1991-06-13

Mr. Speaker:: I wish to inform the House that due to a printing error there is a page missing from today's Order Paper. The order of business should appear as page 7 and contains the two government bills which may be brought forward today for introduction and first reading as well as bill No. 1 listed under Introduction of Private Members' Bills.
Copies of this page are now available from the Clerks at the Table.
I regret any inconvenience this may have caused hon. members.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, June 12, consideration of the motion of Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre): That this House affirm that Ministers are indivudually and collectively responsible to the House of Commons for the activities of government including the management and conduct of the Public Service; that, individually, Ministers are responsible for the administration of the decisions of the govemement and the activities of public servants falling under their jurisdiction; and that, collectively, they are responsible for the
decisions of the government as a whole and the activities of their colleagues.
Mr. Speaker:: It being ten o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion of Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre), concerning the business of Supply.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.

[Stage Direction]
Arseneault
Dionne
Hoc kin
Marin
Merrithew
Nicholson
Atkinson
Foster
Hughes
McGuire
Nault
Parent
Rideout	Schneider
Thompson	Wood
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I declare the motion lost.
Motion negatived.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to four petitions.
[Editor's note: See today's votes and Proceedings.]

English]


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the report of the Legislative Committee F on Bill C-9, an act to facilitate combatting the laundering of proceeds of crime without amendment.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



WAGE CLAIM PAYMENT ACT


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-22, an Act to enact the Wage Claim Payment Act, to amend the Bankruptcy Act and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof.
June 13, 1991

Routine Proceedings


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I must say that that bill has a Royal recommendation.


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


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-23, an Act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: That bill has a Royal recommendation.


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

Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland-St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition today signed by people of my riding and the adjacent riding of St. Catharines which has to do with Marie Curie.
It states in the citation that, "We believe that the gift of the discovery of radium to heal the sick of the world deserves to be recognized by Canada". I wholeheartedly concur with this petition and would ask the government to consider this petition in its deliberations.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the honour to present a petition on behalf of a number of residents of Val-des-Monts, the Magdalen Islands, and other petitioners.
Your petitioners ask the government to reject wage controls and reaffirm its support for the exercise of bargaining rights by all Canadian workers.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, as a participant in an education initiative, I received an extraordinary response from petitioners across Canada.
Your petitioners argue that Canada wants to remain competitive on the international scene and maintain its
status as a top-ranking nation and that Canada wants to reduce its functional illiteracy rate, which now stands at 38 per cent, in order to provide better training for its workers.
Wherefore, Mr. Speaker, your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to urge this government to promote and encourage national standards for education, in consultation with provincial and territorial governments, education professionals, employers and workers, parents, young people, volunteer organizations and ordinary citizens.
Mr. Speaker, these petitioners, whom I have the honour to represent and on whose behalf I have tabled these petitions come from Quebec and Ontario, and in the latter province from Nepean, Ottawa Centre, Orleans and Gloucester.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure to rise and present a petition today from people from Inuvik in the Northwest Territories, from Prince Rupert, B.C., Penticton, B.C., North Vancouver, Vancouver, Kelowna, and from Westbank, B.C., all objecting to the government's plans to introduce a wage freeze for its workers. They point out that such a wage freeze is an unwarranted interference with the collective bargaining rights of all workers across Canada. They believe the responsibility for inflation lies with the government's high interest rate, high dollar policies, and 33 new tax increases and not with runaway wage demands by workers from all parts of Canada. They also believe taking purchasing power out of the hands of consumers only deepens and prolongs the recession.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions I would like to present to the House today. They have both been certified by the Clerk under Standing Order 36. They are all okay.
The first petition is a very important one about RCMP services throughout the country.
The petitioners call on the government to ensure that there is proper funding for the RCMP. We know that a reprieve has been given on this for a year. We are thankful for that. Of course, it is most important that this government treat the RCMP importantly and provide the proper funding in British Columbia in particular, as represented by the NDP caucus there.

June 13, 1991
Supply VIA RAIL


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, my second petition is one related to VIA Rail.
It is part of the New Democrat's "get Canada back on track" with proper VIA Rail service. It is particularly important in northern B.C., given the decision to come from the government on the future of remote services.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents from Merritt, British Columbia; Hepler Creek, British Columbia; Savona, British Columbia; Vernon, Pritchard and Kamloops who again, as my colleague has indicated, are concerned that the government may be cutting back on RCMP funding.
As a result, they are concerned that this will add a considerable tax burden onto the municipal taxpayers. In the city of Kamloops, it would result in an additional $500,000.
The petitioners are asking the federal government to maintain its present level of funding in order to ensure a viable police force in our British Columbia communities.
Also, Mr. Speaker, as you would appreciate, the petitioners want a viable Canadian symbol of unity.
*
*


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call Starred Question No. 33.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Starred question No. 33. Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.

OFFICIAL LANGUAGES *


Mr. Gauthier: Does the Government of Canada intend to regulate the language
of work and equitable participation as the Official Languages Act
empowers it to do, and, if so, when?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: -The power to make regulations in matters of language of work and equitable participation was included in the Official Languages Act only for use in the case of demonstrated need to clarify these obligations in law.
-Key obligations and commitments are already set out in the Act as well as in longstanding government policies.
-We will of course continue to examine on an ongoing basis the issues related to language of work and participation and revise policies and guidelines as required.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Marcel Danis (for the President of the Treasury Board) moved:: That the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31,
1992 be concurred in.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Since today is the final allotted day for the supply period ending June 30, 1991, pursuant to order made Thursday, May 23, 1991, the House will go through the usual procedures to consider and dispose of the supply bill in view of recent practices. Do hon. members agree that the bill be distributed now?
June 13, 1991


Some hon. members:: Agreed. Motion agreed to.


