1990-03-28

[Stage Direction]
[Translation)

Mr. Jean-Marc Robitaille (Terrebonne):: Mr. Speaker, this morning we read in the newspapers that Canada's number one banker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Crow, has had annual salary increases ranging from 12 to 21 per cent since he was appointed in 1987, while the Canadian average was 4.5 per cent in 1988 and 5.25 per cent in 1989.
Nevertheless, Mr. Crow insists that a 5 per cent increase is inflationary. The government is taking steps to reduce the deficit and asking Canadians to help by tightening their belts. The salaries of the members of this House, Mr. Speaker, have increased by an average of only 2.8 per cent annually over the past six years.
Without wishing to question Mr. Crow's competence and credibility, I think he has a duty to practise what he preaches. This morning, Canadians were indignant, as I was, when they heard the news.
I hope Mr. Crow will be more consistent in the future and will take the necessary corrective action.


ANNIVERSARY OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE
Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt):: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to extend warm wishes to the Greek community in Canada as it recently celebrated, on March 25, the one hundred and sixty-ninth year of Greek independence.
This event stands as a proud testimony to the dynamism of the Greek people, their history and their culture. One hundred and sixty-nine years ago the Greek people ignited the first spark of a democratic movement as they fought for freedom against the Ottoman Empire. Since that time, the people of Greece and Greeks around the world have carried the torch of democracy proudly and with great dignity.
Almost daily we open our newspapers and read of sweeping political changes taking place all over the world. Everywhere the voice of democracy seems to be booming. However, it saddens me that while in other countries there is a general ease of tension, the situation in Cyprus has not changed. For the past 25 years Canada has had peacekeeping troops in Cyprus.
I strongly urge the government to apply whatever pressure possible to encourage demilitarization and dialogue so that democracy might once again be restored and Canadian troops can return home.


CHILDREN'S BILL OF RIGHTS
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, last evening this House had the opportunity to pass a motion presented by my colleague from Mission-Coquitlam. The motion called on this government to negotiate with the provinces and develop a bill of rights for children. It would have given legal standing to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In debate, the government side expressed its genuine concern for the future of Canada's children. There were compassionate voices from that side of the House. But last night we witnessed the victory of partisanship over principle. Eighty-two government members voted against this motion. They turned and voted against a bill of rights for children.
Mr. Speaker, I am still shocked. This government denied Canadian children rights that we want for all the children of the world. To add insult to injury, the Prime Minister has agreed to co-chair the World Summit for Children. Such hypocrisy. The actions of this government yesterday show that it cares more about the

March 28, 1990
limelight of the international stage than the future of real children in Canada.
I want Canadians to know that we had a great opportunity to help all children and I want Canadians to know who ended that hope; it was the 82 members on the government side who voted against a bill of rights for children.


CHILDREN AND HOSPITALS WEEK
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, this week marks the eleventh anniversary celebration of Children and Hospitals Week. Children and Hospitals Week is a public awareness campaign which focuses attention on the unique needs of children and family as they interact with the health care system. This year's theme is commitment to caring and a major goal of the week is to promote health care policies and practices which are both sensitive and responsive to the emotional and developmental needs of paediatric patients. Children and Hospitals Week is sponsored annually by the Association for the Care of Children's Health.
I invite all Canadians to celebrate Children and Hospitals Week by taking part in special events such as health fairs, hospital tours and, for the NDP, Teddy Bear clinics and balloon launches.
Finally, I applaud the Association for the Care of Children's Health and its members for their commitment to promoting the psychosocial well-being of children and families in health care settings.


MISS TEEN CANADA
Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland -St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Mr. Speaker, as the opposition critic for youth, I today want to salute a young lady from my riding who was named Miss Teen Canada.
Tonya Goss was a student of mine at Notre Dame High School just a few years ago. I recall a time when we were talking about the Parliament of Canada and studying Canadian history. She is now becoming a part of that by being named here in this House of Commons and saluted by all of us for her accomplishments.
She was an excellent student and an effervescent young lady who was not only captain but coach of the cheerleading team. I believe that Tonya Goss will not only represent the city of Welland well; she will represent the Niagara Peninsula and, indeed, all of Canada as she travels extensively both within Canada and without, representing us. She will be a fine ambassador and I do indeed salute her in all of our names.


GOVERNOR OF THE BANK OF CANADA
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, today, Le Devoir reported that since 1986, the Governor of the Bank of Canada has had salary increases ranging from 12 to 21 per cent. Without wishing to question Mr. Crow's dedication, since we all know he is waging a tough battle against inflation, I think we should remember that the average Canadian has to make do with an annual increase of about 5.25 per cent.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we keep things in perspective.



Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, was shocked to learn that the battle against inflation being waged by the Governor of the Bank of Canada does not extend to his own salary. I had fully expected that the man who asks so much from western Canadians would lead by example. Instead, I find that Mr. Crow has accepted wage increases of at least 12 per cent a year for the past several years and now the media reports a salary of up to $243,000.
How can we continue to ask the regions of this country to suffer today in order to have a better future tomorrow while at the same time Mr. Crow himself acts as as contributor to the inflation we are trying to control? I cannot justify these salary increases and I cannot ask my constituents to understand how this happens.
The newspaper headline reads: "Crow has no choice but to keep interest high". I will keep my interest high if Mr. Crow refuses his increase.
March 28, 1990


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, one of the most unconscionable aspects of the finance minister's recent budget was the cuts to our veterans. Canadians realize that we must ensure that the surviving Canadian veterans, who fought to restore freedom to millions and to help change the history of the world for the better, should be given every consideration.
Yet this government has decided to show its respect by forcing many of our veterans in long-term chronic care to pay as much as 400 per cent more for board and lodging. This government has also reduced the Veterans Independence Program by $18 million. This program assisted those 60,000 veterans still living at home with housecleaning duties they can no longer maintain themselves.
As veteran Captain P. L. Bender from my riding of Nepean wrote: "Such a move is highly inconsiderate and thoughtless. There are not many veterans left and all young people should remember that the life they are enjoying today is due in some considerable degree to those who fought in the wars".
Our veterans deserve better. They have already paid their dues.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, the so-called campaign for fair taxes is a real con job being perpetrated on the public.
Unfair taxes are those which: (a) are hidden from consumers; (b) negatively impact on lower-income Canadians; (c) discriminate against Canadian goods in favour of imports; and (d) are applied at different levels to different things.
The GST does none of these things. It is an up-front, visible sales tax. The GST credit will shield lower-income Canadians who will end up better off under the GST than before. It removes the discrimination against locally produced goods, and it is applied uniformly to goods and services.
I believe in fair taxation, that is why I support the GST. That is why a vote against the GST is a vote against fan-taxes.


CORPORATE TAXATION
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, the nominees for corporate welfare bum of the week are again three major corporations that did not pay any federal income taxes in 1988. They are: Brascan, Confederation Life Insurance and Xerox Canada. The three companies had combined profits of close to $400 million but did not contribute their fair share of taxes.
Were these companies so hard up that they could not contribute to their favour charities, the Liberal and Conservative Parties? Of course not. For instance, Xerox Canada gave over $11,000 to both the Liberals and the Conservatives.
And now for the winner. The envelope, please. And the winner is Brascan. Brascan is the corporate welfare bum of the week. It did not pay income taxes on profits of $263 million but it did give $50,000 to the Tories and $25,000 to the Liberals in 1988. Brascan did not forget to "dance with the one who brung ya".


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, Canadian farmers are hurting right across Canada, from the wheat grower in the prairie provinces to the com producer in southwestern Ontario. Net farm incomes are the lowest in decades in many provinces. Farm bankruptcies have increased dramatically. In fact, in Saskatchewan, they have tripled in the last three years to 152 last year. Farm incomes are so low that at least one-quarter of the grain producers in Saskatchewan are facing the loss of their farms. Bankers will not give loans any more on the basis of equity, but purely on the basis of cash flow, and many grain prices are so low that the crops will not cash flow.
I call on the government to respond to this tragedy for tens of thousands of Canadian farm families and to provide emergency assistance now.

March 28, 1990
Oral Questions ROUGE RIVER VALLEY


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Scarborough Centre):: Mr. Speaker, on March 26, the Ontario Government announced that over 10,500 acres of the Rouge River Valley System will be saved as a park.
As much as Premier Peterson's announcement is to be congratulated, it is the thousands of Save the Rouge Valley System organization volunteers to whom we owe our greatest appreciation. For over 17 years, SRVS has fought to protect the incredible wilderness as a park. The announcement is a tribute to their dedication and to their commitment.
We in this Chamber, and especially you, Mr. Speaker, can also be proud of the role that we have played in helping to save the Rouge. Over one year ago, the federal government committed $10 million toward the creation of the park in the valley and two months ago this Chamber unanimously endorsed a motion I put forward to save the valley.
Let us all celebrate this victory for the people of Scarborough and for the environmental future of Canada.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, the provinces rejected his efforts to get them to help him collect his goods and services tax. This means that if the tax should ever come into law, we will be the only country in the world with at least 10 different sales tax systems.
In his White Paper on sales tax reform in 1987, the minister said: "If all governments were to have different tax bases the system would be a national tax in name only. Effectively, it would be unworkable."
Yesterday, the minister admitted that if his proposal for a goods and services tax went into effect, he would be putting into effect a system which he himself said in 1987 would be unworkable.
Why is the minister trying to ram this tax through the House of Commons? Why does he not simply withdraw
it? Instead of trying to put through a tax he characterizes as unworkable why does he not go back to the drawing board and create a truly fair tax system for all Canadians?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I believe that this will be a fair tax system for all Canadians. With the introduction of the goods and services tax credit, which will help low-income Canadians offset a good portion of sales tax, compared to the system existing today the new system will be much fairer.
The hon. member has referred to the fact that the provinces have not seen fit to join in with us to collect the tax. That is true. But there are a number of other efforts under way through which we are working with the provinces to develop ways of reducing the complexity of the tax to minimize the compliance burden. We are taking advice from the small business sector as to ways we can do this.
I believe that the result will be a less complex tax for the small business community and something which should provide a basis for expansion of that co-operative effort into the future so it will have more co-operation from the provinces and less overlap.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, small business people have a quite different view of the effects on them of the minister's goods and services tax.
John Bullock, President of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said: "When you talk to a small businessman about operating two totally unharmonized retail sales tax systems you are talking about a nightmare." Those are not my words. They are those of Mr. Bullock, a leader of small business in this country.
Once again, why will the minister not withdraw this unworkable sales tax proposal, send his departmental officials back to the drawing board and tell them to develop a totally fair tax package for the country which would not be a nightmare for small business and which would be fair to all Canadians? Why will he not do that instead of trying to stick to a tax which he himself admitted, when he first started talking about it, would be unworkable if there was not one single sales tax base?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, for the last 50 years now we have had one royal commission after another, one task force after another. There have been five royal commissions, task forces and
March 28, 1990

committees recommending that we move away from the existing sales tax.
John Bullock agrees we should be moving away from the existing sales tax. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce agrees we should be moving away from the existing sales tax. The Business Council on National Issues, the manufacturers association, the construction association, the exporters and the importers have all recognized what the leader of the Liberal party has not recognized, that we have a tax system that, today, does not work. It is unfair. It is administratively so complex that the regulations for that tax are three feet long. It is time for us to change.
We have put forward a proposal which is quite workable. It is going to be a much better tax system for our exporters. It will put Canadian producers on a level playing field with the importers with which they compete.
Today, Canadian producers pay one-third more than the exporters with which they are competing. This is the change that we want to make and we believe it is a good change.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance said in his own paper two years ago, and I quote: "If all governments were to have different tax bases, the system would be a national tax in name only. Effectively, it would be unworkable".
I would therefore ask the Minister of Finance why he insists on imposing a tax on Canadians which he himself has said is unworkable and which small businesses see as a nightmare. Why do we need a tax system that is both unworkable and a nightmare?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, possibly it would be of interest to Canadians to know why the Liberal party wants to keep a tax that is deeply hidden in the price of everything that we buy. Possibly Canadians would like to know from the leader of the Liberal party why the party is in favour of a tax that adds a hidden tax to everything that we export. Possibly Canadians would like to know why the Liberal party is in favour of a tax that taxes Canadian products one-third more than the imports with which they compete.
Oral Questions
Would the Leader of the Opposition let us in on the secret? Why have they taken this stupid position?


Mr. Douglas Young (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. He just finished quoting the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Chamber of Commerce as being supporters of his goods and services tax because they want to get rid of the present federal sales tax.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance if he is going to repeat that again because he knows full well that the Chamber of Commerce in Saint John last year and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business still today insist that if you cannot get this tax right by getting provincial co-operation you should stick with the federal sales tax because this is an administrative nightmare.
Is the minister denying that that is what the Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business say?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, there are many organizations which agree that we should be getting rid of the existing sales tax. Even my hon. friend is on record as saying the existing sales tax is wrong and it should be changed. All members of the finance committee in the last Parliament-Liberal, New Democratic and Conservative- agree that the existing sales tax is a mess. We, as a government, have to take that advice. We, as a government, have to put up our proposal for the best way of fixing it.
Sure there are people who would like to have a lower rate. Sure there are people who would like to tax food. Sure there are people who would like to have a national sales tax, including the provinces.
We would like to have a national sales tax too but, unfortunately, the provinces are not ready for that. They know that there are things that they could do to help us improve their compliance burden and those provinces are helping us take steps to improve the compliance burden.

March 28, 1990
Oral Questions
The government has to move ahead. We were elected to govern. We were elected to face the problems of the nation. We are going to deal with one of the major problems that we are facing today.


M. Douglas Young: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Finance said earlier in answer to a question, that the new goods and services tax would be fairer than the present tax. Is the minister prepared to tell the House today whether his government will index credits for the neediest in this country? Will the credits for Canada's most vulnerable taxpayers be completely indexed? Yes or no?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, we are treating the goods and services tax credit in the same way as all other elements of the tax system. That is, it will be indexed at a level of consumer price index less 3 per cent. We have demonstrated time and again since we put in that provision that we make adjustments in an appropriate way to take into account the changing circumstances of people in low income brackets.
We have increased the refundable sales tax credit threshold from $15,000 to $16,000 to $18,000, and now, with the GST credit, it will be $25,000. We have increased the size of the child tax credit. We have also made changes in the income tax system that came into effect in 1988 which took 850,000 people off the tax rolls by making adjustments in the index formula.
That is precisely how this government will operate in the future. Where it is appropriate we will make the changes to improve the position of low income taxpayers.


AGRICULTURE
Ms. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. As the minister is well aware, many Canadian farmers feel there is a crisis in this particular sector. Farmers deserve adequate compensation for all the work they do and for their production costs. This is only fair. Will the minister
immediately set up a national plan for farm income stabilization?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, yes, I am indeed aware of the difficulties that the agriculture community faces, particularly in Saskatchewan and the prairie region where depressed prices, drought and other factors have led to a serious downfall in projected net farm income.
The hon. member asks whether we would put in place a new stabilization program. I can advise her that that is, indeed, one of the major priorities that is being undertaken as a result of the agriculture policy review.
We expect the task force that is studying this particular issue in depth to report back to us by April 30.
I might also indicate to the hon. member that I will be meeting with ministers of agriculture tomorrow to talk about the agriculture review process and options for the possibility of putting together a package that might alleviate the farm income situation as well.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: My supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, is to the Minister of Agriculture. Of course the minister knows that the crisis is now. It has been going on, however, for some time. I would like to remind the minister that in October 1988 the Prime Minister said that we are not going to allow a single farmer to hang out to dry simply because the Americans and the Europeans have a subsidy war going on.
I would like to ask the minister about his program for farmers. It now appears that the United States is going to extend the American farm bill to 1995 providing American farmers, as he knows, with guaranteed protection against a depressed world market. Yet, here in Canada the government has failed to come to terms with this. Farm incomes here in Canada are expected to go down by 43 per cent.
We need those programs now. When will the government put Canadian farmers on an equal footing with American farmers and guarantee Canadian farmers the support equivalent to the price support that their American counterparts are going to have?

*
March 28, 1990


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I am very much aware that the need is now and that is precisely why, in December, we set up a federal-provincial monitoring committee to look at the various facets of the farm income question. It is a multi-faceted question. The low commodity prices as a result of the trade war being conducted between the European Community and the United States is indeed a factor.
If the hon. member is suggesting that all the help farmers need is the equivalent of what the United States has been paying with respect to the Export Enhancement Program, I can tell her, for her information, that so far this year the Americans have spent $140 million on the Export Enhancement Program. I think the problem is much more serious than that and I can assure her that we will be dealing with it in that vein.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I quite agree with the Minister of Agriculture that this requires a number of initiatives including the farm stabilization program and help to assist our farmers in getting a fair price for their produce.
I would like to ask the Minister of Finance about another initiative that this government could take. Canadian farmers are not suffering from inflation that the Minister of Finance so often speaks of; they are suffering from deflation. The minister knows that Canadian farmers are paying out billions of dollars in interest on land which is worth less than it was six years ago. This cannot continue.
Will the minister act immediately to look at implementing a program of protected interest rates for all farmers?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, under the provisions of the Farm Debt Review Board there is flexibility in the administration of that to take into consideration interest rate reductions and to take into consideration declining values in farm land. One of the areas we are looking at is an expansion of that program to make it more flexible in order to deal with the current situation, particularly as it applies in western Canada.
Oral Questions
I should say as well, for the benefit of the hon. member, that with respect to the livestock industry we just announced last week a continuation of the deferral program on the sale of livestock in the drought stricken areas of western Canada. If there are any other affected areas in Canada, we will apply it there as well.
I might ask the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party to prevail upon her colleagues when we do have important agriculture legislation like the crop insurance program, which was filibustered for two or three days by the NDP. That does not do a great service to the farmers or the people of Canada.


