1990-04-06

Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should reinstate core funding for women's centres, to enable those centres to continue to provide essential information, referral and support services to women.
She said: Madam Speaker, this is a very important motion on a very important issue. The devastation to women's centres by this latest budget cut really speaks to not only a lack of fiscal support for women's centres but a concerted political effort on the part of this government to silence the voice of dissent of women across Canada.
Women's centres grew out of the recommendations of the 1970 Royal Commission on the Status of Women. That royal commission spoke of the real inequality that women faced in our country. The recommendations of the royal commission were being implemented gradually, painfully slowly, across Canada. Women's centres were playing a significant role in this process.
Women's centres are necessary. Some of the services that they provide include services for battered women who do not know where to turn, where the nearest shelter is, or how to get there, or even which lawyers they would best talk to. Women's centres provide that information and sometimes they are adjacent to the very services which a battered woman would require.
Teenage women get information regarding sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases and the location of supportive health centres. Women's centres provide that information. There are homeless women right here in Ottawa. The Women's Place in Ottawa has operated as a drop-in centre for homeless women on weekends because there was a gap in social services provided by municipal and other services.
The centres can tell jobless women, newly divorced women, young women, or older women who may not know where to start looking for a job what job programs are available for them and can provide counselling.
Centres inform mothers and parents what child care facilities are available in a community; they advise immigrant and visible minority women what programs are available to them, what organizations can help them.
Women's centres can help sexually harassed women and those who are discriminated against at work, by telling them what the law says, and explaining their rights. Many have a list of lawyers who can help them.
All women and men in a community can use the resources of a women's centre. They provide public information and public education on women's issues. They speak out on matters affecting women.
With these latest cuts, 100 per cent of their core funding, these services are going to be at least drastically reduced if not eliminated completely in some cases. That is going to have a very negative impact for the kind of work we have tried to do over the years to implement the recommendations of that Royal commission report.
For example, in Whitehorse, cuts to women's and to native organizations' funding means a cut to 80 per cent of the voluntary organizations in the Yukon. This is a pattern that has evolved over time.
The Secretary of State's women's program was cut in the 1989-90 budget by $2 million. In the last budget it was cut by a further $1.6 million.

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At the same time, the argument is that we have to address our deficit. I think there is no one in this House who is going to deny that the deficit has to be addressed and reduced, but the debate is about the way in which that is being done.
In this same budget that reduced the core funding for over 75 women's centres by 100 per cent, there were increases as well. There was an increase to the budget for CSIS in the amount of $33 million. There were also $14 million allocated for advertising for the GST. We can see where the priorities of the government are. When you consider $33 million for CSIS and $14 million for advertising for the GST, $1.6 million is a very small amount, and one wonders how credible the argument is that this is a cut that is necessary to reduce the deficit.
It is also very interesting that it comes at a time when this government has been spoken to very forcefully by the women of Canada in their opposition to the initiatives under Bill C-43, the recriminalization of abortion. I do not believe that it is just a coincidence.
I think there is a political agenda that is being followed here. The voices of women from those women's centres and their ability to do organizing in communities has been profoundly limited by these budget cuts. What is happening now is that those women's centres are now having to redirect their energies by fundraising, in order to keep their centres open and in order to do project analyses and write up project proposals.
Having been the Chair of the board of our local women's centre in Victoria, I know the kind of energy that has to be put into that paperwork. The staff of those women's centres are often paid very little. They are dependent upon volunteer work as well. I know the staff of our women's centre in Victoria was paid about $22,000 a year, which is probably the national average.
One does not work in those centres in order to get rich. One works there because of the hope that ultimately the recommendations from the Royal commission's report of 1970 will come to fruition and that there will be real equality for women in Canada. Those women staffers, right from Victoria to Newfoundland, are committed women who are doing the government's work at a very low wage. They are doing it with commitment and passion. It is a very effective way of trying to implement what the government itself has set out. So, again the
argument that the cut of the $1.6 million is a deficit reduction initiative falls flat.
There is another agenda here. The agenda is to silence women, but I can tell you that women will not be silenced. We have seen, throughout the week, the initiatives of women who will not be silenced. We have seen them from Newfoundland to Port Alberni and to the north.
The 100 per cent cut to core funding for the women's resource centre in Whitehorse, in the Yukon, means that that centre will have to close its doors. The closest women's centre, if that is closed, is in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Is that what the government means by alternatives?
What are we going to do? Are we to pay air fare for women to come and consult? Are we to pay long distance phone charges? No.
The reason that these funds are being reduced is to silence women, and women will not be silenced. It fits in with this government's agenda to silence the poor of Canada. The poor will not be silenced.
My colleague from Mission-Coquitlam, in her duty as social policy critic, has met with a number of low income women and low income men who are dependent on social services. These are the kinds of people we should be looking after.
It really speaks about the role of government when we talk about cuts to women's programs. Who are we supposed to be helping through our taxation system? Is it the people that are already doing well enough? The government seems to think so. The cuts to women's centres, native centres and other initiatives can make the government uncomfortable. I think it is a quite blatant political act to keep them quiet.
I would like to turn to the effect of the closure of centres. In British Columbia the following women's centres are about to close: the women's centres in Chetwynd, Fort St. John, Howe Sound, Kelowna, Penticton, Port Alberni, and Kitimat.
We have asked repeatedly to meet with the minister responsible, the Secretary of State. He has sent officials with no power to make changes to the funding situation. These officials further angered the women, and I think the minister responsible has also incurred their wrath. Last Monday, the women members of our caucus sent a
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letter to the minister asking for a meeting at his convenience. We have not received a response.
This is an urgent situation, and that is why we are using this opposition day to put forth this motion. I think it is a black mark on this government if it feels it can get away with this, and there will be continuing civil disobedience if it is to continue.
We should also focus on the fact that the government's international reputation will be sullied by this action. The government is breaking international treaties by this initiative. Canada has signed the UN convention for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. The government has also gone along with the Nairobi forward looking strategies.
Canada cannot say one thing in international fora and another thing at home. We are talking about $1.6 million dollars, a piddling amount when we consider some of the other initiatives that have been increased by this government in what is being applauded as a deficit reducing budget. Canadians are not fooled at all.
In responding to questions on the committee for the elimination of discrimination against women about the country's success in combating discrimination against women, the permanent representation of Canada at the United Nations explained that it was the strength of the Canadian feminist movement and the commitment of Canada's leaders to the equal rights for women. How does eliminating the core funding for women's centres demonstrate the commitment to equal rights for women? There may be some painful logic, and I am willing to listen to it today.
The women's movement is constantly undermined by funding cuts and the refusal by government to meet with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada's largest women's lobby group, made up of over 600 women's organizations. Not only has this budget cut $1.6 million from women's centres funding, it has also cut funds available to feminist publications. I think that is also a concerted effort to reduce the ability of those publications to work effectively and to bring the women's agenda to light. There is a concerted attack on women's equality through those reductions. I remind the
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House that this is a cut of $1.6 million, compared to a $33 million increase for the budget of CSIS.
That comparison alone speaks to the government's agenda, of this government's priority, and of its lack of commitment to promoting the equality of women. It is a black day if this government continues with this initiative. I hope the minister responsible will go back to his cabinet colleagues. I also hope the Minister responsible for the Status of Women will carry out her responsibilities for the status of women and will ask her cabinet colleagues, as my motion indicates, that the funds be reinstated for those women's centres so that the women of Canada, from Newfoundland to British Columbia, to Yukon, to Yellowknife, will be able to do their work as they have done in a a very efficient, effective, low cost and committed way.


Mrs. Pauline Browes (Parliamentary Secretary to Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words today concerning women's centres in relation to comments that the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands has made.
Some 10 years ago in Scarborough we set up a women's centre. I was a member of the board founding that centre. It was very important to establish the centre in order to reach out to women who are having difficulty so that we could as sisters help them. In the process of setting up that women's centre we looked for funds. We spent a lot of time around the table filling in those applications, getting the right words in order that the funding would become available, but at no time did we believe 10 years ago that our sole funding for women's centres was to be from the federal government.
At that time we were looking to foundations, to the community, and to fund raising events to see how we could have funding from various levels. I am very pleased today, thanks to two very wonderful individuals in Scarborough, Nina Willcocks and Linda Davis, who have diversified this funding so that now there is very little funding from various levels of government in order to provide services for social justice and economic equality for the women in Scarborough.

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I have a question and comment. The hon. member speaks about funding cuts. Let us look at some of the numbers. In 1984-85, the year just before the Conservative Party took over the government, the funding was about $8 million for women's programs under Secretary of State. There has been a tremendous increase in that funding. In 1988-89 it was $13 million.
The commitment demonstrated by a number of women within our own party in order to increase funding dramatically over the last six years is a great credit to the government and these women. Many have benefited from those programs.
I think that it is time that we started setting some of the record straight in terms of the advantages we have been able to provide for /omen, such as jobs and the number of women who have been able to establish their own businesses. Two-thirds of the businesses in Canada started in the last six years have been started by women.
I wanted to set the record straight. I look forward to doing so as we progress through this debate.


Lynn Hunter: Madam Speaker, it is a very good idea to set the record straight. Let me begin my remarks by setting the record straight regarding the 1990-91 commitment for women. The women's program has been cut to $9 million from $13 million. We are back nearly to 1984-85 levels. When we take inflation into account, that shows the real commitment to women's centres.
We should really address what the government is trying to do by having women focus on fund raising. Every minute used to raise funds is a minute taken away from organizing and creating real change in Canada. Do not think that women are fooled. They are not.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: I would like to direct a question to my colleague. How does she explain to the people at women centres that there is no money from the federal government, while at the same time it can find $16 million to spend on a GST that is going to be detrimental to women and their families and is not supported by 80 per cent of Canadian population? Since the funding for women's centres is obviously supported by the vast majority of Canadian women and men, how
does she explain to women this tremendous contradiction in the Tory government policy?


Lynn Hunter: I think the women and men of Canada have seen through the pained logic that this is going to assist in reducing the deficit and have seen that this is a concerted political act to silence women. I do not try to explain the kind of logic that will allow for $14 million in advertising for the GST, which as my colleague points out is going to be hurting the very women and men the centres are trying to assist.
The redistributive capacity of our tax system is at stake here. We are talking about what the government should be doing with our money and the kind of initiatives that this government has undertaken since it gained office again in 1988. It has spoken very clearly about the kind of direction it believes it should take.
The women and the women's centres have voiced very clearly their opposition to the government's agenda. I think that is one of the reasons for this latest round of cuts. The government is using these cuts to silence women.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission -Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, I happen to be the member of Parliament for the riding of Mission-Coquitlam where the Port Coquitlam women's centre is located. To set the record straight, I would like to tell hon. members that 100 per cent of funding is not expected by that woman's centre or any other women's centre from this government.
I would like to ask hon. members in this House to consider information about the monetary value of the volunteer time put into women's centres.
The volunteer time amounts to 2,700 hours. If we multiply that by $10.50 an hour, which is the average hourly wage paid to counsellors across the country, we see it equals $28,350. That is how much our collective time as women is worth.
If we multiply the $28,350 figure by the 33 women's centres in British Columbia we get $935,550, almost double what it would cost to keep these centres open.
In setting the record straight, we have to remember that women are putting in $935,550 for centres that
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service 231,000 women in British Columbia. I would say that is dam good value for any dollar the government puts forward.


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Madam Speaker, I am particularly pleased that parliamentarians have an opportunity today to reflect on the contributions that women have been making to this country. Indeed, I am pleased to be examining what progress we have been making in terms of equal opportunity and equal access that almost all of us have made the cause of our lives.
This particular day will certainly mark for all of us the beginning of a renewed opportunity to stop marginalizing and trivializing the very, very important activities that have been so instrumental in providing women with the opportunity to gain equality and social justice. Programs have been advocating that. They have been helping to provide the services that have been very essential. I have been very quick to note the effectiveness of those very programs.
Today the opposition day is focusing on core funding. The motion states that the government should reinstate core funding. I am not sure there are three people in the country, outside certain people inside the ministry itself, who understand what core funding or sustaining funding is all about.


Mrs. Maheu:: You tell them, Gerry.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: What is clearly at stake is whether any expenses dealing with administrative overhead, such as rent and lights, can be included as admissible expenses. If you want to call it core, you can call it core. You can call it project or program. What we have indicated in a very open manner is that the criteria that are established are flexible enough to allow many of those expenses as admissible expenses under the program or project funding.
The question is not whether it can be described as core funding, because some groups receive core funding and some women's centres do not. In the Province of Quebec there are some 78 women's centres, 39 of them had received some sustaining funding, the other 39 did not. I might add that there are more women's centres that do not receive any federal funding compared to those that do.
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It always hurts when trying to administer a program to have a little less. This particular area, at the moment, has a little less. But this should not minimize the government's commitment to bring forward a strong cross-government commitment in terms of every single ministry, in terms of every single department, in making sure that once and for all this country is a full and equal opportunity society.
We will have an opportunity today to review all of the government's programming in the women's areas, so that we can set the record straight.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Milliken:: You mean you're going to start to admit to some of the blunders?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I hear a lot of snickers, but snickers from that party which trivialized the women of the nation in terms of its programs and commitments-


Shirley Maheu: Who started the programs?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: We have a record not just in terms of appointment, but in terms of full participation that is the envy of anybody sitting on the other side of the House. You have no reason to snicker.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Ms. Clancy:: Programs started by Liberal governments.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, I hear the gallery, and we will talk to the gallery from time to time because I know they want to be actively involved. They have not asked to meet with me this week, and I will be very pleased when they do.


Joy Langan: We have! And you won't meet with us.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I have not heard from her.
I am here today to set the record straight on the government's commitment to fund women's centres, and to support women's programs and the women of Canada. Motions like the one we face today fuel unfounded fears.
Over the course of the last few days I have watched with dismay as misleading reports obscured the simple truth of the matter. The motion before the House on the issue of funding to women's centres gives me the opportunity to speak to all members and through them to all Canadians.

Madam Speaker, the opposition would have Canadians believe that the government is not interested in the

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women of Canada. Nothing is further from the truth! No other government in Canadian history has been so concerned with advancing women's rights and working with them for sexual equality in our society.
Let us leave controversy aside and rather look at the facts. Between 1980 and 1984, the Liberal government-

-you were there, sitting in your seats-


Mary Catherine Clancy: I was not here in 1985.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: The Liberal government only spenJ$12 million on women's programs, Madam Speaker-only $12 million.

Our commitment far overshadows that. Since 1984, at Secretary of State, we have spent over $56 million to support Canadian women in their ongoing efforts against disadvantage and for equality.


Mary Catherine Clancy: How about the money to REAL Women?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: This year, for example, we will be working with over 550 voluntary women's organizations building a vital partnership in every province and territory. For example, we have made a priority of programs which assist immigrant and visible minority women, women with disabilities and native women. We have assisted women's groups in improving their fundraising skills.

We are addressing the problem of family violence with a multi-year strategy that is giving concrete results. We have taken a government-wide approach, calling on the resources of my department and those of Health and Welfare, Indian and Northern Affairs and Justice, as well as Canada Mortgage and Housing.

We have responded to the issue of family violence with a budget of over $40 million, including some $22.5 million for CMHC's Project Haven which will provide 500 shelter units for women and children. But our commitment goes beyond funding.
The government has built up an impressive legislative record with amendments to the Canada Pension Plan, to the Pension Benefits Standards Act, to the Old Age
Security Act, to the Indian Act and it enacted the first national Employment Equity Act. The list goes on and on.
The government has more than doubled the number of women appointed to federal boards, agencies and commissions.
The government has increased the number of women working at the deputy minister level from seven in 1984 to 21 today.
We have everything to be proud of, so I find pathetic the litany of gloom I hear from across the way. Let them measure their record against ours. I know what the outcome will be.

When the Prime Minister appointed me Secretary of State, he gave me the mission to do what I could to make equality a reality for all Canadians. Needless to say, real equality must include the group which makes up more than half the population of this country: Canadian women. That is exactly what the government has been doing over the past six years. We have done more for equality than any government before us.
Nevertheless, in hard times, one must make hard decisions. We cannot avoid them. The people of this country expect the government to be responsible.
As part of the government-wide expenditure reduction measures, my department's women's program budget was reduced from $11.2 million to $9.6 million. This reduction was part of an across-the-board effort affecting many departments. We simply must make sacrifices now to be able tomorrow to have the strong Canada we all desire.


Mary Catherine Clancy: What do you mean "we"?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: This government recognizes the vital role women's centres play in the communities they serve and is committed to ensuring that they continue to carry on their activities.

The government knows and appreciates the activities organized by these centres. The women's centres are an important tool for the advancement of equality.
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We have funded them and will continue to do so, to help them continue their invaluable efforts in this area. I would urge women's centres to apply for assistance for specific projects, and I can assure them they can also receive funding for the administrative costs involved.

This is the kind of funding that I announced yesterday in the House for the Second Storey Women's Centre in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Playing off one group against another.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Women's centres will have priority in accessing project funding so that they can maintain their ability to carry out their activities that are mostly in their community-


Ms. Mitchell:: Point of order, Madam Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. I have a point of order from the hon. member for Vancouver East.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I am sorry to interrupt but I really feel I have to. I wonder if the minister would entertain a question on the point that he is making.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I can ask the
hon. minister if he will entertain a question at this time, but there will be a period for questions and comments after the hon. minister has completed his intervention, when I will be delighted to recognize the hon. member. The hon. minister.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I have instructed my officials to deal with these applications on an urgent basis. For years some 20 centres across the country have been securing project funding from my department. With this assistance they have carried out excellent work and made a significant contribution to their communities.

I cannot repeat often enough how important it is for the government to see women's groups diversify their funding. The Women's Program is not the sole source of financial assistance. Other federal departments such as National Health and Welfare, Employment and Immigration, Labour Canada, Justice and the Solicitor General's Department provide assistance as well.
Many provincial governments also appropriate funds for this purpose. Furthermore, an increasing number of
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women's groups are funded by other programs at the Department of the Secretary of State, including Multi-culturalism, Official Languages, Native Women and Disabled Persons Participation.
My department's Women's Program is intended to help women's organizations that are working to promote equality. Let me assure you that the centres will continue to receive assistance for any specific projects that are eligible.
The program has never directly funded health or social services. I want to make it quite clear that the Women's Program is not, and has never been, responsible for subsidizing shelters for battered women. Consequently, the decision with respect to funding for women's centres does not affect battered women, since this type of service is not included in the program's terms of reference.

The fact is that these vital services for some of the most disadvantaged Canadian women are funded at the municipal or provincial levels with the assistance of other federal government departments.
I want to be very clear about this. It is not within the mandate of the women's program of the Secretary of State to fund services for sexual assault victims or rape crisis centres. This program has never had a mandate to provide these kinds of services. It was not created for this purpose.
I would also like to make it clear that the majority of women's centres have survived in this country without core funding from the women's program.
What kinds of projects are funded by the women's program? Let me give you some examples. There are single mothers working to improve their economic opportunities; rural women developing information networks; immigrant women enhancing their skills; voluntary organizations working on child care issues; and women with disabilities organizing workshops on violence.
These few examples give the true flavour of the women's program. It is a program that meets contemporary challenges by assisting women and their organizations. This government takes its responsibility to fund women's centres across the country very seriously.

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Considering the important role played by these centres, I believe the provinces should do their fair share. I had a meeting last week with the Hon. Philip Warren from Newfoundland and this afternoon I will be meeting the Hon. Violette Trepanier from Quebec. My colleague, the minister responsible for the Status of Women, is having talks with the Hon. Carol Gran from British Columbia.

