thirty billion dollars a year every year for five years is its record. That is not doing a good job.
Let us look at what the chamber of commerce said in the pre-budget report to the government, to the Minister of Finance and to the Department of Finance. The chamber of commerce stated very clearly that it expected the government in 1984 to follow a careful plan in order to deal with debt, but that the government had shown no leadership in its five years in office. This is a strong indictment of what the government has done.
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We must remember that this government has been in power during times when interest rates have been low, the lowest in the decade. The benefit of a growing economy has been there and good times for Canada have been there, but the government showed no leadership in dealing with the finances of this country.
The government has introduced 31 tax increases in Canada in its five years. This leads us to tax increase number 32, the GST. That seems to me a pretty poor direction in which to be heading.
Canadians are upset with being told they are doing well when the reality is that our debt is growing and the only method used to deal with the problem is to increase taxes again. We have to look at where we are going.
According to the government's statements over the past year, one finds that the government has said that taxes should be simple, at least simpler than existing taxes if we are to have good reform. The Minister of Finance said that the tax must be fair to all Canadians, visible, integrated with the provincial taxes which exist and revenue neutral.
If we examine this point, we see very clearly that the five tenets that were put forth about tax reform are in no way lived up to by this government. How can that tax program be more visible? The Minister of Finance said the other day that it would be more visible than the provincial sales tax. The only place in this country that it will be more visible is Alberta. It will not be more visible in Ontario because the tax is displayed on our receipts. We also see it every day when we go to the store.
Will it be fair? I cannot see the fairness of that tax either, because when we examine it very carefully we see that we are going to have an army of 4,000 people trying to collect the tax. If the Minister of Finance were serious about bringing in tax reform that would have followed those tenets, he would have listened very carefully to some of the comments made by the Auditor General. He would have closed loopholes and lowered interest rates. He would have dealt with the debt and the deficit in other ways that would have been more reasonable.
We listen to Canadians across this country who are quite upset about what is going on in the country. The Progressive Conservatives were the authors of the free trade agreement. They authored 31 tax hikes. They authored the GST and they have authored pessimistic

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viewpoints across this country through each of those measures.
Canadians are upset with the types of legislation that have come through and that is being clearly reflected in the polls across Canada today. The Conservatives continue to author pain for Canadians through the legislation they bring forward, without giving a reasonable answer to the problems which exist, not even by following their own tenets in this case.


Mr. Malone:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member for Essex-Kent would indicate whether he supports the manufacturers' sales tax.


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has suggested that there should be tax reform in this country. We are not questioning the fact that there needs to be tax reform. We are not questioning the fact that we must look at what is happening in the country, but we are questioning 31 tax increases.
We are questioning doubling the debt in this country. We are questioning the authors from the Conservative government who have created a real problem for all Canadians. We are questioning statements like those coming from the chamber of commerce that there is no leadership on the government side. We are questioning what will happen to small business when John Bulloch talks about the "super killer of jobs." We are questioning the government when Jean Woodsworth comes forward and says that no seniors support the GST.
We are listening to statements coming from across Canada and giving them back to the government so it can think about what it is doing.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the government Whip for having provided the phone number. I think that Canadians who phone that number will be sorely disappointed to discover that information coming from that line is less than useful. Those are my comments.
My question is to the hon. member who just spoke. We are currently debating a motion that the GST bill not be read now but be read in six months' time. It is a Liberal motion. In six months' time the Liberal Party will have a new leader. We have already seen its leadership candidates back off any opposition to the trade deal. We have seen its one opponent to the trade deal forced off the
race by its corporate comptrollers. Will the Liberal Party still be opposed to the GST in six months' time?


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, we have clearly been following a line that has been consistent across this country as far as the GST goes. Unlike certain situations that I have seen happen with the party that is questioning where the Liberal Party is going, we do not change our minds at the drop of a hat or at the pinning of a microphone. We continue with solid, stable policies that give what Canadians expect: consistency in a party that is reasonably listening to all Canadians. It is important to realize that when a group is challenged we have to look at who is doing the challenging. I have some questions about that question coming from that party.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for Essex-Kent: Does he support the manufacturers' sales tax?


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, the manufacturers' sales tax is a bad tax. But, you do not replace it with a worse tax, and that is what you are trying to do. The Canadian public is saying: "Don't do that." Not only do Canadians recognize the poor quality of the manufacturers' sales tax, they recognize that the legislation you are bringing in is worse.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to salute the hon. member opposite. It is refreshing and certainly a change to see a member of the Liberal Party actually professing concern about debt. This is certainly the first time in my lifetime that I have heard such a thing. I can scarcely believe my ears.
I have heard the hon. member offer 10 minutes of criticism of the GST proposal. He has agreed that there is something wrong with the existing manufacturers' sales tax. I believe I have heard the hon. member and his party oppose every single spending cut proposed by this administration. I have not seen him dancing with joy over VIA or the armed forces bases, over taxing back pension, family allowances and so on. At the same time he is criticizing all of the tax increases.
The question I want to ask is simple. Recognizing that we have a debt problem, at the same time criticizing every attempt to reduce spending and at the same time criticizing every tax increase, how would the hon. mem-
February 5, 1990

ber propose to deal with the debt and the deficit problem?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Does the hon. member have a short answer for that?


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, I am going to give a short answer. This is the first time that my hon. colleague who brought the point forward has been concerned about the debt, and that seems to be inconsistent with what has been going on. The Liberal Party has been very concerned about the debt. It is concerned about the deficit.
The Conservative Party has run a deficit in good times, during years of low interest rates and years of economic growth and expansion, and now it has developed a problem. It should have followed its plans earlier, as stated by the chamber of commerce. The point is not to sit down and slice up this, that and the other thing. It is to look at the whole budget and see what is happening.
In addition you have to come out with some reasonable reform that follows the tenets you put forward a long time ago, and that the Conservative Party is not doing.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur has the floor for 10 minutes, plus 5 minutes for questions and comments.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche -Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, the new goods and services tax unveiled by the federal government will be the most substantial tax levied on Canadians since the beginning of our history.
Actually, this tax has has nothing positive to offer. It is complex, regressive, inflationary and a prospective administrative nightmare for companies and businesses across the country.
The Conservative GST will hit many essential services purchased by average citizens. In fact, only basic groceries, prescription drugs and medical devices will be fully exempted. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) also told us that a number of essential services would also be exempted, which does not mean they will not be affected by the new tax.
For instance, a so-called exempt day care centre will not charge parents the GST directly. However, it will
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have to pay the GST on all purchases of books, equipment and so forth. It will therefore have to charge more for its services to compensate for the extra cost. As you see, in spite of the so-called exemption, the GST will affect the price of day care services, and the consumer ends up footing the bill.
The burden on Canadians will be endless. From now on, taxable items will include haircuts, funerals, vending machine sales, shoes, restaurant meals but not food products purchased in grocery stores, car repairs, plane tickets, clothes, stamps and items that average citizens purchase every day.
Mr. Speaker, there is one rather interesting item in all this mess. During the last election campaign, the Minister of Finance promised all Canadians across the country that he would not introduce a goods and services tax without the co-operation of the provinces. In fact, he solemnly swore across this country, during that same campaign, that if he did introduce a goods and services tax, it would not increase the government's revenue. He swore that if he introduced a GST, it would not be inflationary and that it would be visible.
Empty promises! He reneged on practically all his promises about the GST.
We can certainly not accuse the Minister of Finance of being consistent.
This was the minister who said that the manufacturers' sales tax was quietly killing jobs. Nevertheless, he increased that same tax four times, raising it from 9 per cent to 10, 11, 12 and finally 13.5 per cent.
In 1984, the Minister of Finance promised Canadians that he would not increase taxes a single cent. Since he and his government took power, they raised them 31 times. It is absolutely incredible.
Although this tax will go from 9 to 7 per cent, the principle remains the same. It is completely contrary to the basic equity of a progressive tax system that takes money from people based on their income.
This tax hits everyone on all purchases and all services. It is not a discretionary tax. No one can go without buying food. People have to buy clothes for their children. Many services are absolutely essential, whether for

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a pensioner or a family trying to make ends meet. They still have to buy things, so the principle remains.
It is the principle of taking the most from those who have the least, because they are the ones in society who are least able to be heard. They struggle every day to earn their living: workers on low and moderate incomes.
The fraudulent part of all this is that the minister hopes the headlines will say that he has reduced the tax from 9 to 7 per cent. In reality, all the revenue he gave up by doing so has been made up for by other taxes. In other words, the minister is pulling the wool over people's eyes. There is no tax reduction. I want to tell you that. He has simply transferred the burden to the middle class, the disadvantaged regions, pensioners and families receiving allowances.
When the minister announced that the GST would go from 9 to 7 per cent, he admitted that he had lost all control over the economy and the deficit, despite what he says. This is a minister who has doubled the public debt, that is, the total debt which this country has accumulated since Confederation, in only five years. It went from $170 billion to $350 billion in spite of all the tax increases in the last four or five years. In constant dollars, Canadian families are paying 30 per cent more in taxes than when the minister took office.
Obviously, the minister and his government are not to be trusted. They tell us that the GST will be 7 per cent, but what guarantee do we have that the Minister of Finance will not raise it? In fact, he recently refused to make a formal commitment not to raise the rate from 7 per cent in the future. Since the tax is invisible, the government can increase it more easily, which is what has happened abroad.

From the beginning the Minister of Finance has withheld the truth concerning the GST from Canadians. That minister has no more credibility. That minister has lost the confidence of Canadians from Vancouver to St. John's. Virtually every promise the minister has made concerning the GST has been broken.
For example, he promised that it would be revenue neutral. Is it revenue neutral? No, it is not. He promised that it would be visible. Is it visible? It may be. It may not be. We are not sure. He promised that it would be
simple. It certainly is not. The Minister of Finance promised that small businesses would be adequately compensated for implementing the GST and that this tax would be fair to middle and low income Canadians. More broken promises, Mr. Speaker.
Finally, he promised to remove surtaxes on personal income as part of tax reform. Instead he has made them permanent. As an Atlantic Canadian I am particularly distressed that the GST will shift the tax burden from central Canada to other regions. The evidence presented to the finance committee clearly confirms that the GST will penalize regions for being located far away from the large consumer markets and manufacturing centres in central Canada.
Despite strong evidence that the GST will create greater regional disparities within Canada, there is no indication from either the government or the Conservative members of the finance committee that they either understand this shift or care about it.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the government's attempt at imposing this tax on the people of Canada proves one thing beyond all doubt. It proves that the government has lost control of the economy. Despite all the rhetoric concerning the deficit and the debt, this government has lost control of our country's finances. The finance minister has doubled the total public debt of this country, which is to say the cumulative debt since Confederation. He has doubled it in five years from $170 billion to $350 billion despite the greatest tax increases witnessed in Canadian history. He has imposed up to 31 tax increases. Canadians have had enough.
The Conservative goods and services tax proposal is seriously flawed and must be scrapped. Moreover, the federal government must immediately begin consultations with Canadians and provincial governments on the creation of a fair and integrated reform of the entire tax system. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, to all members in the House and to the Canadian public that it is time to go back to the drawing board. Let's scrap this tax.