PRESENCE IN THE GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of members the presence in the gallery of Mr. Roy Roma-now, Leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The minister failed to keep his promise that he would not tax food. With the GST, the Minister of Finance is going to tax all baked goods. More than 85 per cent of Canadian families eat cookies, baked goods or pastry with their meals. Will the Minister of Finance finally admit to Canadians that he misled them, since he is also taxing food with his GST?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, this is a matter that is before the finance committee of the House of Commons. I think that is where it should be dealt with. Once the finance committee reports, then the government will respond.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I hope the chairman of the finance committee is listening to the minister. Yesterday at a press conference, the president of Culinar stated that more than 300 jobs might be lost in East Montreal because of the GST. Will the Minister of Finance keep his word and refrain from

March 28, 1990
Oral Questions
taxing food? Or even better, will he withdraw his proposed goods and services tax?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the second question is the same as the answer to the first question.
The hon. member is talking about things that are currently being discussed by the finance committee of the House of Commons. Until it reports, it would be inappropriate for the government to make any comment.


WAR CRIMINALS
Hon. Bob Kaplan (York Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. I want to ask the minister a question that I raised with the former minister by letter and in the House of Commons in May 1988, namely the fact that Wilhelm Mohnke, a former SS officer, alleged to have murdered dozens of Canadian prisoners of war, is living today without challenge and in comfort in West Germany.
The minister, when I asked before, gave me an answer that was meant to imply some type of activity on his part. It now appears that he did absolutely nothing to press the West German government to act on this case. I want to ask the new minister whether she will take up this case. Will she press the West Germans, on behalf of the families of victims in Canada, to take action in the case of Wilhelm Mohnke?


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I would like first to remind the hon. member that it was this government that did take up the question of war crimes and war criminals, instituted the Deschenes commission, and brought laws before this House which now make it possible for us to prosecute war criminals.
Unfortunately, the gentleman to whom he makes reference is a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany whose own laws prohibit them from extraditing their own nationals.
We have as early as 1976 advised the West Germans of our information with respect to Mr. Mohnke, and there is an ongoing investigation. Unfortunately, under the terms of our international agreement with West Germany, I am not at liberty to reveal the details of that investigation except simply to say that it is ongoing and that appropriate efforts are being made to bring the information to the attention of the West Germans.
My officials have raised and discussed this case with the West Germans. I take the hon. member's question at face value as expressing his serious concern for this issue. I will certainly undertake to raise it in addition with my colleague, the Secretary of State for External Affairs.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: The minister pointed out the limitations of the government's present policies. These do not apply to German criminals because they are not prepared to extradite their own nationals. That is why it is important to make representations at the political level. The minister said she would make representations to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, but what is she going to do about the Germans, or what is her colleague going to do to ensure that something is done-in this case, about a war criminal living in Ottawa?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I cannot answer for my colleague, the Secretary of State for External Affairs. I repeat what I said in English, namely that my department has been investigating the matter, and we are looking into this. As soon as I have anything to report to the House, I will do so.


Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.


Some hon. members:: Go on! Go on!
March 28, 1990


David Barrett: The Prime Minister has indicated publicly that he would not be scandalized, among other things, if Canada, the United States and Mexico had a free trade agreement.
Now that we are aware that the United States and Mexico are engaging in negotiations for a free trade agreement between those two countries, is the intention for Canada to be a participant in trilateral negotiations for a free trade agreement, or will there be an observer at the U.S.-Mexican discussions about free trade?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member's question, I first want to say that his French was so impeccable it deserves the applause of all members in this House.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: We are advised of the general interest of the Government of Mexico to expand its trading horizons with other countries, including perhaps the United States. We have received no formal notice of that, nor have we been advised of any arrangements that might directly or indirectly impact on trading arrangements that we have.
Should that come about, I can assure my hon. friend that we will exercise all the vigilance he would want us to in those circumstances.


David Barrett: I thank the Prime Minister.

I want to inform the House that your English is impeccable as well.
The Prime Minister has claimed that over 200,000 jobs have been created by the free trade agreement over the long haul of the agreement and that 25,000 of them were created last month.
I know the Prime Minister to be a man of his word. I have seen no evidence of those 200,000 jobs listed in detail or no evidence of 25,000 jobs created last month. In order to avoid the press criticizing the Prime Minister for not being accurate and backing up his statements, I
Oral Questions
would ask the Prime Minister, through you Mr. Speaker, if he is prepared to table in detail those 200,000 jobs that have been created according to him by the free trade agreement and the 25,000 created last month, in French or in English.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I will table them, in both official languages. I should say en passant that it is a very good thing that my hon. friend did not display such remarkable agility in the other official language in December; otherwise the present leader of the New Democratic Party might have been in serious trouble.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: Somebody said she already is, and I disagree with that completely.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: I think she is doing a tremendous job and we should all sustain her in those efforts.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps this discussion could be continued elsewhere perhaps the right hon. Prime Minister would answer the question.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, since the free trade agreement came into effect in January 1989, there have been 257,000 new jobs created in Canada. Ninety per cent of those jobs have been full time, 79 per cent of those jobs have gone to women. Forty-nine per cent of the jobs created since January 1989 have been created in western Canada, the vast majority of them in the province of British Columbia.


David Barrett: Give us the list.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend asks for a list. Well,
7.000	new jobs in Nova Scotia; 5,000 in New Brunswick;
16.000	in Quebec; 102,000 in Ontario-


Some hon. members:: More, more!
Mr. Speaker Perhaps not the whole list at this time.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


FISHERIES
Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

March 28, 1990
Oral Questions
Notwithstanding our current difficulties, the Atlantic fishery is a $1 billion industry that needs to be protected. Some are suggesting that aerial surveillance of our Atlantic waters will end with the elimination of the tracker fleet.
In view of these concerns, will the minister advise the House as to what measure he is taking to ensure that there is continuity of protection for this valuable resource?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that this question is prompted by a Liberal member raising this matter last week in order to have Atlantic Canadians believe that we are doing less. The fact of the matter is that there will be no lapse-and that was the suggestion-in air surveillance in Atlantic Canada.
If we look at this year, for example, we had something like 1,750 hours of air surveillance in Atlantic Canada. Under the new contract which is about to be announced at $28.5 million, this will go up to 3,850 hours. Even back home in Atlantic Canada that is more, not less.


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.

Yesterday, the Minister for International Trade confessed that he was not aware of the free trade talks between Mexico and the United States.
This is a government that prides itself on its veiy close and special relationship with the United States. Can the Prime Minister explain to this House how, when this trade deal has such profound implications for Canadian businesses and workers, his government was not made aware of it?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I do not know why my hon. friend is offended by the idea of free trade, in view of the remarkable support free trade is now getting from the Government of Ontario. If it is good for Ontario, it has to be good for Mexico.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Martin Brian Mulroney: The Government of Mexico can initiate talks with whomever it wishes, at whatever time it chooses. It has not initiated any conversations of this kind with the Government of Canada, nor am I informed has it done so with the Government of the United States.
If there are exchanges which interest us or impact upon treaties that we have concluded, we will of course exercise that degree of vigilance that is appropriate and will intervene. I will be happy to report to my hon. friend as these matters develop.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: On this point, Mr. Speaker-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: -maybe I could quote for the Prime Minister an official from the office of the Minister for International Trade office. He said yesterday regarding the Mexican free trade deal: "One of the big advantages we were promised under free trade, preferential access to the U.S. market, could-disappear".
Did the government address these concerns when it was negotiating the free trade deal with the United States? If not, how could it have been so derelict in its responsibility toward Canadian businesses and Canadian workers?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will understand that I cannot comment on the views of an unidentified official who remains anonymous after my hon. friend's question.
The free trade agreement dealt specifically with the kind of concern that is being raised by my hon. friend. We put in the rules of origin provisions in the free trade agreement which prevent the kinds of things that my hon. friend is concerned about.
I noticed the other day that he said he was fearful of the fact that low wages in Mexico could have a deleterious effect on Canadian jobs. But, here is the Government of Ontario putting out a $500,000 ad which boasts that relatively low wages in Ontario at $13.80 per hour compared with $18.30 per hour in Michigan will have a beneficial effect upon the economy of Ontario. Make up your mind. If it's good for Ontario, surely it has to be good for other provinces and other countries.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.
Sixty-four per cent of the former workers at the coke ovens in Sydney, Nova Scotia who have died in the past 26 years were being treated for cancer. I realize the provincial responsibility here, but the minister is well aware of this serious situation and has been requested on many occasions to do health studies of that region.
Will he announce today that he will be doing health studies of the coke ovens area in Sydney, Nova Scotia as soon as possible?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the Department of National Health and Welfare is very much concerned about this issue. Some years ago we gave information to other officials who were involved, indicating our concerns about the health effects. We have communicated with the Government of Nova Scotia to indicate that we are prepared to provide any possible assistance to them in doing any research they would like to see done.
As the hon. gentleman pointed out, the responsibility for occupational health and safety belongs to the province. We stand by available to help out if we can, but it is their initiative to take.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: Mr. Speaker, I know that the minister would not want to give the impression that the Government of Canada is hiding behind the responsibility of the province of Nova Scotia. I know he feels, as I do, that this is a very serious situation. He also knows that there are things the federal government can do, particularly in public dialogue with the province of Nova Scotia to get it to move on this issue. The health of Canadians is at stake.
With the health of Canadians at stake and with the seriousness of this situation, will he not do more than the federal government has done in the past?
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and
Welfare): Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, we are very much concerned about the health of all the people in the area. As the hon. gentleman recognizes, the responsibil-
Oral Questions
ity for occupational health and safety is that of the province. We cannot violate the Constitution of Canada.
We are doing everything we can, and that is to offer to the Government of Nova Scotia any possible assistance we can provide in terms of giving advice or conducting studies. We would be pleased to do that. We are standing by to give any assistance we can provide and we are available to do that. The initiative must be theirs.



Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo-Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
On March 14, the Minister for International Trade told the House: "There will be no raw herring exported to Japan by this means or any other."
The minister was referring to the 107 permits issued by the international trade department to processors to allow export to the U.S.
Over the past weekend there was concern over the attempt by a B.C. company to export 300 tonnes of unprocessed roe herring to Japan. According to officials in the international trade department the company withdrew its request.
Will the minister clearly indicate just what is the federal government's policy with respect to export permits for herring and salmon?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I will confirm the minister's answer in the House some time ago. Under the Canada-U.S. Trade Commission agreement reached last month, the government will not issue export permits for unprocessed Pacific herring to any country, except the U.S., when valid certification is presented that the herring in question will be consumed there or processed to the same degree as in Canada.
The Department of External Affairs and International Trade has established the procedures to allow my department, DFO, to review any application for export permits that do not meet the herring export control requirements.

March 28, 1990
Oral Questions
That is the situation, and that is the policy of the government.


David Stupich: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the fishermen's union on the coast will be very pleased to hear that. Had it not been for its picketing action, those herring would have left Vancouver and be halfway to Japan by now.
On another matter, the report released by the Employment and Immigration Advisory Council confirms what many in Atlantic Canada have been saying for months, namely that the crisis in the fishery will likely become much worse before it gets any better.
The Harris report was delivered to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans some five and a half weeks ago. When will the report be made public, and will the government commit itself to bring to the House the long promised aid package including any necessary legislation by the end of March?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I can meet the deadline being imposed here today for the end of March, but I can tell the hon. member that this government and my colleagues have been engaged in this process for quite a while.
As I have said in the last three weeks, I have consulted with many people in Atlantic Canada about the fisheries situation, the Harris report, as well as initiatives we can take to ensure that a viable fishery industry in Atlantic Canada is the goal.
I am confident that in the not too distant future we will be able not only to release the Harris report, but also tell how we intend to go about dealing with the recommendations made therein.


HOUSING
Godfrey Stanley (Stan) Wilbee: Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of State for Housing. We all know that the minister has recently been doing a lot to alleviate the housing situation in Toronto. Now, with the whole world wanting to move to beautiful British Columbia to take advantage of the jobs that the Prime Minister was just telling us about, Vancouver has taken over from Toronto in the least affordable city category.
I would like to ask the minister today what he is planning to do for housing in the Vancouver area.


Hon. Alan Redway (Minister of State (Housing)):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member has indicated, because of all those jobs being created in Vancouver and in British Columbia people are flocking to B.C. and to Vancouver and, as a result of that, there is a most severe affordability situation there.
The government has been taking some action and is expecting to take some more in this regard. First of all, we formed a federal-provincial-municipal joint committee on housing affordability. It met for the first time this week.
Also I announced a month ago a new government initiative called "Affordability and Choice Today" aimed at producing more affordable housing by speeding up the building approval process, as well as by getting the municipalities to accept different forms of housing which will house more people in the same area.
In addition, we are looking at surplus federal government lands and I hope to be able to make an announcement about that before too long.


PORTS CORPORATIONS
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance and concerns the disastrous effects of his recent budget on Atlantic Canadian ports.
On February 20, the minister announced that Ports Canada will have to cough up a $100 million dividend to the federal government. In the port of Halifax this 400 per cent increase in its payments to the government has resulted in the cancellation of a number of projects for port upgrading.
In light of the fact that the port of Halifax needs these projects to remain competitive with ports on the American seaboard, why is this government pursuing a policy which denies Canadian ports the resources necessary to keep traffic and jobs from flowing south of the border?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of TVansport):: Mr. Speaker, in an effort to reduce the deficit all the resources of the country, including the the ports corporations, were asked to make a contribution. We have reviewed the plans of action of all the ports and came up with what we

March 28, 1990

felt was a reasonable amount to be contributed by each port.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, this government is acting like the school yard bully extorting the lunch money from the smallest kids on the block.
Industry analysts have warned of an impending crisis in competitiveness of eastern Canadian ports. At the same time that the ports of New York are spending literally billions of dollars on upgrading to attract traffic from Canadian ports, this government has abdicated its responsibility to have a Canadian ports policy.
How can the minister possibly justify his government's fiscal policy which will see American ports having a distinct competitive advantage over Canadian ports on the east coast? How can he possibly justify that?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the hon. member that I have been reviewing the various areas of the portfolio. I have every intention of sitting down with the ports commission. I have not had any direct representation to the best of my knowledge on this issue, but I certainly will take it up with the Halifax Port Commission.


VIA RAIL
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. As he knows VIA Rail recently sold its "Rocky Mountaineer" passenger service in western Canada, a very popular and very profitable service.
This is not the first time that this government has moved to sell its services. One group of people that has been left out in this discussion is pensioners. As rail passenger services across this country are privatized, will the minister please inform the House whether or not CN and CP pensioners will have their passes acknowledged so they can use them?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I should tell the hon. member that that particular run was sold off to a group that feels, with the new cars it will be able to buy, it can increase tourism in that particular section of the country. We encourage that type of action,
Oral Questions
because VIA is in the business of running a nation-wide rail system and not just a particular tourist action.
I will take the hon. member's question under advisement and endeavour to find out exactly what that did to pensioners' passes on that particular run.


WOMEN'S PROGRAMS
Dawn Black: Mr. Speaker, I have a copy of a letter dated yesterday which was sent to the Secretary of State from his colleague, the Minister for International Trade. The letter concerns the cuts in funding to women's programs that are closing women's centres across this country. The letter says:
I can assure you that the women of Newfoundland and Labrador will suffer desperately without these centres.
It goes on to say:
Since the cut to core funding for women's centres in Newfoundland is only $240,000-and the national figure amounts to only $1.6 million, it is hard to believe that money is the real issue here.
The letter urges the minister to consider every possibility to keep the women's centres open.
Since the Secretary of State refuses to listen to the women of Canada and to the women who have been in Secretary of State offices in Newfoundland for two days and two nights- who are still there-will he listen to his colleague in his cabinet and reinstitute the funding to women's centres immediately?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, there is a meeting under way this afternoon between senior officials of my department, who went to St. John's today, led by the Associate Under-Secretary of State and the director of the women's program.
They are meeting with the citizens who have spent the last couple of days in the offices of the Department of the Secretary of State. We hoped that in the interim they would have begun to complete some of the application forms that have been available. We indicated the staff was available to help them fill in the applications, and I was prepared to fast track those applications.

March 28, 1990
Time Allocation
We have funding that is available to help the groups implement a program to meet the social justice and equality parts of our program.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, just before you move to Routine Proceedings, perhaps I can deal with a matter for which I think you will find there is unanimous consent.
There have been discussions among the parties with respect to the following order:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Orders, standing committees of the House be empowered to sit together in plenary session and in a series of joint sessions to hold a parliamentary forum on global climate change;
That the plenary session be held on Monday, April 23, 1990;
That, notwithstanding Standing Order 115, the joint sessions of standing committees be held during periods coinciding with the hours of sittings of the House;
That all questions relating to the organization of the forum and implementation of this order be decided by a committee composed of representatives chosen by participating committees, chaired by Dr. Harry Brightwell, MP;
That the organizational committee be empowered to print a single, joint record of the proceedings of the forum.


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, I wish to ask the government House Leader about television. Will televising of the proceedings be allowed?


Harvie Andre: The plan was to have these discussions and come back afterward to amend the order and deal with questions like television and so on.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the proposal of the minister. Is there agreement?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet I wish to indicate that agreement could not be reached under the provisions of
Standing Order 78(1) and 78(2) with respect to an allocation of time to the second reading stage of Bill C-65, an Act to provide borrowing authority.
Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice of my intention to move a time allocation motion at the next sitting of the House for the purpose of allowing a specified number of days, or a day, for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at that stage of the bill.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the House that the government has allowed one hour and three minutes for discussion of Bill C-65, and this measure is the kind of treatment he gives to such an important matter. We take strong exception to the government using this strong-handed method.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, I think there must be some mistake on the part of the government House Leader. I say that because Bill C-65-


Mr. Thacker:: You hypocrite!