The women's centres and I share a common objective. We want the centres to remain open. I have provided the means for keeping the centres open. Let us take advantage of this opportunity-


Shirley Maheu: You've cut the programs.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I regret to interrupt the hon. minister.
I am sure that when members of the Opposition take the floor they will want to be heard and would certainly not be happy with the Speaker should the Speaker allow raucousness while they are speaking.
I would like hon. members to extend the same courtesy to the hon. minister.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I thank you for the intervention, Madam Speaker.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Poor little, Gerry.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I have had the pleasure of meeting with representatives of women's centres. I will continue to look for opportunities to meet representatives of women's centres. I have a number of meetings scheduled for next week. I am willing to talk. I would like to have a dialogue.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Why don't you meet with the NDP women?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: There is a reality. The core funding, as some have described it, is discontinued. Increased program funding is available, with what I have described as very flexible criteria.
The program covers some admissible expenses as part of the program. I am very concerned. I have indicated that I want the centres kept open. There are others who have the same interest. There is a growing coalition of
people who are interested in being supportive-and finally stop trivializing the importance of these activities.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: You are the one trivializing.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I have indicated that as quickly as applications can be completed, I will make sure that those applications are fast-tracked so that the money can be flowing to the centres. I am not sure what more anyone could expect, but I think that the individuals who have the concern of the women's centres at heart and the women's program should do all they can to help these initiatives come forward.
These are not easy issues for any one of us, and I know how concerned all members of Parliament are that we do the right thing.
What is interesting is that there is a very important program available through the Secretary of State. As I have indicated, within the Department of Multicultural-ism and Citizenship, we have made available almost $1 million through the program to immigrant women and visible minorities. There is over $2 million in the aboriginal women's program. There is increased funding for the disabled persons' program, and we know that almost 65 per cent of disabled people are women.
It is very important as we look at the over-all capacity of my ministry to respond to the growing needs of women in finally addressing the inequalities of the society that we be given the opportunity to help our client groups.
One thing that has been recognized has been the very positive and effective role that the staff and officials have always played in terms of their desire and their ability to serve their clients. It has been recognized by the people we serve that we have been easy to work with and that we have tried to be helpful wherever we could. This is the message that my regional people have tried to get out.
My associate undersecretary spent three or four days in Newfoundland attempting to help the several women's centres there bring forward their applications. I sense an openness on their part to come together, an openness to see how the project and the program funding can help them carry on.
What is even more important is that I see for the first time, a willingness on the part of Canadians from coast to coast to come together to make sure these important
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initiatives are allowed to carry on for the benefit of all Canadians.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Questions or comments? The hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam.


Joy Langan: Madam Speaker, I invite all the heckling they can muster on the other side of the House, if it makes them feel better. It certainly makes me feel better.
I would like to ask the minister some questions and, again, I would also like to set the record straight. When I have completed I would appreciate it if the minister would tell me how he expects women's centres to utilize program funding when they don't have core funding to pay the rent.
I would also like to point out to the minister that women's centres received five weeks' notice before their core funding was completely cut off. Five weeks is not nearly enough time to replace tens of thousands of dollars of funding. It is evident that obviously this government could not care less what happens to these centres.
The minister gave us a long list of the things that this government has done for women. I would like to talk a little bit about what this government has done for women lately.
I would like to talk about the fact that it reneged on its promise of a new child care system.
It proposed a recriminalization of abortion and removing women's reproductive choice.
It has called a .5 cent reduction in the wage gap between women and men a victory of the employment and equity legislation.
It has proposed a 7 per cent goods and services tax on everything from postage, books, tampons, haircuts, movies to transportation.
It has traded away women's jobs in the electronics, food processing and textiles industries.
It has backed out of its responsibility for unemployment insurance.
It has provided funding for the building of transition houses and shelters, but provided no assurance that there will be funding for programs.
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It shut women out of the consultation decision-making process.
It spent more money on loans to strip clubs than to women's groups.
It continues with an immigration policy which favours rich men, and it continues to discriminate against immigrant women in federally funded language training programs.
It has refused to fund women's work on reproductive choice, lesbian rights and the environment and peace.
It has decreased funding for women's groups in the last two years by $3.6 million.
This government, I am sure, is very proud of that record.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, I am not sure I heard a question. I did hear the member tell me that she did not understand what I said about core funding. That is what I heard.


Joy Langan: Point of order, Madam Speaker.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: She asked me to help her, Madam Speaker.


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


Joy Langan: Madam Speaker, as point of clarification for the hon. minister, I would like to point out that I did not ask for clarification. I asked him how he thought women's centres could-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: That is not a point of order. We are getting back into debate. The hon. minister has the floor.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, I want to be very careful so that I can help not only the member for Mission-Coquitlam, but perhaps other members and all Canadians who are watching.
I would like to talk about the words "core funding" and what they mean. I have heard in the last week or two how some may not be able to operate if these words are not reinstituted in the lexicon or the vocabulary of the ministry. Certain expenses, such as rent, lights, administrative overhead, staff-is that what the members mean by "core"?
What I am saying is that the criteria of program funding are flexible enough to allow those expenses as admissible expenses. If your funding ended on March 31, and I have indicated that we have increased project funding available for all the women's centres-not necessarily only for some that were funded in the

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past-then please help yourselves. Help me to make sure that you can continue to provide the very essential service that you always have because you know there was a time not that long ago when that gang was in office and you got nothing.


Joy Langan: Not true.


Mary Catherine Clancy: You're rewriting history.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: We recognize the importance of what you are doing. Frankly, I am saying that I am here to help you complete the applications.
We had an example concerning Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. I received an application on Tuesday. We approved it Wednesday. The cheque was delivered.


Joy Langan: It was a Tory riding, too.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: What better way can there be of guaranteeing continuity?
In addition, with respect to Newfoundland I was so thrilled that I received three pages faxed to me of new-found supporters of the women's centres, some of them putting money in envelopes.
I said: "Look at what we have done, look at the benefit. A coalition of Canadians, governments at all levels, private and public sector, all interested finally in guaranteeing the sustenance and the future growth and support of the women's centre. Look how important it has become now".
I will tell you, Madam Speaker, never will anybody trivialize an activity. We have the commitment of the whole community. This is Canada speaking. Wake up to the benefit of what is taking place.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, since the minister is obviously telling us this morning that project funding has turned into core funding-only the names have been changed to protect the innocent-I wonder if he could tell us if everyone who got funding under core funding is now going to get funding under project funding. What is going to happen to the people under project funding? Has the pie increased? Have we got so much money now that you are just changing the names? What is the story?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I thank the member for allowing me another moment or two for further clarification, Madam Speaker. I tell you the first requirement of having an application approved is to complete the application form.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We knew that.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: As far as we are concerned, our officers from coast to coast at the most senior level have been open and willing to do this seven days a week. I think it is very well recognized by the centres, and in particular the women from coast to coast, how able we are to do that. As far as I am concerned, as quickly as the applications are completed projects will be approved and the money will flow.


Mary Catherine Clancy: I didn't ask that question.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: I am waiting very, very patiently for all of the applications. I do not open files. There is opportunity now from coast to coast. New program funding is available. Our officers stand by ready and willing as they always have to be helpful. As I have indicated, they are recognized to be the most helpful people anywhere in the country.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the minister if he has talked directly to women who are working in women's centres, particularly the women in St. John's, Newfoundland, and British Columbia who have been so concerned and who have been trying to meet with him through the office of the Secretary of State. As well, has he talked to the the women in the Yukon and those women who are facing the closure of centres? A number of centres have already closed, as he should know.
Those women are saying over and over again that they cannot keep the door open. It is fine to talk about short-term program funding with a little token administrative cost on top, but that is not what we mean and he knows that. It is not what women mean either. It is for funding to keep those centres operational. Program funding is short-term.
I want to ask him if he has met with any of the women specifically, particularly women who are not Conservatives. If he has not, will he meet with them?


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It will have to be a short answer from the Secretary of State.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Madam Speaker, the answer is yes.
April 6, 1990



Yes, in both official languages and I am very honoured to be taking part.
I will be meeting again with women from women's centres this week as I have before. I have been very active since I have been in this portfolio, and indeed in the last months. I have been very quick to want to meet and carry on a dialogue with all the people working with our program.
In addition, it is important to note that I have now had the pleasure of meeting with one or two provincial ministers. I am pleased to see that we are all interested in bringing forward a process that will guarantee, community-wide, the support and sustenance of this very worth-while organization.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: It being eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 30(5), the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mrs. Suzanne Duplessis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Science and Technology)):: Madam Speaker, April 7 is World Health Day. This year, the theme will be health and the environment, and the slogan: "Think globally, act locally".
Together many countries throughout the world, Canada will continue to examine the extremely complex relationship between the environment and public health-whether we are talking about air or water pollution, the quality of food or promoting safe use of chemical products.
As a society, we have learned the hard way that we cannot go beyond certain limits without endangering our own health and that of other living creatures.
I would ask you and your constituents to stop and think a moment about your priorities. Are we doing enough? I
would say that in many cases we are not. Let's not just dream about a healthy environment. Let's make it happen.


EMPLOYMENT AND IMMIGRATION AWARD
Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Madam Speaker, my colleague, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, and I would like to congratulate the staff of the Cornwall management area office upon receiving Employment and Immigration Canada's 1989 Outstanding Team Award in the management area category in recognition of their excellent work and valuable contribution to the communities in this region.
The team, led by manager Denis Thibault, has met or surpassed project goals and targets for the last three years, consistently keeping within their budget while providing a client service built on dedication and respect for both employers and the available workforce. The team motto is "Our commitment is service", and they have certainly proved that.
The office installed computerized systems to upgrade operations in the employment, insurance, claims and administration sections and created an extensive catalogue of employers and data on the job market. This led to increased job placements and better service for workers requiring assistance.
On behalf of the people of Stormont-Dundas and Glengany-Prescott-Russell, we wish to thank the team and congratulate them on a job well done.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Madam Speaker, this country is once again facing a period in our history when we are all being called upon to be show tolerance and understanding of our fellow Canadians.
During the next several months we will attempt to amend our Constitution to take another step forward in the development of the Canadian nation. We are not taking the last step forward. This is not the end of the process of constitutional renewal. We must all refrain from taking rash or negative actions. It is a time for building on the progress that has already been made. It is not the time to destroy the work of others.

April 6, 1990
I am looking forward to the next few months as all Canadians productively put forward their views on the constitutional renewal of Canada.


Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Madam Speaker, as the B.C. newspaper The Province put it yesterday, the only thing certain about the Meme breast implant is that doctors and scientists are uncertain about it. At least five scientists in the Department of National Health and Welfare urge that the implant be withdrawn from the market.
The minister claims the Meme is safe on the basis of the Kerrigan report, yet yesterday the minister acknowledged that even Dr. Kerrigan believes that further studies are warranted to address the possible degradation and contents of the foam. This is the main concern and no one seems to be able to say the foam is safe when implanted into the human body.
I am not fearmongering as the minister has suggested. I am trying to get answers to critical questions. Surgitek of Montreal is the only Canadian distributor of this product. The foam itself is imported from Pennsylvania and since 1984, 12,000 implants of this particular product have taken place, 10,000 of those implants in the province of Quebec alone.
I urge the minister to order the withdrawal from the market of the Meme until safety has been proven.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, next week members of this House will be voting on the goods and services tax, a tax that close to 80 per cent of Canadians have said they oppose. This government has chosen not to listen to the polls, but perhaps government members will listen to their constituents.
Only 21 of 167 Conservative members are needed to vote with the combined opposition parties to defeat the tax. We urge Canadians across the country to phone their Conservative members of Parliament, raise this issue with them and tell them they oppose the tax.
In Saskatchewan, people in Kindersley-Lloydminster can phone their member by calling 882-3959; in Souris-
Moose Mountain, 634-5988; in Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia, 773-2887; in Regina-Wascana, 780-5555. In Manitoba, they can phone the member for Provencher at-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member's time has expired.


WORLD HEALTH DAY
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Madam Speaker, April 7 is World Health Day. This year the theme is "Health and the Environment".
Recent environmental disasters such as the Hagers-ville tire fire emphasize the need for all countries to examine and begin to address the environmental hazards that may pose continuing health problems for future generations of Canadians.
Canada is in an enviable position with its high standard of living, its excellent health and social services system and its incredible supply of natural resources. But we all know that no country can afford to be complacent. We must work hard to preserve what we have and ensure that our environment is a positive force for healthy living.
I would urge you all, both as individual Canadians and as members in your own communities, to think globally and act locally, and to urge your friends, your families and your constituents to do the same.


UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA CONFERENCE
Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Madam Speaker, I rise again to bring to the attention of this House the reaction of Canadians of the Islamic faith to current public usage of the term "Islamic terrorism", in particular with reference to an academic conference scheduled to take place this month at the University of Manitoba.
Although I am fairly sure that this phrase was not developed to deliberately insult or demean the Islamic faith, and although this unfortunate term has been used in other parts of the world and in connection with published works, it should be clear to us in Canada that this term derives from insensitivity and ignorance. For example, terrorism in an Islamic country is not more
April 6, 1990

Islamic than terrorism in northern Ireland is Catholic, or terrorism in Israel is Jewish.
Our continuing challenge in Canada and elsewhere in the world is to enhance our inter-cultural and inter-religious sensitivity and respect.
I am pleased to note that organizers of the conference on terrorism are incorporating into that conference a session which will reflect the principles of peace and brotherhood which underlie the Islamic faith.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Manicouagan):: Madam Speaker, many fishermen and plant workers, both men and women, have not been able to obtain unemployment insurance benefits this winter because the Liberal senators delayed approval of Bill C-21.
The non-elected Liberal appointed senators used all kinds of tactics to block this important legislation, preventing the application of the new measures included in the bill.
Who suffered and are still suffering? Certainly not the Liberal appointed senators, certainly not the Liberal opposition members, but the people living in 15 fishing communities on the lower north shore. They are the ones suffering because of that injustice.
These hard working and decent people are asking the Liberal senators: Why the delaying tactics? They want to know why they are held hostage because of political partisanship. They tell me that they are fed up with partisan politics being carried out on their backs. They want this bill to go through.


TOURISM
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Madam Speaker, tourism is the largest growing business in Canada, and this government is set on a course to destroy it.
Since 1984, the size and capabilities of the federal Department of Tourism have been steadily reduced by 75 per cent. The cuts to VIA Rail will effectively keep people from visiting many parts of this country. This all comes at a time when support for the industry should be
increasing in order to accommodate the world-wide rapid growth of tourism.
But most devastating of all is the proposed goods and services tax with its ill-conceived rebate which will be an absolute nuisance to travellers.
We have heard nothing but complaints from tour operators over this tax. As a result of an across-the-board 7 per cent sales tax on such items as hotel rooms, attractions and motor coach charters, many tour companies will no longer be able to market Canada as an affordable destination. A loss of tourist revenue translates into a loss of jobs.
I urge the government to stop this assault on the tourist industry by scrapping this tax and doing something for this country.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, on Saturday, Canadians can vote for or against the goods and services tax in malls and public places throughout Canada. On Monday, they can vote at their workplace. I suspect they are going to vote against it; at least the opportunity is there.
But what about Parliament Hill? We in the NDP have set up a balloting station here on the Hill. To be specific, it will open on Monday at 10 a.m. in the Commonwealth Room right here in the Centre Block. We are inviting staff, visitors on the Hill and MPs to vote.
As a matter of fact, I would like to specifically invite the Tory MPs, the back-benchers, to come and vote on Monday at ten o'clock. It is a secret ballot. I know many of them would like to vote against the GST; here is an opportunity.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, on budget night the opposition members from northern Ontario said that the FedNor economic development program was gone. This morning, the hon. Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism announced in Sudbury that an additional $14 million

April 6, 1990
would be allocated to FedNor initiatives for a total of $69 million that has been allocated to northern Ontario.
That means that to date $20 million has been spent, 260 businesses have been developed and 1,350 jobs have been created. For those in the opposition who feel FedNor is gone, this is the first time that any government has recognized northern Ontario with a special program and I applaud the government for doing so.



Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Madam Speaker: Tuesday in Tbronto Baseball will begin The Blue Jays take on Texas Our team is going to win.
Blue Jay fans will gather The Skydome will be full The PM is attending with President Bush in tow.
But there is more than baseball As all Canadians know The GST is going To strike a lethal blow.
So let us shout our message lx>ud and clear and slow:


Some hon. members:: Hey hey ho ho
The GST has got to go.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Oh! somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout, But there is no joy in Canada, Mulroney has struck out.
Madam Speaker, I invite you to join with me as we all shout:


Some hon. members:: Hey hey ho ho
The GST has got to go.



Pauline Browes: Madam Speaker, in today's Ottawa Citizen Liberal Senator Sidney Buckwold indicated that senators may likely delay the GST legislation.
Is the unelected Liberal senator saying that they will again attempt to block crucial government legislation for purely partisan purposes? I am sure that Senator Buckwold can recall his own words before a special joint committee on Senate reform. Senator Buckwold stated that the House of Commons is supreme. He also said: "Ultimately, in the case of a disagreement, the will of the House of Commons would prevail".
I hope the senator and his Liberal colleagues come to their senses and not only pass the GST legislation expeditiously but also pass C-21 so that Canadians can soon have the benefits of the law that that will bring.


THE SENATE
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a serious matter dealing with Senate reform. Last night the Prime Minister dealt another blow to Senate reform in the country when he said that he could not possibly accept an elected senator from the province of Alberta.
In a weird rearrangement of Canadian logic, he said he was elected by millions of people, the senator was only elected by thousands and that until he saw a new process in place completely, he would not accept an elected senator.
I would like the Prime Minister to use the House to explain to us how Meech Lake precludes an elected senator from Alberta. By denying Albertans the right to have another member in the Senate, he slows down the constitutional process and becomes the No 1 Dr. of Canadian politics.
April 6, 1990


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, next week members will be voting on Bill C-62, the goods and services tax. Close to 80 per cent of Canadians across the country oppose this tax, but the government has chosen not to listen to the people. Canadians rightly believe that this tax, if passed, will result in higher taxes, higher inflation, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment.
The main supporters of this tax are big business, the income taxes of which are being reduced. The government has used closure at the committee stage and now for final reading of this bill in the Elouse of Commons. I suggest that it is doing so at its own peril.
We are urging Canadians across the country to phone their Conservative members of Parliament to tell them to vote against this bill. For example, constituents of Simcoe Centre told me Tuesday that their member said publicly that she does not listen to her constituents on the GST because they do not know what they are talking about.
If she did say that, I for my part call on the member of Parliament for Simcoe Centre, whose phone number is-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member's time has expired.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
[English\

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister.
All across the country we have seen an unprecedented level of opposition to the government's goods and services tax. The ranks of discontent are growing from one end of the country to another. We see growing discontent in the Conservative ranks, in the Conservative caucus.
The more the government tries to explain this tax, the less Canadians like it. Eighty per cent of Canadians are now opposing the government's goods and services tax. If more and more Canadians are so fundamentally opposed to this tax, does this not mean there is something fundamentally wrong with it?
Oral Questions
Why will the Prime Minister not listen to Canadians and withdraw this tax now rather than try to force it through the House and shut off debate?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, we were elected by the people of Canada to lead and not to follow. We are going to lead even though the subjects are difficult and even though it means the government accepting a substantial degree of unpopularity, because doing what is right for the nation oftentimes means doing things that are difficult and unpopular.
Since 1924 there have been five Royal commissions or task forces telling the Parliament of Canada to get rid of the pernicious manufacturers' sales tax which we presently have. There was all-party agreement that the manufacturers' sales tax had to go. We agreed to get rid of it. The Liberals and NDP changed their minds because they are followers and not leaders.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, this government was elected to do what is right, but why does the Prime Minister not understand that what is right certainly depends not just on his personal judgment and that of his caucus but on that of Canadians? And, 80 per cent say what he wants to do is not right
Canadians are also saying that they do not believe the Prime Minister and his government when they say that the goods and services tax will not have much effect on inflation. Canadians know that when all of a sudden they start paying more tax on more things than ever before, they have less money in their pockets.
It is not surprising that workers in this country are taking steps now to protect themselves against the inflation this tax will bring and to protect themselves against the loss of purchasing power this goods and services tax will bring.
Why will the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance not admit today that this tax will cause more harm to the economy, more inflation, more damage than they have so far been willing to admit, and withdraw this tax? They should listen to Canadians when they say: "This tax is not right and we want the government to do what we have in mind on this essential subject".


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party challenged the Minister of Finance to a debate on this matter in Edmonton. The Minister of Finance went out and took on the finance

Oral Questions
critic from the Liberal Party, and we have not seen him in the House since.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Robichaud:: Cheap, cheap. That's a lie.


Mr. Speller:: Lie.


Mr. MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Lie.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The fact of the matter is that when challenged the Liberal Party said that what it was going give was more of the same: a manufacturers' sales tax that imposes a 13.5 per cent unfair burden on the backs of Canadian producers and that subsidizes imports so that importers can steal Canadian jobs.
We are making difficult and important but beneficial structural changes in the economy. We know that while it is unpopular today, it is in the national interest and, when given the choice during an election campaign between a party that took the tough decisions and a party that chose to hide its head in the sand, Canadians will vote for the Conservative Party.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the quality of what the Prime Minister is saying is demonstrated by the gross inaccuracy of his statement that the finance critic for the Liberal Party has not been in the House since the debate with the Minister of Finance in Edmonton. That is simply not true. The finance critic has been here continuously asking questions of the government on the goods and services tax, which the government has been unwilling to answer.

So I want to ask the Prime Minister: If his GST is so good for our economy and the present sales tax is so damaging, why did his government raise the present sales tax four times? Why, Mr. Speaker?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition surprises me. For almost 50 years, five royal commissions or rather, parliamentary task forces have advised Parliament to get rid of the pernicious tax we have today and replace it with a tax on consumption.