Mr. Funk:: Mr. Speaker, I was interested to hear some of the member's comments about the effect of the proposed goods and services tax. Many of those are comments that I have heard from my own constituents. Around 30,000 people left the province of Saskatchewan

last year because of the lack of business opportunities and the lack of cash income on farms, the international trade situation being what it is.
The business community there says that the high interest rates have become chronic and represent a financial grab by central Canada with the money draining out of the business community of that region into central Canada. In addition, they see this tax as being not only a pain in the neck that they do not need at a time when business is very tough, but as another decrease in the amount of money available in the small towns and remote regions of this community.
Is that the way the hon. member sees this tax as well?


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments. I think he summarized it quite well. The government's interest rate policy is in place to help alleviate the situation in central Canada, especially southern Ontario where they have a very hot, inflationist economy. I think the outer regions-western Canada, eastern Canada and the north-are suffering because of that.
It is about time the government has a look at those types of policies along with this tax, because I am told that if the interest rate is lowered by one point the government would save $1.6 billion. The government talks about saving. It cuts VIA Rail because it wanted to save $500 million. Why can the government not cut the interest rate? It says it is not that simple. I say that we should look at that a little more. If we do that along with a number of other new economic policies, I think we can do it.
As far as the tax itself, it is certainly going to cause some major problems. We talk about it being very regressive. It is certainly a regressive tax. Possibly it will also cause a state of recession. Certainly that is going to be a major problem for Canada.



Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity and I shall not take too long.
I wish to give notice that at the next sitting of the House, immediately before the Order of the Day is
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called for resuming the debate on the motion of the Minister of Finance for second reading and reference to the Standing Committee of Finance of Bill C-62 and on any amendments proposed thereto, I will move that the debate be not further adjourned.


Mr. Robinson:: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. First, I want to give notice to Your Honour and to the House that either myself or our House leader intend to argue a point of order tomorrow with respect to the procedural admissibility of the closure motion, given the provisions of Section 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867.1 just wanted to give notice that we intend to argue that point tomorrow.
At this point, Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to your attention the difficulty that this side of the House is experiencing with respect to the frequent use of closure and superseding motions.
I want to cite at this point, in making my point of order, the advice of the Chair some three years ago to this House. In fact, it was on April 14, 1987 that the Chair in fact did intervene in a manner that changed the way that procedure had historically been interpreted in this House. That was done at that time to deal with what was held by the Chair to be unreasonable delaying tactics on the part of the Opposition.
I want to suggest on this point of order that precisely the opposite situation is before the House now.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think the hon. member will be able to raise that tomorrow when he is debating his procedural motion. I think we should get right back into debate.
The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier on a point of order.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I cannot let this opportunity go by. The government's notice of closure on the goods and services tax just given by the minister shows a complete contempt for parliamentary debate.
I remind members that we are into the debate at second reading. There were, according to the Order Paper today, four hours and thirty-two minutes of debate left in the eight-hour initial debating time. We have not even had four hours of debate on the fundamental change to taxing Canadians, and I resent and reproach

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this government for using such tactics as imposing contempt on this House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: We still have three minutes remaining in questions and comments for the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur. Questions or comments? I will have to recognize the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville on another short point of order.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Very simply, Mr. Speaker, I want to support what the opposition Whip just said in terms of closure being moved this early. Perhaps you should check the precedents of the House. I know of no other example recently when closure has been moved so quickly in the House of Commons. The New Democratic Party has had only two speakers on second reading and all of a sudden there is closure. That is not a free and democratic debate in my opinion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I think hon. ladies and gentlemen have expressed their views.
I would like to return to debate.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-62, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Income Tax Act, the Statistics Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance; and the amendment of Mr. Turner (Vancouver Quadra) (p.7569).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: On questions and comments, the hon. member for Crowfoot.
There are two minutes left in the period for questions and comments on the speech of the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, does the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur support the manufacturers' sales tax?


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the question. I cannot support the manufacturers' sales tax as it now stands because there are some major problems with it. It needs reform.
The present tax that the government is proposing is worse than the manufacturers' sales tax. I honestly think that the government should have a look at tax reform in its entirety before proceeding with this type of tax, a tax on goods and services. There are some very negative things about this tax and unless we get them straightened out we are going to cause some great economic disruption in Canada's economy.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to Bill C-62.1 am in favour of the principle of sales tax reform in Canada. I emphasize the word "reform" because there are those who for selfish and partisan reasons persist in calling the GST a new tax. In so doing they imply that there is no present federal sales tax.
The fact is that Canada has had a sales tax, federally, since 1924. It is hidden deep in the price of all goods and services in Canada.
First, the federal sales taxes apply at rates of 9 per cent, 11 per cent, 13.5 per cent or as much as 19 per cent on sales of certain goods from the manufacturer. On top of that, there is a significant additional amount of federal sales tax paid on things that are used in the production of all other goods and services. These are input costs like vehicles, fuel, computers, telephone services, office furniture and equipment, stationery, construction materials and many more.
This additional amount results from cascading, tax on tax on tax, in each step between the raw material and the finished product. At present there is an additional tax burden of between 1 and 3 per cent on the selling price of an item as a result of cascading. There are those who may say, "So what?" Some of them are across the aisle. We have had the tax for 66 years. We survived. Why change it? Why reform sales tax at all?
First, the taxation of the inputs used to produce domestic goods harms Canada's international competitiveness. The goods we want to export bear the hidden burden of the current federal manufacturers' sales tax.
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Second, the existing federal sales tax favours imported goods over domestically produced goods. Our domestically manufactured products are taxed on an average one third higher than competing imports. This is because the inputs are taxed on their value upon entry into Canada before a number of inputs such as further processing, advertising, distribution, marketing, packaging and other costs are added on to the value of that product. Whereas, the competing Canadian product is taxed further on in the chain after a number of these additional inputs have been factored in.
In an increasingly interdependent world, competition is such that we in Canada can no longer see our manufacturing sector trying to gain a share of the world market with one hand tied behind its back. Our enhanced ability to compete in the world will mean more jobs in Canadian manufacturing and industry. Adherence to the existing federal sales tax means more imports and fewer jobs at home.
Third, the existing federal sales tax is a jungle of regulation, special provisions, rulings, and administrative interpretations that generally evolve around the question: At which stage in the chain of value-added should the tax be imposed? Obviously, the earlier in the process the tax is applied, the lower the amount of tax-


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


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to raise the question of quorum.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member wants to know if there is a quorum.
Yes, there is a quorum.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker is a slow counter.


Geoff Wilson: Just as an aside, it is interesting that those who a few moments ago were professing interest in debating the merits of the GST are now trying by procedural measures to delay things even further.
Out of 75,000 manufacturers, there have been 23,000 separate legal rulings, and you can hardly blame manufacturers for trying to minimize the GST as they attempt to compete against foreign importers.
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The Auditor General recently pointed out that the use of marketing companies costs an estimated $350 million a year in sales tax leakage. Other avoidance and evasion measures may add up to as much as $2 billion a year. Clearly, the federal government has to eliminate the incentive to resort to complex avoidance mechanisms. The answer is to reform sales tax entirely, to totally remove it from production as all other nations in the world have done. We remain the only country in the world which taxes its own production inputs thereby pricing our products out of the world market and enhancing the opportunity for foreign competition while at the same time encouraging elaborate tax avoidance and evasion techniques at home.
These are the reasons why most informed Canadians and, indeed, all political parties have recognized that the existing federal manufacturers' sales tax must go. It is fundamentally flawed. It is capricious in its application and damaging to our economy. This is why the finance committee of this House, composed of members from all sides, recommended that Canada implement a multistage sales tax on the broadest possible base.
The existing federal sales tax raises some $18 billion in federal revenue. A replacement tax clearly must raise an equivalent amount. A perfect GST system would tax all goods and services in the country. This would provide the broadest base to which the lowest percentage rate could be applied in order to produce that amount of revenue. But most Canadians feel that certain goods and services should be exempted. That is certainly the position of this government and the opposition parties. That is why basic groceries and prescription drugs, medical devices, residential rents, the purchase of existing homes and a number of other health and education related items are tax free.
The various exemptions narrow the base. That means that the percentage rate of tax has to be higher than would be the case if the base were broader.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I have counted for you now. There are 18 members in the House, one has just gone out of the door. That means 17 members in the House, and I would question quorum.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do now see a
quorum.

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Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I note that the lone NDP member present in the House is again trying to obstruct debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I would hope hon. members would not begin raising these types of things in this Chamber. We know we do not comment on who is and who is not in the House. I am sure that the hon. member has now seen that there is a quorum. We can carry on with debate.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the GST, from the viewpoint of the consumer, is similar to retail taxes operated by nine of the provinces in Canada at the present time.
The major difference between the GST and retail sales tax is that the GST will be collected at each stage of the production and distribution chain with businesses claiming full credits for all tax paid on their business purchases. Only in this way, through the collection and rebate at each stage, can all of the GST be eliminated on business inputs thereby removing the hidden cost of the current federal manufacturers' sales tax for both businesses and consumers.
The replacement of the existing federal sales tax with the GST will enable our productive sector to better compete in the world marketplace. The GST is designed, as I understand it, to be revenue neutral. To the extent that it succeeds in plugging the kind of leakage that the Auditor General has pointed out-which some estimate as much as $2 billion a year-to the extent that at least a part of the underground economy will be forced above ground because the multi-state sales tax is much harder to avoid than a tax paid only at the point of sale, to the extent that more people will likely be employed in the manufacturing and business sector thereby contributing to the tax system rather than taking from it, there will hopefully be additional revenues generated. These revenues will contribute to deficit and debt reduction thereby ensuring that the essential programs and services, which constitute the Canadian social safety net and which Canadians value, can continue to be met.
By continuing to generate a portion of over-all government revenues from consumption, which is a tax on spending, as opposed to income taxation which is a tax on
productivity the over-all fairness of the system will be maintained.
I personally believe that we cannot rely entirely on income taxation to generate revenues within Canada. There is a point, in my mind personally, at 50 per cent beyond which you are penalizing income which could be used for investment purposes. To the extent that people have moneys left over after the basics and after income tax they can spend it at their discretion as they choose or they can save it and invest. If they spend the money they will pay the GST-a consumption tax on what they spend. On the other hand, if they invest the moneys it will mean new capital, new plant, equipment, inventory, and jobs for Canadians.
There will be a refundable GST credit introduced to protect lower and modest income Canadians to the point where families with incomes of up to $30,000 a year will pay less tax than they do now.
The area that I represent is almost entirely dependent on agriculture and particularly the health of the export grain sector. That sector, at the moment, is terribly depressed as a result of the on-going trade subsidy war between the United States and the European community. I would therefore like to speak about the GST from the perspective of agriculture, and in doing so I would confess that I am sick, tired and weary of hearing special interest groups distorting the GST, and spreading untruths about it.
To hear the Canadian Federation of Independent Business quoted as saying to the farmer: "The implications for agriculture are staggering. You will soon be paying an extra 7 per cent retail tax on fertilizer, chemical fuels, equipment, et cetera." That statement is false. It is 100 per cent wrong. The fact is that the GST does not apply to production inputs of any kind whether they be agricultural, small business, manufacturing or industry. It does not apply to the purchase of goods and services that are used in a production chain, plain and simply. Under the current federal sales tax system many goods used in farming are tax exempt.