Nelson Andrew Riis: You will have to withdraw that.
Bill C-65 asks permission to borrow $25.5 billion, and we have only had, as my colleague has indicated, a couple of hours of debate.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: One hour and three minutes.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Already, the minister is indicating his intent to close off the debate on borrowing $25 billion. Has there been some mistake? Will we be allowed to at least have a few days to discuss whether the government should have the authority to borrow $25.5 billion and ask the taxpayers of Canada to pay that back?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, let me say parenthetically that it is encouraging to hear the New Democratic Party being concerned about borrowing. It seems usually that it is only concerned about spending. We welcome this conversion.
However, what has happened on this bill, is that we have had one day thus far. We will have another day of debate today. The bill will be called tomorrow. There will be debate then. When the allocation motion is read it will allocate subsequent debate as a result.
In the discussions that we had it was suggested to me that the appropriate number of days would not require you to take the mitt off your other hand, and that will be provided for in the time allocation motion.
March 28, 1990



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Government House Leader):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 67 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Orders 32.1 and 109, I wish to table, in both official languages, the government's response to the report of the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations, entitled: "Charge It-Credit Cards and the Canadian Consumer".
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations):: Mr. Speaker, having just returned from Africa, I wish to report to the House on my assessment of the current situation in Ethiopia, and recent humanitarian and diplomatic initiatives which Canada has taken in regard to the crisis in the northern part of the country.
Members of Parliament will be aware that some four to five million people in the northern Ethiopian regions
Routine Proceedings
of Eritrea, Tigray and Wollo are now seriously threatened by starvation.
I wish I could provide the House with assurance that serious loss of life could be avoided, but I fear that that is not the case. The situation created by the drought was serious, but it was manageable. When augmented by the ongoing military struggle in the region, the situation has rapidly deteriorated and is no longer manageable.
The tragedy is that not one single Ethiopian needed to die as the result of the current crop failure. Donor governments had responded generously and international and local agencies were poised to ensure delivery to those hardest hit.
A variety of channels were foreseen-distribution by the government within the areas controlled by it, crossborder operations supported by the NGOs from Sudan into the rebel-held areas of Eritrea and Tigray, and relief corridors crossing battle lines into vulnerable rebel-held areas of Eritrea, Tigray and Wollo that could not be reached through the cross-border operations.
This was a complicated package, but one that could have worked if two elements had been achieved. The first was the continued availability of the port of Massa-wa for the trans-shipment of emergency food aid supplies. The second was an agreement between government and rebel groups to allow the safe transport of food across battle lines.
The EPLF offensive of February, which saw the port of Massawa fall into rebel hands, and the continued unwillingness of the Government of Ethiopia to allow the port to be used for food shipments while still under EPLF control have effectively ended any chance of seeing through the present crisis without loss of life.
It is a sad fact that we cannot guarantee the delivery of essential life-sustaining food to the inflicted of the region, if the political entities that guide their destinies continue to use food as a weapon to attain their strategic military and political objectives.
That is not to say that we will not do all we can. We will continue to press for peace, and we will continue to use all channels available to us in an attempt to minimize the impact of this famine. I must, however reluctantly, conclude that we have passed the point of no return for many of those most affected, and it is only a matter of

March 28, 1990
Routine Proceedings
days until those agonizing reports of starving Ethiopians begin again to fill our newspapers and television screens.
Since the 1984 famine, which affected some 11 million people, our country has been one of the main providers of humanitarian aid in northern Ethiopia.
In all, the aid provided to civilians by the government and people of Canada has amounted to $300 million. This year, in addition to the approximately $26 million in aid that we have already sent through the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations, we announced initial commitments of $14 million for next year.
Canada has encouraged the warring parties to make peace and ensure the free movement of aid.
It has stepped up its diplomatic efforts: in Addis Ababa, we have had regular discussions with western donors, international humanitarian organizations and Ethiopian ministers and representatives; we have also contacted the Ethiopian charge d'affaires in Ottawa and held discussions with the Secretary General of the United Nations and officials of specialized UN institutions in New York, Geneva and Rome.
Finally, we have continued the dialogue with representatives of the armed opposition fronts in Eritrea and Tigray.
In all our consultations with members of the European Community, the Soviet Union, the United States, the Nordic countries and Ethiopia's neighbours, we have pleaded for humanitarian and diplomatic intervention.
On December 20, 1989, I appointed the senior vicepresident of CIDA, Douglas Lindores, special adviser on Ethiopia and its neighbours.
Mr. Lindores recently went to Ethiopia and the Sudan, heading a delegation of officers from External Affairs and CIDA.
The delegation met government representatives, representatives of rebel groups, of other bilateral donors, of the UN and non-governmental organizations, who are seeking ways to relieve the suffering of the Ethiopian people.
This week in Washington, Mr. Lindores met representatives of the EPLF and the TPLF, as well as a number of Americans involved in aid operations.
Just recently, Mr. Speaker, on March 18, the hon. member for Haldimand-Norfolk, the hon. member for Windsor-St. Clair, the hon. member for Kitchener- Waterloo and I had a meeting with President Mengistu and important members of his cabinet in the Ethiopian capital, a meeting that lasted over two hours. I explained Canada's position on issues of major concern including the famine, peace negotiations, political and economic reform in Ethiopia and human rights.
It is a fact that President Mengistu and his cabinet are under very strong pressure and have to manoeuver in the midst of a national crisis, but they do think the views of a country that has always provided assistance to Ethiopians are important.
During our meeting, I emphasized the need for immediately clearing a route to the interior of Tigray, in the south, and to use all other possible delivery routes to the north, including the port of Massawa.
I urged President Mengistu to deploy efforts for the resumption of peace negotiations between his government and the rebel forces.
I am referring to the negotiations conducted by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Julius Nyerere to bring the Ethiopian government and the EPLF closer together, and to those conducted by the Italian government with respect to the TPLF.
On March 20, the Ethiopian government announced that it would facilitate the relief operation which has started in the south, will cross the war zones and bring food to the north.
The Joint Relief Partnership, the JRP, consisting of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society and three church relief organizations: the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church and the Mekane Iyesus Church, will channel relief to those who need it.
Perhaps, like me, you had the pleasure of watching television, last Thursday, when the first convoys arrived in the famine-stricken areas.

However, more-much more-needs to be done. The southern route must be supplemented by further intensive relief operations to ensure that food reaches all areas of the north. Traditional non-governmental assis-
March 28, 1990

tance to areas which can only be reached from Sudan must continue. I so informed the Ethiopian government.
As I have said, the port of Massawa is crucial if famine is to be avoided. To this end, it is essential that, notwithstanding the delicate political and sovereignty issues involved, the parties to the conflict take the high ground and make whatever arrangements are necessary to ensure the safe passage of food.
However, the determination of the Ethiopian government to recapture Massawa at all costs puts some shadow on that option.
I discussed these matters in Rome with Minister Lenoci of the Italian government and with the executive director of the World Food Program.
In Windhoek, Namibia, last week, I assured the United Nations Secretary General of Canada's support for an increased UN involvement in the relief efforts and the search for peace.
We should not underestimate the difficulties we face. On the one hand, rebel groups sense a final victory, while on the other, an embattled government struggles to preserve the territorial integrity of Ethiopia. Yet it is abundantly clear that only a just and enduring settlement of the Ethiopian conflict will bring to an end the suffering of the people of that country.
The peace process involving the Ethiopian government and the TPLF is resuming in Rome. The talks, under the chairmanship of Presidents Carter and Nyer-ere, are scheduled to resume in Nairobi, Kenya, April 8 to April 21, 1990.
The Canadian government has urged the Government of Ethiopia, the EPLF and the TPLF to accept that none will prevail by force of arms without unconscionable human suffering. We have urged them to pursue the negotiations to a successful and early conclusion and, in the interim, to permit the safe operation of relief efforts.
In this latter respect, belligerents are assuming a very grave moral responsibility.
Peoples everywhere have collected food to prevent famine and transported it to the region only to find that continued fighting is, in some key areas, interrupting
Routine Proceedings
delivery. How, in all conscience, can this be allowed? How can food deliveries be confined this way?
For my part, I am presently consulting with my colleagues from donor countries to underline the urgency of the situation and to ensure the greatest possible co-ordination in assuring food delivery to the needy.
At the same time, the Canadian government strongly supports an initiative by members of Parliament to mobilize international parliamentary support to seek an immediate agreement for the safe and assured delivery of all necessary famine relief assistance to all persons innocent to the conflict.
Let me end by reiterating the gravity of the situation as we found it.
Despite food aid which has been provided and will continue to be provided by the international donor community, fighting on the spot continues to hinder adequate, timely and sufficiently widespread delivery. A continuing stalemate in peace talks is unacceptable.
It is already too late for some. We appeal to the parties to accept that intransigency risks the lives of further innocent populations.
In conclusion, I assure members of this House, as we have assured the parties to the conflict and the chairmen of the peace processes, that Canada is ready to support the search for peace in any way that would be helpful.
I have received from the two opposition parties a resolution on the situation which we endorse. The resolution states:
That this House, noting that:
-	4 to 5 million innocent Ethiopians in northern regions of Eritrea, Tigray and Wollo, are seriously and unnecessarily threatened by starvation;
-	Canada is a major aid donor to the region today and was so during the 1984 famine crisis;
-and, further noting that Canada, with other western nations, could prevent today the loss of any life through starvation in the region;
-does unanimously condemn any and all parties to the conflict in Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray who would use food as a weapon to attain strategic military and political objectives, or,

March 28, 1990
Routine Proceedings
-who would not assist the international donor community to provide adequate, timely and sufficiently widespread delivery of food to the starving millions in the area.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed to accept the resolution?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Resolution agreed to.
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to thank the hon. minister for reading my resolution and for having given her support to it. I also thank my colleagues on the other side of the House from the NDP.
It is with great sorrow and anger that we are reminded again today by the minister that some four million to five million Ethiopians living in the regions of Wollo, Eritrea and Tigray are once again on the verge of starvation.
We all remember so well the impressive and heartfelt response in 1984 of millions of Canadians from our poorest regions of the north to our wealthy businessmen of the south-those who responded so generously to the drought crisis in the same region which threatened 11 million persons.
It is with anger, a deep sense of outrage and even contempt that we realize that the current crisis is unnecessary but for the lack of political will on the part of all parties in the conflict between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tigray. Government, rebel forces and parties outside the region encouraging the conflict must recognize and accept the condemnation of citizens and governments of the world who have tried in good faith to prevent the current impasse through diplomatic interventions.
I can only reiterate the words and sentiments of my hon. colleague across the floor that all parties to the conflict must take the high road, setting aside the political and sovereignty issues at stake and make the absolutely necessary arrangements to ensure safe passage of food to the innocent starving millions of Ethiopia.
Although we can all agree on this here in this House, I wish to impress upon the government that what has been done to date by the government and what we are doing here today is not enough. The minister has promised to continue to search for new ways to find a solution to lessen the holocaust which is beginning to take place again in the Horn of Africa. The unfortunate and
regrettable fact is that Canada has not continually mounted the pressure we have seen in recent months in order to avert this new disaster.
We have heard the government's financial commitment this year and the initial contribution for next year. But Canadians will want to know on an ongoing basis what other aggressive actions this government is taking to resolve the crisis.
We cannot allow cycles of misery to repeat themselves. NGOs, who have an extraordinary ability to provide aid in ways that are not available to governments, must be provided with all the resources necessary that they are able to absorb.
I would be interested to know what exactly is the support that the Canadian government is giving to the initiatives of members of Parliament to mobilize international parliamentary support to aid the victims. Certainly, there is a member on the government side well respected for his experience and expertise in the area by diplomats and the NGO community whose services it would seem to me should not be restrained.
All members of this House and the Canadian public will want to be kept informed of the government's initiatives with regard to this crisis. We do not want to sit back and watch a disaster unfold.
We and Canadian citizens want to respond-knowing that all possible measures are continually being taken by this government to stop the disaster-to prevent this from ever being repeated again.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to respond to the minister's statement on behalf of my party.
The tragedy of Ethiopia is not a partisan issue. It is a tragedy rooted in ancient quarrels and historic enmities complicated by the intricate interplay of competing national interests extending throughout the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Compromise has not been a virtue among the combatants. Intransigence is a matter of principle even when it results in the slaughter of innocents. Hence, in this once noble land of riches beyond the needs of its inhabitants, a local drought is expanded once again by a general violence into an epic famine choreographing the ghastly scenes of thousands of children dying in the arms of mothers who can but wait to die in their turn.
March 28, 1990

As noted by the minister, all three Canadian political parties were represented in consultations in Addis Ababa with the representatives of NGOs, the Ethiopian government and President Mengistu. Our goal was to facilitate the delivery of food to the starving, to contribute to the negotiations for peace and to measure the significance of economic and political reform in Ethiopia.
Through the efforts of donor governments, international and domestic organizations, arrangements have been made to provide food if safe delivery could be assured. Canada alone has already committed $40 million to the effort. Horribly, the bellicosity of the combatants in the many-sided civil war limits that humanitarian intervention. Food is a weapon in this conflict and the deaths of thousands is now inevitable.
Much of the reason for this certain catastrophe is the capture of the port of Massawa by the EPLF and Mengistu's adamant refusal to permit the delivery of food through that port. The remaining paths of delivery are the cross border between Sudan in the north and the southern route for which clearance for the first convoy was given by the Ethiopian government shortly after our consultations at the Joint Relief Partnership.
An Ethiopian government proposal to employ a logistically difficult and costly airlift was pressed upon us but was not supported by the aid donors. Because of the failure of effective food delivery in the north, food will also have to be provided for refugees in the Sudan. The real solution to the crisis must address the real cause of this starvation-the war or wars that prevent the distribution of food.
That is why New Democrats support the minister in pressing President Mengistu to urgently pursue peace negotiations with the rebels, as we support the pursuit of peace to every other diplomatic channel available. In this regard we laud the efforts of the Italians and Messrs. Carter and Nyere at mediation.
We also support the proposal to initiate an extra-governmental effort by an international alliance of parliamentarians in support of the peace process.
Because of the nature of the conflict and the engagement of diverse interests, these will have to be neutralized, whether from the neighbouring Arab states, Israel
Routine Proceedings
or the major players of east and west. My party and I stand ready to support this effort to achieve the peace and, if necessary, to commit Canadian personnel and resources to keep the peace. Without peace, no effort, no matter how great, no matter how noble, can hope to save the millions who will die not because of drought but because of starvation wrought by enmity and war.


PETITIONS
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour to table two petitions today.
The first one consists of hundreds of signatures to be added to the thousands upon thousands that have already been tabled in the House, and it pertains to the government's proposed goods and services tax. Canadians are still lobbying the Tory government to abandon the implementation of the proposed GST.
The petitioners humbly sheweth that the Liberals on behalf of Canadians strongly oppose this new goods and services tax which is an unprecedented tax grab from the pockets of Canadians and will hit them not only with higher taxes but with higher inflation, higher interest rates and higher unemployment. Wherefore, the undersigned petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to reject the proposed goods and services tax.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, my second petition concerns Mr. Leo who has been arrested unlawfully in Thiwan. I do not know how many more petitions and representations Canadians have to make to the Secretary of State for External Affairs to get him to intervene in the case of Mr. Leo, a Canadian citizen who has been arrested unlawfully in Taiwan.
When a Canadian citizen is arrested unlawfully, be it in Canada or outside Canada, when speaking or exercising his right to freedom of speech, the Canadian government must not only intervene but be perceived as intervening in that Canadian citizen's case.

March 28, 1990
Routine Proceedings


TAX BENEFITS FOR NORTHERN AND ISOLATED AREAS
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 am tabling today a petition from Chibougamau, in the riding of Roberval, Quebec, concerning the recommendations of the task force on tax benefits for northern and isolated areas.
Chibougamau is without a doubt an isolated community and for this reason, the petitioners believe that the Brunelle recommendation is unfair, discriminatory and inefficient considering the objective of the northern tax benefits plan. It does not promote settlement and resource development in the North.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to present petitions that I have received from constituents in my riding of Northumberland. These petitions speak out against the proposed goods and services tax legislation.
The people in my riding have many reasons for objecting to this, housing being one of them. Many of them are very concerned at the present time about renewing mortgages because of high interest rates, and they are also concerned about the extra costs on new housing that this tax will cause. With me, they are very concerned about the Governor of the Bank of Canada's announcement that he may have to increase interest rates yet again because of this proposed goods and services tax. The petitioners ask the government to withdraw the legislation.


Miss Deborah Grey (Beaver River):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I rise today to present petitions on behalf of 4,000 people. These petitioners are mostly residents of Alberta but certainly others from B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
The petitioners are opposing the government's goods and services tax and object to this Parliament increasing taxation rather than reducing spending. They also object to taxation without representation as an unacceptable violation of their democratic rights. They, like the majority of Canadians, wish that their elected representatives, particularly on the government side, would vigorously and faithfully represent their interests in this
matter, oppose the tax and instead reduce government expenditures.
Mr. Speaker, my second petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, contains 69 names from my riding of Beaver River who request that, if the goods and services tax does go ahead and is imposed on Canadians, skating expenses such as equipment, instructors' fees, facility rentals and other expenses be considered as educational expenses and, therefore, exempt from the tax. This proposed tax will place a significant financial burden on young athletes who are involved in a pursuit which contributes to their physical and mental health and allows Canadian youth to enjoy more economically the great outdoors in northern Canada, a great Canadian pastime.