Fernand Robichaud: You raised the tax four times.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The hon. member has been sitting in Parliament for a quarter of a century. He knows perfectly well that everyone agrees the existing tax is pernicious and damaging to the economy, both our national economy and that of Quebec or Alberta. We received unanimous recommendations from the various political groups in this House. The government, well aware that such action is not popular, then proceeded to get rid of a pernicious tax that is damaging to Canada's economy. We took this unpopular action, and lo and behold, the opposition changed its mind. Instead of supporting the government in a major initiative that will promote economic development in this country and create jobs for our young people, the Leader of the Opposition has taken his party back to the past instead of leading it to the future. Canadians, however, will vote for a government that faces the future, a new future for our young people.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
Letters from 29 grade four students, co-signed by their parents and with a covering letter from their teacher, Mrs. Donna Cohen of Elwick Community School, reached my constituency office this week. All fear that tax on books will make their education suffer. They have asked me to tell the Prime Minister: "Don't tax reading. Have a heart and listen."
Will the Prime Minister listen to the plea of these school children and accede to remove the GST on books? Would he listen, as well, to the sentiments of their parents expressed eloquently by one of them, Mrs. Poitras, who said: "Illiteracy is slowly becoming a problem of the past, don't make it a problem of the future"?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, to follow up on what the Prime Minister was saying, we have chosen a modem method of taxation which is very good for the country and which has been chosen by 48 other countries.
We have organized it in such a way that it will be fair to lower income people. We need to proceed on a very wide base and then give credits to lower income people so that they can make their choices. A family with an income
April 6, 1990

below $30,000 will be better off after reform than it was before.
This is a modern reform. It will help the economy, and it will continue our effort to extricate Canada from the awful situation the Liberal Party left us in, in 1984.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Mr. Speaker, if those school children and their parents were here, it would be very simple for them to tell the minister that he did not answer their plea; he did not answer their question.
My supplementary question is for the same minister. Perhaps this one will be answered directly and correctly.
Treatment of depression and behaviour disorders is lengthy and costly. Under the proposed GST psychoanalysts who are not physicians will have to tax their patients for the same treatment provided tax-free by psychoanalysts who are physicians.
Will the minister rectify this inequity by exempting all health care professionals from taxing their patients under the GST or, better still, by scrapping the GST altogether?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, we are not going to scrap the GST because it is a necessary, good and modem way of dealing with a problem.
Referring to his particular area of concern, we do not want to use the tax system to change the organization of life in Canada. At the present time, the provinces have a responsibility to determine which services are accepted under health care. We have decided that whenever two provinces make a decision that a particular service is covered, we will do the same.


WOMEN'S CENTRES
Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State. Fifteen women demonstrating in the corridor outside the twelfth floor door of the Secretary of State's Vancouver office yesterday were dragged away and are to be charged with assault by trespass.
Oral Questions
Women across this country are being forced to risk criminal charges and conviction to let this minister know how devastating his cuts to women's centres are.
Will the minister meet with representatives of women's centres about the cuts?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, the answer clearly is yes. I have met with representatives of women's centres; I will meet with them; and I will want to continue to meet with them.
As far as the specifics of any incident are concerned, we understand that there are a lot of documents kept in the offices of the Secretary of State. The confidentiality of our clients is at risk. We must consider the security of our staff, who have provided excellent service to their clients through the years, and the client groups recognize how well they have been served.
Indeed, in this period some of them have been intimidated, hassled and harassed, not necessarily by the women themselves, but that is part of what has been taking place.
The administration has determined that we should be able to continue to operate and serve our clients well with some kind of security. I am not in charge of the security but the Undersecretary of State will continue to look after that and, I am sure, monitor it very carefully.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, does the minister not feel that dragging 15 women away from a locked door with people behind it is not intimidating, is not fear invoking and is not much of a response when one asks whether and when the minister will meet with women?
He says he has met with representatives of women's centres. He has never met with a representative of a women's centre in British Columbia. I would like to know where he met with women.
I would also like to know when he will respond to the letter from the hon. member for New Westminster- Burnaby about whether he will meet with the women MPs of the New Democratic Party, or are we too intimidating?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I have been willing to meet with as many of

April 6, 1990
Oral Questions
the groups that we serve as is possible. I am always interested in maintaining an open dialogue.
I have indicated quite clearly that all Canadians recognize how important a function women's centres fulfil and how essential it is that they continue to provide the opportunity for women to gain full equality in our society.
We have made progress, and maybe this is an important day to take the opportunity to examine what progress has actually been made. This government has a significant record of achievement. The appointments of women we have made to agency, boards and commission have more than doubled. The number of women at the deputy minister level has risen from seven in the 1984-85 period to more than twenty-one today.
Never again will women's programs or the activities of women be trivialized as they were in the days when the group opposite ran the government.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that the hon. minister was not able to tell New Democratic women MPs when he would meet with us. However, we will see how many women in Canada are convicted under this government.
My third question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Yesterday, the Minister of Finance gave his assurance to my leader that should any province decide to penalize those on social assistance by deducting money from welfare benefits to compensate for their receipt of the GST rebate, he knew that all members of this House would roundly criticize that approach.
We have information, Mr. Minister of Health and Welfare, and I would like you to confirm this, that the government of Quebec is currently deducting $3 per adult per month, $5 for each of the first two children and $1 for each subsequent child from benefits given to social assistance recipients from federal sales tax credits and child tax credits. Would the minister please advise this House what he intends to do about it.


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, when benefits are paid by the federal government to welfare recipients, we have a concern if provinces do not allow those benefits to be
passed on. In cases where this occurs, we attempt to encourage the province to reconsider its policy to ensure that the full benefit goes to those people who are intended to receive it from the federal government.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State. Yesterday, his department announced funding for the Second Storey Women's Centre in Bridgewater from his department's project funding.
Can the minister assure the women of Canada that every group who lost core funding will receive comparable funds from Secretary of State's project funding and, more important, that women's groups are not being forced to compete with each other for ever decreasing funds.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated very clearly, both in the House and outside, that there is increased program funding available. I have indicated that the program criteria have been opened up very carefully so that expenses which were previously admissible, under what some considered core funding-and hopefully I have helped everyone understand what that means-are now admissible under the project or program funding.
In order for the money to flow, in order for us to be able to help the women's centres continue to carry on their very vital activity, they must complete the applications. The applications must be sent in and then be approved and cheques will flow as they did to South Shore, where the Bridgewater Second Storey Women's Centre probably has its money this afternoon, with only a two-day delay from the time we received the application.


Mary Catherine Clancy: I only wish that the hon. the Secretary of State had had the benefit of attending the "wiener roast" that the women of Halifax held last Monday.

My supplementary question is also for the Secretary of State. The minister told us that women's groups now receive project funding. Can he explain why women who were demonstrating very peacefully at the Secretary of State's office in British Columbia were arrested yesterday?
April 6, 1990


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate the hon. member's willingness to participate in projects to support women's centres. Recently in Newfoundland, I received three pages from individuals or groups who came together and they are all prepared to contribute to the vitality and future development of women's centres. I think it is important that all Canadians do their part. Not all women's centres are supported by the government.


Mary Catherine Clancy: What about the group of B.C. women that were arrested yesterday?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Everyone knows that some of these centres are supported by the government; however, more of them are not supported by us.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. The minister knows that the people of southwestern Montreal are eagerly waiting for the government's response to the recommendations of the southwestern Montreal employment and economic recovery committee (CREESOM). In February, the minister promised that the government would respond by the end of March. Can he tell us today how the government intends to support the initiatives of the local community?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Labour and Minister of State (TVansports)):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Saint-Henri-Westmount should know that for 20 years, his party let the economy of Montreal deteriorate to such an extent that the number of jobs in the Montreal area continually declined while his party was in power. Our government has only been in power for five years, but employment in Montreal has increased considerably and, as we have shown in the past, we are aware that some regions of the Island of Montreal need additional help to make up for what was not done during those 20 years.
When we got requests for help from the east end of Montreal, we responded to the satisfaction of those concerned, except that we would like to do even more to assist those who cannot enter the labour market now because they lack the necessary preparation and need
Oral Questions
training. So would he kindly tell his colleagues in the other place to pass Bill C-21 as quickly as possible?


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer the question. He knows people have now been waiting since November for the government's reply. In February, he told us we might get an answer by the end of March. Could he perhaps tell us today when the people of Southwest Montreal will receive the government's response to the CREESOM Committee's report on economic recovery and employment in Southwest Montreal? When will we have a reply from the government and the minister?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, for reasons I mentioned earlier, we are giving very serious and careful consideration to our response to the CREESOM report, a response that will be aimed at correcting the same inequities the hon. member's party allowed to develop on the Island of Montreal for 20 years. An important aspect of our response to the CREESOM report concerns the issue of worker retraining and adjustment, and we waited as long as we could, in the hope the Liberal Party would change its mind. Considering the harm being done to people who are now unemployed and are waiting for retraining, we thought the Liberal Party would be able to persuade their colleagues in the other place to pass Bill C-21, so that we could provide the best possible response to the demands of Southwest Montreal. However, since that does not seem to be in the cards, we will have to give the right response just the same, in the next few weeks. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the members of CREESOM will be very pleased with our response.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Finance.
The economic policies of this Conservative government are having their desired effect. We have seen impossibly high interest rates, cuts in regional economic incentives, cuts in transfer payments for health and post-secondary education, cuts to UI and now we are seeing cuts in equalization payments to four provinces. For example, Prince Edward Island is going to lose $18 million, more dollars than they have lost already through Tory budgetary measures which will put P.E.I. into a

April 6, 1990
Oral Questions
deficit position because of this reduction in equalization payments. That province's finance minister has said it shows the direction the federal government is going, the provinces are being squeezed.
When is this government going to stand up for the poorer regions of this country?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, the record of this government stands for what we think about poorer regions of Canada. I will tell the hon. member that the results are what it is all about. This morning, the unemployment statistics are the lowest they have been since 1981.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Gilles Loiselle: How is that for devastation?
Of course, a lot remains to be done and this is what we are proposing to this House by modernizing our fiscal system, modernizing our trade with the free trade agreement, organizing our economy so that the full force and capacity can be there to serve Canadians. The government has a major role to play and is playing it and I am very proud of our decisions, particularly concerning the lower income regions of Canada.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the unemployed and the people in the fishery in Newfoundland do not quite agree with what the minister is saying. They and the farmers in Saskatchewan, women, women's groups, native Canadians and the poor are all feeling the cuts in their pocketbooks, and their families are feeling the cuts, too.
How do you have the nerve to tell Canadians families-


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


Chris Axworthy: I ask
the minister, how could this government possibly have the nerve to tell Canadian families, who cannot make ends meet, that they will be better off with less? How can less be more?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, the responsibility of this government is to ensure that the services the government has to provide to the population are there. The best way to do that is to get our fiscal house and economy in order. There are no short cuts.
I remind the hon. member that in our last budget we were very careful to devise our transfer payments in a way that would protect the poorer regions of Canada. But yet again, we must all tackle the deficit and debt together.
The government has maintained its increased programs at 3.5 per cent over the last five years, while the provinces have been moving up to 7 per cent, 8 per cent, 9 per cent, and in certain instances to 14 per cent. This cannot go on forever. This is money we are taking from Canadians. We have made transfer payments in a way that eastern provinces in particular and lower income people will be better served by our transfer programs.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Larry Schneider: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of State for Finance. At the same time, I would like to offer him my unswerving support for what must be done, namely, the implementation of the goods and services tax.
I realize that in the past the Department of Finance has done a remarkable job in its economic projections, and there is no good reason to believe that this will change.
However, I would like to know the government reaction in the event that the goods and services tax should take in more revenue than is anticipated. I know that the people of Regina would reject these funds being used to increase government spending, therefore I would like to ask the minister to tell us and the people of Regina- Wascana that if extra revenue should occur, will it be put to further reducing our deficit or will it be used for increased program expenditures?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member that the government has always said that the GST is an integral part of deficit reduction.
April 6, 1990

As far as managing the pressures within the system is concerned, we have reserves that are there for that purpose. To the extent that we receive greater income or greater revenues than expected from the GST or from any other source, of course they will be applied to deficit reduction.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister and it concerns the disturbing news that the federal government is again transferring its deficit on to the backs of the poorest of the provinces.
In the P.E.I. legislature yesterday-and my hon. colleague just alluded to it-the provincial Minister of Finance, Gilbert Clements, indicated that, because of an unannounced change in the equalization formula, Ottawa will save over $1 billion in 1989 which he says will mean big revenue losses for all of Atlantic Canada.
Will the Prime Minister confirm that there has been a change in the equalization formula, and will he kindly tell us why these changes were kept hidden from the provincial finance ministers until last Friday?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have not had the pleasure of reading the statement by the Treasurer of Prince Edward Island, to which my hon. friend referred, but I can tell him that the budget of the province of Prince Edward Island appears to be in virtual balance. It is a balanced budget in large measure due to the massive transfers of federal funds from Ottawa to Prince Edward Island.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the Prime Minister that that budget surplus has now been turned into a budget deficit in Prince Edward Island because of the $1 billion in cuts that it found out about last Friday. I will send the Right Hon. Prime Minister a copy of the statement so that he can read it.
My supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. At the veiy time that the Atlantic economy has been battered by a collapsing fishery, by hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to federal EPFs, and withdrawal by the
Oral Questions
federal government of regional development programs, we now find out there could be up to $1 billion cut in equalization payments to the poorest of provinces.
What actions does the Prime Minister plan to take to address this very serious loss of revenue to all of Atlantic Canada, and why does he continue to adopt and practice the cruel "kick them when they're down game" on the Atlantic provinces of this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows full well that he is doing and has been doing a very serious disservice to the facts.
His partisanship obscures any value that he may bring to the House of Commons. Get the chip off your shoulder, and people will start listening to you.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Martin Brian Mulroney: This government, Mr. Speaker, is in the process of bringing forward a program for the Atlantic fishery, which has increased transfer payments to Atlantic Canada, increased EPF payments to Atlantic Canada and increased regional development programs from $182 million, where they were when the hon. member's party was in office, to $400 million a year. Premier Frank McKenna described this government in terms of ACOA as having brought forward the single most important vehicle for regional development in the history of Atlantic Canada.
My hon. friend should be congratulating this government for what it has done for Atlantic Canada.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State (Finance).
A minute or two ago, I heard him say that the goods and services tax has always been intended to be an integral part of deficit reduction. Yet we heard the Minister of Finance say in this House that the goods and services tax would be revenue neutral, which to most people would mean that the tax would not bring in any more revenue than the existing manufacturers' sales tax.

April 6, 1990
Oral Questions
How can the tax be at one and the same time revenue neutral and be an integral part of deficit reduction? No wonder Canadians don't believe anything the government says about the goods and services tax.


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that the hon. Leader of the Opposition suffers from an acute case of selective listening.
He should have listened to my colleague, the Minister of Finance, when he indicated that GST would reduce the deficit, because the present pillar of the federal sales tax is a porous one. That means that as it grows, companies evade tax. There is a lot of tax evasion and it threatens our resources. In putting together a modem, efficient system of sales tax the GST will prevent this and ensure that the government can deliver its programs and pay for them.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of State (Finance) says that the present manufacturers' sales tax is a porous pillar.
Canadians would like to know, if that is the case, why has the government raised this tax not one, not two, not three, but four times since it came into office, and the revenue, since it came into office, has grown by billions of dollars to the present level of over $18 billion? If that tax is so flawed, why has it done this?
I ask the minister, how can Canadians believe anything that the government says, when he says the new tax will be an integral part of deficit reduction and the Minister of Finance says the same tax will be revenue neutral? It is simply not believable.


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, you have to run with your old car until you buy a new one so we have made use of a system which was not a good system. We have devised a way of changing it. We have a system where there are 22,000 different private arrangements with companies, so this is a terrible system. It is an old system which has been there for 64 years.
We announced our colour before the election. We introduced a White Paper, we introduced a technical paper and we introduced a bill. Meanwhile, we have had to make do with a bad tax.


FUNDING FOR THE ARTS
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Last December, the Minister of National Revenue threatened the Canada Council over its funding of the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre Company in Toronto. This week, the chair of the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture threatened the National Galleiy with a funding cut because the gallery bought a painting "Voice of Fire" which was a controversial buy.
Does the Prime Minister's government still believe in the arm's length principle of our cultural agencies, a principle that means that while the government funds the agencies, the government does not get involved in the operation of the agencies? Does the government still believe in that principle, and if it does, will it start acting like it?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we believe very strongly in the concept of the arm's length arrangement with these funding agencies, although I suppose, like all Canadians, voters in Charlevoix, for example, are sometimes astonished when they see a grant for say $12,000 go out for something the rough equivalent of studying the sex life of the eastern fly. They find it difficult to understand the value of that for Canada.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is again talking out of both sides of his mouth. Either he believes in the principle or he doesn't.
It is easy to take a cheap shot at the National Gallery, as the chair of the cultural committee has, but he did not have the guts to show up when John Kim Bell came before our committee on native matters.
Given what the chair of that committee has done in the past with respect to the advertisements on the CBC, the trips to Africa for hunting, the comments on the galleiy now, will the government act like it believes in the arm's length principle and replace the chair of that committee?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am astonished at my friend's question because this government has increased the discretionary spend-
April 6, 1990

mg limits for the groups that dispense funds at an arm's length relationship with the government.
There is no case on record that I am aware of-and I would be happy if my hon. friend could bring one forward-of the intervention of myself or any member of the government attempting to insinuate himself or herself into the decision-making process of one of these granting agencies. Our attitude is best described by the fact that we have increased the funding to these agencies. We fully respect and acknowledge the importance of the arm's length relationship.
We also hope that those who make the decisions in granting these funds realize that they are not functioning in a vacuum. They are functioning in Canada in given circumstances. We hope that they will apply their best judgment, with an understanding that they are dealing with hard earned taxpayers' money.


PUBLIC WORKS
Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Public Works. It seems to me that the government is spending a great deal of time these days in court defending the tendering process for the GST data centre.
Can the minister tell the House whether the government went into this process with the decision having already been made?


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Minister of Public Works):: No, Mr. Speaker. We did this transaction in the usual way. A decision to lease was made by the accommodations branch and then it went to the realty branch. It was a process that was done to the best of our ability in an open and honest way.
When it was questioned we paid attention to Mr. Justice Strayer's decision. We carried out a re-evaluation and we decided it would be in everyone's best interest if we, despite the pressures of time, opened the tendering process again. This has now been done. The bids are being evaluated. The deputy minister will bring a recommendation forward and we hope that this will be done next week.
Oral Questions


M. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, does the minister agree that by changing the rules in the course of the process, his government has created a certain amount of chaos for people tendering bids for the data centre? Will the government investigate charges that the selection process is unfair and subjective?


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Mr. Speaker, I would reject immediately any suggestion that the selection process was falsified. As far as changing the specifications is concerned, we did not change the specifications, we only attempted to reflect as much as possible the special requirements that our client department, namely Revenue Canada, required such as security, access, working conditions and important things like this.


CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister for External Relations. At a time when the government has cut $666 million from the budget for the Canadian International Development Agency, spread over a period of three years, how can it justify spending $600,000 on the office of our ambassador-at-large and personal representative of the Prime Minister, the Hon. George Hees, who is acting as an advisor on food distribution in Third World countries?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I was away from the House and I read with dismay and astonishment that a question had been raised that would in any way tarnish the reputation of one of Canada's outstanding war heroes and parliamentarians, the Hon. George Hees.
This Parliament and this country should consider itself fortunate to have someone like George Hees undertake sensitive, important responsibilities checking on the distribution of food world-wide. I can tell you that at 75 years of age and after a lifetime of service to Canada, both in times of war and in peace, I was honoured to be

April 6, 1990
Oral Questions
able to appoint George Hees to that position. He has come through and filled that job in an excellent fashion which brings great honour to every member of the House of Commons.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I wish the Prime Minister had listened to my question because I was extremely careful. I respect Mr. Hees, and every member of this Parliament, I am sure, respects the outstanding record that he has contributed to this country.
But the fact remains, does the Minister for External Relations not feel that given this government's commitment to thrift, which it talks about so consistently across this country, that this office, costing $600,000, represents at least a duplication and at worst, a triplication, of the supervisory role in food distribution in the Third World and that this money might be better spent on the food itself and the aid to these foreign countries.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the insinuation in that question, and I know my hon. friend does not intend it that way, is very unfortunate and very misleading. There have been no additional costs to the Government of Canada, apart from the ongoing salary for the hon. George Hees.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: And his staff, and his flights.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend has staff himself to help him do his job. Would he suggest that Mr. Hees, doing a sensitive international job for the Government of Canada, not receive some modest assistance himself?
Surely it is appropriate that if you ask someone, a minister of the Crown, a member of Parliament for 35 years and one of Canada's most distinguished public servants, to undertake a sensitive job to make sure that food is distributed properly to Third World countries in the most efficient and expeditious manner possible you would want him to have the services of a modest degree of support staff.
I can tell my hon. friend that I was delighted to appoint Mr. Hees. I was also delighted to appoint the hon. Ed Broadbent to a job. I can tell you that the support staff that Mr. Broadbent enjoys, as well as the general salary and benefits package is a very nice one and compares favourably with that of other senior public servants. Why would it be otherwise? Mr. Broadbent is serving his country well. Mr. Hees is serving his country well. Why
would you pick on someone like George Hees? Why not just acknowledge the fact that he has been a tremendous public servant and let us stand up and celebrate what he has done for his country.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Prime Minister if he feels it is appropriate at a time when budgets have been reduced for overseas development assistance that he have a personal envoy who reports directly to him? Is it not public information, this very crucial issue of food distribution?
Further to the question from my colleague from Kingston and the Islands, does the Prime Minister feel it is appropriate that this should be a triplication of work with CIDA, with non-governmental organizations and with Canadian missions overseas? Does he feel it is appropriate that $612,000 per year is allocated for his personal information?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I am absolutely astonished at the fact that the NDP would allow a member of Parliament to raise this kind of question.
Budgets were being reduced but we still proceeded with the creation of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, of which Ed Broadbent is the president, and I can tell you that the cost of running that institute is substantially higher than $600,000 a year. The fact that we are cutting budgets does not mean that we should not be concerned about Third World development or about human rights.
In the cases of both Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Hees, they are doing a tremendous service for Canada. The hon. member in raising these questions is trying-inadvertently I hope-to undermine the reputation of Mr. Hees and should apologize to Mr. Hees in the House of Commons.