Robert Daniel Nault: Like what?


Geoff Wilson: However, other things that a farmer uses in the course of his farming operations are taxed, generally at a rate of 13.5 per cent on the manufacturing cost. These items include half-ton trucks, tools, some repair parts, construction materials for farm-building fences, fuel for
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on highway use, and office equipment like computers. A half-ton truck for farm use, for example, which presently retails at approximately $14,000 should be some $1,400 less than would otherwise be the case as a result of the elimination of the existing federal manufacturers' sales tax and the rebate of GST to a farm purchaser.
Indeed a passenger vehicle of similar value purchased by a city dweller should be roughly $600 less owing to the difference between the current tax and the proposed GST. The naysayers and the doubting Thomases raise the question, "Will this saving be passed on?" I have no doubt that it will because we have in this country a competitive market-place, one that is based upon supply and demand. We have some 800,000 small businesses in this country, the backbone of the country, which compete with each other, which deal in large volume and small markup. I have no doubt that they will pass on the elimination of the FMST as well as the elimination of the cascading effect of that harmful tax to their customers. To believe otherwise would suggest that there are
800,000	small businesses in this country which collude and agree with each other every day to raise prices in concert. I think that is utter nonsense.
It is interesting to compare our system which is market driven, driven by supply and demand, with that kind of centrally planned economy which you have in eastern Europe and other nations in the world and which is being shown, day by day, to have failed utterly.
Even goods that are specifically exempt under the current sales tax regime contain a significant element of hidden tax, that is between 1 per cent and 3 per cent included in their price. This results from the cascading effect of the existing manufacturers' sales tax paid on many of the input costs that manufacturers and distributors have to buy in order to run their businesses.
Agricultural producers will note with satisfaction that the GST has been designed so that all producers, including farmers, get back all the sales tax they pay on their business inputs. The result will be real savings in operating costs. Under tax reform businesses pay a GST on the goods and services they buy and charge GST on their sales. The difference is remitted to the government. If the business in a particular period of time pays
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out more tax than it collects the government will refund the difference.
Most all sales by farmers are zero rated so they will not charge any tax in their sales but they will still, of course, be able to claim refunds for all GST paid on their business input purchases. Producers will receive a refund within 21 days or the government will pay interest on the money. In many cases it should be possible to get the rebate before the account is paid.
Some may say why can we not be exempted altogether with some kind of an exemption certificate. The problem is that the more exemptions you have the more complex the system becomes. It would be difficult for vendors to differentiate between exempt and non-exempt customers. It would make administration more difficult so, in most instances, the producer like anyone else will pay the GST in his purchases. He can then apply for a refund of the GST paid on all of the business input purchases. In order to avoid temporarily tying up large amounts of money there is now being prepared a list of selected major items which will be unconditionally tax free. This list of items used exclusively by farmers is being developed in consultation with representatives of the farm community. The list will include combines and other big-ticket items not bought by people other than producers.
Transfers of land within the family will be tax free. So too will dispositions of land as part of the sale of the farm as a going concern. Other sales will be subject to tax because of the difficulty in determining the ultimate use. If the purchase is for farming or other business usage the purchaser will be able to claim a refund of the GST paid. Crop share paid as part of a rental agreement will be exempt from the GST. Cash rental payments and custom work will be taxable, again to assist in the administration of the tax. In situations where it is difficult to ascertain the purpose, such as custom snow removal, the tax is paid by the purchaser who, if eligible, can then claim the refund.
In regard to fuel, gasoline and diesel, the farmer presently receives a rebate of the federal sales tax and purchases for off highway production purposes. Under the GST, farmers will recover all GST paid on fuel purchases for the farming operation and, unlike the current system, the rebate will apply to fuel used both on highway and off highway as long as it is used for business purposes. Invoices will show the GST as a separate item or as included in the price. In either case, farmers will

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have the same number of invoices as they have now and it will be a fairly straightforward matter to calculate the GST actually paid on business input which will be refundable. The bottom line is that farmers, like all other businesses, will be better treated under the GST than they now are under the federal manufacturers' sales tax.
The bottom line for the nation is a level playing field for Canadian producers, an economy in which imports will not be favoured but rather will be taxed in the same manner as Canadian-made goods. It will be an economy in which a hidden federal sales tax will be removed from the production of goods and services in Canada and from Canada's exports, thereby enabling Canadians to compete better, to expand sales, and to employ more Canadians.
Much of the criticism of the GST is tied into the perception that this is a new tax rather than a replacement tax. Coupled with the opposition to the GST is the common statement that the federal government, indeed governments at all levels, must demonstrate restraint, stop needless spending and eliminate waste and so on. We certainly subscribe to that. Indeed, we would invite an examination of a long list of program cuts and expenditure reductions, all of which have been criticized by those opposite.
This leads me to consideration of the current federal debt situation. We have moved in five short years from a $16 billion shortfall on federal current programs under the previous administration to a $9 billion surplus today. This clearly is still not good enough and much more has to be done.
The annual deficit must first be reduced, then eliminated, and ultimately we must begin making payments on the principal itself. The national debt imposes on the government of today the obligation to repay the overspending of the past. This debt will not go away. We cannot wish it away and we cannot ignore it. Indeed, if serious measures are not taken to deal with this problem now we shall soon reach the point where interest payments will consume so much of government revenue that there will not be enough left to maintain the most basic program needs of Canadians. There is no easy
answer. The choices are difficult. We can act responsibly through a combination of spending reductions and revenue increases designed to reduce and eventually eliminate the annual deficit, or we can go the other way. We can pretend the problem does not exist and go the South American way. We can simply print money and attempt to service the debt with cheap dollars. The result of this irresponsible action would be hyper-inflation, incredibly high interest rates, and massive unemployment.
There is still time to take control of the debt-deficit problem. To do so will test the resolve and determination of all Canadians. We have put in place over the past five years a number of policies designed to improve Canada's competitive position in the world because this means jobs for Canadians and a better future. Part and parcel of this initiative is sales tax reform.
In conclusion, I want to say that it is time to act. We have been talking about sales tax reform for 50 years. That is long enough. We have the GST proposal before this House. No one has been able to find any useful or viable alternative. No one has any other suggestions. We know that the federal manufacturers' sales tax has to go. Everyone knows it. All parties agree. The GST may not be perfect. Indeed, it is far from perfect. But it appears to be the only alternative and it is light years better than what we have now. I say let us get on with it for the sake of the country.


Jerry Pickard: Mr. Speaker, to my honourable colleague, I have difficulty putting together two points that he raised in his speech. He raised the point that this tax is going to be revenue neutral and then in conclusion he states that this tax will, in fact, help pay off the programs initiated and a lot of other things.
In light of comments made by the Chamber of Commerce to this government suggesting that increases to spending by this government have been $50 billion over the last five years and 31 increases, how does he claim accountability with that question before him?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, unlike the hon. member I will attempt to answer the question put to me. I think there were two questions folded into the comment and question. One, if I recall it correctly, related to the question of neutrality. The other one related to accountability.
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In regard to neutrality, it is my understanding that the tax has been designed to replace the revenue which the existing federal manufacturers' sales tax currently generates. It is also my understanding that the Auditor General has pointed out that there is leakage as a result of marketing companies of some $350 million a year.
There are others in the country who point out other loopholes, other inequities, other unfairnesses, other avoidance and evasion mechanisms which may add up to as much as $2 billion a year. There is an underground economy out there which will be more difficult to operate in as a result of the multi-stage nature of the tax.
Clearly, there is the potential for revenue which ought to be collected at this point in time to be collected. To the extent that that happens, this tax will have been a success. I believe it could generate more revenue.
There is a second aspect to it. This involves the projections of increased employment in Canada's manufacturing and industrial sector. It is pretty clear that if our productive sector is relieved of production input taxes, both direct and through the cascading effect of the existing federal manufacturers' sales tax, then it should put that sector in a better competitive position. It should result in more sales, in more exports, and in more employment in this country. There will be a lot of people paying into this system rather than taking out of it.
That has characterized the policy of this administration. It is policies like this which have resulted in something in the order of 1,600,000 more Canadians working today than was the case just five short years ago under the previous administration, an administration which spent this country into catastrophic debt and which mortgaged the future of Canadians.


An hon. member:: You doubled it.


Geoff Wilson: We doubled it, the hon. member says. The fact is that the debt which was inherited on March 31, 1985, at the end of the previous administration, was $199 billion. Members opposite do not want to hear the truth. The fact is that the effect of compound interest on that $199 billion accounts for every cent of the increase in the
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national debt from March 31, 1985 to March 31, 1990. Every cent of the increase in the national debt is simply unpaid compound interest on the profligate over-spending of the opposition.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Fundy-Royal rose, as did the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville, the hon. member member for Edmonton East and the hon. member for Gloucester. The Chair recognizes the hon. member for Fundy-Royal.