BILL 178
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds-Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have a petition from some of my constituents. They are petitioning the government to use all its powers, or whatever powers it has, to disallow Bill 178 in Quebec. The bill was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada and is seen by these people more and more as the national irritant and the main source of the great disunity that we are witnessing in our country today.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 rise today to present a petition from a number of constituents in the riding of Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt; from Penticton, Grand Forks, Osoyoos, and other places within that riding. These people are asking me to present this petition showing that the government has not addressed the unfair taxation system currently in place, which permits wealthy individuals and corporations to pay little or no federal tax, while forcing lower and middle income taxpayers to bear more of the national tax burden.
They are petitioning Parliament to cause the government to cease with the proposal which will shift the tax burden on to ordinary Canadians through a regressive consumption tax instead of through real tax reform.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a number of different petitions to present today. The first is a petition from Kamloops, British Columbia on the old topic. I think I have been delivering these petitions every

day for what seems like years, but I guess it has only been months.
The petitioners point out that the government's goods and services tax is wrong-headed and a terribly stupid idea. People are distressed that they are still having to put these petitions together because the government continues on. They point out that this tax will affect skating lessons, coffins, diapers, haircuts, books, heating fuels, and on and on, and they are asking the government to stop from proceeding with this tax.


FORESTRY
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, the government is expected to sign a forestry agreement with British Columbia by this weekend. So far no luck.
The petitioners are from British Columbia, and there are pages of their names. They point out the importance of reforestation and silviculture to the long-term best interests of the forest industry. They point out that the forest industry is Canada's number one exporter by far and its health is critical to the health of the country. They are urging the Government of Canada to enter into a federal-provincial forest resource development agreement to advance the regeneration of our forests. Time is running out, as I say, and Friday is the day.


CHILDREN'S BILL OF RIGHTS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a third topic, I wish to present a list of petitioners from all over western Canada. They point out that although the percentage of the population who are young children is actually decreasing somewhat, the number of children living in poverty is increasing. That is why the petitioners call upon members of Parliament to support Private Members' Motion M-252 for a comprehensive bill of rights for children, which as we know the Conservatives voted against yesterday. The petition is a little bit out of date, because the government voted against a comprehensive bill of rights for children yesterday evening.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Routine Proceedings
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, question No. 201 will be answered today. I ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Rodriguez: 1.	Since 1984, has the Federal Business Development Bank been provided with the names of lawyers, notaries or legal agents by any Ministers, Members of Parliament or Senators and, if so, by which ones?
2.	Since 1984, have any lawyers, notaries or legal agents received work from the Federal Business Development Bank and, if so, which ones?


Hon. Thomas Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Insofar as the Federal Business Development Bank is concerned, the response is as follows:
1.	See Annex A (attached).
2.	See reply to Question 197 tabled February 23, 1990.



ANNEX A


[Stage Direction]
Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion Minister of State (Small Businesses)
Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)
President of the TJ-easury Board Minister of State for Science and Technology Minister of Veteran Affairs Minister of State (Youth)
Minister of Communications

[Stage Direction]
Paul-Andre Masse, M.P.
Ian Watson, M.P.
Yves Demers, M.P.
Antonio Yanakis, M.P Don Boudria, M.P.
Michael Cassidy, M.P.
Norm Warner, M.P Bil Domm, M.P Girve Fretz, M.P.
William Attewell, M.P.
Joe Reid, M.P.
Therese Killens, M.P.
Alfonso Gagliano, M.P.
Andre Harvey, M.P Francois Gerin, M.P.
Edouard Desrosiers, M.P.
Andree Champagne, M.P.
Gilbert Chartrand, M.P.
Carole Jacques, M.P.
Fernand Jourdenais, M.P.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. Senator Orville Phillips
[Stage Direction]
March 28, 1990
Routine Proceedings
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The question as enumerated by the parliamentary secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS

Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers No. P-23.



MR. BRIAN O'N. GALLERY

[Stage Direction]
Motion No. P-23-Mr. Boudria:
That an Order of the House do issue for copies of all logs, registers, correspondence and reports pertaining to the use of CN business cars by Mr. Brian O'N. Gallery in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990.
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, Canadian National's position is that the documents requested are confidential and proprietary in nature and their release could be reasonably expected to seriously prejudice CN's business and competitive position and to result in significant financial loss to the company. This was reflected in the chairman's report tabled in the House of Commons on February 12, 1990. Therefore, I ask the hon. member to withdraw his motion.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: On
behalf of the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott- Russell, I would request that in light of the cover-up that is going on here this matter be transferred for debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Transferred for debate.



MOTION TO ADJOURN UNDER S. O. 52 PLIGHT OF WESTERN FARMERS

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have received a request for a motion to adjourn under Standing Order 52. I would like to hear from the hon. member from Mackenzie.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, very briefly, in my letter to you I outlined what I consider to be an urgent situation, that is the economic conditions facing western Canadian farmers. We know that they are the worst that have occurred since 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression.
The Farm Debt Review Board in western Canada recently reported that more than one-third of western farmers are in severe financial crisis. Bankruptcies and foreclosures are at alarming levels and predictions are that this year there will be a negative realized net farm income in the province of Saskatchewan. That means farmers will spend more money than they receive for the sale of their crops. They will have difficulty providing for their families and difficulty arranging the financing that is necessary to put in the coming year's crop.
Within the next three or four weeks, the farmers will be out attempting to put seed into the ground. As my letter also points out, the banks need three to four weeks to make a decision on an application for a loan. These loans are made on the basis of the cash flow of the farm. The bank wants to know how much money will be coming in and how much output there will be. They cannot make those calculations final until we and they, that is, the banks, farmers, and politicians know with some precision what sort of aid and assistance the federal government will be providing.
Since the two time limits are coming very close together, that is, the time limit for when seeding starts and when loans will be approved or rejected, it is extremely important that those announcements be made in the next day or so. Therefore, I move that in order to bring these matters to the attention of government, we have an emergency debate this evening.
March 28, 1990



SPEAKER'S RULING

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I appreciate the hon. member for Mackenzie giving me notice of the request for an emergency debate. I too feel that this is very serious. There have been some very questions in regard to the hon. member's standing order request, but it is not just appropriate at this time to have an emergency debate. I think we will wait, and it may be appropriate at another time.
Before I call Orders of the Day, I wish to inform the House that because of the ministerial statement, Government Orders will be extended 20 minutes.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, March 22, consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-65, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-65 is a very important bill, and so far, this legislation has been debated for one hour and three minutes in the House of Commons. However, as all members will recall, earlier today, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons gave notice that he would once again impose closure in other words, limit debate on this very important question.
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of Bill C-65 is to authorize the government to borrow up to $25.5 billion, which is 25 thousand million dollars. Canadians know perfectly well that when such enormous amounts are borrowed for the coming fiscal year, 1990-91, which runs from April 1, 1990 to March 31, 1991, that these amounts are needed to cover the government's budget deficit.
As we know, in his 1990 Budget the Minister of Finance (Mr. Wilson) announced that he intended to go to the financial markets to get this $25.5 billion.
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Mr. Speaker, as you can see the government will borrow an amount which is less than its projected $28.5 billion budget deficit. This is because non-budgetaiy transactions will generate another $7.5 billion of revenue, which reduces the amount the government needs to borrow from financial markets.
These non-budgetaiy transactions include government employees' pensions accounts-this is the public service superannuation account which has a healthy sum in it which the government regularly borrows every year. It means they can also use accounts payable, cash in transit, and outstanding cheques. So that $7.1 billion is actually government bookkeeping, which allows them to use moneys they do not actually own but which they use to reduce or pay off the budgetary deficit by such transactions.
The $25.5 billion borrowing authority requested in Bill C-65 is accounted for as follows. The government deficit is $28.5 billion, the non-budgetary transactions are $7.5 billion; reducing the amount of $28.5 billion by $7.5 billion leaves $21 billion; exchange funds earnings will bring in about $1.5 billion, the foreign exchange contingency fund will bring in an additional $3 billion, for a total borrowing authority requested of $25.5 billion.
Members can find a complete explanation of the borrowing authority requested in Bill C-65 on pages 109 to 110 of the 1990 budget.
While I am on my feet, I would like to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that I am sharing our allotted 20 minute time with one of my colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, considering that Bill C-65 accompanies the Budget and seeks authority for the government to borrow to cover its budget deficit, I would strongly advise anyone with a desire to understand these transactions to consult the so-called post-budget analysis, a veiy impressive document prepared by experts in the field.
Mr. Speaker, now that I have basically explained the purpose of the bill, I am prepared to yield the floor to any members who may wish to comment further on this legislation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments? Resuming debate. The hon. member for Welland-St. Catharines-Thorold.

March 28, 1990
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Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take up where my colleague left off on the borrowing bill C-65.
The sum of $25.5 billion is one which boggles the imagination. The salaries of thousands of Canadians would still not add up to the money this government is borrowing at this time to carry out programs which, for the most part, are programs that have been cut back from their election promises.
As the borrowing bill itself deals simply in money matters, I would like to put a face on this particular borrowing bill. In addition to the moneys which are going to be raised, ironically to carry out programs which are cut back, the House should also look more particularly at other revenues that the Minister of Finance is raising.
Last August, the Minister of Finance released details of his goods and services tax. After the presentation, he told reporters that nobody likes this tax. Then he added: "Let me be quite clear, we are absolutely committed to going ahead with this tax". He also announced that the goods and services tax, the GST, would create billions of dollars a year in revenue, would increase exports and create jobs. If this tax is supposed to create so many more billions in revenue, what in the name of goodness are we doing borrowing an extra $25.5 billion?
One of the questions which comes to mind is, if nobody likes this tax, why go ahead with it? Second, why indicate that this proposal will be implemented regardless of the feelings of Canadians, irrespective of any debates or committee hearings? Witness the charade that has been going on for the last few weeks in the finance committee. We have had filibusters. We have had the chairman of the committee, if not making a fool of himself, sometimes making a fool of the committee itself. I do not think that this is in keeping with our parliamentary procedures.
I and many other members of Parliament have tabled petitions. I have tabled over 14,000 names on petitions against this GST. This has all been done in the last few months. These signatures represent the opinions of thousands and thousands of Canadians. This is in addition to the letters addressed directly to the Prime
Minister, the Minister of Finance and other elected members of Parliament.
We have a right to wonder if the government is listening to the people of Canada when it collects all of these billions in taxes. My colleagues say that it is not, and I agree with them absolutely. If it was listening to the people of Canada, then surely it would withdraw this terrible tax which is heaped upon the backs of those people who can least afford it.
The statement "absolutely committed" which the Minister of Finance made, is a clear signal to me that the government intends to impose this extra burden on Canadians, who have already contributed $120 billion to the treasury in 1989. That is $50 billion more than when this government took office in 1984. But it will not even listen to the plaintive and angry voices of Canadians who are so adamantly opposed to the goods and services tax.
On December 9, 1989, the Minister of Finance put forward his 7 per cent solution, stating that he had listened to Canadians. He must have listened to every Canadian I did not listen to because we have not been getting the same signals. The people of Canada have clearly stated that they do not want the GST and the new 7 per cent package is no more fair than the 9 per cent package was.
The issue is not whether we generate enough money to look after ourselves, but whether the government has the ability to plan and govern. This very day in the House, we are asked once again to give the government carte blanche to borrow $25.5 billion and we are supposed to do so with a glad heart. I, for one, am not at all enthused about granting them this extra money to play with, so that they can do what? Spend it on their big business friends and cut the programs of the poor? No, the government will not be getting my support on this.
I referred to the $50 billion more which the government collects in taxes every year than they did in 1984. The extra $50 billion, which was collected through a myriad of taxes, could have taken care of the deficit. Remember, this was a government that was elected on the basis that it was going to cut the deficit. It has doubled it in the five years that it has been in office.
There would have been some money left over to start retiring our big national debt. Here again, we have seen increases of staggering proportions. In 1983-84 the national debt was $160 billion. Projections for the end of
March 28, 1990

the fiscal year 1989-90 show our national debt reaching $351.6 billion. What a fantastic amount.

Even with these $50 billion, the deficit which was $32 billion in 1984 is still $30 billion per year more than we collect in taxes, and this is a government that claimed it knew how to cut spending in government operations and throughout the country. That has not been the case, Mr. Speaker, and I am looking forward to 1992!

Canadians are informed that family allowances will be cut because the government has no money. Senior citizens must face an uncertain future confronted with decreased old age benefits and this damnable clawback that the government has put forward.
This decrease is commonly known throughout Canada as the "clawback". I wonder why they did not just call it something gentle. Can you imagine the spectre of a great big claw coming down upon you? It is like the American eagle coming down on the little mouse and that mouse, in his last act of defiance, sticking out his tongue at the great American eagle. The Canadian people cannot stick out their tongues except to gasp in horror at how the government has mismanaged the affairs of Canada.
This is nothing more than a broken promise, or a set of broken promises. It is a frightening change in social policy, a change which is being implemented without prior consultation with the seniors. The clawback will soon be followed by another devastating tax, the infamous GST, the goods and services tax. Seniors and other Canadians agree that the deficit must be reduced. I agree with that. They also know that the goods and services taxes introduced in other countries have gone up 20 per cent.
My learned colleague on the other side takes this as a jest, as a joke that should be perpetrated on the Canadian people. I wonder if the people can pick up his laughter from across the aisle, as they are struggling to make ends meet in their homes with this extra burden of taxes. I would advise my hon. colleague, with all respect, that his laughter should not take place in this House. This laughter, if it is laughter at all, should be hidden
Government Orders
away from the ears of the hardworking Canadian people who must pay these taxes.
We have made valuable suggestions to the government so that all Canadians might share the burden fairly. Did it listen? Not at all. It was far too busy preparing a costly advertising campaign which was misleading and in contempt of Parliament, as was said by the Speaker himself, and finally had to be abandoned because, to put it mildly, it was slightly premature if not illegal.
The GST will add to the cost of most essential goods purchased by ordinary Canadians. The Canadian Home Builders' Association says that the GST will increase the price of a typical new home nationally by $3,000, which is more than six times the cost estimated in the technical paper prepared by the finance department. Is this just more misleading of the House and of the people of Canada?
Cuts in housing rebates for low income Canadians amount to $400 million. The proposed changes to the GST do not address the affordability problem or housing for low income Canadians. In other words, the government is not listening.
This government is not doing anything to alleviate the burden it places upon Canadians. The increase in the cost of housing will vary by market areas from a high of $9,200 in Toronto and $4,700 in Vancouver to $800 and $1,000 in Charlottetown and Tlrois-Rivieres respectively.
Some services have been designated as tax exempt. This does not mean the end result is tax free. For instance, a day care centre that is tax exempt will not charge the GST on its final invoice for day care services to parents. The day care facility will have to pay 7 per cent or more on all its purchases of books, equipment, et cetera. It will have to raise its fees to parents to recover these added costs.
Mr. Speaker, I see you are signalling me that my time is running out. I have many more points I would like to make, but I would like to end with these last two.
The list of taxable goods and services will now include such things as haircuts, funerals, stamps, taxi rides, cheque books, lottery tickets, car repairs, and a host of other items which Canadians buy every day. The Minister of Finance has exempted brokerage fees, underwriting fees and foreign currency trading, all items purchased predominantly by upper income Canadians

March 28, 1990
Government Orders
who could more easily afford to pay the new tax than average Canadians.
My last point, Mr. Speaker, and I have many more that I would like to make, but as the critic for youth for the Liberal party, I have said many times in the House that the future of Canada lies in the well-being of our youth. I have said we must educate them, train them, and give them a sense of responsibility in being a Canadian.
What kind of government is it that puts taxes on books, pens and on the very things so necessary to acquire an education in order to take their place in society? No, I am not in favour of this borrowing bill. I condemn the goods and services tax which I believe will be seen as one of the most dastardly bills ever put forward in the House of Commons.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my hon. friend. He reminded us that the legislation asks for the borrowing authority for $25.5 billion. That seems like an awful lot of money to borrow. I worry about borrowing $5,000 or $6,000 to buy a car. I start thinking about the payments and so on. But we are being asked by the government to give it authority to borrow $25.5 billion. I cannot even imagine what that would look like if it were in a pile. All I know is it is an awful lot of money.
I cannot remember when the House was asked to do something like this, to give authority to the government to borrow $25 billion. At the same time the government is saying it does not want to talk about it. The government has just given notice to stop debate.
I want to ask my hon. friend, a parliamentarian of long standing who has been here a long time and knows how things have gone over the years, if he can recall any time in the past when the government has asked to borrow so much money. The government is running things so badly that it is desperate to impose this 7 per cent goods and services tax. Can the hon. member recall any time when the government has asked to borrow so much money, but at the same time does not want to debate this legislation, so it will invoke closure to muzzle the duly elected
people of Canada and keep them from responding to this request? Can he recall any such request in the past?


Gilbert Parent: Mr. Speaker, not only can I not recall sums of this magnitude being asked for in the House of Commons from the governments of which I was proud to be a part, but when we tried to borrow sums of $5 billion to $7 billion it was viewed as the most enormous sums that had ever been asked for by the Government of Canada.
My colleague asks a question and to let him know that not only are they borrowing this money, but according to a study by the Canadian Council on Social Development and the government's own sales tax documents, a middle class family with two children and a total income of $45,000-$27,000 from one parent and $18,000 from the other-will have their taxes increased by over $3,400 in 1991, $2,797 by previous Conservative tax increases, and by $629 for the GST. We are asked to permit this GST to go through and to grant the government this enormous sum. This is truly unheard of in Canada.
I for one would associate myself with any members who would oppose this borrowing bill. The government must be brought to its senses. The best way to do that is right here in the House of Commons by pointing out to it the mistakes made and the mistakes it is making. Hopefully, this government will not make them in the future.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have spoken in the House before closure was invoked. I really do appreciate that.


An hon. member:: They have given us notice though.


An hon. member:: It's like having a crystal ball.


Steve Butland: I wish to speak against the borrowing bill. We recognize that the government requires money to run this country, albeit very poorly. We object to the priorities of the government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Could I ask the hon. member if he will speak for 20 minutes, or 10 minutes plus 5 minutes?