Lynn Hunter: Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clear that in no way do I impugn the reputation of Mr. Hees.
In light of this, will the Prime Minister now reassign Mr. Hees to a more appropriate act in his absolutely demonstrated commitment to the Veterans Independence Program? That is where the money should be
April 6, 1990

Routine Proceedings
going. If the Prime Minister is going to have a personal envoy have Mr. Hees work in the area in which he has expertise and demonstrated commitment.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, this question is apparently generated by cuts in budgets, if the hon. member wants the amount of $600,000. cut out, I can tell her that the cost of operating Mr. Broadbent's new institute is in the neighbourhood of $3 million. Would she want that cut? I do not think it should be cut, because even though we are going through difficult times, human rights is vital. Mr. Broadbent is a very good person to defend the cause of human rights just as George Hees is an outstanding person to undertake the responsibilities he is undertaking.
The NDP should be ashamed of themselves. This is a cheap shot.


POINT OF ORDER
Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, earlier during Question Period I may have violated a rule of the House when I referred to the absence of a member, which I ought not to have done. I think it is a generally accepted rule of the House that we not refer to each other's absences. The hon. member for Gloucester may have been present in the House more often than I have because my travels have kept me outside the House. I withdraw any reference to his absence.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


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



TRANSPORT


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 109,1 wish to table, in both official languages, the government's response to the second report of the Standing Committee on Transport, entitled: Via Rail and the future of railway passenger service.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Hon. Andree Champagne (Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-43, an Act respecting abortion, without amendments.
Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I would like to make a few comments. Clearly, a bill like Bill C-43 concerns a subject that is prone to controversy and has a high emotional content. I therefore wish to thank all members who sat on the legislative committee and who are to be commended for their serious and thorough approach. They have shown a degree of tolerance and respect that I find admirable and which is very much to the credit of this House.
We heard three ministers and 53 groups and individual witnesses, who provided a broad range of extremely varied views. Altogether, including briefs, telexes and telephone calls, we received nearly 2,000 communications.
Speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of all members of the committee, I also wish to express my thanks to all support staff in areas including research, legal affairs, translation and interpretation, and especially to our clerk. Their dedication greatly simplified my task and that of my predecessor as the chair of this committee.

April 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings



BILL C-60-REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-60, an act to amend various acts to give effect to the reconstitution of the courts in Ontario and to provide for other related matters, with one amendment.



BILL C-59- REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Geoffrey Douglas Scott: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the report of the legislative committee on Bill C-59, an act to amend various acts to give effect to the reconstitution of the courts in British Columbia, without amendment.



STRIKING-THIRTY-SIXTH REPORT OF STANDING COMMITTEE

Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the thirty-sixth report of the Striking Committee.



SPECIAL COMMITTEES


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House):: Madam Speaker, I believe you will find there is unanimous consent for the following motion:
That the Special Committee of the House of Commons to Study a Proposed Companion Resolution to the Meech Lake Accord be authorized to use parliamentary channels in order to solicit briefs and requests to appear before the committee and to announce its future agenda.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Does the minister have leave to present the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Is it the
pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today pursuant to Standing Order 31.
I am pleased to present the first one signed by 55 Nepean petitioners who are asking the Government of Canada to intervene in the release of one of Canada's citizens, Mr. Yih-Sheh Leo, who is being held in prison in Taiwan as a result of political interference for exercising his freedom of speech.


Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, the second petition relates to the goods and services tax. This petition is signed by several Nepean petitioners. It is something that is ongoing in Nepean and the people of my riding are very concerned about the imposition of this unfair tax.


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition with respect to government cuts to the budget for women's centres. It is signed by approximately 500 people from central Vancouver Island.
I would like to point out that one of the signatories of this petition is Caroline Gran, the minister responsible for the status of women in the province of British Columbia.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to present to the House today.
The first petition was collected in the city of Halifax. It is a petition directed at Parliament and concerns the intention of Canada Post to close the Halifax shopping centre corporate outlet at the end of March. The petitioners suggest that this is a major disruption and inconvenience to the large number of senior citizens, families, and other individuals in the neighbourhood who depend on the products and services, and inconveniences others who use one of the largest shopping centres in Nova Scotia.
April 6, 1990

The petitioners call on Parliament to ensure that Canada Post reverses its short-sighted plans and keeps a full service Canada Post operation at the Halifax shopping Centre.
This petition is signed by 750 people and is the first of two petitions I have submitted for certification by the House.
The second petition is signed by 165 residents of the Saskatchewan communities of Watson, Englefield, Quill Lake, but primarily from Watson, Saskatchewan.
They call on Parliament to save the national postal system and to ask Canada Post to stop its ill-conceived plans to sell off the postal service to big business. They say that rural post offices not only provide the service they need, but offer an important federal presence in their community.
The petitioners call on Parliament to refrain from putting retail postal outlets where there are existing post offices in their communities. The petitioners did not ask for retail postal outlets, they do not need them, and they do not want them.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: The
third and final petition is signed by a number of residents from the province of British Columbia. It concerns the goods and services tax.
The petitioners note that the proposed goods and services tax is an unfair form of taxation because of its lack of regard for taxpayers' ability to pay. They call upon Parliament to reject the current bill on the goods and services tax and replace it with a reformed tax system that would provide for fairer taxes on Canadians.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today on behalf of the residents of Metropolitan Toronto and region in support of Mr. Yih-Sheh Leo.
They urge the Canadian government to take immediate and effective measures to secure his release from the Taiwan government where he is being held prisoner.
Routine Proceedings


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Shirley Maheu: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of people in my riding who ask the government to reject the GST bill.

I have two more petitions on the same subject from Canadians from Baie Comeau to just about every small city between there and St. Laurent.
The imposition of the new goods and services tax will cause serious and unfair hardship to low and middle income Canadians and they ask this government to reject the project.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to table in the House a number of petitions signed by Quebecers from Plessisville, Laurierville, Princeville, Victoriaville, Art-habaska and Sainte-Rosalie, who are vehemently opposed to the position taken by this government in wishing to impose a new tax on goods and services.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I have a petition certified according to Standing Order 36 from a number of people opposed to the goods and services tax because it is unfair and bears more heavily on low income Canadians than high income Canadians.
They therefore urge Parliament to reject the goods and services tax and to cause the government to shift the tax burden from ordinary Canadians to those who are able to pay.
I have a further petition signed by 200 Canadians from various provinces, much more specifically concerned with the fact that since Confederation there has been a zero rate of tax on magazines, books and newspapers, and the government now proposes to include them in the goods and services tax, although uninhibited dissemination of the printed word as a cornerstone of democracy, culture, education, and a literate and productive society will be negatively affected by that application.

April 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings
Therefore they call upon Parliament to reaffirm the historic principles embodied in the tax-free status for the printed word by retaining the zero rate in the GST legislation and regulations.


LOW-LEVEL FLIGHTS
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: I have two more petitions, Madam Speaker. One is from a number of residents of Toronto who urge this Parliament to join with the Assembly of First Nations and the Innu of Labrador and other aboriginal peoples of northern Canada in opposing the use of their lands for NATO-NORAD attack training.
They demand that Canada withdraw its application for a NATO-NORAD base there and redirect Canada's NATO-NORAD funding toward enabling Canada's aboriginal peoples to regain control of their lands and their livelihood and promoting sustainable development for all Canadians.


VIA RAIL
Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, I have a petition signed by about 150 people from different towns in Ontario who are concerned with the government's policy on transportation,' its deregulation of air passenger service and its restriction of VIA Rail service.
Therefore they humbly pray and call upon Parliament to maintain, improve and modernize VIA Rail service in those areas of the country where it can provide a more rapid, economical, safe, convenient, environmentally sound and energy efficient alternative to other means of transportation.


CANADA POST
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions to table.
First, I have a petition signed by approximately 500 residents of the community of Lafleche in Saskatchewan who are protesting the decision by Canada Post to shut down their rural post office. I want to say that I totally agree with this petition.
I also have a petition here signed by the residents of the fine community of Dalkeith, Ontario in the constituency of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.
These 289 citizens of Canada are very upset with the decision of Canada Post to shut down the rural post office in the community of Dalkeith, a post office which
has been in existence for over 100 years. I fully and totally support this petition signed by my constituents.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Don Boudria: Madam Speaker, I want to table a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36, signed by a number of citizens from the great community of Windsor, so ably represented in this House by our hon. Leader, the member for Windsor West.
These people are terribly upset, and rightfully so, with the government's proposed goods and services tax. Hopefully at this eleventh hour the government will listen to the concerns of these fine citizens of Windsor and immediately drop its plan for a goods and services tax in Canada.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, I have the pleasure to present, pursuant to Standing Order 36, a number of petitions signed by British Columbians, in which they request that this Parliament reject the current proposal for a goods and services tax and bring in a fair and equitable tax system based on taxpayers' ability to pay.


Fernand Robichaud: Madam Speaker, I also have the honour to table petitions from people in the riding of Windsor West. They, with the people of Beausejour, wish to announce their strenous objections to the government's tax proposal, a proposal that is entirely unfair, and I am referring to the goods and services tax.

The petitioners oppose this goods and services tax because they say that it is an unprecedented tax grab from the pockets of Canadians which will hit them not only with higher taxes but with higher inflation, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment.
Therefore the petitioners humbly pray that Parliament will reject this proposed goods and services tax.


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Madam Speaker, I too have a petition to present pursuant to Standing Order 36, which is certified correct.
It is with regard to the goods and services tax as the ongoing petitions that I have provided to the House in the past. It says that the Minister of Finance's proposed goods and services tax is an unfair form of taxation
April 6, 1990

because of its lack of regard for the ability of taxpayers to pay.
They object 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 it forces low and middle income taxpayers to bear more of the national tax burden.
They call upon the government to scrap the tax and bring in a more equitable taxation system.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Derek Vincent Lee: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present to the House today a petition from residents of the greater Toronto area.
They call upon the government to exercise all of the means at its disposal to secure the release of Mr. Columbus Leo, a Canadian citizen who is incarcerated in Taiwan for reasons arising from his conduct related to his attempt to exercise democratic freedoms there.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Robert (Bob) Kilger: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the honour to present a petition signed by 797 of my constituents throughout Stormont-Dundas against the proposed 7 per cent GST. These names can be added to the list of over 600,000 Canadians who have petitioned the government to abandon this regressive and totally unfair tax. They join with the more than 70,000 who telephoned the Official Opposition phone-in campaign against the GST in calling upon the government to scrap this tax.
I urge the government to respect the wishes of the people.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 234, 242, 243, 251, 252, 254 and 255.
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Althouse: Has Agriculture Canada, in co-operation with provincial ministers, prepared a list of the interprovincial trade barriers in agricultural and food products and, if so, (a) what number of items does it contain (b) for each of the ten provinces, in detail, what are the trade barriers identified?


Hon. Donald Frank Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Agriculture):: A study interprovincial barriers to trade in agricultural and food products was undertaken by the Federal/Provincial Agricultural Trade Policy Committee. The purpose of the study was to identify interprovincial barriers and associated programs which inhibit the free movement of these products within Canada, and then develop ways and means to reduce them.
(a) and (b) The study did not provide a complete analysis of trade barriers maintained by individual provinces. An indicative list of the identified barriers and programs is attached. Some of these barriers and programs operated in more than one province. As a result, the total number of individual barriers was greater than those included in the list.
Indicative List of Barriers to Interprovincial Trade in Agricultural and Food Products
Compiled by the Federal/Provincial Agricultural TVade Policy Committee
June 1988
Technical and Marketing Regulations
-restrictions on distribution and sales of semen out-of-province apple marketing wholesaler licence requirements
-honey sulfathiazole regulations -margarine colouring restrictions -bonding and licensing of livestock dealers -prohibition on sales of UHT milk from other provinces -breeding pigs certificate programs -blueberry maggot inspection procedures -varying provincial standards for livestock transport trucks
-varying provincial truck and operator licensing require ments
-import permits for transportation of fur farmed and game ranched animals
-provincial livestock brand inspection (determination of origin)
-varying tax classifications of market garden/

April 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings greenhouse operators
-varying crop insurance/emergency pricing programs
-varying bee and bee equipment movement regulations
-restrictions on imitation dairy products
-grocery retailer listing fees
-provincial marketing boards
-provincial quality and products standards
-regional and industrial assistance programs
-provincial controls on fluid milk
-provincial market promotion programs
-provincial controlled pricing schemes
-provincial government procurement practices
-Canadian Wheat Board practices
-Canadian meat inspection act
-two-price wheat policy
-health standards (e.g., quarantine by regions)
-product standards
-Canada shipping act
Income Stabilization
-provincial income stabilization programs
Production Subsidies
-hog and chicken industry subsidies -greenhouse capital grants -swine incentive policy
-production incentive for farm separated cream and -industrial milk
-assistance policies for fruits and vegetables -livestock incentive programs -hog market development programs -dairy, eggs and poultry support programs -marketing assistance for horticultural products -crop and livestock production assistance -vegetable storage assistance -greenhouse energy programs -pork industry improvement plan -red meat plan
-crop introduction and expansion program -ethanol incentive program -crop production loan program -livestock cash advances -livestock tax credits -primary agricultural producers rebates -feed grain market adjustment program -pork producers debt retirement grant -farm income insurance
-beef cattle feed grain market adjustment program -feed grain market development program -potato subsidy
Input Subsidies
-limestone assistance
-fertilizer assistance
-land lease/purchase program
-farm fuel allowance
-farm fertilizer price protection plan
-lime freight assistance
Capital Grants
-capital grants programs
Transportation Subsidies
-live hog transportation assistance
-poultry marketing fund
-Crow benefit offset
-northern freight assistance
-western grain transportation act
-feed freight assistance
-Maritime freight rates act
-atlantic region freight assistance act
Processing Subsidies
-grants to regional slaughter facilities -marketing assistance program for pork -small food processors assistance program -food industry development program
Market Development Assistance
-export sales aid Development Assistance
-rural development authority -agricultural development fund -regional development assistance -northern development programs


Mr. McGuire: 1.	In 1989, did the Department of National Defence expend any flying hours conducting medical evacuations from Prince Edward Island and, if so, what total number of hours?
2.	Has the government spent $3.9 million on Prince Edward Island medical evacuations and, if so, over what number of years?
Hon. William Hunter McKnight (Minister of National
Defence):
1.	Yes, 111.6 hours.
2.	The 413 Squadron offers both search and rescue and medical evacuation services. Medical evacuation is a provincial responsibility and Prince Edward Island is the only province in which the provincial government does not offer its own medical evacuation services. The federal government, using the 413 Squadron, provides medical evacuation in Prince Edward Island and then bills the province. Between 1 April 1973 and 31 Decern-

April 6, 1990

ber 1989, the federal government spent $4.1 million for the provision of these services to Prince Edward Island.


Mr. McGuire: 1.	In 1989, were Challenger and COSMO aircraft used to fly the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers or government officials to cities and towns served by scheduled airlines and, if so, was there an expenditure of (a) flying hours and, if so, what number (b) funds and, if so, what amount?
2.	Since 1985, have backup Challenger aircraft been flown by 413 squadron to air fields in the vicinity of Prime Ministerial visits and, if so, was there an expenditure of (a) flying training hours and, if so, what number (b) funds and, if so, what amount?


Hon. William Hunter McKnight (Minister of National Defence):: 1.	Yes.
a.	1415 Challenger and 94 Cosmos flying hours were expended.
b.	The DND estimated incremental cost (cost of petroleum, oil and lubricants, spares, repairs and overhaul, travel expenses of the crew and ground handling charges) of providing this service in 1989 was $3.8 million.
2.	No.


Mr. Blenkarn: To the knowledge of the government, does the Senate provide two telephone numbers that any person in Canada can call without charge to be connected with the Senator of his or her choice and, if so, is it the intention of the government to provide such service with regard to the House of Commons and, if so, at what time and, if not, for what reason?
Mr. Albert Cooper Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons): All
inquiries pertaining to the administration of the House of Commons may be directed to the board of Internal Economy.


Mr. Blenkarn: For each month from September, 1989 to February, 1990, what number of telephone calls were received on the Senate numbers 1-800-267-7363 and 1-800-267-7362?


Albert Glen Cooper: inquiries pertaining to the administration of the Senate may be directed to the Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration.
Routine Proceedings "THE MORNING TOUR"


Mr. Blenkarn: Has the government incurred any expense in the production of a video in both official languages, entitled "The Morning Tour", from the Public Information Office of the House of Commons and, if so, in what amount?


Albert Glen Cooper: inquiries pertaining to the administration of the House of Commons may be directed to the Board of Internal Economy.


Mr. Blenkarn: Has the government incurred any expense in connection with the Public Information Office and, if so, in total, in what amount?


Albert Glen Cooper: inquiries pertaining to the administration of the House of Commons may be directed to the Board of Internal Economy.


Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Questions Nos. 235 and 236.
Due to the length of the responses, I ask that they be printed in Hansard as if read.


[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Saint-Julien: For each year since the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) was created, for each province, has the government allocated funds for research and development in (a) mining (b) the utilization of metals (c) industrial minerals (d) fuels and, if so, what amounts?