Mr. Corbett:: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to hear my colleague so succinctly detail the benefits of the GST. Coming from a region of this nation which has for years been export oriented but which has suffered under the old system of the FST, we will now benefit from the imposition of the GST which will induce exporters in our region to be more competitive in the future. Hopefully, it will have the effect of bringing even more businesses into Atlantic Canada, as has been the trend over the past five years.
I also want to say that I am pleased to hear why consumers and all Canadians should not be skeptical that manufacturers will pass on the savings of the FST to them because of what has already been outlined.
I would just like to briefly comment that we often hear opposition members say that 70 per cent of the people are against the GST. In my experience, 70 per cent or more of the people would respond that they were negative to taxes anyway, regardless of what that tax might be and who imposes it.
My question to my hon. colleague is this. In his experience, what would be the response in his constituency to the question: "Are you in favour of government services"?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, there is clearly a problem. Canadians want continued services. They have been accustomed to a myriad of services from the federal government, and there is nothing wrong with that.
What is wrong is that previous administrations never had the courage to tax Canadians sufficiently to pay for those services and for those programs. There is a movement called Resolution One. I believe that Resolution One in the British North America Act ought to have been the clause stating that senior levels of government

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had to balance their books on an annual basis except in a time of dire emergency, such as war.
Had that been the case the spendthrift group under Prime Minister Trudeau would not have been in a position to mortgage this country to the hilt and put us in the position today where we are scrambling to pay off the debt of the past rather than being in a position to build and invest for the future. That is the problem.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I have a few short questions. First, the member for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia said that no one has made any suggestions other than the GST. I remember in the finance committee I heard a lot of alternatives, a lot of suggestions. Some were good and some were probably not so good.
Does he not admit that he might have been exaggerating a bit when he said: "No one has made any other suggestions"? I know that people in his own riding, for example, have made different suggestions.
Second, when in a democratic system is it incumbent upon him as a member of Parliament representing his own riding, his own constituents, to stand up and say: "No"? The Gallup poll last week showed that 74 per cent of the people are opposed to the GST. The poll today shows 79 per cent.
It is not good enough that the member for New Brunswick said that people are against taxes. We find today in The Globe and Mail, for example, that 56 per cent of the people who smoke cigarettes would favour an increase of 50 cents a pack in the tax on cigarettes. There are certain taxes in this country that are supported by the people. I do not think it is good enough just to say that people do not want tax increases.
How can he say that no one has made any other suggestions? At what point must a member of Parliament get up in this House and support his or her constituents, in this case 79 per cent of the people in this country who are against the GST? An overwhelming number of Conservative voters from 1988 are in opposition to the GST. Is it not incumbent upon that member to get up in this House and represent their point of view?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the question raised by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville.
First, he asked if there were alternatives put in regard to the GST, or for sales tax reform. No doubt he is referring to those put forward by his own party in a minority report attached to the finance committee's deliberations on the sales tax reform question.
In my remarks earlier I talked in terms of viable, practical, sensible solutions and alternatives. Of course, in saying that I thought the hon. member would understand that it automatically excluded the addendum to the finance report put forward by the NDP.
Since he has raised the matter I will give members of the NDP a compliment. I will say that at least they have put forward some alternatives. They did that, unlike the Liberals whose only answer is to criticize, criticize, criticize endlessly and mindlessly. The NDP did put forward some suggestions, and indeed I looked at them.
They were in terms of hiking the marginal tax rate. I talked about that in my speech. We do not need a 67 per cent income tax rate in this country. You have got to give people a little bit of room to be productive and to have some incentive to grow. Personally, I reject that. I suggest to the hon. member that most Canadians would.
Another thing members of the NDP talked about was to bring back the estate tax. I thought they learned their lesson in Saskatchewan back in the 1970s. But they want to bring back the estate tax to "get the wealthy", the same "wealthy" that they are protecting every day in this House by objecting to taxing back old age pension and family allowance from higher income Canadians-a totally inconsistent policy and one which makes no sense.
The second point the hon. member suggests is that we should abolish Parliament, I guess, and just let the bureaucrats run the country based on a Gallup poll that comes out every Friday. Maybe that is the answer. I do not know.
The fact is that if we govern by polls in this country I do not know where we would be. I am not particularly interested in polls, whether they are Gallup polls or
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whether they are the polls which the NDP pays people in the United States to do.
The only poll which has the least bit of significance in a democratic society is the one which occurs on election day. All we can ask of Canadians at that time, probably some three years hence, is to mark the report card. They are going to judge based on which party had some sort of concrete approach to the debt problem. Was it a party which, yes, did raise some taxes; yes, did put forth some spending cuts and some restraint proposals in an attempt to do something about it? Or are they going to go with the opposition parties which have nothing to offer but mindless criticisms?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I apologize to the hon. member for Gloucester and the hon. member for Edmonton West. The time has run out on questions and comments.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, I too, am pleased to stand in the House today to express my concern over the proposed goods and services tax, Bill C-62.
Lately the government has been playing the smoke and mirrors game by claiming that it is listening to Canadians and has thus brought down the rate of the proposed goods and services tax from 9 per cent to 7 per cent. The finance minister loves to tell us what a great guy he is for this reduction. However, he does not point out that he will make up the revenue he would have gained had it been 9 per cent by implementing other tax measures.
In other words, to help compensate for a revenue decrease of almost $6 billion, the minister plans to scrap income reduction for middle-income earners, reduce the refundable tax credits for low-income Canadians, reduce housing rebates, and reduce the indexation for family allowances and old age security. These are but four of the ways the minister will get back what he so arrogantly infers is money owed to him.
When each of the new highlights is added up, the total revenue for the government is $5.9 billion, or exactly what would have been made if the tax was introduced at 9 per cent instead of 7 per cent. Thus the finance minister will have taken the same amount of money out of the pockets of Canadians. It is simple math, and
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Canadians will not be fooled. Canadians are not that dumb.
Here we are with a government that expects credit for saving $450 million by not doing something that it never intended to do in the first place. Canadians understand this tax, and they are loudly proclaiming that they do not want it.
The latest Gallup poll shows that 74 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the GST. We all know how much the government watches polls. Perhaps it should start listening to Canadians.
Canadians realize that the 7 per cent proposal is just as offensive as the 9 per cent proposal. Canadians realize that this is a tax faucet for the government. Once installed, the drip can and will be turned to full flow. In other words, the tax will easily get to the government's desired rate of 9 per cent or more.
Let us not get bogged down with proposed rates because this government has proven time and time again that it believes rates are there to be increased. After all, since the member for Etobicoke Centre became the Minister of Finance he has increased various taxes to Canadians 31 times. This is the same minister who termed the manufacturers' sales tax a silent killer of jobs because it damages the competitiveness of Canadian exports.
However, he has not hesitated to increase the rate of the MST on four separate occasions over the past five years. If the MST is such a great evil that it desperately needs to be replaced by the GST, then how could he justify these increases?
This does not say that I like the MST. I do not. I just believe that you do not replace a bad tax with a horrendous tax.
This proposed tax is everything the Minister of Finance promised it would not be during the 1988 election campaign. During that time the minister swore that he would not bring in a GST unless he had provincial co-operation. Well, he does not have that co-operation.
He also promised that any GST would be revenue neutral, visible and non-inflationary. It is none of these things. In fact, the Conference Board of Canada estimates that the rate of inflation will be between 1 per cent and 1.5 per cent. The government admits that this number is reached by taking a very optimistic view of the

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effects of the GST. The Conference Board based these assumptions on those of the finance department.
The Department of Finance assumes that the savings of the cut will be passed on to the consumer. This is just a joke. There is no system in place to monitor such a move.
The minister promised Canadians that when he brought in a GST he would remove the 3 per cent temporary surtax on their incomes. He promised middle-income Canadians that he would lower their basic income tax rate. He promised business people that it would be simple to understand and administer. The Minister of Finance did not keep any of these promises.
Not only was the surtax not removed, it went up 2 percentage points. The income tax rate will not be lowered and the proposed GST will be a nightmare for the business community to understand and administer.
Most of all, the Minister of Finance promised that the tax would be fair. Canadians in every part of this country are continually pointing out just how unfair it is.
Is it fair that low-income families and persons living on fixed incomes, including seniors and welfare recipients, will be hurt by the GST? A senior with a given income will pay more, not less, taxes than his or her younger counterpart with the identical income. Sales taxes are by their nature regressive, simply because low-income Canadians spend a larger portion of their income on taxed goods and services than do higher-income people.
For example, according to Statistics Canada, families with incomes between $10,000 and $15,000 a year spend 92 per cent of their incomes on current consumption, with about 18 per cent of this being spent on food. In contrast, families with incomes of $50,000 or more spend only about 56 per cent of their income on current consumption, with only 7 per cent on food.
Although refundable tax credits are intended to compensate poorer families for the increased federal sales tax, many witnesses appearing before the finance committee were convinced that these increased credits would not fully compensate low-income Canadians for the added cost of the GST.
Is it fair that for the first time in Canadian history, books will be taxed? As was pointed out in discussions with the Nepean Library in my constituency, libraries will not be able to purchase on behalf of their clientele as much reading material because of this tax. As a result of the tax there will likely be less variety and selection of works for libraries to choose from because the booksellers will restrict their offerings to potential best sellers with less risk. At the very minimum, libraries will have the immediate impact of 7 per cent less money to buy books. This is at a time when the government is attempting to give the impression that it is fighting illiteracy.
Furthermore, by planning to tax reading but not gambling the government is saying that gambling is more worthy of support than the fight to end illiteracy.
Is it fair that the GST will wreak havoc on the tourism industry? One reason for this is that the GST discourages Canadians from spending their tourism dollars in Canada. This will have a devastating effect on the industry.
In addition, the GST will discourage foreign tourists from coming to Canada. Do we honestly think that these foreign tourists are going to save all those little sales slips and when they leave the country that they are going to turn them in for reimbursement? Of course they will not.
Is it fair that the real estate prices will increase and rents will rise because of the GST?
I realize that my time is getting short and my notes are not getting any shorter, they are still very long.
It is a real privilege for me to stand here because what I am hearing, not just in my riding but in letters from right across the country, is that people are very, very concerned about this. What it has shown me is that this government, as it has on so many other occasions, has failed the test. It is not listening to Canadians.
This government is tricky. It announces changes and calls them tax reform. Over all, the effect is to increase taxes for everyone except the well off. The GST represents a monumental shift in the way taxes are collected in Canada. Once that line is crossed there is no turning back.
February 5, 1990


Mr. McDermid:: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the hon. member. I want to speak just briefly on what the hon. member said about tourism.
First, the hon. member said the tax is going to hurt foreign tourism. For any country that has a value-added tax, its tourism has not gone down. It has not affected tourism. The hon. member speaks of tourists going to cash in the tax credits. When I travel and have the opportunity I certainly cash in the tax credits. Most of the people I talk to who travel internationally, who go to countries that have refunds for foreign tourists, take advantage of it. I believe the foreign tourists here will.
We have gone one step further in Canada. We are also giving them a credit on short-term accommodation when they are here, which you do not get in other countries. You do not think they are going to claim that back? Of course they are going to claim it back.
The GST is not going to be a detriment to tourism. The only way it could be a detriment is with all of these opposition members standing up and saying: "Don't come to Canada, it is terrible up here". Well, that is absolute nonsense. You should be promoting this country. You should not be denigrating it with this nonsense about how this tax is going to hurt tourism, because you know it is not true.