Steve Butland: Hopefully, about 20, Mr. Speaker.
During my 20 minutes I will refer to a couple of my favourite books. One is entitled Tommy Douglas Speaks.

:W
March 28, 1990

That is a non-fiction book. The other one is Where I Stand by the right hon. Prime Minister and that is obviously a fiction book. Any resemblance between these two gentlemen will be purely coincidental.
When you hear the quotes from both books it is hard to differentiate between the two in what they say, but certainly in what they did and do are very, very different.
Mr. Douglas often said that fools, charlatans and evil doers will be exposed in open debate, with present company of course exempt. He also said: "We won't give up the fight against the government despite the adversity, despite their jackboot tactics, their non-democratic closure, their GST". He did not say some of this but I am paraphrasing it. That is exactly what he meant when he said "We are going to-" and I best not get too far astray from what Mr. Douglas said. "If your cause is just and right sooner or later you will win. It must triumph because it is a part of the warp and woof of the universe. No matter how many setbacks there may be along the road, you may be sure that someday the right and just will prevail. It will prevail simply because it is right and just."
That is why, despite the fact that this government tries to muzzle the opposition and the Canadian people from speaking against its policies, we must continue in the House and outside of the House to fight the government and its heinous policies.
This borrowing cannot be taken out of context of the budget. It is part and parcel of it. Everyone knows that the New Democrats stand for total tax reform, that this kind of willy-nilly borrowing and this kind of budget process would not be necessary.
My hon. colleague from Nickel Belt has become somewhat infamous, as far as the government is concerned, with his corporate bum of the week announcements. I asked him to provide the names of some of the groups of whom he has spoken these past several weeks. I am sure he will have another 20 years to go because there are so many.
I was disbelieving when I was told there were 86,000 profitable corporations in the country which did not pay tax. I did not believe it. In fact, it has proven to be 90,000. I will cite just a few cases. Perhaps the names are best unstated. With profits of $214 million one received a tax credit of $2.12 million. Another with $75 million profit
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received a tax credit of $2.86 million. But in its heart of hearts it found some money to donate to the party in power. I suppose that is honourable.
Revenue Canada answered when asked to define a large corporation that it is a corporation that makes about $7 million. My next question was why would a special tax of $.0175 be put on corporations that had profits of $10 million? The answer was to be fair and give or take a couple of million, what is the difference? One has to wonder if at the poverty level if a couple of thousand would not make a difference to the poor in this country.
Mr. Douglas said "the art of governing is the art of foreseeing, having a crystal ball". I agree with that. The Prime Minister from his crystal ball said in 1983: "It is a continuous fight card in which it is difficult to find winners and easy to identify the loser, Canada itself". It seems the phrase "the common good" has been struck from our vocabulary. The Prime Minister was prophetic as well but sadly prophetic. The common good seems to have left the country. Policies breed cynicism in the country. He has lost not only his foresight but lost his physical sight.
It is very easy to trace the losers in this budget. As a result we have to go through this borrowing bill. The losers are the prairie farmers, maritime fishermen, natives across the country, women's centres and the provinces. The have provinces have to suffer a little more than others. In that have group is the province of Ontario which is well off compared with some of the maritime provinces. Some people forget-in fact, the government has totally forgotten-that northern Ontario is part of the have province of Ontario.
We are not doing all that well and the government is not going to assist us, certainly not through the budget. Its acts of deregulation, privatization, reprofiling, rationalizing and all the buzz words of the government are not going to do anything for us. They are going to hit us in a very heavy-handed, negative fashion.
That brings me to my most unfavourite topic. All this is part of the government agenda. The free trade agreement was supposed to bring us all wealth and save each family $800 per year as the Prime Minister said. That is not happening. It was supposed to create 250,000 jobs. This past Monday I attended a forum in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The Canadian official in charge of implementing the deal said that the free trade plan has been a bit player in the over-all picture. He also

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admitted that it has failed to secure access for Canadians into the United States market. He has admitted that.
Gordon Ritchie, the former free trade negotiator, really is a candid individual. He said just this past week that free trade will not be a major creator of jobs. It will not be. That was a "specious claim". That means something that appears to be the right thing to say but, in reality, it is not true. It was a specious claim made in the heat of an election campaign. The Prime Minister made that specious claim 20 months before the election when he told Canadians free trade could produce hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
It seems that what they said and what is happening are both, indeed, specious claims. It is just not working out to our benefit. I have cited this so very often and I have had the opportunity to meet with our American counterparts. I found out what they thought about free trade. Their words to us are: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Canadians, keep quiet. You are not going to get any more of our market. Please realize this. Don't rock the boat". When our own negotiators and the American politicians tell us the same thing, I suspect we have some problems.
The indication was that social programs would not be hurt and, in fact, they would be enhanced. Well, unemployment insurance is not being enhanced. Family allowances and old age security certainly have not been enhanced. The government has attacked universality, even though it would not admit it. All of this is part and parcel of the government agenda-the government policy-that we react so negatively to. Therefore, we must vote against this borrowing bill for all of the wrong reasons.
I want to come back to the GST. I was going to bring a backdrop of probably 15,000 cards from bowlers, dance teachers, skating teachers, music teachers, small businesses, veterinarians, and everybody. You name the group. They are all hostile to the GST. If the government is going to plough through with it, and it gives every indication that that is what it is going to do, it is going to realize a cash cow with multi billions of dollars against the desires of any Canadian. It would appear that the government is against the will of the people, at least 80
per cent of them and probably it is growing on a daily basis.
Yet the government says there are no tax increases. We know full well that that is not true. The tax increases will be passed on to the provinces and the provinces in turn will pass them on to the municipalities and thus we see some of this negative reaction by municipalities, including my own. That is one reason that they are hostile toward government in general. Some of the actions may not be the message that wants to be delivered, but it is a message of desperation: Is anybody listening out there to a lonely voice in the wilderness up in northern Ontario?
I think all would agree with Mr. Douglas' philosophy and our party's polity that humanity comes first. We believe the measure of any community is the amount of social and economic security which it provides to even its humblest citizens. I do not know anybody in the country who would disagree that we do stand for that. The Prime Minister suggested that he also agrees. He said: "Then there is what I call the dimensions of tenderness. It is that vital responsibility of government to demonstrate a compassion for the needy, an assistance for the disadvantaged, the equalization of opportunity for all and an elevated sense of social responsibility that must continue to find favour with every thoughtful Canadian". We agree with the Prime Minister. Mr. Douglas agreed with the Prime Minister, but actions speak so much louder than words. The government's policy does not in fact exemplify what the Prime Minister said in 1983 and I suspect people would agree with that as well.
How did this budget come about? I will not cite exactly the words, but I will paraphrase the Prime Minister when he said that budgets must come as a result of a great deal of public consultation. It must be a consensus of the Canadian people before a budget is brought forward. The people must agree with the direction of the country. We could not agree more. We think it is a great idea.
Well, we know how the budget was struck last year-in the dead of the night. We know how it was struck this year. The Minister of Finance said he was too busy to meet with people this year. He was too busy. There was no consultation. He sent out 50 letters. I asked to whom he sent those letters and was told: "Well, we can't really tell you to whom we sent the letters." That is an
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interesting point unto itself. I did not pursue it. Maybe it is not important. I do not know, but it certainly does not give any indication of consultation or consensus.
I want to talk about positives. Canadians look to leadership to display some innovation, some creativity, and some positives. I have been here for 16 months and all I ever hear are negatives from the government. It is the old "We have to cut VIA Rail to make it better" and "We have to cut your social programs to make them better". In the budget, I read the list and it is a litany of cuts. There are no positives. That is why the Canadian people say we despair. There is nothing positive for us anywhere.
I would like to touch on a few local issues that really hit home, a microcosm of the big picture, if you will. VIA Rail is selling off its excess stock-selling it off. We have a tourist attraction in my community that will have to spend $25 million to $35 million to buy new cars or to refurbish old cars. It is the single major, most significant tourist attraction in our community. The government could say that perhaps this community or that community, or maybe this enterprise, could use this excess rolling stock, and maybe it could sell it to them at a bargain price. What a lift it would be to the community. But no, the decision of Transport Canada thus far is to privatize the sale of it. Contract it out, give it to a consulting group or a marketing agency, and it will sell it back to you. The cry was that we have been subsidizing VIA Rail for half a billion dollars every year. Now the government is going to do us a big favour and sell excess rolling stock to us at market value. What an excellent opportunity that could be seized to make a lot of people happy-and probably save the municipal and provincial governments some money down the road.
I have a humorous example. That is the FBDB and its now infamous funding of 38 strip clubs across the country to the tune of $17 million. I can understand why the government is a little bit skittish about continuing that kind of process because Canadian taxpayers were kind of aghast at that. I am sure the government members were as surprised as we were and somewhat aghast that Canadian tax dollars went to that kind of entertainment.


Mr. Tobin:: Some of them weren't.
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Steve Butland: Some of them weren't. Okay, some of them knew, right.
Anyway, it has reacted to that now and it is saying that it has got to be very, very, very cautious, not only with FBDB but also FEDNOR funds.
There was an application in my community for a renovation to a tourist motel/hotel, if you will. Last year, it had one piece of entertainment that might be considered off-colour by some people, but there was every indication that FBDB and FEDNOR would be giving funds to this group to complete its renovation. Because of the new policies and the new restrictions, it is conceivable that funding could get cut off. I can understand that, the fearfulness of spending money on those kinds of enterprises. But, can a person be persecuted because he had one show last year, and would give an undertaking that he would never ever again present that kind of entertainment in his establishment? That was not enough. He gave that undertaking.
The next thing was to get from the Member of Parliament, myself, a letter stating that I did not think this establishment would destroy the moral tone of my community. I went ahead and gave them my okay on that. One has to wonder if there is going to be porno-police. It is also going to measure the gallonage of beer out of that establishment. It is a classic. I do not know if this is to save money, to save face, or whatever.
Another example is the Sault Locks which is a landmark in my community. It is 100 years old. Books have been written about it by the Canadian government. The present government says: "We want to walk away from it. We want to give you $5 million. Privatize it. We do not want any more to do with it." That will tear the face off my community unless private investment comes in to assist the government. I hope that does not happen, because the Americans-they have told me this-will want us to participate in the financing of their super-lock to the tune of $250 million, just across the river. But our government says: "We will wait and see what happens." We are going to save money now, but we will have to spend millions in the future, because the Americans will insist that we do so.
To conclude, Mr. Douglas said the only freedom which the NDP would destroy is the freedom of the few to

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exploit the many. The only people who need fear us are those who are seeking to live by the sweat of someone else's brow. Our agenda never changes, and it shall not, because it is right and just. The good will out in the end. We will be voting against this bill because of the government's abusive policies to the Canadian people.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to compliment my friend on his presentation to the House today.
I would particularly like to ask him to turn his attention to what has become an institution in Canada in cultural methods and also in communication, the CBC. I am speaking in particular of one of the areas in the west in British Columbia. I know that many of my constituents in Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt listen daily to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio and also watch CBC television. There were the cut-backs of, I believe, $140 million in 1989, and the cut-backs of some $20 million in this particular budget. Many of the people in my constituency and many of the people I have spoken to in contacts across Canada are somewhat concerned in that what is being attacked here is not simply another radio station or another Crown corporation. What in fact is being attacked in the cutting of funds to CBC radio and television is our cultural communications system across Canada.
They listed all of the programs that they listen to. One of the things is the thread that goes across Canada in the phone-in programs on Sunday mornings. I know that my young daughter, who is only 11 years old, listens to a number of programs on CBC radio which she finds not only entertaining, but also educational. I have had letters from people in small communities such as Midway, Greenwood, Bridesville, Osoyoos and Christina Lake, asking us to point out to the government that these are their links to the rest of Canada, and part of what they consider their cultural heritage. I wonder whether those from northern Ontario feel the same way about CBC and these cuts. Would he have any comments on the fears of the people in my riding and in fact in all of British Columbia?


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. This once again ties into the whole issue of the Canadian fabric in our society. Cuts in the CBC are just another attack on the Canadian fabric as we know it. Yes, the CBC is looked upon not only by Canadians but by people around the world as being special, as being an excellent broadcasting operation.
People are now looking more and more south rather than east-west, not only in communications but unfortunately in trade and sometimes in cultural and recreational pursuits. It is part of a much larger scheme.
If I might hit very close to home and refer to the House of Commons, the CBC will be forging an agreement with a private cable company for House of Commons coverage. I think just about everyone endorses the loosening of rules in this House, but in a minority report my party expressed some concerns that the CBC is forming a partnership with a private enterprise. That is another blow to the CBC.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I have a short question, Mr. Speaker. I listened with interest to my hon. friend's comments. I must say I found them to be most interesting and very educational. He went on at some length about a number of initiatives that the government has failed to take. I think of things like not funding the forest sector adequately, cutting back on regional development grants, cutting back on support for the small business sector, and not providing much endorsement and support for tourism.
I asked myself what good the government has done. We can think of all sorts of things it has not done that it should have done and we can all think of all kinds of things that it has done that it should not have done, such as the imposition of the goods and services tax.
I was racking my brain, as I was listening to my hon. friend, trying to think what this government is noted for accomplishing that people would perceive to be positive or useful.
Can my hon. friend think of anything that this government ought to be recognized for, other than a host of very negative initiatives which amount to the dismantling of the infrastructure of Canada?


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I too, even as he asked the question, was racking my brain to come up with something positive.


A. Kim Campbell: Given the size of your brain, I am not surprised you didn't find anything.


Steve Butland: The winds of dissent are there. To answer the hon. member's question, I cannot think of anything. The only thing positive, perhaps, is the fact it has have achieved 17 per cent in the polls and I think Canadians think that is very positive. Let us hope that that positive wind across the country will continue.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-65, the borrowing authority bill. As many of my colleagues before me have said, we are dealing with a request for authority for the Government of Canada to borrow some $25.5 billion.
Traditionally it is an opportunity for members to comment on how the government makes use of the tax dollars of the people of Canada and how it goes about collecting those dollars. It is an opportunity for all of us to comment on a wide variety of programs and policy.
I came today prepared and armed with a long list of specific grievances of my region and indeed the country in general with respect to the fiscal policy of this government. I decided, instead, to put aside that list and to talk in more global terms, global in the Canadian sense, about the policies of this government and where those policies are leading this country.
We have a new theology at work in Canada today, a different kind of approach to government and one which on the fiscal side, I humbly submit, contributes as much to the great frustration and division in the country today as do questions of constitution in particular.
In other words, there is a lot of anger and frustration in Canada today. There is a sense by many groups, regions and individuals within society that they have been abandoned by the national institution, by the national government. Out of that grows a sense of frustration and that frustration is personified by lashing out: sometimes lashing out at neighbours; sometimes picking on minority groups; sometimes, unable to get at
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the source of your frustration, reaching out and attacking those nearest you.
That in a nutshell personifies the mood of this country today. Why is that? I submit that that in large part is happening because the kind of contract we as Canadians have had with each other from sea to sea, across ten provinces, across two language groups and through the multiplicity of our multicultural institutions, which has always bound us together as a nation has been dissolving over the last period of time.
It used to be that if you lived in Newfoundland you knew that you could aspire to equality of opportunity. You never expected to be equal in every way with every other province, most notably the wealthier provinces. You did not expect the same quality of highways necessarily, or even the same quality of municipal services, or even as many or as bountiful green spaces and park lands, but you did expect equality of opportunity. You had a belief, if you lived in Newfoundland or lived in Aqaluit or in Chimo, Quebec, that at least you had equality of opportunity. While your personal or community circumstances could not be said to be equal to the most prosperous parts of the nation, at least your opportunity or your chance to succeed as an individual in your society was there. That meant that in fundamental areas, no matter where we live in Canada, no matter what our circumstance or language, the notion of citizenship, the notion of being a Canadian meant that we were equal in fundamental ways.
What are the ingredients of ensuring if not equality of circumstance at least equality of opportunity? Surely the first and foremost among those ingredients must be the right to a good education, access to quality institutions, the ability to train the mind to acquire the skills to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Is that not the first and foremost ingredient necessary to participate in the notion that there is equality of opportunity? Traditionally in this country it has been. I believe that traditionally Canadians believe they have had equality of access to good education.
What is another ingredient? It is very basic: access to health care, good health care, quality health care. No matter where you lived, no matter what your personal circumstance, when the need arose to have access to good quality health care, whether you lived in Quebec, British Columbia or Newfoundland, you had equal access. Traditionally that has been the case in this