Hon. Arthur Jacob Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Due to archival constraints, the requested information, since the founding of the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) in 1975, is not readily available. However, for the years 1985 to 1990, the following provincial distribution of costs can be provided for CANMET research and development projects which have been contracted out to industry and universities:

April 6, 1990
Routine Proceedings
(a) Mining (excluding coal)
	1985-86	1986-87		1987-88	1988-89	1989-90
			($000)			(estimated)
Newfoundland	-	-	-	-	34.0Nova Scotia	-	-	-	-	260.6Prince Edward Island	-	-	-	-	-New Bnraswick	81.9	110.6	142.6	141.3	113.9Quebec	172.2	156.8	179.8	38.2	197.0Ontario	637.3	1,312.4	989.0	888.3	747.3Manitoba	364.8	578.2	350.9	278.8	153.5Saskatchewan	76.4	73.5	143.0	-	-Alberta	-	13.5	-	-	-British Columbia	-	-	10.0	-	82.7Yukon Territory	-	-	-	-	-Northwest Territories	-	-	-	-	-Coal Mining and Preparation	1985-86	1986-87	1987-88	1988-89	1989-90($000)	(estimated)Newfoundland	-	-	-	-	-Nova Scotia	125.6	329.3	133.2	147.6	177.6Prince Edward Island	-	-	-	-	-New Brunswick	21.1	39.4	- 21.7	17.5	-Quebec	6.3	-	69.7	20.0	38.0Ontario	101.4	444.9	220.4	393.1	396.5Manitoba	8.0	-	-	-	-Saskatchewan	-	-	40.3	9.0	-Alberta	424.2	291.9	457.6	333.2	217.8British Columbia	389.0	215.0	343.9	73.9	60.3Yukon Territories	-	-	-	-	-Northwest Territories	-	-	-	-	-(b) Metals and Materials	1985-86	1986-87	1987-88	1988-89	1989-90($000)	(estimated)Newfoundland	-	4.0	99.5	-	-Nova Scotia	-	22.9	22.5	-	-Prince Edward Island	-	-	-	-	-New Brunswick	8.6	-	-	-	-Quebec	258.8	258.2	152.1	58.1	26.0Ontario	1,185.9	1,453.2	1,184.7	655.0	824.9Manitoba	9.0	41.7	_	_	_
April 6, 1990

Routine Proceedings
Saskatchewan	-	-	-	-	-Alberta	361.6	214.2	232.0	154.3	166.3British Columbia	-	-	-	17.8	17.4Yukon Territories	-	-	-	-	-Northwest Territories	-	-	-	-	-(c) Mineral Processing	1985-86	1986-87	1987-88	1988-89	1989-90($000)	(estimated)Newfoundland	141.4	230.7	118.7	85.7	-Nova Scotia	236.0	497.0	561.0	349.9	226.7Prince Edward Island	-	-	-	-	-New Brunswick	173.8	260.2	227.9	186.3	215.1Quebec	793.8	845.0	826.4	582.8	262.5Ontario	927.9	1,570.6	977.1	789.5	795.1Manitoba	578.8	370.8	297.5	333.5	265.4Saskatchewan	118.5	161.5	159.8	96.4	38.7Alberta	105.2	24.2	50.3	148.5	174.9British Columbia	172.9	128.4	83.3	94.1	147.6Yukon Territories	-	-	-	-	-Northwest Territories	-	-	-	-	-(d) Fuels Technology	1985-86	1986-87	1987-88	1988-89	1989-90($000)	(estimated)Newfoundland	150.0	150.0	-	12.1	13.9Nova Scotia	202.4	326.4	478.8	441.1	127.7Prince Edward Island	-	60.3	36.2	19.2	14.7New Brunswick	555.2	220.1	150.0	466.1	662.0Quebec	1,004.8	526.3	778.0	556.4	852.4Ontario	2,860.8	2,905.9	2,600.9	2,299.0	2,308.6Manitoba	101.1	16.5	-	-	-Saskatchewan	125.8	271.8	403.2	353.4	270.8Alberta	430.5	803.6	2,413.9	2,215.4	3,647.3British Columbia	537.8	569.9	198.7	391.8	208.6Yukon Territories	-	-	-	-	-Northwest Territories	_	_	_	_	_
April 6, 1990
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[Stage Direction]
*
Mr. Saint-Julien: For each year since the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) was created, for each province, has the government allocated funds for laboratories in (a) Ottawa (b) Edmonton (c) Calgary (d) Elliot Lake (e) Cape Breton (f) Quebec City (g) Montreal (h) Val d'Or and, if so, what amounts?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Due to archival constraints, the requested information, since the founding of the Canadian Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) in 1975, is not readily available. However, for the fiscal years 1986-87 to 1988-89, the following distribution of CANMET's operating costs can be provided:
Average Operating Costs, 1986-87-1988-89 $/Year %Distribution
(a)	National Capital Region 51,244,000	88.4(b)	&(c)	Alberta	4,233,000	7.3(d)	Elliot Lake	1,421,000	2.4(e)	Nova Scotia	1,076,000	1.9(f)	Quebec *	-	-(g)	& (h) CANMET does not have any laboratories in Montreal or
in Val d'or.
NOTE :	The indicated operating costs, which have comprised
about 82 per cent of CAMNET's total costs in the past, will decline to about 76 per cent of the total during the next few years as a growing share of CAMNET's R&D program is contracted out to industry and universities. This will result from a change in the nature of CAMNET's R&D program as well as from a desire to diversify CAMNET's R&D effort. Moreover, the regional distribution will change to reflect the presence of the new energy laboratory at Varennes, Quebec.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The questions as enumerated by the hon. parliamentary secretary have been answered.


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


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Hunter:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should reinstate
core funding for women's centres, to enable those centres to continue
to provide essential information, referral and support services to
women.
Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I rise today in sorrow that I have to support this motion, although pleased that the motion was brought forward by my colleague from Saanich-Gulf Islands, but in sorrow that the need for a motion like this arises in Canada.
I might also say that I am devastated to see that the Secretary of State is no longer with us.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. The hon. member does know that referring to the presence or absence of a member or a minister is just not done in this House. I know she will be careful.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I am devastated that we have to speak on this issue yet again in the House.
We are looking at the Secretary of State cut of $23 million in total. We are looking specifically at the cut to women's programs of $1.6 million. We are also looking at the difference between core funding and project funding.
The hon. minister told us this morning that some women did not understand the difference, and I assure you that women understand all too well the difference between core funding and project funding.
First, the number of programs affected by cuts in core funding is 76, and I will discuss those programs further along in my remarks.
Second, core funding is a long-term kind of funding. It allows for long-term planning and for autonomy, an arm's length relationship to government policy. Project funding, on the other hand, is short term and limited to a particular purpose. If the government is changing the rules vis-a-vis the titles of these funding programs, all that is happening is something similar to a geometry

*

^I
April 6, 1990

program in high school: it is changing the letters on the theorems.
What is really happening for women across Canada is that they are being forced into competition with each other because the dollars are less. We have a $23 million cut right across the board in the Secretary of State and a $1.6 million in core funding, but the real answer is that there is less money available.
To be told as we have been told over and over again, today, yesterday, and so on, that women's centres will receive their project funding if they apply is insufficient and not at all reassuring. The women's centres that face these cuts nation-wide include 40 women's centres in Quebec, 7 in Newfoundland and in excess of 30 in the province of British Columbia. These women's centres provide a range of services that is unique and will not be offered elsewhere to Canadian women.
I recall when these women's centres first began to be set up in Canada. We have again been admonished by a number of people on the government side of the Elouse to look elsewhere for funding. I doubt that there is a woman sitting in this House today who does not know the exigencies of fund raising for women's groups and organizations that support women's projects.
Whether we are talking about national groups like the YWCA, or whether we are talking about individual women's centres, the problem is the same: without core funding from the government it becomes a futile task of going back to the same people time and again for ever decreasing dollars.
If the government is committed to equality for women, if the government is committed to alleviating the very real sufferings that gender inequity creates in this country, then core funding is the only answer.
Look at the things that this government decided to fund when it cut a paltry $1.6 million and devastated women's centres across this country.
We have just sat through the presenting of petitions in this House. We heard of thousands more Canadians who are against the GST. Yet, this government in its effort to sell this possibly most unpopular program in the history of Canadian parliamentary democracy has allocated between $11 million and $14 million, to sell the GST: $1.6 million to devastate women's programs nation-wide
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and $14 million to convince Canadians to swallow a pill that they absolutely do not want.
In my riding of Halifax visiting cabinet ministers will now have an office. This office will be decorated at a cost of $1.6 million. The same amount of money, $1.6 million, so that visiting cabinet ministers can have a place to relax in the city of Halifax.


Ms. Campbell (Vancouver Centre):: So they will have a place to work.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Well work, relax. I assure the hon. Minister of Justice that she can use my office whenever she wants if she needs a place to work. I would be happy to let her have it.
I suggest to the minister that my colleague from Dartmouth and her colleague from Halifax West would be happy to let her use their offices on the rare occasions when cabinet ministers need to work in Halifax.
Madam Speaker, $1.6 million for an office in one of the provincial capitals. The women of Canada understand what core funding is; they understand what project funding is; but they do not understand why they lost $1.6 million and why the exact amount is given to decorate an office.
Ceremonial state activities were allocated a $3 million increase in this most recent budget. I agree that there is a need for Canadians to see and to celebrate their country. But when women and children are suffering across the country, that is a $3 million allocation vis-avis a $1.6 million cut.
Finally, this year the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was allocated a $32.6 million increase. I am not necessarily saying that CSIS does not do a valuable job. That remains to be seen. The jury is out. But could we not have given CSIS $31 million and left $1.6 million for women's centres across the country? I think, in view of what this cut will mean to women on a national level, from St. John's to Victoria, that might have been something that could have been included in the budget.
Core funding no longer exists, we are told. But project funding has been increased. Project funding does not give the women's centres the kind of continuity and security they need. In spite of the protestations from the other side, it does not necessarily pay the rent. It does

April 6, 1990
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not necessarily pay the salaries for co-ordinators, and it does not necessarily pay the heat, lights and other things necessary to set up an office.
It is crucially important that it be brought to the attention of all members of this House, the kinds of things these women's centres do. We were told earlier that the federal government is not supposed to provide services for victims of sexual assault or battered wives, and so on. But one of the absolutely crucial services performed by women's centres is that they are a clearing house and a communications network for women who are otherwise alienated and isolated from the help they have to have.
Surely, no one needs to stand in the House yet again and remind any of us of the incidence of abuse of women and children. It is at a shocking and unacceptable level. Women's centres are in the front lines of fighting this abuse. They are not transition houses. They are not shelters. But frequently, for a woman in an extreme situation, the only place she knows to call is that place down on Main Street or that house where those women have those programs. She calls and is referred to the proper social service agency, if indeed there is one in the town in which she lives. If there is not a transition house or a particular agency, normally there are networks of women volunteers who will try to provide her with support and help to get her out of the untenable situation she is in.
Women across the country work an unbelievable number of hours as volunteers in women's centres. They work to help other women. They work, many of them, because there is no money available to pay them salaries, and so they do it out of a sense of survival for all women, out of a sense of duty, and out of a sense of what we must do to pull together.
The salaries that come from the core funding are hardly the kind of salaries to which anyone would aspire. The payment of part time and full time co-ordinators is still barely above a subsistence level in the country. Think about it again. We have talked about a maximum of 60 centres that are closing in the country, and the cut that is closing these centres is a mere $1.6 million. Start
dividing up that quotient and see what it means on an individual level.
One centre in Nova Scotia was receiving $46,000 and another $49,000. Well, nobody is living high on the hog on the portion of those grants that pay for salaries. Nobody is able to deliver services of the kind that were being referred to this morning.
These centres are clearing houses. They are places of communication. They are referral services. They are places of safety where women can walk in the door and say: "Tell me what to do next. Tell me who to go to for help. Tell me who can help me in this situation in which I find myself, that I can no longer deal with. Tell me". That is what women are saying in transition houses in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and British Columbia.
Even if the project funding keeps the doors open a little while longer, without core funding the long term hard work of these centres will go for naught. The switch from core funding to project funding is the end for many of them and the beginning of the end for the rest.
The cuts to the Secretary of State women's program did not just affect women's centres. Funding to research organizations was also cut by 20 per cent, organizations such as the Canadian Council on Learning Opportunities for Women, the Canadian Research Institute on the Advancement of Women, the British Columbia Women's Research Centre, and in Quebec, Nouveau depart.
These are organizations that have done incredible service for women in the area of knowledge and communications. They are the women who know what problems are facing other women in the country, what resources are available for them, what educational facilities are there, and what research has been done to assist them in a myriad of activities as they emerge slowly into a world that is all too slowly heading toward the eventual goal of gender equality. Again, these organizations are run on shoestring budgets. Many women involved with these organizations do so on a voluntary basis.
One of the issues which relates to core funding and relates to the whole spectrum of the way the government deals with women is, of what value is the contribution of women? What is the value of the work that women do in women's centres, with CCLOW, with CRIAW, NAC, and
April 6, 1990

the various other organizations across the country? What is the value of that work? It appears that the answer is, not very high.
We saw the increases to various government agencies. What did we see across the board for women? Cuts and decreases. We did not see anything that would tell women there is a light at the end of the tunnel, that we want to help them, or that we want to show them that what they do is valuable. We want to see gender equality as an end in the country at least within the lifetimes of some of us sitting here in the House.
I know that there are individual members on the other side of the House committed to this. I know this. I have worked on committees with those members. I know how they feel and I know what they think. I know it must be difficult, but there has to be a political will.
Women make up 52 per cent of the population. While it is true that not all women support the kinds of things we are talking about here today, it is also true that the vast majority of women in the country do support these things. The vast majority of women look to the government and say: "Why are you undervaluing and undercutting what it is we have worked so hard for over the past 10 to 15 years? Why are you stifling the voice of women by cutting grants to research? Why are you undoing the work that for the last 15 to 20 years of the most recent exhibition of a woman's movement has developed?"
Every woman in the Chamber has some experience of that work, some more than others. Every one of us has had some experience in that area. We are all, to a smaller or larger degree, committed to this work and to the development of gender equality. At least, I thought we were.
The women of Canada have received too many blows from the government, particularly over the past several years. We see that abortion is going to be recriminalized in the country. We hear that women's groups across the country are crying for better medical services, better access to medical services, better education and training, more child care and more of the services that are not frills or frosting but the absolute essentials for a decent life.
We know that the feminization of poverty is a fact of life in our country. We know that when girl babies are
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bom, as they go along in life they can expect, if they are university educated, to make as much money as a male high school graduate; if they are professionally educated, to make as much money as a single university degree graduate who is male.
My hon. colleague across the way shakes her head, but she can look at the statistics. Statistics Canada will tell her the truth.
These women can expect, no matter how much money they make or where they live, to have difficulty in finding adequate child care for any children they will have. They can expect to have difficulties and systemic barriers facing them in whatever profession or walk of life they choose. The vast majority of them can expect to end up in pink-collar ghettos. An unfortunate percentage of them can expect to be battered by their partners in life.
It is not good enough, Madam Speaker. You know it is not, I know it is not, and members on both sides of the House know it is not. The women's centres from St. John's to Victoria have been there and will continue somehow to be there. But the women who staff them will be paid less. There will be days in the winter that the centres will have to shut down because they will not be able to afford heat. There will be other times when they will not be there to provide essential services because they have lost core funding.
The women of Canada are fighting a battle that for a while we thought we might win. Without the political will, and without the dollars that that political will can and must generate, the women of Canada will lose this battle. They will lose this battle and we will all be the poorer for it. But they will not lose this battle quietly and they will not lose it without inflicting some wounds of their own.


Pauline Browes: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to make an intervention at this time. Equality and social justice for women in Canada is a high priority for all of us in the House and all of us across Canada.
We can be very proud that just recently the first female Minister of Justice was appointed. We are delighted that we now have the first woman justice minister and we can be truly proud of the outstanding background which she brings to this portfolio.

April 6, 1990
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Let us get to the core funding applications and project funding applications about which my colleague has spoken. The core funding applications have been annual applications, not long term applications. They must be applied for every year. Every project needs to have an application.
In the last few weeks the minister has reiterated the importance of flexibility in the program. These moneys are to be used for such things as rent, light and heat. The minister has asked the women's groups to forward applications. The staff has been available to assist in filling out the applications. We are prepared to expedite those applications in order that the funding is available. I think the hon. member, instead of inciting a situation, needs to see how we can work together to make this a very substantial program so we can attain what we are all looking for and that is equality and social justice for women.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her comments, but I am afraid I must correct a misconception on her part. It is difficult to understand the difference between core funding and project funding. It may have been a slip of the tongue, but what she said was that each project must be approved separately. That is quite true for project funding, but core funding is different.
Core funding is done usually every year, I agree. There are different lengths of time, but a year is the average. Core funding is considered to be renewable and it covers certain things that project funding does not. I further tell the hon. member, with the greatest of respect, that I asked the minister today in Question Period, whether or not he could assure the women of Canada that all those groups which lost their core funding would get comparable funding under project funding. I am afraid I received no such assurance and neither did the women of Canada.
Core funding pays for things like rent, heat, lights, and co-ordinator's salaries. Project funding relates to a specific project and, thus far, it is not within the project funding terms of reference-so far as we know and so far as we have been told by consultations today with the minister's department- whether or not a project can be keeping open the centre. It does not appear that can be the case, that you must have a specific project.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker, I would like to make a comment and ask a question. I would like to comment on a comment, if I may.
The Conservative member across the way has just said that the government wants to see equality and social justice for women. Well, why not just restore the funding? Why not just admit it was a mistake, or it has gone wrong, or it is not working, and just restore the funding? That would be the simple way of doing it. Governments have done that in the past.
We had a provincial government in B.C. that I never voted for and never liked, but sometimes the old Premier, W.A.C. Bennett, would say: "Well, we're taking another look at it" and something would change when there was a public outcry. Why the gobbledegook about core funding and project funding? That is just putting poor women who are overworked and underpaid through more bureaucratic hassle. Just restore the funding.
I have a question for the hon. member from the Liberal Party who just spoke. Is there another agenda here from the government? She mentioned more money for propaganda and advertising the GST. There is more money for the secret police. Are we, in fact, seeing the government trying to punish what they think are political opponents in the women's movement or, for example, native people? The government cut back native communications programming and so on. It is a paranoid government that considers that somehow these groups are not on its team. They are not the big business boys so it is punishing them. They are the groups in society which can least afford to be punished.
I wonder if the hon. member is hinting that there is another agenda there on the government's part and that it is not just an oversight. Is it a real agenda to kill these kinds of groups and to put them down, perceived in the paranoid way of the government that somehow these groups are in opposition to what it stands for?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from British Columbia for his comments and his question. Indeed, if I was hinting, I apologize. I agree, absolutely, that there is another agenda here. I am not absolutely certain that it is a political reaction in the manner suggested by him in that political opponents within the women's movement or native Canadians who have become politically active are being punished. I do not think that the level of reaction here is quite that
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sophisticated, at least not so far as women are concerned. It is my belief that in general the political will is that a woman's place is not in the corridors of power or in the seats of the mighty, or in-


Pauline Browes: What about the Minister of Justice?


Mary Catherine Clancy: One swallow does not make a summer.


Pauline Browes: What about the Minister of Employment and Immigration?


Mary Catherine Clancy: Two swallows do not make a summer. You can list them all. Six swallows do not make a summer either. Neither do two or three justices on the Supreme Court or the various supreme courts nation-wide.
There is a general response. The abortion legislation gives us an example of that, as do the cuts to women's programs. Women have become too uppity. They have made too much noise and it is absolutely time that some of this was squelched at the source.


Beryl Gaffney: They have to be slapped down.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Yes. They have to be slapped down in a political manner, I do agree.


Pauline Browes: Madam Speaker, I would just like to pick up on my question before the member from the NDP spoke. It was in relation to the question posed by the hon. member for Halifax to the minister.
What we are encouraging the women and groups of women to do is to make application. We want to keep the women's centres open and to have those applications in order to be flexible so that we can keep the centres open and make it possible for those programs that have been set forth by the women's centres.
In the blanket question that the hon. member is asking, we want to look at each application. Our staff is ready to co-operate at any time in order to provide the service.
I just want to say to the hon. member that the social justice program for women is really quite a remarkable one. If you think of the women in positions of power, 30
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per cent of the positions on all boards and commissions are now held by women, which is a remarkable increase from when her party was in power over some years.
We have the employment equity bill, the federal contracts program, the Canadian Jobs Strategy, and the changes to UI Act, Bill C-21, that we think is important to get through for training. There are the family violence centres and initiatives that have been put forth. There is $40 million in additional funds over the next four years to help the problem of family violence, $22 million for 500 new transition houses, and $18 million to help improve social and health services for Canadian women. Now that is a remarkable accomplishment.
When looking at the total picture, these are remarkable initiatives that the government has pursued and we will continue to work with the women of Canada in order to provide that social justice that we believe is so important.