Beryl Gaffney: I think the comments of the member across the way were a statement. I do not know whether he knows how to ask a question, but anyway, I will respond to that.
When you have statistics from every one of the major tourism industries across the country, who can you rely on more than the tourism industry themselves, who say that the GST will hurt tourism in Canada.
I have to take the advice of the experts. Unlike the member across the way, I do not consider myself an expert on everything. I listen to the experts and it is high time he did too.


Mr. Gardiner:: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about the grief and suffering tax. I just want to bring a little politics into the Chamber, if I might. I know we should not do that.
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I would like to ask the member a question. When she is out, perhaps in the fall of 1992 or the spring of 1993, possibly knocking on doors trying to get the support of her constituents again, when they ask her how come the Liberal Party really did not help fight the GST and did not present any alternatives when that legislation was going through the House of Commons, what she will say to those voters?


Beryl Gaffney: I will say the same thing to these constituents with regard to the GST, as I said to them about the NDP and why did they not fight the free trade agreement.
We have this government across the floor because of the New Democratic Party did not fight the free trade agreement. I will do the same thing for this. Canadians across this country have given alternatives to this government. They have not listened one iota. I have alternatives. Why should I give them to you? You will not listen anyway. The NDP have come up with alternatives. I have not even heard the government consider them. Why go through the sham of presenting something to a government that is going to sit there and ignore what is being said, because they are not listening to Canadians, so why should they listen to me.


Mr. Jordan:: I would like to congratulate my colleague on a fine speech. She seems to have touched a few nerve ends and that is always an indication of a well supported speech and good statistics.
Canadians had a bad experience a few years ago when we converted to the metric system when rather ruthless entrepreneurs did a very limited kind of tinkering with the price of a unit when the size of the unit was markedly reduced or raised.


John Horton McDermid: Who brought that in?


Jim Jordan: I am not speaking about the merits of the metric system. I am talking about ruthless entrepreneurs who existed then and I am sure exist today. I wonder if the member would care to comment on whether she sees any danger of a repeat here?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: You have 30 seconds, please.


Beryl Gaffney: Well, it was with a great deal of interest that I heard the government whip comment on who came from a business background here in this House. He indicated with great delight how most people on the government side of the House had a big business

Supply
background, therefore, had a better opportunity to know Rodrisuez how to run this country. I say that business is ashamed of spXr"5 this government. Business does not run business the way Ta>,|or this government runs business.	wood
Young (Beaches-Woodbine)-77


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being 5.45 o'clock p.m., pursuant to order made Thursday, February 1, 1990, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division.


ALLOTTED DAY, S. O. 81-NATIONAL PARK SYSTEM
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed, from Thursday, February 1, consideration of the motion of Mr. Fulton:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should move to complete the national park system (land and marine) by the year 2000 and should implement the recommendation of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Report) that Canada protect at least 12 per cent of land and marine zones.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Call in the members.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion lost. Orders of the Day.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-62, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act, the Criminal Code, the Customs Act, the Customs Tariff, the Excise Act, the Income Tax Act, the Statistics Act and the Ihx Court of Canada Act, be now read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance; and the amendment of Mr. Turner (Vancouver Quadra) (p.7569).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Gloucester on debate.


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak on this motion, one of the things that strikes me the most is what we have heard from members opposite in the debate so far.
The comic strip may have passed into history wherein every now and then we would see General Bullmoose suggest that what is good for General Motors is good for the country.
In this particular matter, everybody else is wrong. Business, which is supposed to be helped by the goods and services tax is wrong when it is opposed to the GST-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Order, please. We are now in debate. If hon. members wish to discuss other projects, they could do it behind the curtain. The hon. member for Gloucester.


M. Douglas Young: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, when the Federation of Independent Business states its opposition to the goods and services tax, it is because it does not understand or it has a vested
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interest, whatever the excuse might be given by members of the government to support the GST.
When the Canadian Labour Congress opposes the goods and services tax, it is because they do not understand. When chambers of commerce across the country state their opposition to the way the GST is being implemented and some of the implications of the GST, it is because they do not understand.
Today in the House I heard the minister speak on the matter, saying that tourism would be greatly helped by the GST and that the rebate system that was involved in it would be very helpful to tourism. However, the tourist industry states unequivocally that it is opposed to the GST. The stock answer for members opposite is that people do not understand. What we are faced with now in the House is an opportunity for the government to provide Canadians with all the answers and all the explanations. I am suggesting to the Minister of Finance whom I know wants to make sure that Canadians do understand his proposal that he should be speaking to the government House Leader, suggesting that all members of the House should have an opportunity to speak out in this forum and tell exactly what they feel so strongly about in terms of whether or not they support the GST or whether they oppose it.
Today I listened to the story on how the deficit problem in the country has occurred. Although it has doubled the debt, and the deficit is going to be well in excess of $30 billion this year, the government says it is the fault of the government that was in power 5,10 or 15 years ago.
If one wanted to look at it closely, one might want to ask what was the amount collected by the Government of Canada through the manufacturers' sales tax in 1984, what is the amount this year and what is the projected amount had the MST been left in force in the fiscal year 1991-92.1 think Canadians would be astounded to learn that in 1984 when this government came to power it was collecting less than $8 billion in the manufacturers' sales tax. Under the goods and services tax it will collect in excess of $25 billion.
It would be interesting for Canadians and for all members of the House from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario who support the GST to stand in this House and tell us why they support it. Do not tell us why the opposition is spreading gloom and doom and that the opposition wants to take political advantage of the goods and services tax. It seems to me that it is

February 5, 1990
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incumbent on members of Parliament to explain to the approximately 75 per cent of Canadians who are opposed to the GST why they are wrong.
The simple answer is for government members to muzzle the opposition. That is nothing new because of the experience of the finance committee over the past six months. As we travelled into Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Elalifax, St. John's, Fredericton and Charlottetown, Canadians were given very, very limited opportunity to speak out as to why they were opposed to the goods and services tax.
That syndrome continues. The Minister of Justice came in this afternoon, rose on a point of order and told Canadians that not only would they not be allowed to discuss to any great degree the goods and services tax and what it means to them and their families, neither would elected members of Parliament. We will be precluded from speaking out on the goods and services tax. It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that people who believe in the goods and services tax will not stand in their place and explain to Canadians what the government propaganda machine and a couple of ministers who spoke out on the matter have been unable to do.
I was very pleased to learn over the weekend that the Minister of Finance will be attending a meeting of the chamber of commerce in Edmonton on March 5. Since there has been a coherent long-term approach on the part of the government to restrict appearances by government members to very special contexts, I and I am sure Albertans would like to see an open forum.
We would like to see a forum where not just members of the chamber of commerce but Albertans generally could attend, not to listen to a debate between two politicians, but to be able to ask questions that concern them. The problem with the GST debate so far is that there have not been many answers from the government except to suggest that we have to replace the manufacturers' sales tax.
I say to Canadians what they must ask their members of parliament who support the GST what the tax is meant to replace. The manufacturers' sales tax had raised less than $9 billion when the Conservatives came to power in 1984. The GST in 1991-92 is predicted to bring in in excess of $25 billion. That is a threefold
increase and the government says it is not a new tax. It may not be a new tax but it is going to bring in an awful lot more money than what was being raised by the so-called silent killer of jobs in 1984.
I would like to make a point to my western friends. Having travelled in the west, I know the deep-rooted feeling there against the goods and services tax. I would suggest that when members on the government side speak about the GST, and in particular about agriculture and farmers, they do not confuse the issue. The question of how farmers will operate their businesses in terms of inputs, credits, exemptions and so forth is one thing. It is debatable whether they will be better off or worse off.
Unfortunately, what members to your right do not understand is that farmers and their families are consumers. They do not just farm the land, they do other things. They buy other things than what they need to farm with. That is why Albertans, Manitobans and people from Saskatchewan understand why this tax is bad. It is not just what it is going to do to the primary industries in this country, it is not just what it is going to do to farmers or fishermen, it is what happens when people do not understand that farmers, like every other consumer in the country, are going to be attacked by the goods and services tax.


Mr. Sobeski:: Who's paying the MST now?


M. Douglas Young: My friend asks who is paying the MST now. The people of Canada are paying the MST. There is no question about that. We paid $7.7 billion in 1984 but the Tories want to transfer a $7.7 billion tax that was being collected in 1984 into a $25 billion to $26 billion tax on consumers in 1991. That is the Tory way. That is the answer to the question.
Canadians know now that there is a manufacturers' sales tax and they know they are paying it. The fact is Canadians are saying to this government that they would rather stay with the status quo, the devil they know rather than the devil they don't know. That is what Canadians are saying.
The position of the Liberal party has been that we need to have tax reform with fiscal reform, something that nobody to the right understands. They know how to raise taxes. They knew how to raise them 31 times in five years, but they do not know how to practise fiscal reform
February 5, 1990

because they do not understand that the two go hand in hand.
We have 80 members on this side of the House who want to be heard in this debate. I do not know what is wrong with members to your right, Mr. Speaker, that they do not want to take the opportunity afforded to them in this House to explain to their constituents what the GST is all about. However, to ensure that members of the Liberal party can be heard in this House, I move:
That the House continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of
adjournment for the purpose of continuing consideration of Bill

I believe it is important that parliamentarians be heard on the question of the goods and services tax in this country.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The House has heard the terms of the motion moved by the hon. member. Would those members who object to the motion please rise in their places?
And more than 15 members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion lost.