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country. It is another of the fundamental agreements that is part of the contract called Canada, one of the things that binds us together no matter where we live as being a fundamental component of the notion of Canadian citizenship.
There is another part of the contract that has kept Canada united, and that is the notion that even though we acknowledge that there are disparities within the nation between regions, and even within provinces between regions, between those who have and those who do not on the economic side, the Government of Canada would always intervene to try to reduce the gap between the have and have not parts of this country. That has been another primary tenet of the notion of citizenship in this country.
I submit that the fiscal policy of this government that is now asking to borrow $25.5 billion in Bill C-65 has dissolved the basic Canadian contract. Why? When you cut billions of dollars as this government has in its last budget-in fact in EPF alone $7.5 billion in health and education out of transfer payments to the provinces-y-ou set up a system where the notion of equality of opportunity is destroyed. Even though the cut to Ontario over five years is $1.2 billion and to Newfoundland is only $164 million, the reality is that Ontario is more able to make up that shortfall, if that is the decision of the Government of Ontario, and maintain the quality of both health and education programs in Ontario than is Newfoundland able to make up a $164 million cut in the province of Newfoundland.
So what happens? Some provinces of Canada have the fiscal ability to maintain, if it is the determination and political will of that jurisdiction to do so, the quality and standards now available in health and education and other provinces, even if they have the will, have reached the limit of their borrowing capability. They cannot borrow any more and they cannot tax any more. A province like Newfoundland where the sales tax is already 12 per cent has only one option left, and that is to raise user fees for either health care or education or to eliminate programs.
That is what is happening. Those provinces that do not have the fiscal capability are being forced to eliminate
programs. The fundamental notion that as a Canadian I have fundamentally equal access of opportunity is gone and in certain regions of this country, as a consequence, there is an acknowledgement of that cold brutal reality, a fundamental sense of frustration at the loss of what Canadian citizenship used to mean. There is a fundamental sense of rejection by the national government for those kinds of regions; not only Newfoundland but many other provinces as well.
That kind of feeling brews frustration, a frustrated nation unable to reach out the thousands of miles to strike a blow, even metaphorically. The government that has authored this policy begins to reach out and strike a blow at neighbours. It is that kind of policy that contributes to the lack of tolerance which exists in Canada today.
Since 1969 regional development has been institutionalized in this country, initially under the auspices of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, the sole purpose of which was to combat regional disparities, reduce the gap between developed and less developed regions and, although not to guarantee equality, at least to provide the possibility of development, the basic infrastructure to allow industry to develop in regions where it currently is not the case.
That has been the basic philosophy. We can sit here and argue in this House about whether or not it has been successful. We can talk about whether or not dollars spent in the combat against regional disparity have always been well spent and whether we always got the best bang for our buck, but if we believe in the concept of this federation we cannot dispute that combating regional disparities is a fundamental obligation of a national government and has been a fundamental characteristic of modem day Canada.
That policy has been abandoned by this national government. We have seen a dramatic cut in regional development expenditure in Canada, an abandonment of the notion of investment in infrastructure. We essentially have a polity that says to those who want a different quality of life than is now available to them: "If you want a different quality of life, man the wagon trains and resettle".
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It is a national resettlement policy. Whether it is the
65,000	people who have been pushed off the farms in Saskatchewan, run off the land in the last four years, or whether it is the thousands of fishermen who have been run off the water in Atlantic Canada over the last couple of years, we are seeing in this country, not by accident but by design, an abandonment of our primary producers and those who live in a rural lifestyle, those whose wealth is primary wealth.
There is not a member of this House who generates one cent of wealth for Canada. We operate on the fringes, on the froth of the economy. We are part of the great service sector. We are elected to be here representing our constituents, but we do not generate one cent of wealth. Those men or women who go out and put their hands into the land and yield from that land a crop that feeds this nation and the world are primary producers. That is real wealth being generated for Canada. The fisherman who goes out and harvests the sea, the humble fisherman, the gentleman who barely subsists on an income below the minimum wage, generates far more wealth for Canada than any member of this place because none of us generate a cent.
Yet the policy of this government that wants another $25.5 billion-an incredible figure-has been to abandon those primary producers. These people are frustrated. They are angry. They want to be here. They want to look across at the Prime Minister who is abandoning them, the Prime Minister who said: "You can trust me". They want to have their say, but they cannot because they cannot reach across the thousands of miles of the great land that is Canada and have their say.
So, in frustration, they reach out too often to those who are closest, their neighbours, and there is more intolerance in this country. It is not bom out of an intrinsic intolerance in Canada, but out of frustration.
When we hear, as we do these days, all of the talk and discussion about Meech Lake, constitutions, potential amendments, resolutions and solutions, I ask myself whether it is not time we understood that a large part of the poison injected into the bloodstream of Canada did not find its way there yesterday or the day before or the week before, but found its way there as a consequence of the policy of a national government in fiscal terms which
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has melted away the glue that has bound this country together over the decades.
The fabric of Canada is not the flag beside you, Mr. Speaker. It is but a symbol, albeit an important one. It is not the Parliament Buildings. They are but a symbol, albeit another important one. It is not even the border between Canada and the United States, which is another important symbol. The fabric of Canada is to be found in the hearts, the minds and the souls of Canadians.
Unless you can go to Quebec and find in Quebec people who believe that every bit of Canada from Cape St. George in Newfoundland to Prince Rupert in British Columbia belongs to them, then you have no fabric called Canada. Unless you can go to Newfoundland and find there Newfoundlanders, Canadians who understand that the problems they confront daily in their lives are the same problems being confronted by the average family in Quebec, then you have no Canada.
Until we understand and until this government understands that the policies, the contract, the commitment we gave to each other as Canadians by way of equality of opportunity in fundamental areas, the commitment to combat regional disparity and indeed in simple terms, to share the wealth and opportunity of this country, are fundamental tenets of this nation not to be melted away or dissipated as a consequence of the bottom line necessity of meeting the budget projections of the Minister of Finance, I submit that all the other ongoing negotiations today about how to bring peace to this country will continue to miss the point.
As a member of this place who has been here for 10 years, I am increasingly convinced that this Prime Minister shall preside over without radical intervention the Balkanization of this great country, the dismemberment of this great country. Until there is some awareness on the other side that high stakes poker is no game to be played with the future of a nation, I cannot support Bill C-65. I cannot support this government's request to borrow another $25.5 billion. I cannot support continued administration by a political party which has not only cut deep into the Canadian psyche, which has not only begun to dismantle it, but has cut through the meat, the fat, and into the bone and has drained the marrow of the wellspring of goodwill that once was Canada.

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I call upon my colleagues in all parts of this House and from every region of Canada to reject Bill C-65, not to grant the current Government of Canada another $25.5 billion in borrowing authority, and to be here to ensure that when the time comes this motion is rejected. Hopefully this government in Canada's interest, because it is a money bill, will put itself and this country out of our collective misery by quickly going to the polls because time is running out.


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for the usual passion and emotion with which he gives his speeches. I suspect that some of that may come from his staff member who hails from Sault Ste. Marie, who has good Italian blood, and was a student of mine some 25 years ago. I will not give her all the credit.
Nevertheless, what the member said is certainly what I would want to say about this country. There is much doom and gloom among Canadians and parliamentarians. I am sure that even some of those members across the way are somewhat desperate in their feelings about what is happening to all of the regions in Canada.
Is there any hope for us, I ask the member very seriously. What will transpire in the next year or two years or three years? Do we have hope for the country? Does he have hope for the country?


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, I have the greatest hope for this country. I have a profound belief in the gut desire of Canadians to build and unite this country, to keep it growing and prosperous. I am not naive about the fact that this country is in difficulty. The country is not in difficulty because on March 28 we do not have an agreement on the Constitution. The country is not in difficulty only because on March 28 we have a continuing process, a difficult and frustrating one, on the Constitution. We did not get to where we are today because we woke up yesterday with a problem called the Constitution.
I am saying to my friend and to all members of the House, and through the House to Canadians that I believe a considerable amount, a lion's share of the origins of the increasing intolerance we are experiencing in Canada today on matters that have to do at least on the surface level with the Constitution, can be found in the fiscal policy of the national government.
I do not separate fiscal policy from social policy or from regional development policy. If you take away all of the national institutions, if you take away from the country those things that have been part of the contract we have made with each other for 100 years, then you dissolve as well in the minds of Canadians no matter where they live, and in particular those who live farthest away from the centre, their attachment and commitment to the federation.
The fundamental glue that holds a country together is not a constitution. That is profoundly and unquestionably important. Fundamentally what holds a country together and develops a country is ultimately what is in the hearts, souls and minds of Canadians.
Increasingly as the days, weeks and months go by there is little and little more daily, weekly and monthly left of our national institutions with this government. Any and all of the destruction of the CBC, the elimination and destruction of regional development programs, the abandonment of health and education programs, and a transfer of the debt to some of the poorest provinces and jurisdictions in this country contribute to division in the country because they take away the national institutions to which we attach ourselves in the communities in which all Canadians. Intangible examples of the value and the wonder of being a Canadian are eliminated. You treat the nation as nothing more than so many bits on the Monopoly board. If that is the bottom line, if that is the way we ask Canadians to measure the value of their Canadian citizenship, then we have sold our soul and sold our heart for the bottom line.
That may make the Minister of Finance very happy. That may motivate him when he wakes up in the morning. That may get his juices flowing, but it does nothing for the ordinary Canadian and it does nothing for the people who today want nothing more than for this country to succeed.
This fiscal policy, this request for $25.5 billion more, is pathetic in the face of the problems that we have, and it would be pathetic for Parliament to grant these moneys to a government that has not understood the root cause of the difficulties we confront in Canada today.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned the CBC, and I mentioned it in a prior question to my friend from Sault Ste. Marie. Would he like to comment on the
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thread of what I and others have seen in the budgets of this particular government over the years?
It has attacked of the thread of national unity, whether it be through privatization of various Crown corporations, cutting funding and perhaps ultimately privatizing institutions like the CBC, whether it is the cut-backs on VIA Rail and the elimination of the Silver Bullet.
In this particular budget, the government proposes the ultimate sale of PetroCan, something which was brought in by the member's own government with some approval by my party, a corporation that is now becoming somewhat profitable and well run. Now that it has become profitable, and there is an opportunity of getting some money back into the coffers, it appears the government wants to get rid of it.
If the government negotiates as well as it did in the sale of de Havilland to Boeing, it is going to end up costing us money. Would the member like to comment on the destruction of the Canadian cultural and ethnic fabric that is set out not only in this budget but in previous budgets of this government?


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague who has just spoken has given us a thorough list of those institutions. We can make the analogy that those institutions are arteries in the body that is Canada and they are being severed. The country is not exploding, it is imploding. If all the arteries are severed, the heart ceases to function. That is what this Prime Minister has never understood.
A fisherman, in a community on the great northern peninsula, said to me one time: "If that fellow Mulroney was a lake, you could walk across him and not even get your ankles wet. He has no depth". I thought that was a profound insight: no depth, no vision and no understanding that the kind of magic that is required of leadership is not to be found in the flow charts, not to be gleaned from the words of wisdom of the pollsters, pundits, the Dalton Camps, the PCOs and the PMOs. The kind of wisdom necessary to appeal to what is fundamentally good, tolerant and positive in Canadians is better to be found in the heart of that fisherman than to be found in the
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cold graphs offered in the polling data that the Prime Minister spends too many long, lonely hours with.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are terminated now.


MESSAGE FROM THE SENATE
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bills: C-70, an act for granting Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada, for the financial year ending March 31,1990; and Bill C-71, an act for granting Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada, for the financial year ending March 31, 1991.




[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Wilson (Etobicoke Centre) that Bill C-65, an act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, the bill before the House is the borrowing bill in which the government is requesting authority to borrow some $25.5 billion.
When considering this request, I think we have to ask if the government has the ability to manage, as it say it has. It has been pointed out by the hon. member from Kamloops and other members, that if this is management, this country is in for a rough ride. The type of management we have seen since the election of 1988, is management by time allocation and closure. The government with its arrogance and authority, has seen fit to manage by cutting off free debate in the House of Commons and to ignore totally the wishes of the Canadian people.
We witnessed again today the House leader of the government party advising us that he is going to close off debate, essentially before debate is started. After only

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one hour and three minutes of debate so far, we already have notice from the government that it will not allow any more debate on this borrowing bill for $25.5 billion.
This is in addition to the government's ridiculous attitude toward debate. Last week we were debating the crop insurance bill, a bill that both the Liberals and the New Democratic Party decided should go through and be passed in the best interests of Canadian farmers.
Before asking for any input, the House leader of the government party simply said: "Bang. Closure. No more debate." We ended up voting on the closure motion on a bill that neither the Liberals nor the New Democrats had opposition to in principle, even though they believed that perhaps it should be expanded as suggested by some amendments that had been proposed.
We have now experienced closure 13 times in the last year and three months, and time allocation another 10 or 12 times. It is getting to the point where I wonder what it is this government is managing. It is managing to cut off the freedom of expression and the freedom of debate of the people of Canada.
That is not what we are here for. That is not what the Canadian people have voted 295 members of Parliament into the House of Commons for. They have elected us to review, read, study and to debate in their interests the bills before Parliament. That process has been cut off, constantly and totally by this government in its arrogant use of those jackboot tactics to slash the debate already on this major borrowing bill before anybody has had the opportunity of speaking on it.
I shake my head, along with the people of Canada. This is how the government is managing change. The change it is managing is the change in the democratic process of allowing reasonable debate on all legislation that comes before the House.
If there is an apology to be made to the people of Canada, it is the apology that we have to use what methods are available to us in opposition to combat the arrogance of a government that is willing to use these Draconian methods, these measures that were brought in to be used only as a last resort. We are now seeing these methods being used as the primary resort. Every bill, regardless of what it is, if it looks like it is going to be debated, is met with closure. No more debate. We can
talk on it today and that is it. Nobody else can speak on it.
That is what we have seen in the committees going across Canada, whether it be the unemployment insurance or the finance committee. The government sets up a schedule that we must follow. If not, you are cut off. It does not matter whether you are a member of the House of Commons or whether you are a public citizen. While you may want to be heard, if you do not fit within what the government sees as the area it wants to hear or you do not fit within the time frame of the government's schedule, then you cannot be heard. Is that democracy?
When we see what is happening in eastern Europe, with the democratisation of the eastern European countries and the Eastern Bloc countries, and we look at what is happening here, I scratch my head in amazement and wonder: Are they progressing and are we regressing? What is happening to us?
I would like discuss now what I have seen happening since I have been in Parliament, specifically dealing with the borrowing authority and the budget.
Last Thursday I attended a forum on literacy. This is the International Year of Literacy. In the city of Penticton I saw a play which showed the difficulties in Canada of literacy. I did some reading to see what was available for Canadians.
Approximately $110 million has been provided over a five-year period for the promotion and study of literacy, although the demand is much greater and immediate to fund existing programs and to start up new ones to combat the actual problem. The need now is for core funding for literacy projects and for education of those who are illiterate.
Are you aware that there is somewhere between 4.5 million and 5 million people in Canada today who are functionally illiterate, Mr. Speaker? In my province alone, there are 360,000 people who are functionally illiterate. In looking at the studies that have been done across Canada, unfortunately it shows that as we go further to the east, the illiteracy rates rise.
Being functionally illiterate does not necessarily mean that those people cannot read the spoken word. It means that they cannot function because they cannot put enough words together in many cases to be able to understand the everyday forms that they have to fill out for income tax or for their child tax credits or, as the
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GST comes through, for their rebates on the goods and services tax. These are the types of skills that they need.
We who can read take it for granted, as those of us who can see and those of us who can hear take those senses for granted. We do not see how serious this is. In fact, if you take our sight and our hearing away from us, it is not much different than taking away our ability to read. It is a mode of communication that is essential for many people.
The play that I saw really hit home. It is called Reading the Signs. It is a play by a Canadian playwright, Jim Betz and produced by World Literacy Canada and performed by the Young People's Theatres. I would strongly suggest that people get out and see this play if it comes to their area.
I implore the government members to go to see this play because it shows what I talk about when people ask where would I spend money and where would I save if I were in government. It is a matter of priority. It has been shown, time and again, that if we teach those who do not know how to read and write to be able to do so, they become more employable. They become higher income earners. I think the figures show us that those who are literate earn 44 per cent more than those who are unable to read and write. This is what we should be addressing when we are trying to make a better Canada.
I implore this government to see this play, Reading the Signs, because it is an excellent play showing the difficulties of those who cannot read and write and the problems that they go through in everyday life, the problems that those of us who can read and write, who are functionally literate, do not even recognize.
In many cases we do not even recognize when we see people making excuses about why they should not read a particular document or letter. But this does puts us on our guard, and makes us more aware of some of the things that are so important to many of us out there. I implore this government to look at that. The $110 million is a good start, but perhaps somewhat misdirected.
In looking at future budgets and in looking at this budget, I ask the government to consider putting more money toward training teachers, more money toward the
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programs and the core funding required to look after the problem of literacy in Canada.
Let me move on to one of the things in the budget that was particularly upsetting to me as seniors critic for my party, namely, the cuts concerning veterans. This has hit home in an area that I represent, Okanagan-Similka-meen-Merritt, where we have a fairly high seniors population, almost triple the national average, many of whom are veterans.
The Royal Canadian Legion from Grand Forks wrote to me on March 7 and I would like to read this short letter into the record because I think it is relevant. It is from Branch 59 and it reads as follows:
Branch 59 of the Royal Canadian Legion, Grand Forks, British Columbia would like to express our very deep concern about the cuts to veterans allowance in the government's budget of April, 1990.
Surely the veterans who were identified in the Veterans Improvement Program are, as they get older, more in need than ever.
Particularly shocking was the decrease in subsidization of the costs of veterans in intermediate and long-term care facilities. Virtually doubling the veterans portion of these charges from $240 to $400 per month is a cruel blow to those ageing and dying veterans who so willing jeopardized their well-being in the service of Canada. Many have not long to live, and to make savings on their hardships seems particularly insensitive.
It will not be long before the numbers of all veterans will be seriously depleted and eventually disappear, but in the meantime, it is the intention of this branch and hopefully the entire Legion membership to rise and defend their comrades who are least able to defend themselves.
It is a shame that our government's memories are so short.
To balance a budget on the backs of the least fortunate of our society is a public disgrace.
It is signed by the president, Rae Hayward.
I could not have described better than Mr. Hayward in this letter the disdain and disgust that I feel in the cuts to the allowances and the programs that are there to protect and assist those who have fought in both wars and in the Korean War so that I can stand up freely and speak my mind in the House of Commons. I am very pleased to have been able to read this letter into the record.
Equally as shocking, at a time when we pay pay lip service to women's issues and the equality of women, is to have the government attack by cutting core funding to women's centres on top of a 15 per cent last year, of $2 million, I believe, to a cut of some $1.3 million this year. Again, it is a disgrace. It is not only an attack on women, it is attack on all Canadians. Those women's centres