Mary Catherine Clancy: I have just a short response, Madam Speaker. I thank the hon. member for Scarborough Centre. I cannot imagine why the women of Canada do not feel better. They just feel so good, it is a wonder then-heads do not fall off.
The number of programs can be cited and recited by the government members. There is this idea that the women just have to reapply. Why is the government changing the rules in midstream? Give them back the money, $1.6 million. The minister himself has said it is peanuts. So give them the peanuts and let the centres stay open. What is the matter? Are you afraid there is something going on in there that is going to do something dreadful to you? Come on. Be good. Be honest. Give those women back the money they need.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, I must certainly affirm what was just said by the member representing the Liberal party.
Before I get into my own remarks, I would like to extend my greetings or regrets to the member for Burnaby-New Westminster who was the instigator of this resolution and this debate today. I can tell you that this member, who has worked so hard for women, is at this time meeting with women's groups in British Colum-

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bia and will soon be meeting with women's groups right in the front lines in other provinces as well.
We are extremely concerned about what the government is doing to women, particularly to women's centres. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is really the symbol of so many things that are wrong about the government.
I would like to say, before I get to women's centres, that in my view the most cruel and inhumane cuts in this very devastating budget were cuts to Secretary of State funding. These cuts affected a number of groups: aboriginal groups, ethnic minorities as well as women. They were cuts also to the kind of programs that are helping powerless groups to speak out and to work for equality, cuts to advocacy groups of all kinds, to national groups in the case of native people who are working towards self-government, to communications publications that help groups to network and bring their issues before people to gain broad support, cuts to research and to self-help groups. I would call women's centres a selfhelp program.
Why has the government chosen to cut funding for disadvantaged groups that are struggling to achieve equality? I would just like to requote the statement of my colleague a few minutes ago. He questioned whether or not this was not the "actions of a paranoid government that is punishing political opponents"? I think this was a very astute comment by my colleague. Why are government members, and particularly the Minister responsible for the Status of Women and the Secretary of State himself, deliberately trying to silence the voice of native groups who are working towards self-government, ethnic minorities who are pressing to end racism and to achieve equal opportunities for various ethnic groups, women's organizations that are front-line advocates for equality which are part of the feminist movement across Canada and the feminist publications that are the link between women in this very large country of ours?
Obviously, the government does not want criticism. It does not want criticism of its policies. Of course, women in particular have had very much to say about this and about the fact that we are not moving nearly quickly enough towards equality in the country. My colleagues have noted a number of examples, as did the Liberal speaker a few minutes ago.
The government really does not want to have these groups that are speaking out for disadvantaged and so-called powerless people becoming powerful. That is, of course, what is needed. We need advocacy groups that will represent people across the country and get to the government, not only to criticize but to put forward positive ideas and positive programs and amendments to legislation and so on. I think this is an essential part of our democratic system. It is very important that the government continue to fund such groups. The government is deliberately cutting the voice of the most disadvantaged of Canadians.
We have heard over and over again today, and we just heard a few minutes ago from the member for Scarborough, about what a wonderful job the government has done in appointments. What good is lip service about equality, which it is also great at espousing, and token appointments to a few jobs, if, at the front lines in communities, women are getting poorer and they are increasingly being battered and abused? Their rights are not being respected. They are not able to get into equal employment with decent rates of pay, and they do not have child care. At the same time, the women's centres, which are there to help with critical problems, are being closed because of the need for a relatively small amount of money from the government which it has deliberately taken away from women.
This government also is the government that espouses multiculturalism. I say this as the multicultural critic. At the same time, it has cut federal funding for heritage languages, for advocacy groups that are speaking out at the federal level, and for citizenship and language training programs that are absolutely essential for newcomers to the country and others. These are all part of the same pattern.
Today, however, we want to concentrate particularly on the whole problem of the budget cuts of $1.6 million to women's centres.
Where is the minister who is responsible for the status of women? She has not been in the House today. She has not answered questions-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. The hon. member is an experienced member and I wish she would not mention who is and who is not in the House. She knows that this should not be done. Will we have to
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repeat this again and again today? I thank all the hon. members for their co-operation in this matter.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think my colleagues and certainly the women across the country who have been watching the House this week, and women who have been sitting in women's centres and been tossed out of women's centres, even being charged with offences, are well aware of what has not been said by the Minister responsible for the Status of Women this week. She has refused to answer questions. I have put several questions to her. She has refused to answer them and I think, indeed, that her colleagues have been protecting her. I think it is time-


Pauline Browes: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to correct the record. I am not sure whether the hon. member who is speaking now was in the House this week, but certainly the minister-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. This is not a point of order and the hon. member will have the opportunity on question and comments to rise and correct the record if she feels it ought to be.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I think the record will show that the member who just spoke has been on her feet much more this week than the Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
However, let us get back to the whole question of budget cuts to women's centres which are so devastating for women in this country. When we consider the number of centres that have been covered across the country by $1.6 million, it is really a very small amount. As I said earlier, this is one of the most insensitive and inhumane cuts. I do not blame women for feeling that this is the last straw, and that it is actually a direct attack on women and on the women's movement across this country.
A women's centre is a place for women to go when they need support, when things are falling apart at home, when they need to talk to someone who will listen and who will be sympathetic and give encouragement. It is a place to go when they have problems or ideas they want to share, when they have been battered or abused and they just do not know where to go for help. It is a place where they can help others, when they want to volunteer and help their sisters.
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There is so much that women's centres provide, and for such a small, piddling, little amount of money. The value that our society and women themselves have received for the very wonderful service that women's centres across the country provide is incredible.
I want to repeat what everybody on this side of the House has been saying today, and the minister did not seem to hear this morning, that women's centres need core funding. Do we have to keep saying it over and over again? They need basic administrative core funding to pay the rent, to pay for the telephone, to keep the door of the centre open, and to provide, at a very minimum a co-ordinator, who usually works seven days a week and many hours of overtime. The centres are open in the evenings and quite often on the weekends. Emergency services are available. When there is one co-ordinator then you can have many, many volunteers who will help as well. We can multiply the staff that is there to serve people.
I want to pay particular tribute to the women who have worked, and are still struggling to keep women's centres alive across this country.
I met many of them about three years ago when I was on the Secretary of State committee that toured this country several times and spoke to groups in every province. We held hearings because at that time the REAL Women were challenging women's funding of the Secretary of State program. We heard over and over again in every region about how hard women are working, and their dedication to overcome the hassles of having to constantly fight for resources to survive.
The minister and other members opposite have been saying that they would be nice to these poor women by providing fast-tracked project money. As we have been saying over and over again, project money is not the answer. That is not what they want. Project money is of no use if you cannot keep the centre open in the first place and if there is nobody to work with a core of people to develop the programs.
We also know that projects are just adjunct to what centres offer. It is nice to have specialized programs but first the women's centre has to be open and there have to be people there to welcome women and be there to help when women come to their sisters in desperation. You cannot have other programs, as I say, unless first there is core funding to keep it operating.

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I think the Secretary of State is really misrepresenting what women's centres want and need. I asked him a number of times today if he had or was going to meet with women in these centres? He said yes. I do not know who he has been meeting with. He would not name any of the groups and he would not say when he had met with them. He certainly would not go to St. John's, Newfoundland, when the women were sitting in at the Secretary of State centre there. In fact, he was the one, through his central office here, who approved police action to go in and not only remove women but to charge them for civil disobedience.
It is incredible. He is the minister who also has refused to go out to British Columbia to meet with women there. They have been protesting and I understand 15 of them were removed forcibly. This is not an isolated policy, it is a policy that has been approved by the minister and it is creating a police state for women in this country. It has got to stop.
When the minister talked about project funding he also neglected to say that this is short-term funding. It is not going to solve tire problem. It takes endless hours of bureaucratic procedure to allocate the money.
Probably one of the poorest communities in Canada is in downtown Vancouver, in an area called the Downtown East Side. The women's centre there, the Downtown East Side Women's Centre, serves the poorest women, street women, women who have come out of mental institutions, women who have alcoholic and drug addiction problems, native women coming from reserves and many of the most troubled women that you can meet. The Secretary of State in the Vancouver region, over and over and over again, refused funding for that centre. I want to put that on the record.
When I hear about all the other centres across the country that have had funding over the years and should have funding, I want to make a particular complaint on behalf of that centre. Yet that is one of the centres that has been writing letters to the editor saying how important centres are in fighting for their sisters.
The minister does not seem to care about this. In fact, I do not think he really even knows about it. Certainly the Minister responsible for the Status of Women, who should be down there in the Downtown East Side talking to these women, could not care less it seems. She
certainly has not given us any indication that she cares or even is beginning to listen to what women are saying.
As I said, we must have a commitment right now to reinstate the funding that the minister took away so brutally for core funding to keep women's centres operating. It amounts to $1.6 million to operate some 75 centres. I am not very good at arithmetic but that certainly does not amount to very much per centre, especially when centres do so very much with such a range of services and ways of helping, and with so many volunteer resources.
Other people have mentioned this as well. It is very hard for Canadians, both men and women, to understand how this government could not just maintain, but increase the funding for CSIS, the security force of Canada, by $33 million.
At the same time, the government cannot find $1.6 million to keep 75 women's centres operating across the country. I think we can see where the government's priorities lie. They prefer to throw women out of Secretary of State offices, to arrest them and to pay for rent-a-cops to protect the Secretary of State offices from these violent women who are attacking them. Actually, these women are conducting civil disobedience in some cases, but certainly to protest the cuts in funding and to demand their rights. I congratulate them for doing this.
This week I asked the minister how much the Secretary of State will be paying for the extra security of these rent-a-cop services that he feels are necessary to protect his staff and to protect his precious files. I know that no women in those offices are interested in getting into files, and they certainly are not interested in attacking staff. Maybe if they could get a hold of the minister, they might like to give him a wallop, but they certainly are not going to pick on people in Secretary of State offices. They were asking for the minister to meet with them, and, of course, this is what he has not done.
I must repeat again, where is the minister responsible for the Status of Women in all of this? She is supposed to be defending Canadian women. She is supposed to be
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listening to their concerns. She is supposed to be going to the minister and to cabinet on their behalf.
That is the purpose of this office. That is why the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, 20 years ago, insisted that this be a new position. Yet it is really a negative position now. It is incredible that in the one or two times when she has responded in the House, she has just angrily defended the government and its cut-backs. These cut-backs are decimating women's centres.
I heard the minister last night on the news channel. He was again defending his action in cutting core funding for women, and accusing people who did not like this of trivializing and marginalizing women's centres. That is the jargon he has been using. Women are trivializing women's centres by demanding funding to keep them operating. One of the women from British Columbia, from the Vancouver Status of Women, on the same program pointed out that in B.C., 21 centres received $478 from Secretary of State. In addition to fund raising, they provided 61,000 volunteers which valued at over $450,000. It cannot be said that they are not doing their part.
I see that my time is almost up. I just want to again say to women across this land: Keep up the fight. This is a fight for equality. It is just the tip of the iceberg. We must have funds for women's centres reinstated immediately.


Pauline Browes: Madam Speaker, there were so many inaccuracies in the speech by the hon. member that it is hard to know just where to begin.
First I want to say how proud we are of the work of the women in the cabinet of the Government of Canada, in particular the cabinet minister who is responsible for the Status of Women. Having had an opportunity to work with the minister on a number of projects and on a number of committees, I know of her commitment for the last 25 years on women's issues. It is a disservice for the member across the way to be making such statements.
First, let me point out that the regional offices across the country are set up in order to serve the public. We
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have citizenship documents there that need security. We also have the public property that has to be secured.
Most important, we want to be able to approve the applications that we have invited women's groups to put forth. If our staff in the regional offices are unable to serve the public because of interruption of their duties, I think the member across should be encouraging us to have staff approving and reviewing the applications and working with persons in a positive way in order that we can assist the women's centres in every way we can.
Our government has put forth a number of programs for what we might consider the double disadvantaged women. Having spent some time working in a women's centre in Scarborough, I know that there is a referral system. We refer people to other agencies and so on. They provide a great service. However I think it can be noted that the double disadvantaged women's programs are targeting money for disabled women, aboriginal women, visible minority women, and rural women. It is important that we do not overlook the tremendous commitment that we have as a government in terms of providing services in a whole range of areas through a comprehensive program. I think it is important that the member understand that.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, I would like to say that I have known the Minister responsible for the Status of Women and often sit with her on the plane going back and forth to Vancouver. I like and admire her. That is why I am so deeply disappointed, not in her as a person, but in this government. I am sure the government is behind this. This responsibility has become worthless. In fact it is a negative position. I just wanted to make that clear.
The hon. member mentioned that the Secretary of State offices are there to serve the public. That is also the purpose of women's centres, to serve the public, yet the government is shutting down the women's centres.
The women who are going into Secretary of State offices are not going to be looking at citizenship files. I would like to have one bit of evidence that has happened. Really, the simplest way to solve this whole problem, to stop the protest, to stop the sit-ins in the offices, to stop the need for extra security and paying for extra security forces, and to ease the government's apprehension is to reinstate the funding. It is so simple.

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It will not require staff time, and it will keep the services going that women are providing.
The hon. member mentioned services for double disadvantaged women. I could not agree more. In fact our task force that was looking at Secretary of State women's programs said that is where there should be special targeting.
I would like to point out the example, I gave a few minutes ago, of women in my riding, at a women's centre downtown. They are the most disabled women you could find: young native women who need and want to be off the streets, visible minority women and many immigrant women who do not speak English. That is a centre that has been refused funding. The government says one thing, but it does not carry this out in practice.
Women who are immigrants or have certain disadvantages are far more likely to go to an informal storefront operation, operated by other women who are friendly and caring, than they are to go a big bureaucracy or to go to Secretary of State office and talk to bureaucrats.
There are many reasons why women need these funds, and it is a small investment for the amount of economic and social value in return. I hope that the hon. member, who I know is a very sincere and hard working person, would do her best to convince the minister and the government that these funds must be reinstated.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Resuming debate. The Hon. Member for Charlesbourg.


Mrs. Monique B. Tardif (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to specify that, since I will share my time with one of my colleagues, I will only use the first 10 minutes.
I am a little confused by the motion before us today. I listened to the speeches made by the Hon. Members for Halifax and Vancouver East and I came to the conclusion that it is hard to change. It was 20 years ago that the Royal Commission on the Status of Women tabled its report.
If I personally asked my colleagues opposite whether Canada has moved toward women's social and economic equality in the last 20 years, I am sure they would both agree that the country and the government have made progress in that direction.
In the last six years, this government has also worked in co-operation with Canadian women to achieve women's equality in every sector, in particular by amending existing legislation, introducing new fiscal initiatives and appointing more women to influential positions. This is where it starts.
Let us take social reform for example. The reform of the Divorce Act and the adoption of certain legislative measures such as the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act have resulted in greater compliance with these orders and agreements. Several provinces have set up a computerized central enforcement machinery which is automatically triggered by the legal system.
To fight against family violence, Madam Speaker, our government has earmarked over a four-year period some $40 million, including $22.2 million which were used to develop 500 new facilities where victims of violence could find temporary shelter, in addition to the 1,400 emergency housing facilities already provided for by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. This assistance makes it possible for 25,000 other women and their children to find shelter and escape violence.
Of course, when we consider the progress made, we are all aware that there is still much to do, but I suggest this is a continuing process. What matters is that the situation is improving and that increased efforts will be made to improve it further.
To fight against family violence, the government has taken other initiatives, for instance in research. A veiy significant point, in view of some real cases, is the new awareness of the legal system. The awareness of the public, the allocation of special funds to native communities, and all the initiatives resulting from the federal legislation which came into force in January 1988 to fight against child and the sexual abuse.
Madam Speaker, the government has implemented other legislation to help and treat more fairly aging women. I refer for instance to the spouses' allowances, the survivors' benefits, as well as the amendments to the Pension Act and the Pension Benefits Standards Act.
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The purpose of these legislative measures was first and foremost to help women more and more.
Madam Speaker, I suggest everybody will agree that women are playing a more active roll in the economic life of this country and that, as such, they contribute still more to its economic development.
Today women are 44 per cent of the labour force. Statistics show that they account for 73 per cent of Canada's economic growth since 1980. In the last five and a half years, Madam Speaker, our government has done much to remove the obstacles that prevented women from participating fully in our economic life. One of these achievements was the passage of the Employment Equity Act in 1986.
Our government has established an equal-pay program to help federally regulated employers comply with the requirement that everyone be paid the same for work of equal value.
Recently, on January 26, the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. de Cotret) announced salary adjustments for some Public Service employees. Under a joint management-labour agreement, about 70,000 public servants in female-dominated occupational groups will receive on average $4,000 each in retroactive payments, as well as annual adjustments of 4 to 7 per cent.
The policies which our government has adopted over its term of office, and I already mentioned several of them, have provided women with greater opportunities to participate more in the economic life of our country and to contribute more to its economic prosperity.
The barriers that prevent people from obtaining better jobs and participating more in society are hard to overcome for some groups, in particular native, immigrant and illiterate women. Our government is continuing to establish policies and programs to eliminate these barriers and to help women prepare for a better future.
For example, to help native women we set up a federal-provincial task force whose mandate is to study the economic development issue and suggest ways to offer them more interesting challenges in business, management and self-development.
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After giving serious consideration to the needs and aspirations of women immigrants, we organized a linguistic training program to help them settle in their new country. The program, designed for immigrant women who are not in the labour force and who remain at home to look after their family, proved to be profitable and we decided to expand it. In 1988 our government invested $25 million to help women immigrants get used to life in Canada and improve their employment opportunities by offering basic language courses in their own country, expanding orientation and linguistic training programs in Canada, and offering these women a wider choice of training courses for specific jobs.
To my mind, Madam Speaker, the most constructive initiative taken by the government to give women better opportunities to take part in the various activities of our society has to be the $80 million five-year scholarship program unveiled in 1988 to encourage Canadian students to major in engineering, applied sciences, mathematics, agriculture, physics and biology. At least half of these scholarships will go to women. The contribution of women is essential if we want Canada to compete successfully in tomorrow's world economy, and this program reflects that fact.
Madam Speaker, our government has made a firm commitment to women's equality. Amendments already in place provide a stepping stone towards that goal, and we want to continue to work as a full partner in promoting the right of women to full and equal participation in our society.
We have also focussed on the needs and aspirations of immigrant women. We have set up a language training program.
In view of all those objectives, Madam Speaker, we can say that some things a have been achieved, but that there is still much to be done. And we believe some degree of cooperation is in order. The government program I am the proudest of as a woman is the Scholarship Canada studies fund. If I were sitting on the other side, I would make an effort to consider Bill C-21 and the harm it has done to women. I can tell you that I have heard of more problems and received more inquiries from women about that question than on any other. The same is true

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of the child care program that the other place has rejected as insufficient in 1988.


Shirley Maheu: Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Charlesbourg, but I would also like some further explanation. She mentioned the contribution her party made to women, the economic impact women have had in our country since her government took office, the strong commitment made to women, and the promotion of womens' rights. However, as far as employment equity, and equal pay for equal work are concerned, can she tell us how the Secretary of State can subsidize a group, like REAL Women, which is against equality for women and has made its position known to the Committee on Abortion? How can she explain that? And what about immigrant women. The immigrant women in our province, which is also your province, Madam Speaker, are probably the ones most in need of these women's centres. If we really want to promote equality for women, we must work with these centres. Battered women need those centres. The same goes for women in trouble. Back home, in Quebec, the closure of women's centres will cause almost irreparable harm. I would like to hear what the hon. member has to say about that.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Madam Speaker, as I would like to point out to the hon. member, we all agree that the work done in women's centres is most important. But this area must as any other reflect the changes our society has undergone. Reference was made earlier to progress in some areas. It is a fact that women's groups have contributed a lot to our society's evolution. We now have a co-ed society, which probably was not the case when you were going to school nor indeed when I was; we have a society where boys and girls share the same education system; when you go to a university you find that often female students out number male. If we do not face up to the fact that society has changed over these last 20 years, we will still be addressing the problems of 20 years ago rather than the present ones. We must be able to adopt and to change, we must find new ways to meet those challenges. On a number of occasions today, during Questions Period the minister had this answer: Submit applications! For core funding, applications have bveen made yearly anyway. Test the system, submit your applications. You would not have to
wait long for an answer. We will treat them on a priority basis so that you know exactly where you stand.
It seems to me this is a lot of noise rather than a attempt to find out what this is all about. Is the change so dramatic, or does it allow us not only to identify core needs but also to specify the scope of activity of an individual group?
I was once much involved with consumers'groups. At one time, we reviewed grant programs. I can tell you those programs are very similar to women's programs. However, applications once decided upon must be replaced by others.
As I said earlier: Yes, we have done a lot of things. But we are not ready to say there is nothing else to do. There remains a lot to do. We must move forward, it is imperative that those centres, those groups, keep on working. We are asking them to change their procedures, which does not mean we are not willing to keep on working with them, in the best interests of all women in Canada.


Mr. Ross Reid (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure and a privilege for me to speak in the debate this afternoon. The issue of the women's centres has been no more an issue anywhere in the country than in my own community and in my own province.
In Newfoundland and Labrador we have seen the threatening of closure of seven women's centres. At this time in my province they are playing a role that is probably expected of no other women's centres, at least certainly not to the same extent, considering the nature of the economy, the fishery and some of the many other difficult social challenges that we face in coming to grips with some of the realities that we see.
Nobody in our society feels the pressure, takes more of the responsibility and is left with more of the task of keeping a family together, particularly in a society like ours in Newfoundland and Labrador, than the woman. We are seeing in our women's centres and in other places an increased demand for services for the family and for women as our communities come to face and to deal with the realities that are before us.
Over the last little while the women's centres have played a tremendous role, not only the traditional role of advocacy and providing referral services and education, but particularly in providing a base from which women's
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groups-which are community and family groups-can provide other services either directly or indirectly. The women's centres have played a substantial role in the development of transition houses, crisis intervention centres and programming. They play a tremendous role in providing advice to those who need to know about a community or region as they provide analyses of current social trends, the effects of the economy and how a community is responding and the needs of that community down the road.
The women's centres have played a tremendous role in ensuring that all of us know what it is that matters to women, what is important to women and how their interests are best represented, best addressed and kept in the forefront of the minds of people who make decisions or who do things that impact on women.
Therefore, the ongoing role of these women's centres is clearly essential. This is something that I have made very clear to the Secretary of State. He and I have discussed this matter virtually every day for the last three weeks. I know that he understands the situation in Newfoundland and Labrador.
He has met with me and with the chair of the Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women. He has met with me and with the provincial Minister of Education who was representing his colleague who is responsible for the status of women. He has had his officials meet with officials of other departments on the basis of conversations that I and others have had to bring people together.
The point of all that is to bring together the resources of the Government of Canada, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and the community to ensure that the ongoing support and resources are available so that the women's centres in Newfoundland and Labrador can continue their work.
We can sit around and debate and argue about core funding, about this, that and the other envelope. My concern is that those seven centres are able to continue. They must continue.
I am not going to spend resources and energy banging my head against the wall, when in my view I should be out trying to deal with the situation that we have in front
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of us. That says to me that I, and I know others, including and especially the Secretary of State want to put together those resources so that we can continue the operation of these centres.
We have increased funding in Newfoundland and Labrador. That funding has a much greater flexibility that will allow us to have these facilities continue.
What is essential is that we meet and sit down with officials of the Secretary of State and representatives of the women's centres. The minister has said that he will meet with representatives of the women's centres.
We have seen the effectiveness when dealing with the Second Storey Centre in Bridgewater, a centre that we all know is very effective and has done a tremendous amount of work.
We do have the capacity to make this happen, if we have the will. The need is there. There is no one in my community who disputes that. What we need to do now with the help of the Secretary of State who has made it very clear to me, to this House and to people across the country, and who is prepared to be flexible and move forward with the type of funding that we need, is to ensure that the centres continue. More than anything, it is important to ensure that the centres do continue now and into the future, so that they can continue to provide the services, the voice and the education for women in my province where, sadly, it is still needed as much as ever.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On questions or comments, the hon. member for Nepean.