Mr. Hockin:: Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct some very serious faults that have been made in the last two speeches by Liberal members. I am astonished to hear two falsehoods which Liberal party members should be very aware are serious misconceptions that they are propagating. They have been propagating them steadily for the last three months and have just tried to do it in the House again.
The hon. member for Nepean said that municipal libraries will have to pay the sales tax on books. That is not true and she knows that.
Second, the finance critic for the Liberal party just spoke about tourism and the GST and made an absolutely inaccurate statement. He said that the Tourism Association of Canada does not support the GST. Yes it does. It wants a lower rate but it supports the tax conceptually. That is what the hon. member does not want to hear because we have an alternative and the opposition does not have an alternative. The argument is about the rate, not about the tax. I would ask him to clarify what he means when he says the association does not support the tax conceptually.
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Also, the hon. member who serves as the finance critic for the Liberal party talks about fiscal reform. Since 1984 this government has spent 3.5 per cent on average on program increases every year. I would like him to tell me what fiscal leadership the Liberal governments in the 1970s showed and how much their increases were year by year. I do know that from 1972 to 1975, when the member for Vancouver Quadra was the finance minister, increases were over 17 per cent a year. The member talks about fiscal reform. Fiscal reform has been pursued by this government. The previous Liberal government did not pursue fiscal reform or tax reform.
Finally, I want to ask the member what he means when he talks about the 1984 level of the federal sales tax and the manufacturers' sales tax. He fails to tell the House that in that year the Government of Canada was going to run a deficit of $38 billion or higher. That is the kind of fiscal reform he wants to return to.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, first of all, in terms of the tourism industry, if the hon. minister wants to discuss the question of the GST with the tourism industry I can arrange for that very easily. As a matter of fact, on Wednesday evening of last week the Canadian Restaurant and Food Association, a very integral component of the tourism industry in this country, was here. It said that it, like many other people, are very concerned with the government's approach on the goods and services tax. It is not like saying: "Are you in favour of fresh air? Are you in favour of it or are you against it?" It is not that black and white. The restaurant association does not support the proposal that the government is trying to ramrod through this House. It does not, and that is a fact. The Nova Scotia tourist association, also represented at that dinner, refused to support the government initiative as it is presently before this House.
Sir John A. Macdonald supported some things in this country too, if we want to go back. He supported the railway. What is the minister's position on the railroad in this country now?
The Liberal government of the 1970s and early 1980s had a mandate and it at that time had to answer to the people for what the people decided was not the proper way to proceed in this country. I am not going to defend what went on in 1970 or 1980, not at all. I have no need to.

February 5, 1990
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The minister talks about reform. There was reform of the rules of this House. I want to tell the hon. minister, through you Mr. Speaker, that Sir John A. Macdonald had beliefs, which this member and his colleagues obviously no longer share, about a country and what the railroad contributes. John Diefenbaker, who I am sure you remember, had some thoughts on closure that he expressed during the pipeline debate. We are in this House today talking about tax reform, monetary reform, fiscal reform, and what do we have to do? Capsule it in five minutes or less because this government imposes closure on parliamentarians who want to discuss the GST thoroughly. We cannot as my time is ended because the government will not allow us to speak out.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. On debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence.


Mr. Jean-Guy Hudon (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, obviously, in any society it is a lot easier not to make decisions, not to govern, than to try and govern a country. And when one does govern, one has to make changes from time to time, and it is not necessarily easy to do so. The same applies to bringing up children, because if we promise our teenagers a lot of things when they are growing up, and we are unable to keep those promises, we are stuck and we then have some difficult decisions to make.
The financial situation in Canada is not an easy one, and when we want to change projects or introduce new policies, people are going to raise all kinds of scenarios, and we have had examples of this daily. In fact, we saw this just five minutes ago, when a vote was called on a motion to extend debate after the usual time of adjournment. I have no objection to the principle, but don't you think that if we had not wasted our time last week on endless votes on the tabling of private bills, and if we had each used our speaking time, our ten or twenty minutes, instead of putting on this show to tiy and obstruct the proceedings of the House, there would be no need today to call a vote on extending the hours of business of the House.
There was plenty of time, except they had to put on a show, and we saw some incredible ones- I wish the hon. member would let me get on with my speech. I let you talk, now let me talk. I support the tax!
Last year, we had a debate on free trade, remember? You know what the Liberals said? With free trade, old age pensions will go. They said the same thing about tourism. Old age pensions, all that was going to go. That was a year and half ago, and it hasn't happened, yet. Monique Begin, former Minister of National Health and Welfare, said: With free trade, AIDS- You remember that one? And now they are trying to make Canadians believe any number of fairy stories. One thing is certain: this century saw a lot more Liberal than Conservative ministers of finance. In 1946, we had the Russell-Sirois Commission. In 1940, they took the Russell-Sirois Commission Report which had recommended to change the tax system and they shelved it. In 1956, they took the Carter Commission Report which had also recommended to change the tax system and they shelved it. Not to govern is much easier than to govern. That was in 1956. In 1966, they shelved also the Carter Commission of Inquiry report on taxation. In 1977, there was the Commodity Tax Review Group report. Again, instead of governing, they shelved this report. In 1983, they shelved the Goodman Report. There was one such report every decade, namely in 1940, 1956, 1966, 1977 and 1983. All these reports indicated that our tax system needed to be changed. Each time, the party in power decided not to govern and to continue as before. In 1984 or 1985, this Government tried another tack.
How did this develop? It was said earlier that taxes are not popular. It is clear they are not. We do not need surveys to find that out. Everybody knows that taxes are not popular and that governments try to get reelected. But how do governments go about it? When the needs are greater, they try to raise new taxes. If you were the prime minister of a country where religion forbade to eat pork, do you not think it would be easy for you, as a prime minister, to raise a special tax on pork? That is what you would do.


Mrs. Bourgault:: So let say it is forbidden.


Jean-Guy Hudon: It is forbidden. When something is forbidden either through religion or customs, people seem to jump on it. What did governments do 70 years ago when they wanted to tax people who were self-sufficient and
February 5, 1990

rich? They taxed manufactured goods because as a rule, people were self-sufficient, made their own fabrics, sofas, clothing, etc. Therefore, they levied taxes on luxury items because rich people had enough money to buy a manufactured sofa or weaved worsted clothes. This is how we developed our tax system in Canada. Because of the religious or historical context, we have had sin taxes-liquor, cigarettes, playing cards. Only recently have we been able to buy playing cards without excise stamps. And we started taxing the rich because the rich bought manufactured goods. So we said that was a good way to raise money. And we kept on doing it. Manufactured goods were taxed more and more, but there has to be a limit. It is not because one is rich that one will use a hundred times more manufactured goods than one's poor neighbour. There is a limit to that. It is not because I am rich that I will take 42 meals a week instead of 14. If I am rich, or if I have money, instead of buying groceries for my meals I will buy services, eat in restaurants. So, the more affluent I am, the more services I can afford. If I had money, why would I buy a $20,000 car? I would lease an automobile with a chauffeur! I would be stupid to drive. If I am rich, why would I buy a house? Why buy a house and look after the flowers? Instead, I will hire a gardener, rent a house, and so forth. I will rent services, and they are not taxable.
If tomorrow morning you receive $250,000 in interest on your investments, Mr. Speaker, just for the last three months, it would be stupid of you to invest them yourself. You would use financial consultants. Come now! The more affluent one becomes, the more services one uses. Fifty years ago, the more affluent one was, the more manufactured goods one used. It was tempting for governments to jump on that. But as everyone suggests, this is old-fashioned. Our Opposition colleagues also suggest this I think. They certainly do not agree with the proposal. But that is the direction the tax system will take. We simply have to propose changes.
I can see some Members who did not even bother to attend the proceedings of the Committee on Finance chaired by our colleague from Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn), so they certainly did not come up with meaningful suggestions. How do we go about it? Someone may not particularly favour 9 per cent, or 7 per cent, or even 5 per cent. We agreed to some exceptions. Some
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people said: I would support a 5-per-cent tax without any exception. That is one option. The government chose another one. So now the government is facing the problem of taxing wealthier Canadians on what they chose to do with their money, and these are the people who now use ever more services.
Back in my riding I gave a few conferences on the GST and a lady said to me: Mr. Hudon, this means that when I eventually sell my house I will pay a 9-per-cent tax on the contract drawn up by the notary. I replied: Yes, Madam, you sell your house, the notary charges $1,000 for the contract, so you pay $90. You cannot afford to pay that? On any given day, do you know how many people sell their house? You will sell one in your lifetime. How many houses did you sell in your life? Two, Mr. Hudon. Do you know how many people sell houses every day? They are not taxed. What the Minister of Finance did through the tax reform is something new, at the same time a change in the income tax level and in the tax rate. This is the way we will improve our system, broadening the tax base and being more equitable by taxing rich people on what they do with their money. We are not hiding anything, Mr. Speaker. It has been suggested that people will leave Canada and that tourists will stay away in droves. Well now, the situation is the same everywhere.
The second issue to keep in mind and to point out honestly to all Canadians is that everything made or produced in Canada is subject to a 13.5 per cent tax.
We do not tell people enough-you are afraid to and some days so am I-that normally, the price of all manufactured products will go down 13.5 per cent and up 7 per cent.
Will the big corporations pass on the savings? We have to find some way to check into that. A system will have to be set up to do that. But normally, that is what will happen and what will help our exports.
We talked about it in the free trade debate. Canada, the Canadian economy, depends entirely on our exports-and I mean that. I do not get richer by selling something to my neighbour in Valleyfield; I get richer when I sell abroad and new money enters the country.

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When our Canadian products are put on the market in Europe or the United States with a 13.5 per cent tax included, I am automatically disqualified or it is harder for me to compete for sales internationally.
Mr. Speaker, I say that if we want to maintain our social programs, if we want to maintain Canadians' collective wealth, we must bring money into this country and we will do that by exporting our labour and what we produce.
So I want to tax rich people on what they do with their money. Secondly, I want to make my exports competitive. Thirdly, and this is not said often enough, we have no external marks to distinguish rich and poor. I want to help the less fortunate deal with that expense. That is why there will be rebates based on the previous year's tax return. Households with incomes of $30,000 or less will get tax credits four times a year, not to spend the first day they get it. It is to help them deal with the extra expenses they will incur.
It is true that if they go to St. Hubert Bar-B-Q or McDonald's to eat half a chicken for $10, it will cost $10.70. We are not lying to people; we are telling them that is true. But to help them pay the extra 70 cents, they will receive a credit on January 1, March 1, July 1 and October 1. With that, they can handle the extra expenses.
We are not lying. I for one did not need that. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, I am earning $80 000, and I do not need the rebate, I can afford it. One thing is certain-the Canadian economy will be paid for by Canadians, not by foreigners. The debt will be paid by Canadians, not by foreigners. It is our business. We are asking more and more from the government. Every year we used to pay all sorts of things for Canadians. There was talk about VIA Rail, about a lot of other services. We have taken firm action on the economy. There is a new Budget coming, and I am sure there will be more.
I remember in 1984, when we came up with our first Budget and started cutting, I kept hearing on the other side who is running today for the leadership of the Liberal party. She used to say: "Cut, Cut, Cut!" and "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs." Never so were so many new jobs created than since that time!
There are political risks to be taken. There are fiscal risks to be taken. And the risks we took in 1984,1985 and 1986 have borne fruit.
Mr. Speaker, as I said, I certainly want to tax the rich on what they do with their money. Second, I want to make our goods globally competitive by repealing the
13,5	per cent tax, and making our exporters competitive.
Third, I want to help the less privileged, because to them this will be an extra cost; those people I want to help face that new expenditure. And this, Mr. Speaker, leads me to the exemption. Not all goods will be taxed. Food will be exempt, drugs will be exempt, rents will be exempt, resale houses will be exempt.
So, Mr. Speaker, there are exceptions in-


Mr. Fontana:: What is the definition of "Food"?