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offer so much. The women's centre in Penticton in my area will shut down as a result of this core funding cut. They will try to continue it on a volunteer basis. L. Burnham of that centre has been a hard working member of the Penticton and area community.
This group has done such things as spearheading a drive for family housing, investigating the need for day care. They have sponsored workshops on such important subjects as poverty awareness and family violence. They have provided a library on subjects of interests to women. They have been sending out regular newsletters to keep concerned people aware of the local and national issues and they have run a series of leadership development workshops for women.
They also participate actively in the women's shelter and the assistance with the women's shelter that is so key not only to Penticton but to all of the small communities around Penticton such as Osoyoos, Oliver, Okanagan Falls, Cawstin, Summerland. All of these areas are drawn in and looked after by that particular shelter in the city of Penticton.
I am not the only one who worries about these cuts to the women's centres. I received a petition which unfortunately is not in a form that would be presentable in the House but I think the message of the 87 people who signed this particular petition is relevant. They protest the federal budget cuts to women centres and transition houses throughout Canada. The services provided, especially those involving emergency shelter and safety, are essential to the welfare of women, their children and pivotal in the struggle to end family violence.
I speak of these cuts I return to the question of priorities. If we are to come out of the dark ages then we must take steps toward the equality of men and women. It is a small thing when you consider the little bit of money that is required in order to fund core funding for these women's centres or even to expand them.
When we consider that this government has seen fit to proceed with a program of advertising of over $14 million for the goods and service tax when it knows that over 80 per cent of the people of Canada do not want, that in
itself is a comment on the priorities of this government. Do not give the people what they want but what you want and then proceed to sell that program to them with their money. What Canadians need is more things like women's centres and arms of our communities that will help those who are less fortunate.
Finally, I would like to comment on the environment. When I read the budget and listened to the minister's budget speech I wrote down in the margin "Lip service but where is the money"? That is exactly what has happened.
There appears to be no money for the environment. There are cuts to just about everything else. There are cuts, it appears, in the Forest Resource Development Area, an area that would assist in silviculture and reforestation of our forests at a time when, particularly in British Columbia, we recognize how important our forests are to us for the future.
The government has not set anything aside for that and it is talking about substantially less money being available. The FRDA agreements come up for renewal at the end of this month, a short few days away. We fear that if those programs are cut it will be costly not just in jobs but to the environment.
What is not in the budget with respect to the environment is the funding for conservation and alternative energy programs as promised in the last election campaign. Funding for research and development and environmental technologies as promised in the Throne Speech is not in this budget. There is, however, the cap on much needed overseas aid and development. There are no new funds for reforestation programs. There are no attempts to deal with global warming or disintegration of the ozone layer. There are no cost sharing programs for conservation, recycling and mass transit programs.
There are also all of the cuts in VIA Rail, an area that perhaps we should be looking at to ensure that those of us who are so ready to use our cars for transportation might turn to if we had a rail system that is more efficient and more effective and ran more often. But what happens is a constant attack on these systems.
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I wind up as I started. The government says it will manage change. Well, Mr. Speaker, if these are the changes that we are managing to get then I think it is time that we managed to change this government.


Jim Jordan: Mr. Speaker, I just want to congratulate my colleague on a fine speech and congratulate those who have preceded him this afternoon.
It seems strange that when there is a bill to borrow approximately $28.5 billion that we would hear absolutely not a peep, not a squeak, no justification coming from the other side of the House whatsoever.
Is this a sign or is this an extension of the malaise that has set in in this country, that the government would suggest to Canadians who are watching that it does not have to justify this borrowing? Are the members saying they know where they are going and they can assume that is right.
Canadians to whom I am talking are not assuming it is right, I can assure you of that. I just wonder if I could get some reaction from my colleague on the fact that there seems to be nothing, no justification whatsoever coming from the other side of the House to argue, at least present a case to the Canadian people to suggest that they know where they are going or what they are trying to do with this nation.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, certainly from what I have seen in the short time that I have been in this House and as a student of politics and Canadian history for most of my life, I think the hon. member is correct. We have a government that simply proceeds with what it wants as opposed to what the people of Canada want. It promised one thing in the election, as I have explained with the environment, but it has come through with something totally different, nothing.
In the last Parliament the Tories said nothing at all, and in fact were against the free trade agreement. They turned around and before the end of Parliament, we had a free trade agreement on the table. It is an arrogance that I have seen building, particularly over the last few years with this government that, the majority's will must be the will of the people, regardless of what the thoughts of the people are. I think the attitude of the government here is a small snapshot of everything we have seen over the last little while, the clawback on the old age security
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and family allowances. People did not want that but they are getting it anyway.
There is the goods and services tax; 80 per cent of the people in Canada are against it but our Prime Minister knows best and we are getting it regardless. We are getting it without the ability to debate or change it. The Tories are doing it, what they feel is best for Canada.
The unemployment insurance changes hurt not only my province but many of the other provinces across Canada. Again, labour did not want it, many management people did not want it, and certainly the municipalities are going to end up paying a lot of extra dollars as a result of being employers. It is shifting the balance of payments from one to the other, from one pocket to the other with the taxpayer ultimately being the loser. It is all done by essentially a thumbing of the nose at what in fact Canadians want. The government is simply saying, "There is what is on the plate, you children of Canada, eat it and be happy and do not give us any back talk".


Steve Butland: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I think the member has brought to the debate a slightly different perspective, one to which we probably do not give enough priority. It is the concept of people who are literate, but not functionally literate.
I am sure that he experiences this in his office, as I do in my office, and as do members of our staffs to a greater extent. It concerns the forms that average Canadians are expected to fill out. I refer to forms from Revenue Canada, Canada pension appeals or immigration and disability credit forms. Any kind of application that comes from this government must be a tremendous burden to people just trying to get through them. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have extensive education have a great difficulty ourselves.
I would be very interested in the hon. member's comments on the complexity of the forms, something which seem to go against the people who are already disadvantaged.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, something that we in Parliament have to work toward is the simplification of forms, not just forms for income tax but simplification of all forms. We should put those forms in plain words, English or French, so that the people can understand them. We do not need the wherefores and the heretofors

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that we so often get in the legal jargon. All that does is confuse people.
What we should be striving for is what we are now seeing in the insurance and legal areas where there is encouragement to get rid of the old-fashioned language and getting down to basic, easy English and French so that we, the average person out there, can understand. We should not need a Toronto lawyer to interpret these things. We want to be able to interpret them ourselves without the necessity of some high-falutin accountant or lawyer having to be employed to do it for us.
In that vein, I would like to bring up two things that I have not touched on. It is an expansion of what we have heard here today. I refer to the cuts in citizenship and multiculturalism and the cuts in native funding.
In each of those areas, if we look at English as a second language, and in some of the areas of citizenship and multiculturalism, built in to them is part of an educational process that I mentioned when I was speaking of the illiteracy problems within Canada. Certainly, the cuts to the native programming have been a knife thrust to the very heart of a problem that we have here in Canada.
If we look at the Southam News study on illiteracy, we see that it looked at Canada as a whole, but did not go into the territories where we have a high native population. What the study showed was that often, because of the lack of training and opportunity, those in our native communities do not have the opportunities that others do to gain an education. Therefore they are not able to take advantage of some of the government programs because they do not understand the paperwork. They cannot fill out the paperwork because they do not even know it exists.
I am saying to the government, shake your head and refocus on what is important to keeping this country together. Let us get on with the job of managing Canada in a manner that keeps it intertwined and happy.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, this debate, which has been going on for some time now, brings to everyone's attention the importance of the financial crisis being faced by this government. Although it is fond of talking about market forces, about what the opposition did when it was in government and
about what the provincial governments are doing, in reality it has put Canadians into a comer, something which we all feel very badly about and which we wish we were not in.
The bill in front of us, Bill C-65, authorizes the government to borrow $25.5 billion. I would like to take time to show ways in which that affects people in Winnipeg North Centre. I think the people in that constituency deserve an explanation because as taxpayers they are carrying the burden. That is because there has been a tremendous shift in our Canadian tax system away from the corporations and on to average families. In fact, we see that most of the people who are hurt by this deficit are those who can least afford it.
It is hard to interpret these policies for people who do not follow the government closely every day and who do not have to watch it in Question Period, as we do, trying to defend policies which are indefensible. It is hard to understand why it caused this financial panic in the country. I call it a financial panic on purpose.
Before I arrived in the House of Commons two years ago I spent my time teaching political science at the University of Winnipeg. The question that is very basic to political science is the question that is asked by one generation of scholars after another and that is: "Who gets what, where, when and how?" It is also a question that journalists ask.
A country gets itself in trouble when it loses its sense of legitimacy, when it loses the will to be taxed and when it loses the sense that what their government is doing is correct. It is then that people begin to revolt. When Canadians look around and ask themselves that basic question of who gets what, where, when and how, they begin to feel that this country is spending money contrary to the democratic principles on which the country was founded.
We chose to build this country and to tax ourselves out of a sense of purpose, whether that purpose be defined on a regional basis; helping people in the north build communities, helping people in the west establish farms, helping people in northern Ontario establish mining and lumber communities, helping maintain the fishing industry in the maritimes, helping Toronto to grow into a
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world class city with financial strength or helping Vancouver develop as a port. There was a decision made that we would help each other. At times the west has been a great generator of income for this country; and at other times the west has had to turn to the central government and say: "Please give us a hand". Similarly, we could go across each of the regions in this country and point to times in which they needed somebody's help.
When we become as bankrupt as we are now-and the government can use any figure it wants, but we are probably dealing with a deficit of $35 billion and rising each day-people realize that we can no longer help each other. When we say that we can no longer help each other, then the very fibre of the country is at risk. When we have to deal with a bill such as the one in front of us today, we have to come to grips with the fact that government has put the fibre of the country at risk because we cannot finance our efforts to help each other out.
We have at other times listened to the government and to members of all parties talk with a great deal of seriousness about the constitutional crisis facing us. It is wrapped around deadlines, factions, what one provincial government wants to do versus another and what opposing leaders want to do. For all these reasons there is a great deal of tension in this country, but nobody sits back and thinks of the relationship between the economics of Canada and the constitutional crisis.
I use this opportunity to say that there is a direct link. People are less supportive of our country right now because they do not feel they have a stake in it. All they have is a bill. If you want to be like Ronald Reagan and argue in family homilies, then the reality is that people feel less committed if they cannot continue to work together and produce an income; if they cannot continue to look after their own homes and if they cannot look after those who are sick. People become depressed. This country has become clouded by a depression which was caused in part by a government strategy which has raised taxes among those who are least able to pay for it and who are struggling the most. That strategy does not turn and give out money to the poorest people in this country in the poorest regions who desperately need it. In fact it pulls the money out of the system and creates more and more debt.
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The government made the strategic decision in 1984 that it had to lower taxes on the rich and increase the taxes on the poor. It is a variation of the American thesis that the rich do not work because they do not make enough money, and the poor do not work because they make too much money. The government decided what it would try to do was give the rich more money and at the same time take the money away from low-income Canadians.
That strategy has created incredible tensions in the country, whether we define rich by region or by families, or whether we define the poor by certain groups in remote parts of Canada or in our cities, whether we are talking about the homeless, children, or native families on reserves across northern Manitoba. The poor are not getting anything back. So when we look at a borrowing bill we say: "Who are they borrowing it for? What has happened to our tax base in this country?" The strategic decision to lessen the tax burden on some people in the hope that they would generate so much income and that money would be replaced has absolutely failed.
The second strategy that is now becoming apparent and is failing is the free trade agreement. I know people will say right away: "What has free trade to do with taxation? You are off the mark, Mr. Member." It has a lot to do with taxation.
The federal government has made the decision to reduce all sorts of revenue bases dealing with international trade. When people talk about reducing tariffs and subsidies, it means that the government is losing an income base. The GST argument is based upon not only the inefficiency of the manufacturers' sales tax, something which nobody would deny, but as free trade takes effect, the government loses a large revenue base. The logic of a North American marketplace, governed by market forces and not by government action, and not by government leadership, is that you lose your taxation base in that economy. This is what is happening to Canadians right now. Canadians are afraid.
I am thinking particularly of the city of Winnipeg. It is a great city and has played a great role in this country. But the reality is that right now Winnipeg is under a tremendous amount of pressure. People in that city feel it with their hearts and are looking for a way of redeveloping it. There are many groups that have been formed and so forth. They turn to the federal government and say: "You have been a partner with us. You have helped form Winnipeg. You helped, for example,

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with the CN which goes through the city. You helped with Air Canada. You helped with a number of government institutions. You helped build up our hospitals. You helped transfer money to our province. We are there and now we are ready to do something".
The federal government turns on the government of Manitoba and the people of Manitoba with a vengeance and says: "I am sorry. Do you not see our deficit? Do you not see we have no money for farmers or for western economic diversification? Do you not see that we have to move CN out to Edmonton or back to Montreal? Do you not see that we have to close down VIA and pull Air Canada out and privatize it?" The list is endless. The end product of that is that a total depression sets upon leaders in a city and a province who are trying to rebuild and to grasp a role for it.
Winnipeg threatens to become a city of wholesaling and not a city of manufacturing. That is not because it does not have the ambition, but because the reality is that the government is doing absolutely nothing to help it out. I hold this federal government and these ministers responsible.
If you looked through the articles in the newspapers after the budget, a time when people raised some very serious complaints about this government and the budget, what did you see? We saw that the Minister of Energy said: "Manitoba gets so much money they should not be complaining". Can you imagine that, Mr. Speaker? This is a city which has been impoverished through federal government inaction for the last five years, and it has to apologize for asking for money. What kind of country do we have when we have to apologize for asking for money when there is a legitimate desire to grow, expand and be a healthy city?
The fact that the government has consistently tried to make the people of Manitoba feel guilty about asking for money was one of the most sudden turnabouts in government policy, particularly in a party which has spent years deciying federal intervention. When it was asked what it was going to do for the city of Winnipeg, it said: "Sorry, we have no ideas. We have no money. We hope you do well. We are going back to Ottawa. We have
cabinet meetings. We have this and that to do. We are not here for you. Best of luck".
When people go back to that basic question of who gets what, where, when and how, they find out that in the case of Manitoba, Winnipeg and the constituency of Winnipeg North Centre, it is not them. They do not know how other people do it. They know it goes elsewhere. They know that the large sums are being lost in carrying out activities which are not beneficial.
The purpose of any member's response to a budget is not to decry on behalf of one region, but to use one region as an example of the tensions being created across this country. I am sure members who sit on this side, whether they are from Kingston or Ottawa, share in my anguish and frustration that the government chooses to hurt so many parties through this budget.
I would like to spend some time talking about the fact that this is one of the few times in Canadian history that Canadians are literally refusing to pay taxes. Those of us in the west who read the accounts of public meetings being held in Winnipeg, in Estevan, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton know that on the prairies people are saying: "We will not pay the tax. We do not want the GST."
People realize that we have a huge deficit. After the war we had a huge deficit. People did not refuse to pay taxes. We introduced income tax in the first world war to finance the war. Yet here we have a crisis and people are walking on us. As politicians we have to ask these questions. Why are people walking on us? Why are people not willing to finance government? It is because of the irresponsible action of the people sitting across from me that people refuse to pay their taxes now?
The question for the Minister of Justice and the Deputy Prime Minister who are from the west, and the Prime Minister who never comes to the west is this. "How far are you going to push Canadians?" Is there, among you, a Maggie Thatcher who thinks that people can be policed into paying taxes? Are we going to have the same sight in Canada that we do right now in Great Britain of people in fist fights and people being bullied into paying an unfair tax?
Canadian leaders, particularly those across the aisle from me, have to learn that they cannot push people into a situation like that. Canadians are trying, in their usual gentle fashion, to say they do not want to pay this tax. It is not because we are irresponsible. We simply want you
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to get your house in order. Until the government gets its house in order, people are going to continue to reject and to fight that tax. I think that they should be supported because the tax is inherently unfair. The borrowing of money to do things which are contrary to the interests of average Canadians is unfair. Generally speaking, when everyone sees an unfairness, then I think you have to turn around and say: "Let's stop and let's listen."
In England, Maggie Thatcher made the decision that she did not have to listen, that she was above listening, that she was above democracy. Right now she is paying the price for that. She is having to deal with people in the streets being hurt by their fellow citizens. What kind of country do you have when people turn on each other rather than pay taxes? You have the beginning of a national crisis.
The last thing that we need in Canada, given the national crisis we are already in, is a tax revolt. It is incumbent upon each and every minister of the government, to review departmental budgets and find ways of reducing expenditures, cutting out waste and, more important, to speak to the Minister of Finance and tell him: "Get those interest rates down. Speak to the Bank of Canada. Tell it how many billions of dollars it is costing the taxpayer simply because of some crazed, Thatcherite-like monetary attack on the economy."
As people scream and beg for mercy across this country, it does not matter whether you are talking about farmers, small business people, people in medium-sized firms, international business people are laughing at us. They go back to their host countries and borrow money for next to nothing. Our Canadian businesses cannot get access to capital because we are drawing in money through an artificially high rate to pay off our debt.
I cannot think of a situation any more more incompetent than the federal government welcoming offshore capital to finance our debt. For generations we financed ourselves, although we might have begrudged it. We were able to do that through the Canadian Savings Bond program and other short-term treasury notes processes.
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A few years ago the federal government very quietly gave up financing the debt within the country. Now we are borrowing offshore, which contributes to the depletion of our national savings. Canadians are saying two things as they hear this debate taking place. They are saying: "Keep up the fight on taxes. Keep up the fight against borrowing. Tell the government in no uncertain terms that we do not want to continue in this fashion any longer."
A Winnipeg journalist writing in the Winnipeg Free Press spent some time elaborating on one of the missing links in the Canadian taxation system. Many people talk about tax reform, which is one of the more over-used expressions in political debate lately. This government took on "tax reform".
What does it mean to have tax reform when you are a Tory? It means you decrease the amount of money you tax in the corporate sector and you increase the amount of money you are taking from average Canadians.
For example, since 1985, the year after the Tories took power, personal income taxes have risen 49 per cent, and sales taxes have gone up 51 per cent. Meanwhile, corporate taxes have actually dropped 10 per cent. According to Frances Russell, the columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press, had the Mulroney government maintained the same ratio of corporate taxes to corporate profit existing in 1984, it would have taken in an additional $6 billion. She is basing her writing on a Dalhousie University economist, Allistair Sinclair, who noted that this extra tax revenue would, in turn, have reduced interest charges by another $2 billion, leaving a deficit of $22 billion rather than the current $30 billion.
Canada's poorest taxpayers saw their bracket climb from 9 per cent to 17 per cent. Meanwhile, Canada's wealthiest citizens watched their bracket drop from 34 per cent to 29 per cent. That 29 per cent begins at the $55,000 level, meaning that the tax system treats multimillionaires and middle-class income earners the same.
When people read this sort of information about the Canadian tax system, they begin to have a sense of disbelief within themselves. How can you have a system when, at the time this government took over, it said that the biggest problem facing it was the fact that the Liberals had bankrupted the country? What was the government going to do? It was going to tell all its