Beryl Gaffney: Madam Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to those who spoke before me. I am not speaking this afternoon on this subject as much as I would have liked to. I would just like to make a couple of comments before I ask my question.
There is no doubt in my mind, or in the mind of any woman who sits in this Chamber, that we have made great strides as women in this country. All we need do is look at the number of members of Parliament who are women, the number of women who are on the bench, the number who are educators to confirm that. Women are playing key roles in helping to change the fabric of our society in the way that our country is moving and governed.

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That is a positive statement. I am proud to be part of it.
There is also a segment of our society that needs our help, support, dollars and appropriate legislation because it cannot possibly survive or achieve the status that we would like it to achieve unless we do provide help.
I do not think these women want handouts. Women are not like that. We do not want to be on the dole. But there are some people in society because of their position in life or because of what they have been bom into who have no way out.
The previous speaker from Newfoundland stated that eloquently. He recognizes that in his own riding. I congratulate him for that.
I would like to look at a project in my own riding, the riding of Nepean, which is probably considered fairly affluent. But there is not a riding in this country that does not have depressed people, demoralized and deflated people. People in my riding and I have been trying to get a project going. It is called SWIN, Shelters for Women in Nepean. We have applied through the Minister of Housing for funding for that project. We can get capital funding for a shelter for women in Nepean where our women are having to be transported hundreds of miles away if they have to get out of an unhappy home situation. But there is nothing there to help with the operating costs. The government will help build a shelter, but where will the money for the operating costs come from?
To get to the cuts of $1.6 million, I wonder if the the person who was there with that big sharp knife cutting the money from these projects really looked and saw who they were hurting. It is not you or me, not us here in the House. They are hurting the women who can least afford to be hurt. I wonder if they looked at that and decided that it did not make any difference, if they thought that, after all, this is a women's program, let's cut it.
I would like the member to respond to that comment.


Ian Angus Ross Reid: Madam Speaker, first, I will comment if I may on my hon. friend's comment. One of the problems and the frustrations that we have in a province like Newfoundland and Labrador is that there are a tremendous number of services that need to be provided. But either because the provincial government has its priorities in a certain order, or because it does not have the resources, these services cannot be or are not being provided. That happens with eveiy provincial government in Atlantic Canada. It has nothing to do with parties or anything. That is just the way it is.
As well, the community is often not at the point of being able to provide a service. Needs emerge in smaller communities in rural Atlantic Canada. They have a long way to come compared to Nepean. I think my friend recognizes that.
What we have seen is that out of necessity one way or another, or because of a clear commitment, women's centres have provided a tremendous base of services to women and families, partly in the absence of other people being able to do it and partly, as I say, the commitment is there.
There is no question that we must continue to support women and women's programs directed to those people in our society in the sector that my friend was referring to who need the help the most. Tragically, so many of those problems befall on people simply because they are women. That is something that we must continue to work against in this country. Despite the great accomplishments that we on this side talk about, and which my friend acknowledges, women, simply because they are women, have a tremendous number of problems that the other half of us do not simply because we are men. In this country, that is wrong. It is not something that you change by law, sadly. It is something that you change by attitude.
In terms of commitment, this government has been committed to women in a number of ways. Hon. members have heard about it. I want to talk briefly about one program that we funded through ACOA.
Some $800,000-odd was allocated to develop a women's enterprise centre, to provide women a source of information so that they could start businesses, recognizing that women are under-represented in the business community in Newfoundland and that their capacity is not being developed, enhanced or released so that we can see economic development and job creation.
ACOA put in that amount of money to say: "Let's go. Let's see what is out there. Let's say to women, 'Come in. What ideas do you have? We will help you around the red tape.'" It is not money. It is not source funding. It is not grants or anything else. It is: "We'll tell you how to get other sources of money, what the red tape is, where
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the comers are and we will help you cut them." The commitment is there.
Family violence is another area. We are focusing on the illiteracy of women.
There are a lot of things in my province that we have been able to do, but an awful lot more has to be done.


Shirley Maheu: Madam Speaker, all human beings are bom free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. That is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I would like to stress the terms "dignity" and "brotherhood". In an increasingly violent society, where the number of the homeless and the needy is increasing, where can we find this spirit of community and brotherhood? In women's centres or, at least, in the few centres that will survive the budget cuts imposed by the Conservative government.
This is the second year the government has drastically cut back on funding for women's centres. It has entirely abolished core funding for organizations that meet a vital need in all communities. These centres, where the majority of the staff are volunteers, were created to respond to emergencies, but this government has said no, no more!
These centres are often the first place where battered women, alone or with their children, go to get some human warmth, assistance, information and especially support, in a crisis situation. Now there is no more funding to help these centres stay open, who will be there? Who will take over? Who will be on call 24 hours a day?
The unemployment rate is rising and, as was announced by the Minister of Finance, will continue to do so. This will only aggravate social unrest, aggressive behavior and poverty. As of next January, the GST will put additional pressure on all those women who already have trouble making ends meet. Where can they go? Where will they turn?
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More than 40 women's centres in Quebec alone will be forced to close because the government has cut $1.6 million in aid programs for women. And that, while they are often the sole bread winner. If we refuse to help them, how can they help their children?
And what about the large number of children who lack the very basics, who through these centres were getting some form of assistance and especially an environment that was less disturbed than what they were exposed to daily. All these children living in substandard housing and raised in an climate of despair and violence are the foundation of our society, but the government is abandoning them by cutting funding for women's programs.
Is this how this government intends to prepare our young people for the future, by forcing them into a life of misery early on? Is it trying to show how unimportant the future of this country is, since they are our future and will soon take our places?
Madam Speaker, I know full well that the Secretary of State will answer me that they will support at least 600 projects totalling $6 million, as he told us on March 26. However, he added, and I quote:
I realize there are areas where far more should be done, including
Native women, women who belong to visible minorities, immigrant
women and, of course, women living in isolated rural areas.
Since the Minister admits that far more should be done, how can he justify a $1.6 million cut to the Women's Program? The needs are obvious, often urgent, and this money is essential for some 75 centres. It is a matter of life or death for them and the Conservative government is condemning them to death, just to get back $1.6 million. We see how important the human factor is when it comes to money! How sad!
Mr. Speaker, the government managed to add $114 million to the budget for the Canadian Armed Forces in Europe, while the eastern countries are gradually opening up. It was able to find $33 million more for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. However, it was not able to keep, let alone increase, $1.6 million for the Women's Program. What a curious way to handle a budget.

Women's organizations have been providing for next to nothing the types of information and services which would cost provincial governments millions of dollars to take on. With the budget presented by the Conservative government not so long ago, how are the provinces going

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to find the resources to pick up the tab? Who will be losing in the end? Women and children-society as a whole.
What about the Canada Assistance Plan, CAP, which funds social assistance, but which also provides shelters for battered women? With the Tories slapping a spending limit on the three provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, what will happen to women in need?
Presently, shelters for battered women must turn away one out of every two women who come to them desperate for a place to feel secure in. Where will they go? What will happen to them? Does the government need that $1.6 million so badly?

Mr. Speaker, when I asked the Minister responsible for the Status of Women if she had good news for women's groups in Canada, and I would really like to have some this afternoon, she answered, "As the Secretary of State said, we are looking for a solution. He is prepared to release emergency funds to help these organizations apply for project funding."
I do not understand why, if the minister is prepared to release funds, he has to wait for an emergency. Can this government not do prevention instead of picking up the pieces? The solution it is looking for is so obvious: it only has to assure the women's centres of the money it intends to take from them. Is it not better to invest in something that works well than to have to start all over again in a crisis? Surely, without great effort, we could find a way to help the 75 centres stay open and continue their extremely useful work. When we take into account the efforts devoted by hundreds of volunteers and the help given to thousands of women at a critical time in their lives, we realize that $1.6 million is not much.
Who will be there when the next crisis occurs? The police? The emergency services? Canadian women are not asking the government that much. Don't they contribute their fair share? Why refuse them a little support when they are in dire need?
With the new legislation concerning RRSPs, the conservative government will give a tax break to people earning more than $86,000 a year that will cost the public Treasury a further $400 million dollars, and the same government has the gall to argue that it must cut $1.6
million in the Women's Program. Is that a way to meet the real needs of Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, we are gearing for year 2000 but we forget to prepare those who will be living in the next century. In 1990, the Tory government promised a higher unemployment rate, it cut funding of the Women's Program and capped Canada Assistance Plan contributions in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
Result: In each of the three provinces where a ceiling has been put on CAP benefits there will be no place for more than 50,000 children in day care centres. Has the government any suggestions for parents-single parents in most instances-who had planned to send their kids there?
Result: At least 75 women's homes will have to close down for lack of money. Whom will battered and desperate women turn to in times of crisis? The police?
Result: Ever more women are unable to land a job, but when they do find work they have nobody to look after their children. Who will offer them financial security? The welfare system!
It is a sad comment on our society when the government cuts off essential services and then spends $14 million to promote the goods and services tax which nobody wants and which will only swell the ranks of poor Canadians. Under such circumstances they find it increasingly difficult to keep their dignity and maintain a spirit of brotherhood.
Nothing warrants the $1.6 million cut-back which will force so many women's centres to close down. They exist because they meet a real need which nobody else wanted to meet. They exist because our society is not all that well. They exist because in many instances they faced up to critical situations which others would not even acknowledge. And now the government wants to get rid of them to save a paltry $1.6 million.
Has anybody measured the cost in human failures which will result from the closing of these centres? Has anybody considered its social impact? Has anybody suggested an alternative to face up to the critical situation which will result from this closing? And above all, can anyone explain the logic behind these cut-backs
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which, while helping nobody, create hardship for the have-nots in our society.

Mr. Speaker, the more I search, the less I find the logic in a $1.6 million cut, forcing 75 centres for women throughout Canada to close. In a period of Canadian life when tensions are high, poverty is on the rise, violence and crime are daily news and jobs are getting rarer by the minute, we need centres. We need centres for women to help them get through the crisis.
These centres ask government for a minimum. Daily, volunteers are there as a help, as a presence, as counsellors, with time to give and no pay to take. These are the centres the Tories are closing. This is the saving, $1.6 million, that will save the budget?

Why is the government so determined to keep women and their children live in misery? What have they said to deserve such a wrath? Is the government demonstrating his lack of consideration for Canadian women by aban-donning them in times of crisis? Is it because they never lived through such desperate situations that none of the members on the government side can sympathize with this cause and defend it. Yet, it is not necessary to have experienced every kind of hardship to support such a worthy project. Could it be that this Tory Government has doubts about the usefulness of these women's centres? Could it be the unavowed reason behind these cuts?
Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."
Mr. Speaker, slavery and servitude become the destiny of all the battered women who do not know where to go. It is the destiny of all those who have become homeless against their will. It is the fate of all the have-nots who seem to go through a series of critical situations. As a society, what are we going to do?
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I cannot accept the many excuses the Conservative government comes up with when asked to give back $1.6 million, an amount that should not ruin it, to the Equal Opportunities for
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Women Program. It would thus allow 75 women's centres to continue to deal with crisis situations.
Mr. Speaker, when women ask for help, the government must be totally responsive and support them. That is why I ask once again that the $1.6 million be reinstated immediately to preserve what is in place.


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the remarks of my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Laurent-Cartierville. At one point, she mentioned there are 80 women's shelters in Quebec, 40 of which received an operating grant from the federal government. If we look at the level of funding in Quebec, we see that these 40 centres received an average of $8,500 each. As I have often had the opportunity to work on grant applications, I wonder if an organization with very specific goals and the support of its whole community would have much trouble designing and presenting a project for less than $8,500 to the Secretary of State. I understand that, since the situation is not the same in each of the provinces, it would be hard to extrapolate.
I am talking about what is done in the province of Quebec. We know that all women's centres are also funded by the Quebec government as well as by municipalities and local social groups. But I know full well that it may not be the case in all provinces. In Quebec, that funding represents $8,500 for the operation of the centre. That is the present funding level. Does the hon. member think that the switch from core funding to project funding could jeopardize women's centres in the province of Quebec? I would like to tell her that, at the moment, the reaction we get is that the change will not jeopardize women's centres in our province. I would like to hear her response to that question. Does she think that it is impossible right now to switch from core funding to project funding?


Shirley Maheu: Madam Speaker, I wish to thank the honorable member for Charlesbourg for her questions. What I fail to understand, however, is this. Is it because there is not as much hardship in Quebec than in other provinces that $1.6 million, a trifle amount indeed compared to our overall national budget, is not considered important? In my area, women's centres have contacted me. If $8,500-enough money to pay for a volunteer for a year, I suppose-is nothing, why are those women so furious then? Why is the prospect of loosing a mere $8,500 per centre worrying them so much? As far as financial assistance from the Quebec government is concerned, we all know that all provincial governments have seen

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their transfer payments cut this year. Therefore, if the Quebec government has to pay a great deal of attention to health care and welfare services, I suppose that the women's centres will get the same deal. Again, what is $1.6 million? If you have close to a million to spare for projects, why not reinstate the $1,6 million program that made many centres happy?


Monique Bernatchez Tardif: Madam Speaker, I would like to reformulate my question. I was not talking about maintaining a grant of $8,500 or about doing away with a grant of $8,500. I was saying that in Quebec the average was presently $8,500, and I was asking my colleague whether the fact of going from core funding to project funding would really make a difference? Is the centre in her own riding, for example, not capable of submitting a project application instead of a grant application, and of getting about the same amount of money?


Shirley Maheu: If I take my riding, for example, the new projects are not eligible for core funding. The minister was not clear when he explained the difference between the two. All the women's groups are concerned that the same standards will not apply to both, so that funds will no longer be available. By the way, without the federal government grant, our local centre will not get any other grants. Therefore it will have to close. The situation is veiy serious.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments and questions for the previous speaker. I am delighted to see that the Liberals are supporting the NDP motion in the House.


Mary Catherine Clancy: We invented the program.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Well, they may have invented the program, but I think they have been a little tardy in coming to the defence of women in this debate.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: The issue was raised initially in this House by the leader of the NDP, Audrey McLaughlin. We are the ones who applied for an emergency debate.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. I am sure the hon. member means the hon. member for Yukon.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: You are right, I mean the hon. member for Yukon, the leader of the New Democratic Party. We are the ones who filed for an emergency debate. We are the ones who put forward this motion in the House and our critic, the member for New Westminster-Burnaby, has been to Newfoundland and Vancouver. She has been working with the women in the centres that have been affected by this program. She is the one who has sponsored the type of dialogue that is going to be necessary to ensure that women's programs in centres are in fact restored.
One of the things that we keep hearing the Liberals saying is that they are supporting this. Can the member recall some of the difficult positions women in Canada were in when the Liberals left government in 1984?
With regard to the issue of wage equity-


Shirley Maheu: How much are you doing for them in B.C.?


Mary Catherine Clancy: You did a lot for them in B.C., huh?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I think they are very, very sensitive over there. One of the things I have learned in the last two years is that since the Liberals have become opposition, they talk very nicely but they do not look back on what their record has been.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Where's your record? You don't have a record. You're a broken record.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I will stack the record of New Democratic Parties in Canada against the Liberal record any time. New Democratic Parties have brought in health care, pensions and other kinds of social programs. The Liberals talk very nice about what they are going to do with regard to women's programming, but then one has to wonder because they keep flip-flopping on every issue. One begins to wonder whether their promises mean anything.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Women, women's centres. Get on the topic.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Oh, right!
April 6, 1990


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: Order. I am sorry, I do have to interrupt. The time for question and comments has now expired. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Simcoe Centre.


Edna Anderson: Madam Speaker, before I start I would like to say that my 20 minutes is going to be shared by my colleague across.
I would like to make a few comments in addressing the motion before this House. The first has to do with the difficulty of bringing this country's deficit under control.
All members of this House are acutely aware that this government is saddled with an enormous debt. We are managing a debt which threatens our existing social programs. But, worse, unless this debt is reduced now there will simply be no hope of our expanding these programs or even contemplating new and needed social programs.
The Minister of Finance and this government are reducing the nation's debt. We have done what had to be done to bring government spending under control. We have started the deliberate task of building toward balanced budgets. It is only when fiscal stability is in sight that we will be able to consider the different social programs which Canada needs.
Yes, we have had to reduce spending in some areas. It was not a pleasure making those reductions. Let no one think otherwise. They were not made because we wanted to make them. They were made because we had to make them.
No reduction is popular. Everyone has a vested interest in some aspect of federal spending and they complain bitterly when that spending is reduced. No one wants their program to be touched.
The reductions we have seen are to areas in which we can no longer afford to participate, or in which we have to move more slowly, or in which other jurisdictions have a more rightful place.
Every member of this House acknowledges that there are women in need of help: women whose lives have been tom by violence against them, women who have been abandoned by their mates, or women whose lives have been disadvantaged. Every member will agree that women's centres provide that help, that they are there for women.
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However, every province in this country provides social services to people in need. These social services provide necessary information, provide referral to appropriate agencies, and provide support and counselling. These are provincial services so one may reasonably ask: Why was the federal government supporting another system of services?
Through the Canada Assistance Plan the federal government supports one-half of provincial expenditures on social services for women and other populations. Over the years the federal government has invested heavily in the core funding of women's centres. It no longer can afford to do so and provinces will have to assume more responsibility. However, note that the federal government will share one-half of whatever provinces spend on services for women in need.
As I noted earlier, there are many ways in which women are in need. We have all become acutely aware of the need for more and better child care. It was this government which was the first to do something to address that need. We wanted to do more and members opposite will recall how we were prevented from doing so by the other place. We all now wish that all elements of the national strategy on child care had been put in place. Not all were, and now we find ourselves having to go slower on child care than planned as we manage the nation's debt. However, both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Health and Welfare have stated on numerous occasions that a national child care program will be operational before the end of this mandate.
This strategy will enhance the well-being of families and children in terms of meeting child care needs. This will affect families all across the country, but some elements were put in place and they are directly helping women across Canada every day of the year.
The federal government has, as part of the national strategy on child care, implemented two major initiatives on child care. In this regard families now have access to enhanced tax assistance for pre-school aged children through an enriched child care expense deduction which was doubled to $4,000 per child in 1988 and a new $200 supplement to the child tax credit. Ihken together, these measures assist almost two million families. In addition, a child care initiatives fund has also been established to encourage innovation and enhance the development of approaches and services as they relate to child care issues by providing funding to projects that promote

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quality child care services for Canadian families. Women who must work have more affordable child care because of these measures.
The child care initiatives fund, which is just two years old, has had a profound impact on child care in this country. The government has already committed over $33 million in support of some 250 projects across Canada. Members will recall that priorities of the initiatives fund included the stimulation of services within native communities for special needs children, in rural and remote communities for parents who work part time or on shifts, and within multicultural communities.
All of these needs are being addressed. Let us acknowledge the facts. These are the needs of women. These are the needs of women who must work or whose child care arrangements make work difficult and complex. Addressing these needs lets women participate economically and equally. It helps women obtain the training and education which they need to enter and rise in the labour force.
Let us look at just a few of the projects being supported by the child care initiatives fund. In Montreal the Board of Trade is stimulating employer supported child care. It is persuading its members to develop services for employees. In Langruth, Manitoba the Lakeview Children's Centre is developing child care services for farm women of that community. Big city and small town, women's child care needs are being addressed.
In Edmonton the Franciscan Sisters have established multicultural services to support parents while they establish themselves in this new land. The Family Service Bureau in Regina will provide emergency services for sick children to assist working parents.
Projects to provide care to children after school until their parents are off work are being undertaken in Fort St. John, B.C. and Windsor, Ontario. Groups in Kent County, New Brunswick and Red Lake, Ontario are designing services which let handicapped children be cared for with other children.
Perhaps most gratifying of all is the success of the child care initiatives fund in assisting Indian and Inuit communities in the design and development of child care. Some
20 per cent of its projects have been awarded to our native peoples. Who more than our Indian and Inuit women deserve help? The initiatives fund is helping.
These are all demonstration projects. They are to test new and better ways of caring for children. Clearly the parents of the children served by these projects will benefit but, in time as other communities see what can be and has been done, the parents and their children in those communities will benefit. Most of all, the women of Canada will benefit.
While the motion before us would have you believe, Madam Speaker, that this government does not care about women, it is quite clear that we have initiated programs which are very much for the benefit of Canadian women. In these tight economic times we have had to make choices. We have chosen to support women and children.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member who just spoke would comment on some of these choices.
Does she really believe that the Halifax office for visiting cabinet ministers, at $1.6 million, is worth more than all the 75 women's centres across the country and the thousands of women they serve?
Does she really believe that Boeing Corporation is more worth $161 million, that is 100 times the amount we are talking about, than all the 75 women's centres?
Does she really believe that a $500 million increase to the Department of National Defence budget, which is now $11 billion-the $1.6 million for women's centres would have been one three-tenths of 1 per cent of that increase; not the budget, just the increase-is a better choice than 75 centres for women right across the country?
Does she really believe that ceremonial state activities are worth $3 million, twice the amount that has been cut from women's centres right across the country?
Does she believe the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is worth $32.6 million but all the women in Canada and their centres are not worth $1.6 million? Did she notice that most of these priorities of her government are male priorities?
April 6, 1990


Edna Anderson: I think that comparing the $1.6 million reduction on the women's program to a project that was announced and created two years ago is hardly a fair comparison. The cabinet ministers' office in Atlantic Canada is very important. It is actually going to help the government to have that.
Boeing has created a huge number of jobs for Canadians. It has a tremendous number of orders on file. In fact there are so many of them that they are going to go on creating jobs for Canadians.