Jean-Guy Hudon: -Someone asked for the definition of food. The Liberals, Mr. Speaker, are wondering how to define food. Well, since they were in power for 22 years, they could have come up with a definition!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: It's caviar and Big Macs!


Jean-Guy Hudon: Ah! Caviar! So that's it.. Here we go again, about those tons of caviar that are sold every year. The NDP and its crusade against caviar! Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are wondering how to define food. Shame, shame! So you really wonder?


Joseph Frank (Joe) Fontana: Is barbecued chicken food?


Jean-Guy Hudon: You seem to have a problem. I suppose if I mention prescription drugs and tell them these are not taxed, they will say: What is the definition of a prescription drug? We will remind them that in Bill C-22, we came up with a definition of prescription drugs, and it was a worthwhile exercise, believe me, because during the 22 years they were in power, their definition of prescription drugs wasn't so hot. They didn't really know what it meant. Now they wonder what food is. They ask to have the hours of the House extended so they can talk some more. The people listening to us today, Mr. Speaker, can hardly be expected to take all this very seriously.
Mr. Speaker, the tax reform before the House today, which is part of the overall tax reform, will be beneficial to the economy of this country in general. All politicians are the same. They try to tax areas, not where it is politically expedient but where it makes the most sense to the public.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that tomorrow morning, the Minister of Finance will be able to sell Canadians a tax of
February 5, 1990

x per cent on all incomes in Canada for environmental reasons, because of existing public awareness.
That is what governments will try to do. That is what governments have always tried to do. Remember what I said earlier about farmers. Every country has developed its tax system in terms of historical, religious, financial or other constraints.
Mr. Speaker, we don't need polls to tell us that a tax is not popular. When I walk around-


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: In Chambly, too!


Jean-Guy Hudon: In Chambly, you've are got to be kidding it is not the GST which will get us elected or not. Don't worry! You can talk about Meech Lake in Chambly and show how much of a hypocrite you are but the considerations. They are totally different.
Mr. Speaker, they tell us that a tax is unpopular- When I walk down Victoria Street in Valleyfield, I know that the tax is not popular. But popular or not, Mr. Speaker, it is not going to make me change my mind. I am not here just to get re-elected. I am here to try to make some useful changes, to build a nation for our children and to give them the tools they need to succeed. Because the way we are going- And we all agree on this; there is no need for a Gallup poll.
Mr. Speaker, the way we are going, it will be an a tragedy if we do not give ourselves the economic tools we need to face the new Canadian realities and responsibilities.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I have been listening with great interest to the hon. member for Beauharnois-Sa-laberry. I just did not quite understand his explanation as to why there is such a devastating percentage of Canadian people opposed to the GST.
I quote from the Star CTV poll just released last night which says that 79 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the GST and 16 per cent are in favour of it. That is not very many. Only 16 per cent are in favour of it. I think it is really the 16 Tories in the House tonight. These people are trying to muzzle Parliament by not allowing an extended debate so opposition members can explain to the government what is wrong with it and perhaps we can get some answers to these questions. Clearly, 79 per cent of Canadians are opposed to it. Only 16 per cent are in
Government Orders
favour of it and 5 per cent cannot make up their minds. I think they just probably have not heard of it.
In the member's province of Quebec the situation is even more devastating: 81 per cent are opposed to it while 14 per cent are in favour of it. I would think that it is not just what the hon. member hears casually when he goes back on the weekend, but people are really concerned. He simply has to get better answers and better explanations of why he wants to impose this dastardly tax on the people of Quebec.
Clearly in the west it is the same problem. Only 1 per cent more are in favour; 15 per cent are in favour there and 80 per cent are opposed. Some 5 per cent have not heard of it. In Atlantic Canada 16 per cent are in favour and 78 per cent are opposed.
I think it is important to note when we look at these polls that many people are not only opposed to it but are prepared to sign petitions, write letters to their MPs, attend rallies, vote against it, and boycott the tax. They want to take whatever action is possible.
I wonder if the hon. member could explain to the House why 81 per cent of the people in Quebec are opposed to it and only 14 per cent are in favour.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before the hon. member replies, the hon. member for Leeds-Grenville has a point of order.


Jim Jordan: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader what business he intends to introduce in the House tomorrow.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: The hon. government House leader is not here, Mr. Speaker, but as chief government Whip I think members can look at the Order Paper for tomorrow. I think the primary item on that would be a continuation of the goods and services tax debate.


Jean-Guy Hudon: My colleague wants to know why so many people are against the GST. It is because of the damn lies you keep telling them!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: The what?


Jean-Guy Hudon: The lies! Throughout the free trade debate some Members kept asking why so many people were against free trade. You had elderly people believe they would lose their pension benefits. During the 1988

February 5, 1990
Government Orders
campaign we spent a whole month telling seniors that it was not true, that they did not have to fear losing their pension. Stop giving them misleading information.
A moment ago we were talking about Chambly and- What is his name- We are bound to forget his name within a couple of weeks. Why did the candidate in Chambly fail to tell the voters that right now- In any event, if he did not tell them I will because I am sure they are all listening to us, that on a $10,000 car they will pay $840 less.


An hon. member:: With the GST.


Jean-Guy Hudon: With the GST. Why do you not tell that to them? Why are people not aware of the fact that the price of all manufactured products will drop by 13.5 per cent and then go up 7 per cent? People do not know that food will not be taxed. You feed them misleading information to scare them. Tourism, nobody eats in restaurants anymore! The economic downturn will scare the daylights out of Canadians!
Last year, Mr. Speaker, we had the AIDS apocalypse in free trade and this is why some people were against it. So what happened to the untold woes we were supposed to witness, Mr. Speaker? Funny thing, here we are in 1990, two years later, yet we are still alive and old age pensions are still paid out regularly. My colleague on the other side has been making faces for nearly an hour, you will lose! If we lose the election next time around, Jos, that means you win. Well, when you do, you tackle the economic problems of the country. As you try to do that you will learn one thing: It is a lot harder to govern than to be governed. Then you can make faces!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Gloucester, and then I will recognize the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville.


M. Douglas Young: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask my hon. friend a question on a comment he made earlier. As we were dealing with food and its definition, I was somewhat surprised when I heard him refer to millionaires and state that he would tax all kinds of food. Am I to understand that he feels the people who are paying $10 plus the 7 per cent tax to eat in Quebec establishments such as St. Hubert B-B-Q-he mentioned it specifically-are millionaires? I suggest that people see food as something all human beings eat. Sometimes they have to buy something in a store or eat in a St. Hubert B-B-Q because most working men and women often do not have time to go back home every day for lunch or dinner. I was surprised that the Hon. Member could not understand our concern about the way the government is planning to levy a tax on nearly 40 per cent of all the food people will eat in Canadian restaurants, snackbars, cafeterias, and so on. Just the same, I find it surprising that the hon. member should not consider this important for low and middle income people who have to eat in these restaurants and who will have to pay this new tax from now on.
Here is my question, Mr. Speaker. The hon. member often refers to free trade. He knows how to associate the AIDS issue with free trade, and I congragulate him, for he has a most interesting turn of phrase. This being said, he suggested that all the support and the free trade discussions had made it possible for Premier Bourassa-


Lise Bourgault: Give him a break! Let him reply!


M. Douglas Young: Madam, you may have your turn if you do not insist on closure.
Now, the hon. member dealt with free trade. Are we to understand that you do not at all agree with Premier Bourassa and his Minister of Finance (Mr. Levesque) who oppose the GST? Are you suggesting that they do not understand, like all the other Canadian Premiers?


Jean-Guy Hudon: I will check the blues to see what I said about food. I did not mean to downplay the situation. I don't think I said that only rich people go to the restaurant, but I will check the blues. That is not at all what I meant.


M. Douglas Young: You asked what food was.


Jean-Guy Hudon: No, no, you're the one who asked the definition of food. That is what you asked a few moments ago.
As for the other comment, it is not I who mixed AIDS with free trade, it is Monique Begin.


An hon. member:: Yes, it is Monique Begin.


Jean-Guy Hudon: Don't you remember, during the election campaign, when all the scare tactics were coming out and Monique Begin was saying: You know, with free trade- It is well known. Anyway, in Quebec, everybody knows
February 5, 1990

that it is Monique Begin who made that kind of comments.
On the third point concerning Mr. Bourassa, it is true. We tried to harmonize our tax with the provincial tax. Provinces are not particularly interested in a harmonized tax because they would lose the tax on the tax. We would like to have a harmonized tax with each province and to have only one system. I am sure that the day provinces accept our offer, they will be able to sit down and negotiate.
I would like to say to my colleague that some statements are political. Of course, Mr. Speaker, when we brought forward the goods and services tax proposal, in the middle of the election campaign in Quebec, it was not very popular. Any premier will jump on that and say that it is not popular. The same thing happened when the premier, who is an economist, said that there should be different interest rates in Quebec and in Ontario. I said to him: Listen, apart from the fact that we are in the middle of an election campaign, have you ever seen different interest rates in Quebec and in Ontario?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being seven o'clock the House will now adjourn.
I regret the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville did not have an opportunity to raise a question. He will be the next speaker for the NDP when Bill C-62 comes up in the House again.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 is deemed to have been moved.