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friends in the high-income brackets not to worry because their taxes were going to be reduced; but, by the way, the rest of you Canadians watch out because we are going to take it from you. That turns out to be one of the meanest and most miserable governmental strategies we have ever seen in this country, and perhaps even in the western world in the last five years.
Nobody has really sat down and thought about how many tax increases have been introduced since this government took over.
In round one, in 1985, there was an extra two cents per litre for gasoline, and an additional 25 cents per package of 25 cigarettes. There was a 2 per cent increase in the excise tax on wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages. The federal sales tax rose one percentage point and was extended to candy, pet food, soft drinks, shampoos, soaps, some energy-saving devices and insulation materials. A surtax of up to 10 per cent was imposed on middle and upper-income earners for the next 18 months. That was only round one.
In round two, in 1986, a surtax boosted income tax by 1.5 per cent in 1986, and 3 per cent more starting in 1987. The government likes to introduce taxes, give you 12 months to forget about it, and then hit you. The federal sales tax increased by another percentage point. The excise tax rose by 6 per cent on tobacco and 4 per cent on alcohol. An estimated four million low-income families received refundable tax credits of up to $50 per adult and $25 per child to help offset the impact of the higher sales taxes.
In round three, in 1987, excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel increased by one cent a litre. Thxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products went up 4 per cent, resulting in a three-cent increase in a package of 25. A federal sales tax of 12 per cent was added to snack foods such as popcorn, potato chips, and granola bars, pop-sicles and some types of ice-cream. Even the granola crowd was hit. Airline passengers faced a new $4 tax on domestic flights and on tickets purchased abroad to help pay for measures such as increased security.
The most interesting is round four. In round four there is only one tax increase. That was an extra one-cent a
litre tax on gasoline and aviation fuel, with a corresponding 1 per cent rebate for farmers and fishermen.
What was the year for round four? The year was 1988. What else took place in 1988? Was that not the year of a federal election? What a coincidence.
In round five we are now back up to speed. There is the proposed goods and services tax which is now 7 per cent, but who knows what it will be when these guys get finished with it?
Second, there are personal income tax increases. The federal surtax on all taxpayers went to 5 per cent from 3 per cent. An additional 3 per cent surtax was slapped on people with incomes above $70,000. There were corporate tax increases of 7.1 per cent. There was the so-called clawback of baby bonus and old age security benefits from those with net annual income of more than $50,000. The federal sales tax rose to 13.5 per cent from 12 per cent. The excise tax went up 2 cents a litre on unleaded gasoline-what people were touting as being a great environmental benefit. There is also a 3-cent increase on leaded gasoline. Excise tax on tobacco rose, including a $4 a carton increase. Sales tax rose to 19 per cent from 18 per cent on alcohol, to 9 per cent from 8 per cent on construction materials and to 13.5 per cent from 12 per cent on telecommunications and programming services.
Can you imagine that as a record? When I look at 1990 and 1991 I fear for Canadians and what other burdens they are going to be carrying. With some of these taxes we lose sight of just how much money the government has gained as a result of these tax increases.
Let us talk about some of them. When the government eliminated the registered home ownership savings plan in 1985 it received another $105 million. Did it have any idea how much difficulty it brought to families, particularly families in the Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver markets by eliminating that opportunity that these young families had to save for their first home? It probably have no idea. On the changes to marital exemptions it pick up another $20 million. The elimination of low income federal tax reductions brought in $650 million. The temporary 5 per cent and 10 per cent surtax in 1985 accounted for another $500 million. The de-indexation of tax brackets and family allowances and tax credits in 1986 accounted for another $635 million. The permanent general 3 per cent surtax in 1986 brought in another $1.2 billion. The family allowance and old age security clawback in 1989 accounted for another $500 million. The
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general surtax increases from 3 per cent, pro-rated and beginning in 1990 brought in $1.1 billion. The high income surtax was pro-rated for 1989 and increased a full 3 per cent in January for $165 million. The list goes on and on. It is endless as to the amount of money this government has collected from Canadians.
What is the end product for us sitting here? It wants us to approve another borrowing bill for $25.5 billion. The questions that are being asked throughout this country and in Winnipeg North Centre are these. When is this going to end? When is some sanity going to be brought to the government? When is it going to be stopped from taxing and from borrowing? When is it going to start taking care of us again?


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague very much for his very lengthy and detailed description of the actions of this government in the financial field. I wonder if he might talk a little more about the impact of the spending in taxing patterns and as a result the borrowing of this government and its effect on the low-income Canadians.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, when one speaks of the poor in this country one does not know where to begin nowadays. You do not know whether you should just talk about the increased difficulty of students who had an extra 3 per cent surcharge on their loans for administration. You ask yourself why would you begin to tax the poorest people for giving them the opportunity. Can you imagine a welfare office charging people for the right to receive money? This is what this government is doing. It is saying: "If you are so poor you have to borrow money to go to school. In order to get the money you have to pay us 3 per cent". If you saw that taking place in the bank among the poorest people in the country there would be a revolt. This government hiding behind its Prime Minister and all its sanctimony says: "That is fine. That is what it costs to administer it. That is all there is to it".
Where do we begin to talk about native peoples in a short answer and their poverty? With this government's new strategy, as announced through the Secretary of State, who does not seem to understand what he has done, they cannot even communicate with each other.
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They cannot even build up within themselves the communication infrastructure so that Canadians understand the desperate situation they are in and that they can share from one part of the country to the other what they are doing. They do not get on a plane every day. They are not like the business traveller. These are people who are trying to understand each other's situation, develop some commonality of spirit among the 300,000 to 500,000 aboriginal peoples in this country. Yet we turn around in a moment of need, right in the middle of judicial inquiries saying how unfairly they have been treated and we say to them, by the way we are taking away your money to communicate. Best of luck to you. It is that sort of attitude which brings a total amount of disrepute to the government.
It is not only the opposition party that feels this. The Canadian Council on Social Development responded to the budget with the following statement: "If we have had eight consecutive years of economic growth, why is this the sixth consecutive year we have had cuts in social programs?"
I think that is the critical question. Why, after all this growth? We know the Prime Minister loves to talk about his jobs, jobs, jobs. But does he talk about the heartache he has created by cut-backs, cut-backs, cut-backs? I do not hear anything. Does anybody else hear anything? The answer is no.
For these reasons, and the question about what has happened to the poor in this country gets to the heart of our opposition to this borrowing bill.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg IVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, any debate on borrowing authority is an opportunity to talk about a great many things and I hope that I will have an opportunity to touch on a number of policy areas in the course of my remarks.
Today, in Question Period when the hon. member for Nickel Belt got up I felt that we had a very convenient summary, if you like, of the political landscape in Canada. As you know the hon. member for Nickel Belt has been on a weekly basis every Wednesday awarding the corporate welfare bum of the week award to a corporation selected from among three that are nomi-

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nated every Wednesday and these corporations invariably have similar characteristics. They are large, they pay no taxes but also as it turns out in many cases, although they are not able to pay taxes by the government's definition, they are too poor to pay taxes, even though many of them make millions of dollars in profits, they are able to make donations to the Conservative and Liberal parties of Canada. This surely must be a sign to all of those who want to hear, those who have ears and can hear, of what is really at the root of our Canadian political system. The corporate sector is looked after regardless of who is in government, whether it be the Liberal party as it was for so many years, or the Conservative party.
That is why we found in recent weeks that the opposition of the Liberal party to the goods and services tax has been rather pro forma, that they have sought to dissociate themselves from the authenticity and the tenacity of the NDP opposition to the goods and services tax because these are people who know that the goods and services tax is part of the corporate agenda and who know that if the Tories did not implement it that should they be elected next time around that it is the sort of thing that they also would have to do in obedience to the same masters. So we find that there is this funny sort of reticence about digging themselves too deep with respect to the goods and services tax, hoping that they can get away with being seen to be strongly in opposition to it but also hoping that the government very much succeeds in getting it through.
Of course the story of the Conservative Party in government from 1984 to 1992 or 1993, whenever it comes to a well deserved end, will be that it will have done the dirty work of the Liberal Party of Canada. It will have done what the right wing of the Liberal Party of Canada would have wanted to do but may have found it more difficult than the Tories have done. To be fair to the Liberals, what they would do shamefacedly and evasively, Conservative always do with enthusiasm. That makes them in some respects more worthy opponents, but it also makes them more destructive because they do not know restraint in their policies.
The fact of the matter is that the middle class, the low and middle income earners in Canada are under attack from every which way one can think of as a result of the
tax and social policies of the government. People are starting to catch on that they under attack. People are starting to catch on that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet. Everywhere they turn they are met by an increase in something, generally a tax or a price, or a decrease in something, generally a benefit or service of some kind. People are only going to put up with this for so long. It is unfortunate that in the nature of the Canadian political system they may well have to choose once again between tweedledum and tweedledee, between trying to eat their soup with a knife or a fork, leaving the spoon untried.
One of the other things I would like to talk about is the whole question of the transportation policy in the country. It is something that I do not get to talk about as much as I used to being the external affairs critic for my party. Transportation policy in the country is very important and very important to people in my riding. I can think of a number of different things that are of concern, but perhaps I will start with the one which has had the highest profile since the last election. That of course is the cuts to VIA Rail. It seems to me that the cuts to VIA Rail sum up and are a rather depressing symbol of everything that is wrong with the policy of the government.
There is a train which since the 1920s, and perhaps even before that, has served many people in my riding. They are the cottagers who have cottages along the CNR mainline in places like Ophir, Winnitoba, Rice Lake, Malachi and Ottermere. For years people have been going down to their cottages on the train. There was a special train called the "Camper Special" which went down on Friday night and came back on Sunday night. In the early 1980s, as a result of negotiations between VIA and the campers, this service was blended into the Winnipeg to Capreol service. The train was scheduled in such a way that it could meet the needs of the cottagers.
When the former transport minister, the hon. member for Roberval, ordered VIA to come up with a plan to implement cuts, he ordered them to preserve service on nine remote routes. One of those routes was the Winnipeg to Capreol route. Eight out of the nine routes were indeed preserved, but the ninth, the Winnipeg to Capreol route, was subsumed or absorbed into the transcontinental service which was to run from Vancouver to Winnipeg and from Winnipeg east over the CN mainline,
March 28, 1990

which is where the Winnipeg to Capreol service used to be.
That train now leaves on Saturday night at 8:15 and conies back on Monday morning at 7. That is bad enough, but the fact is that VIA has indicated it has no intention of adding any equipment to that train to service the needs of the cottagers. For instance, take the long weekend in May. On any long weekend in May for the last 60 years that train has probably taken anywhere between 500 and 700 people down to the lake. Do you know how many coach seats there are on that train for the long weekend in May, Mr. Speaker? Fifty-six seats. Maybe that is all they will need because who is going to want to go down on Saturday night of the long weekend and come back on Monday morning of the long weekend?
That is not preserving service to that remote area. Many of these areas have no roads. How are they supposed to get to their cottage? That is the situation that people find themselves in because of the policy of this government. What are we going to have to do eventually, unless the government comes to its senses? All these hundreds of people who formerly took a train to their cottage in two hours will now travel on the Trans-Canada Highway between Winnipeg and Kenora.
Then we are going to have to cut new roads through the bush, in some cases through wilderness areas. We are going to put more hydrocarbons into the air and clog up the Trans-Canada Highway which is already clogged with trucks, thanks to the deregulation policies of this government which has taken freight off the railway tracks and put it on the highways.
Next we are going to cut roads through bush that up until now has been undisturbed. On the roads that do exist, some of them into adjoining lakes, people will need to have pick-up trucks or four by fours in order to have half a chance of ever getting out again, once they get in. Other people will have to go seven and a half miles across water to get to their cottage.
All this is in the name of a phoney way of keeping the books, because all this is bookkeeping. All this is policy set on keeping one set of books, the VIA set of books with respect to that particular service and not figuring into the larger bookkeeping the cost of more hydrocarbons going into the atmosphere, the safety matter of
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having more people on the highways, and the environmental factor of having to cut roads through areas that up until now have been left alone, not to mention the enormous inconvenience to families and communities which had a right to expect that this service which has been provided since the very beginning, if you like, would continue pursuant to the orders of the Minister of Transport himself who said that service to remote communities should be preserved.
I have spoken to the former Minister of Transport and the current Minister of Transport. I have not given up that we may yet find some solution to this problem. I think that part of the reason why, so far, some of the people are not as upset as they will be, come the long weekend in May, is because they cannot believe that anybody would do this. They think: "You've got to be kidding that I won't be able to get to my cottage". They cannot believe that they will not be able to get to their cottages that, in some cases, has been there for three or four generations.
Mr. Thacker. The taxpayers should pay for people to get to their cottages?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The taxpayers pay through the nose for other people to get to their cottages on highways. The taxpayers are paying through the nose to fund the deregulation policy of this government for trucking companies. We know that part of the transportation policy of this government is to freeze out the railways. It is only the railways that have to pay for their own track bed.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The NDP subsidize people to take holidays.


Mr. Kristiansen:: You destroyed the cost of their land, you pay for it.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I hear the hon. member for Lethbridge being his usual ignorant self saying that our policy is to subsidize people for taking holidays. I hope the people from Winnipeg are listening, and I hope the people who have used the railways over the years are listening because that is part of the problem. The hon. member does not mind subsidizing all kinds of other people to take holidays in the Caribbean so they can fix up their tax holidays that they are arranging while they are down there. He does not mind that. That is just good capitalism. But for a retired railroader to be able to make it down to his cabin, that is a subsidy. That is something we have to do away with. That is part of the problem.

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This government is committed to subsidies, subsidies of the rich and the rest of the country has to pay for the kinds of subsidies they have been arranging, like the $500,000 capital gains tax exemption. If that is not a subsidy, I do not know what the hell is.
I am running out of time. I had hoped to talk about health care. I had hoped to talk about UIC. I even hoped to talk about foreign policy. But I have this feeling that I will not because I got talking about transportation.
While I am at it, Mr. Speaker, I would not mind passing on to you and hopefully to the Ministry of Transport and the National Transportation Agency what I have been picking up from people in my riding who work on the railway, and that is as a result of the policy of deregulation we see a decrease in maintenance. I invite you, Mr. Speaker, sometime when you are in your riding, now that the weather is improving, to sit by the level crossing with your window down and listen to the flat wheels going by. The railway has a policy of not "bad ordering" wheels the way they used to. One of the reasons they do not is because they do not have as many carmen inspecting the wheels as they used to. These trains are going bang, bang, bang, bang all the way down.
People who know anything about railways know that this is happening because all you have to do is listen if you have a trained ear. That is what is happening. I have people who work on the railway, and others who are writing to me about this. They know that maintenance is being neglected as a result of deregulation.
They know that at Symington Yard at the Hump, where they hump cars and send them down different tracks and marshall different trains that they have taken out what are called the manual car retards, the way that guys used to be able to judge cars: their weight, what kind of car they were, the right speed, et cetera, and respond accordingly. They have taken those out. Now they do everything by computer. If you stand by the hump you can hear these cars, some of them with
hazardous commodities in them, going bang, bang, bang. There are people I know in the railway who live near there who are moving out. They know it is only a matter of time before something happens, thanks to the great computer that is supposed to look after everything, as in so many other instances in society where we are removing people and replacing them with these little terminals that are supposed to do everything. Black boxes on the ends of trains. Every time I see a train go by and there is no caboose, I realize just how little we have succeeded in trying to resist the agenda of this government.
It goes on and on. In Ontario, the government is talking about double and triple trailers on trucks. Pretty soon you will not want to go on the highway unless you are in a tank for fear of colliding with one of these things. The rail beds will be increasingly empty. The next step, once the Tories get their way, once they get the successor to the Crow payment paid not to the railways but to the producers, we will be trucking grain all over the place. There will hardly be anything to put on the railway. The highways will be even more clogged, in this case with trucks hauling grain to bigger and bigger terminals owned by Cargill and other multinational agri-business people who are trying to arrange the world economy to their own benefit and to hell with communities, to hell with workers and to hell with everything that the Conservatives used to say they were for: small town Canada, rural values, all that sort of thing where people are not subject to urban rot. These are the people who are destroying rural Canada, their post offices, branchlines, elevators, you name it, all in the name of global competitiveness. It is disgraceful.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member will have three minutes left in his debate plus ten minutes questions and comments, if he wishes to carry on tomorrow.
It being 6.20 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.20 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, March 29, 1990