Marlene Catterall: How many women?


Edna Anderson: I did not ask how many women. I am not sure how many are in there. I know my daughter is one of them; she is an engineer there. She is a good one.
I would like to point out that during the years 1979 to 1984, under the Liberals, $12 million was committed for women and our government has committed $56 million from 1984 to 1990 for women. I think that is pretty good.
I think that probably will answer the hon. member's questions.


Lynn Hunter: Madam Speaker, I would like the member opposite to respond to a question. Is she aware that the government has scrapped the national strategy on child care? Is she aware that the Canada Assistance Plan which provided funds for child care was also capped by this government?
She made a number of glowing remarks about this government's commitment to women, quite apart from what the motion addresses. I suppose, if you are asked to talk about wasps and you would prefer to talk about bumble-bees, it is nice to talk about bumble-bees. The motion is very explicit in wanting the core funding to be reinstated women's centres, but if she wants to talk about other things we are prepared to talk about other things.
Is she also aware that the transition houses in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are affected by this latest budget cut through the cuts to the Canada Assistance Plan? These transition houses, where women who have been battered seek refuge, are having their funds reduced. Is she aware of all of those things?
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Edna Anderson: Madam Speaker, I can start with the national strategy. The national strategy was a program that we had in place which did not get passed, as you will recall. I think the reason was a few members did not support it. There were three parts to that program. Two of them-


Marlene Catterall: Who cancelled it?


Edna Anderson: It did not get through the other-


Marlene Catterall: Your government cancelled it.


Edna Anderson: No, it did not get through the other place, either. Do you recall?


Marlene Catterall: Your government cancelled it.


Edna Anderson: No, that is wrong. That is not correct. We have promised it by the end of this mandate. It will come through before the end of this mandate. We have promised it.
The child care special initiatives fund, to which we have allocated $100 million over seven years, has been in place since April 1988. There have been 217 projects approved for a total allocation of $29.8 million. The tax assistance measures include a $200 supplement to the refundable child tax credit for pre-school children. This is part of that national strategy. I know as part of the strategy the government has proposed the expenditure of $400 million over the seven year period to increase the number of good quality child care spaces. However, the government decided at the time of the 1989 budget not to proceed-


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: I am sorry, I have to interrupt the hon. member. The time has expired. On debate, the hon. member for Regina-Was-cana.


Larry Schneider: Madam Speaker, this has been an interesting debate, which I know every political party in the House of Commons takes as a very serious matter.
I believe the debate is just a matter of semantics. Yet the public who are watching are probably going to take sides, and when they weigh the value of the debate at the end of the day, they will wonder how any specific issue would cause a split of opinion among hon. members, because everyone agrees with the importance of the matter before us.

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Therefore, we are arguing semantics, which is unfortunate because it does take up an awful lot of Parliament's time. Unfortunately, that seems to be the way it is.
I know that there are some members who were not with us earlier when there was this outbreak that caused those of us on the government side no doubt to sit with a smile on our faces at the conflict that appeared to be between the members of the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. It was an exchange, a series of mea culpas. I was there first, whose on second, what's his name is on third. Fortunately, it did not go on but it did seem to break the strain that seemed to be in evidence at the time.
That seems to be over, but I notice that there are two very strong voices in the Liberal party who no doubt will not let me go unscathed after I sit down. It is their job and I can see from the expression on their faces that it will be their absolute delight and pleasure and there will be a few more pleasures down at the other end of the Chamber as well. With that brief assessment of how I view where we have taken ourselves so far today, I wish to express that it is with pleasure that I have the opportunity to speak to the opposition motion concerning the reinstatement of funds to women's centres.
Madam Speaker, I want members of this House to know that we, the government, have had a longstanding interest in promoting the health and well-being of Canadian women. The federal government carries out, as you well know, a variety of programs that address the particular needs of women. In recent years, we have developed new initiatives such as the one to prevent family violence, to respond to the concerns that women themselves have told us are important to them.
Family violence is an issue of tremendous concern to women and to Canadian society generally. We estimate that between one in ten to one in eight women each year are physically abused by the men they live with. This means that as many as one million Canadian women each year are being abused by their husbands or partners. We also know that the majority of victims of child sexual abuse and abuse of the elderly are women. The Badgley Commission reported in 1984 that half of all young women have experienced some form of sexual abuse.
These figures are horrific. Ten years ago, we as a society were largely unaware of the seriousness and extent of this problem. Since that time, it has been women themselves who have worked long and hard to bring to light the problems of family violence and violence against women. This government has vowed to help them.
The federal government through the Department of National Health and Welfare and other departments has worked and worked hard to support women's groups in creating greater public awareness of these issues. We have supported public education programs, national and regional conferences, training initiatives and research studies to create greater public awareness of the causes and consequences of family violence. During this time we have worked closely and consulted with many women's organizations and services all across this country.
The federal government is and remains committed to working with Canadian women to create a society where women do not have to fear for their personal security and lives, either at home or in public. To this end, the federal government announced in June, 1988 a new federal initiative on family violence. This initiative, which is currently under way, has a budget of $40 million over a four-year period and involves 14 federal departments carrying out measures to address family violence. The Department of National Health and Welfare plays the lead role in co-ordinating this initiative.
Under this initiative, we are seeking to better co-ordinate existing federal activities on family violence, to augment these with new activities and to create better means of co-operation among federal departments, provincial and territorial governments and NGOs.
We are working on a number of fronts to prevent and reduce family violence. For example, we are supporting front line voluntary organizations that help women affected by family violence. We are developing new approaches to policing and enforcement. We are supporting research studies on better ways to treat offenders, providing services to native communities experiencing family violence. As well, we are supporting the training and education of professions to better equip them to recognize and deal with family violence. We are also working to develop, in consultation with provincial and territorial governments, provincial associations,
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business and non- governmental organizations, a concerted long term strategy to address family violence.
I do not think there is anyone in this House who has not had or heard of some kind of example of how much work remains to be done in the area of violence against women. My wife works in a related area and her work there has taught me much. Exposure to the problem has convinced me how important this work is and how necessary it is.
In the case of one pregnant teenage student in my wife's program, the teenager was pregnant for a second time. The pregnancy was caused by her father who, when the teenager indicated that she was going to the police, was struck on the head by the father with a baseball bat. She now suffers from a permanent lingering side effect of this assault. When she was asked why she and her mother did not leave, she answered that as rough as it was at home, it was the only home that they had.
New initiatives are required. One of the most significant elements of these initiatives is a new program called Project Haven which is providing $22 million over four years to increase the number of emergency shelter units or rooms for battered women and their children across Canada. Emergency shelters are an essential resource for battered women and their children. They provide short term accommodation and a safe haven for women and their children who have had to flee an abusive home. Research indicates that a typical victim of such abuse will have been beaten an average of 35 times before she seeks help. Emergency shelters, as well as providing much needed protection, also provide a supportive environment, counselling and information on the options available to women to deal with the problem of abuse.
Project Haven is managed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation on behalf of the Department of National Health and Welfare and contributes up to 100 per cent of the capital cost of constructing new shelters. The cost of operating the shelters after they are built will be shared between provincial governments and the federal government. We have agreed that provincial governments approve new shelters before we proceed with capital funding under Project Haven and we have established co-ordinating mechanisms with our provincial counterparts to set shelter priorities and to review funding applications. We have placed priority on serving
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areas which are especially underserviced in emergency shelter facilities and we will give priority to special client groups such as disabled, immigrant, rural and native women.
By the end of the four-year initiative, in March of 1992, we expect to have created an additional 500 new units for battered women. We estimate that these new shelter units will accommodate about 25,000 additional women and children per year on an ongoing basis.
To date, federal officials have negotiated final arrangements with their provincial counterparts for the construction of 301 new shelter units under this program. Project Haven represents a significant undertaking by the federal government to address the needs of Canadian women who have been victimized by violence. It is an example of the kind of co-operative undertaking we have been developing under the family violence initiative where we have worked closely with provincial-territorial governments and community women's groups. Under the current initiative, we have responded to the most immediate needs such as emergency shelter of abused women. We have also undertaken a process of consultation and planning with other government and non-government organizations to develop a long term, national approach to preventing family violence.
We expect that many of these longer term initiatives will become integrated into the ongoing activities of federal departments. We intend to continue our initiatives to prevent and reduce family violence and to continue to consult and work with women's organizations in this process.
As I noted earlier, family violence and other forms of violence against women remain a major concern and priority of women's groups and individual women across this country. Preventing such violence and obtaining full equality for Canadian women will also remain a major concern and priority of this government.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: On questions or comments. The hon. member for Surrey North.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: I have heard a lot from the government this afternoon about how much progress has been made for women in Canada. Usually government members keep referring to very high status, high profile women. There has been some progress made in terms of equality for women who come from families

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who have a great deal of power and a great deal of financial influence. But when you start looking at what is happening to women who are not quite as economically fortunate, you begin to wonder. Some of the programs they brag about, you should really take a look at. They talk about the family violence program on which they are going to spend $40 million over four years. That amounts of $10 per battered woman per year.
There was a lot of discussion from the previous speaker about Project Haven. It was supposed to provide 500 beds. Two years later it has provided 49 beds.
At the same time, in the last budget they introduced a limit on Canada Assistance Plan funding, which will limit the operating cost expenditures in provinces like Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
I have heard talk from the government about employment equity. Since this government has come to power, the wage gap between men and women has increased. When they came into government, women were receiving 66 per cent of the average wage of men. They are now receiving 65 per cent. It has been reduced. Yes, there are some very high profile women, including cabinet ministers, but the average working woman in this country is worse off.
They talk about pay equity in terms of the public service. Yet the government stalled for five years on pay equity and then only offered one quarter of what they were entitled to.
They have talked about language training for immigrant women. The government has not eliminated the inherent discrimination against women in government language training programs. Why did the government eliminate the settlement language training program that mostly affects women? It talks as if it is improving things, but then it eliminates one of the most effective programs, the language settlement training program that was mainly used by immigrant women.
It talks about native women. Well, I do not understand how any member of this government can get up and talk about native women, when it has just cut $9.8 million from native programs.
The most laughable one is when it starts talking about child care. This government promised and promised child care, and once it gets elected it withdrew all its promises and is now trying to suck the Canadian people in so that it can promise it again.
There have been problems in my own municipality with loss of child care spaces, loss of basic child care. It is veiy nice to have initiative programs which would be icing on the cake, if there was any cake. In my own municipality of Surrey, the women's centre-I could not possibly be out of time already.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The hon. member was recognized on the five minute question and comment period. There is about one minute and fifteen seconds let, and I thought he may want to allow the hon. member some time to answer.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Madam Speaker, I will certainly put my question. The previous speaker stated that this was all a matter of semantics. In my own municipality of Surrey in South Surrey-White Rock, the women's centre's core funding was reduced by $25,000. They have had to close their sexual abuse program, their battered wives program, and they are going to be able to keep the doors open by bingos and casinos. I ask the member whether he thinks that is a matter of semantics.


Larry Schneider: Madam Speaker, in the less than one minute that I am allowed to respond, I have made points on about six or seven items that my hon. colleague made reference to. I only wish I had the opportunity to address each and every one them, because certainly I could. I will respond to two in the very brief period of time that remains.
With respect, I am totally appalled at his example of our efforts being made only in areas that affect high quality or high status women. On the one hand, if there is not some acknowledgement being placed towards the very significant and real contribution that women can make in positions of so-called status, our efforts are deemed to be useless and worthless because they are, after all, not meaningful.
On the other hand, I can cite many examples and cases of situations where I have personally been involved representing the Government of Canada where our efforts have been made by and large at numbers of people who are suffering from a broad perspective of problems.
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The very last item the hon. member raises is the one about semantics. The difference between operating funds and program funds is, in a nutshell, the difference between having an organization that is responsible and accountable for its funds, as all members in the House of Commons must be, as opposed to those who are not. Simply to disburse a pailful of operational funds at a business location with an address and expect that it will do good things is not good enough for the people of Canada.
They have told us that they want all such funding sources to be truly accountable and responsible to the people of Canada. It is therefore to that degree, in that extent, that the hon. Minister of State, I think rightly, has made money available on a project by project basis.


Marlene Catterall: Madam Speaker, I do want to talk about these semantics which the previous speaker brought forward. It seems that a great deal of words have been put around the issue by the government, because it chooses not to address the issue.
The issue is women's centres, centres operated by women and for women. The issue is $1.6 million that the government has chosen to cut completely so that those centres have no federal funding. The issue is, will the government, or will it not, recognize its obligations to give women the ability to speak for themselves, to decide for themselves what programs and what services they need. Will the government restore the $1.6 million? That is the issue on the table today.
The government members so far have chosen not to speak to that issue. They have talked a great deal about what they have done for women. In the last three years funding for women's programs has dropped from $13 million to $9 million. It is a simple fact of life that with dollars in your pocket or in your bank account, you can accomplish something and without them, you cannot.
The government, not only by this year's cuts to the women's centres, but by last year's cuts to women's programs, again a matter of 15 per cent, has chosen to stifle the voices of women, to cripple their ability to gain equity in Canadian society. It is doing it not only through the women's programs. It is also doing it through having allowed the Court Challenges Program to lapse and giving it nothing but a temporary, interim amount of
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funding to carry on. What that has done is completely thwart the efforts of many organizations to bring to the courts the issues that are constraining women's equality, to attempt through the courts to firmly establish women's rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The attack on women, women's programs and on women's rights is not limited to the total cancellation of funding for women's centres in 75 communities across Canada. It is happening throughout government programs.
It seems to me that perhaps members opposite need to be reminded what the women's centres do. Fundamentally, they empower women and allow women to come together to determine their needs, to gain knowledge, confidence and the skills that they need to function fully in Canadian society whether that be as mothers staying at home, as grandmothers, as young girls growing up, as women entering the workforce or as women still in the workforce. That is what the government wants to cut, the ability of women to establish themselves clearly and unequivocally as full participants in all aspects of Canadian society.
Lest people think that there is no need for that, women have arrived and are sitting here in the House of Commons in miniscule numbers, but nonetheless they are here and we do not need to do anything more for women. I think that is the tenor of some of the discussions I have heard today.
I want to remind the members of the House that for many decades the status of women was determined on an 1876 precedent of British common law that ruled that women are persons in matters of pains and penalties, but not persons in matters of rights and privileges.
Every October, the women in this House and other women get together to celebrate the personhood of women that was decided in 1929. The personhood of women was never decided by a court in Canada. It was decided by the Privy Council in Britain. The last pronouncement of the Canadian courts on women as persons per se, was the following: "That since persons required for the public office must be fit and qualified, only men would be eligible for appointment to the

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Senate". They were ruling specifically on a request that women be defined as persons.
I want to talk very briefly about some of the indicators that women still are far from equal participants in society, that the disadvantages that any person can suffer in society are suffered double, triple or quadruple and more by women.
One in four women in Canada can expect to be sexually assaulted at some time, half of them before the age of 17. A million Canadian women are abused by their husbands or live-in partners every year. Fifty-six per cent of women do not feel safe walking around their neighbourhoods in an urban environment.
Over 42,000 women stayed in crisis shelters in 1985, with 55,000 children. I ask, as we think about women, that we remember that for the large part, women and children are still a unit. Children are the responsibility of women. While there may be some single parent fathers caring for children, the vast majority of children with only one parent are the responsibility solely of women.
What happens to those families? In the first place, if you were in a family headed by a woman, you were five times as likely to be poor than if you were in a family headed by a man. You were only one-quarter as likely to complete high school and go on to university, if you came from that kind of a family.
I want to put in a few statistics about the record of women and their economic status since this government has come to power. In 1984, two-thirds of all poor seniors were women. We hoped that was changing and that we were recognizing the poverty of women as a serious, social and economic crisis and moving towards improving it. But, no, in the last five years it has changed from two-thirds of all poor seniors being women to three-quarters of all poor seniors being women. In case the members opposite are not terribly good at mathematics, that is an increase from 66 per cent to 75 per cent of all poor are women.
I want to talk about why the women's centres fill an important role. The fact is that women experience life in our society differently than men do. There is very little in the public policy structure or in government that recognizes that. How often in the House do we see a male colleague stand up and address any area of their responsibility from the perspective of how a policy or a program or a budget decision affects women?


Lynn Hunter: It depends on which party.


Marlene Catterall: Only yesterday, I had to send a note down to the party on my far left to remind one of their key spokespersons that when he talked about the impact of free trade on businessmen, he was excluding one-third of the business people and the businesses in this country. It depends on which party, the member said. Ignorance and neglect of women's issues exists in all parties.
It is not only on the front of the women's centres where there have been cuts. Multicultural programs have been cut which will mean the closing of many heritage language schools and it is certainly going to mean the reduction of heritage language schools. Those heritage language schools are the vehicle through which many women are involved in a meaningful way with the rest of their community.
We are cutting funding to native programs, affecting the ability of natives to communicate with each other and to advocate on their own behalf. Members opposite should know that if you happen to be a woman from a multicultural background or a woman from an aboriginal background, you are doubly discriminated against and in double jeopardy.
I want to know why the minister responsible for this program sits there today and talks about project funding. I heard a very paternalistic attitude in that which says basically: "We know best what is good for you girls out there. Just be good little girls and tell us what you want to do with your money, and we will let you have it". The government will not acknowledge that women's centres, run by women for women, are a good thing because they give power to women to make decisions for themselves and to set their own course in life. The government says: "We will tell you what is good for you and we will let you have some money, if you are good little girls and behave yourselves".
I want to know why women have been arrested in St. John's and charged with public mischief for demonstrating quietly in a federal government office. They were sitting there quietly and making their presence known, nothing more, and they were charged with public mischief. Well, the public mischief is the Secretary of State.
Why are we so afraid of women quietly expressing their opinion that we lock government offices against
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them? Are they such a threat? The building owner, in whose halls women were demonstrating, did not choose to call the police. He did not find them an interference. He did not find public mischief, but their own government did.
I read into the record earlier and I am going to do it again, the kinds of choices that this government has made when it comes to cutting money and the kinds of choices it has made about where to increase its spending. The Halifax office for visiting cabinet ministers, $1.6 million dollars. That is the same amount that is now being taken away from 75 women's centres across Canada. Boeing Corporation, $161 million, 100 times the amount required to keep all the women's centres in Canada open. Then the increase in the National Defence budget,$560 million: one-third of 1 per cent of that increase would keep all the women's centres in Canada fully funded to the extent they are now. Ceremonial state activities was allocated a $3 million increase. I
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wonder if this includes the ceremonial investiture of the Governor General of Canada, where women were excluded from participating, even though they are members of the Governor General's Footguards.


The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Champagne):: The debate being concluded, proceedings on the motion before the House are now concluded, pursuant to Standing Order 81(17).
It being three o'clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday next at 1 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 3 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Monday, April 9, 1990