Mr. Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsiaq):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity tonight to return to the issue of the goods and services tax. On October 2 I pointed out to the Minister of Finance that the GST discriminates against the residents of the north.
Adjournment Debate
Because the cost of living in the north is the highest in the country, each northerner will pay more of this unfair tax. The public documents released on the GST do not mention the north.
I asked the minister why the north was omitted from the government's technical paper on the goods and service tax proposal. I also asked whether the government had done any background studies on the impact of this tax on the north and, if so, would the minister release these studies to northerners.
The minister replied that the government had done a good deal of work on the impact of the tax on the north and that the impact on the north is about the same as the national average. The minister said that the GST would improve the economic fortunes of the north by about 1.5 per cent. I was not satisfied with that answer.
My office followed up with the minister's office and asked for the studies and information the minister said he had on the impact of the tax on the north. We were told that it would take a little while to put it all together and that it would be sent to us in a very short time. It is now almost four months from the time I asked the question and we do not have those studies yet. Frankly, I do not believe they exist.
At the time I asked my question the finance committee studying the GST proposal had not put the Northwest Territories on its travel itinerary. I urged the committee to include the Northwest Territories in its travel schedule and a lot of pressure from the north was placed on the committee chairman to the same end. Eventually, that committee did go to Yellowknife to hear submissions on the GST, and it got an earful.
In a letter to the finance committee chairman the NWT Minister of Finance outlined the areas where the tax will adversely affect the north and other isolated regions much more than it will in southern Canada. He said:
The significantly higher costs in the Northwest Territories mean that northerners will pay much more under the goods and services tax than will other Canadians, while the proposed sales tax credit and other announced measures will be insufficient to offset the higher cost resulting from the tax.
It is the view of the government of the Northwest Territories that the GST will make the attainment of their goals of greater independence and self-reliance more difficult.

February 5, 1990
Adjournment Debate
The brief of the government of the Northwest Territories pointed out that modem industries operating in the north face some disadvantages that are not shared throughout the rest of Canada. Operating costs are very high. Labour costs are very high because it is more difficult to attract skilled workers and because living costs are so much higher in the north. Transportation costs are very high, especially in the smaller communities spread out across the north where all the goods must be flown in or brought out by sea lift.
These high transportation costs affect both the cost of consumer goods and the cost to business of shipping in its inputs and shipping out its production. The benefits to the NWT economy are extremely dubious.
What of the NWT consumer? While the sales tax burden on all Canadians will increase because of the new tax, the burden on NWT residents will increase by substantially more.
In 1985, prices for goods and services, excluding shelter, were on the average 44 per cent higher in the Northwest Territories than in southern Canada. With the GST, residents of the Northwest Territories will pay much more than other Canadians because prices are much higher to begin with.
The government of the Northwest Territories has calculated that if the current price differential still exists in 1991-and I predict it will be even greater-northern residents will pay over 40 per cent more in tax than southern residents. If the cost of housing is included the average price difference and tax will probably exceed 50 per cent because of the exceedingly high cost of housing.
Prices in Yellowknife are about 33 per cent higher than in Edmonton. But prices in some isolated communities, such as Grise Fjord on Ellesmere Island or Pelly Bay can average as much as 100 per cent more than in southern Canada.
It is the lower-income residents of the north who will feel the burden most. The sales tax credit will be much lower in real terms in the north and will not be high enough to compensate northern residents for the increased tax. Also, northern residents will begin to lose the tax credit at much lower levels of real income. For example, an employee in the NWT has to earn 50 per cent more on average to maintain a similar purchasing power to an individual living in southern Canada. An individual in the NWT earning $30,000 per year might
have a similar real purchasing power to an individual earning $20,000 in the south, but the southern residents will receive more of a benefit than the northern residents under the sales tax credit.
A further blow particularly affecting residents of the eastern Arctic and Baffin Island are Canada Post's new freight rates on food mail. These rate increases are averaging 20 to 25 per cent and will put some food out of reach for many families. A dozen eggs now costs $4.20. A litre of milk costs $4.50. These are the prices being paid now. These prices do not reflect what might happen to the cost of transportation under the GST.
The GST will apply to air fares and transportation. In my constituency there are no roads. Air transportation is a necessity. All our goods, food, clothing, hardware, and construction materials must be flown in, or they are brought in on sea lift in the summer months when the ocean waters are free of ice.
Under the GST fuel and electricity are going to be taxed. This will be a real additional hardship on northerners, where the necessities cost much more and where the consumption is much higher because of the climate.
Northern businesses will face administration costs. In the NWT businesses do not now have any sales tax to administer and accounting services are not available in many small northern communities.
The government has not considered how much harder this tax will hit northern residents; or, if it has, it has decided that it does not care.
When will the government recognize that the boundaries of Canada extend far beyond Quebec and Ontario?


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I was disappointed by what my hon. colleague had to say. Right now, Canadian residents, whether they be northerners, southerners, easterners or westerners, all pay a 13.5 per cent federal sales tax.
And here was my hon. colleague talking about milk. We know that there is at present a 13.5 per cent hidden tax in the production of milk in Canada. Even on the carton itself and on the print on the carton, there is a
13.5	per cent hidden tax that Canadians don't know
February 5, 1990

about but still pay. What we propose is a visible 7 per cent tax on all goods, except on what my hon. colleague was talking about, that is food, which includes milk. Since the GST does not apply to milk, milk will cost less than it does right now with the 13.5 per cent hidden tax. We should not forget that.
On the other side, when we talk about the northern part of the country, we talk about mining, and about production. The 7 per cent tax is a consumption tax, it is not a manufacturers' tax or a production tax. So, in the long term, northerners will come to see that change of target as an advantage. In the long run, they will profit from that tax, and I'm happy for them.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the current
13.5	per cent federal sales tax, instead of equally helping all areas across the country, is in fact putting some of the regions, including the North, at a disadvantage, because, as you know, the system is 65 years old. It is outdated and needs to be changed. The new tax system will allow us to help all of Canada, and specially the remote areas, more than we can now with the current federal sales tax.
Mr. Speaker, I think that my hon. colleague would do well to examine the question in its entirety, although I know he has a special interest in the well-being of northerners. He would do well to put aside his partisanship, and to look at the real benefits the GST has in store for the people he represents and wishes to represent.


COMINCO
Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker, on January 24, I asked a question in the House concerning the shutdown of Cominco's Sullivan Mine in Kimberley, British Columbia.
The answer I received from the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion did not only reflect the minister's lack of knowledge of the case, but it was an insult to the people of Kimberley and to the workers who have dedicated their lives to this work in this community. I would like to review the answer given by the minister and bring some information to his attention so he will not
Adjournment Debate
embarrass himself in the House when confronted with a similar situation in the future.
The minister in his response on January 24 implied that the Sullivan Mine had run out of ore. For the minister's information the Sullivan Mine has at least 20 million tonnes of productive ore in the ground. This represents a minimum of 10 years of operation. This fact is acknowledged by all people familiar with the mine, including the company.
The company earned a a profit of over $9 million last year in the operation of that mine alone. Why did the minister's answer not acknowledge this fact? The people of Kimberley do not need misinformation such as this to cloud the fight for their community.
The minister also avoided the whole issue of the $79 million invested in Cominco by the federal government through the FBDB. When the government decided to invest the funds to upgrade Cominco's Trail smelter, it was with the clear understanding that the investment would secure employment at the Sullivan Mine well into the 1990s.
It also stated that it would help ensure the employment of 6,000 people in southeastern British Columbia. One and a half years later, Cominco announces that its operations at Sullivan Mine will be shutting down on two weeks' notice. That short a notice and that drastic a measure is not acceptable to the people of Kimberley.
At the same time we find out that the $79 million had no strings attached. I would like to tell the government that it cannot have it both ways. It cannot talk about total free enterprise and then bail out its corporate friends when the system breaks down while at the same time leaving the miners in the town of Kimberley with no assistance.
We recently learned that some disciplinary action may be forthcoming within the FBDB as a result of loans given to strip clubs. I would like to suggest to the minister that handing over $79 million to a hugely profitable company with no strings attached may constitute a more serious problem than the strip club loans.
We have a situation wherein a whole community is decimated overnight. A number of serious questions were raised concerning the crisis and we have a minister

February 5, 1990
Adjournment Debate
responding to them with inaccurate information, at least as far as those questions he decided to respond to were concerned.
I want to tell the minister on behalf of the people of Kimberley that we expect more from a minister of this government than a recital of the company line.
Will the minister undertake today to order a full investigation of the reasons for the shutdown at the Cominco mine, including allegations of union busting by the company, the transfer of over 800 jobs from Canada to the U.S. and the role of the American zinc, copper and lead lobby in the free trade negotiations?
Will the minister also tell the Canadian people that decent wages, environmental standards and health and safety regulations will not be seen as a liability in Canada by his government?
Finally, I would like to ask the minister what plans his government has to assist the community of Kimberley. If this government can spend $79 million helping one of the most profitable corporations in Canada, then surely there is some money available to assist the people of Kimberley.


Mr.   Benoit@: Mr. Speaker, on January 31, 1990, Cominco shut down its lead and zinc mine for an indefinite period. As a result, over 700 workers in and around Kimberley have been laid-off.
Cominco had been operating this mine for decades to supply its smelters in Trail, B.C., with zinc and lead. But the company also sold a lot of concentrates in Asia, mainly in Japan.
Contrary to what my colleague said, the Minister never suggested there was no ore left. In fact, the deposit probably won't be exhausted for many more years. What the Minister meant was that it is becoming increasingly expensive to operate this mine at a greater depth and, in fact, the company has told us that operating and equipment costs are much higher for much lower quality ores.
In general, it must be pointed out that the price of zinc on the London stock exchange has dropped from 75 to 58 cents. In addition, the amount of silver found in the ore is getting increasingly smaller. The bottom line is that it is no longer economic to operate the mine.
In fact, the mining industry has lost $2 million a month in November and December 1989. You have indicated 9 millions for last year. In fact, if the activities were to be maintained after January 1990, losses would be of $3 million a month or some $35 million for this year.
Obviously, if prices go up again, the company could start its activities over again, and the workers' collective agreement states that the workers who have been laid off must be the first to be called back to work for 18 months.
As we have said, the federal government, through our department, is committed in the Trail Founderies with $79 million worth of stocks in a project totalling $275 million. In fact, that project is supposed to start this month. However, the proposed closure of the Sullivan mine will not harm Trail, although a much larger proportion of concentrates comes from the Sullivan Mine, because Cominco can obtain the concentrates from many other sources. More and more, the main source of the company will be the Red Dog mine in Alaska which opened in November 1989. It will soon become one of the least expensive mines to run in the world.
According to metal investment analysts, a greater number of companies mining base metals are tightening their belts by reducing production and prospection, now that metal prices are decreasing. The prices of aluminum, zinc, copper and nickel have been declining in the last few weeks.
Mining companies have not forgotten the depressed markets of the early '80s and the huge losses that resulted, so they move quickly to reduce the supply rather than wait until the situation worsens. However, most mining companies had trimmed the fat during the last economic cycle and they should, as a whole, keep lay-offs to a minimum.
As we already said, the government cares for the workers and it will take every possible action to help them.
In the present situation, operation of the mine cannot continue, because prices are too low, should they go up however, the mine might reopen.
February 5, 1990

Adjournment Debate


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to row at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1). adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted.
Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomor- The House adjourned at 7.20 p.m.

Tuesday, February 6, 1990