INTERIM SUPPLY
Marcel Danis: That Vote 1 in the amount of $30,645,000, under Parliament -the
Senate -Program Expenditures in the Main Estimates for the fiscal
year ending March 31, 1992 (less the amount voted in Interim
Supply), be concurred in.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to seek concurrence for the Main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year 1991-1992.
The Main Estimates total $158 billion. Through these estimates, the government is seeking Parliament's approval for $47 billion in new spending authority. The remaining $111 billion represents the statutory payments that have been previously approved by Parliament. These main estimates reflect our continuing commitment to control the spending and contain the cost of government.
Since taking office in 1984, this government has given high priority to reducing the cost of government operations, while still providing Canadians with programs and services they need.
This indicates our commitment to good management and to the careful stewardship of the taxpayers' dollar. In this regard, much has been achieved over the past six years.
Annual growth in program spending has been reduced on average to 3.7 per cent between 1984-85 and 1990-91.
Annual growth in operating and capital spending, including public service salaries has dropped to an average of 3.3 per cent, which is well below the annual rate of inflation.
The public service has been reduced since 1984-85 to roughly the same size as it was in the mid-1970s. These achievements show the government's commitment to increased efficiency through the rigorous control of
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expenditures as well as the implementation of innovative management practices.
Mr. Speaker, our record is one of success and we are confident that we are on the right track.
Growth in the Main Estimates is the outcome of a number of decisions affecting the budgets of all 142 programs delivered through 118 departments, agencies and Crown corporations appearing in the estimates. This growth can be divided into two broad categories: adjustment of statutory items, which amount to $7.2 billion and changes to the voted items, which amount to $2.7 billion. Therefore, only 27 per cent of the growth in the Main Estimates relates to voted items.
These estimates fully reflect the second-year impact of the expenditure control program announced by the Minister of Finance in his February, 1990 budget and the 1991-92 expenditure savings flowing from the expenditure reduction and management improvement measures announced by the former President of the Treasury Board in December, 1989.
Had it not been for these measures, the 1991-92 main estimates would be higher by some $2.7 billion. Again, these changes demonstrate the government's commitment to restraint and economic recovery.
In his budget speech of last February, our hon. colleague, the Minister of Finance, set forth a strategy for economic recovery. The strategy is designed to put the recession behind us and to move forward to continuing growth and renewed prosperity. Part of that strategy involves putting government finances firmly on the course towards a balanced budget. We are removing the build-up of the public debt as a source of inflationary concern.
In order to do this, the expenditure control plan announced in the 1990 budget is to be extended for three years, to 1994-95. The government is legislating mandatory program spending limits. This should provide Canadians with greater assurance that program spending will be managed within the fiscal framework.
We are establishing a debt servicing and reduction fund-and that was introduced yesterday in the House- solely dedicated to offsetting the costs of the public debt. By law, all revenues from the goods and services tax and from privatization will flow into the debt servicing and reduction fund.

June 13, 1991
Supply
In his budget, the Minister of Finance also announced a number of reforms intended to bring about both immediate savings and lasting efficiencies in government programs and services.
Apart from the measures I have just mentioned, the government is imposing tight controls on the cost of government operations, which are expected to produce a savings of nearly $870 million in the current fiscal year. Over the five-year planning period to 1995-96, cumulative savings will amount to over $5.2 billion.
The budget also contains measures that, beginning in the 1991-92 year, will restrain spending on programs and operations of federal departments and agencies.
First, over-all spending on operating and capital for existing programs will be effectively frozen to the 1990-91 level. This will be accomplished by a 3 per cent cut in the Main Estimates in the operating as well as the capital budgets of each department. We have frozen departmental salary budgets for 1991-92 and we have just recently advised the public service union leaders that we have lost the flexibility to negotiate any wage increase this year.
Second, the government will reduce the cost of grants and contributions by $75 million. The Hon. Harvie Andre, the government House leader, has met with his colleagues and discussed how these reductions can best be achieved.
Third, the government will streamline its operations by reducing the number of its executives by ten per cent. This reduction is being achieved through a governmentwide program aimed at decreasing to three the number of levels of executives below the deputy minister. This will streamline departmental operations, reduce costs, improve the speed of decision-making and generally increase the authority given to public service employees in the regions and at the point of service delivery.
These three measures alone will generate savings of $760 million. These savings enable us to ease the pressure on essential programs and services. The battle to bring down the deficit continues, however, as does our search for ways to deliver programs and services better and more efficiently.
So, Mr. Speaker, innovative management practices will remain a priority for this government. The government has been increasing its effort to extend user
charges within the principle of fairness and equity. Through these efforts, the burden of financing activities that provide benefits to specific users is being shifted more towards those users and away from taxpayers generally.
Revenues from external user fees now exceed $3 billion, which is more than double the 1984-85 levels. The government is continuing to seek out new areas where the application of user fees is appropriate. This program promotes greater management discipline and operational efficiencies, since market forces are brought to bear on both the demand for and the supply of services.
The government believes that many services and functions are best carried out by public service employees. However, to provide a full range of options for delivering services to the Canadian people, certain functions are better done through contracting out where this is in the public interest, either in terms of cost, efficiency or quality of service.
Special operating agencies continue to be a viable mechanism for improving the delivery of public services and providing good value for the taxpayer's dollar. Over the past year we have established five agencies, among them the passport office, which have had positive results. Six more agencies have been announced through these Main Estimates including the Canadian General Standards Board and the Canadian Conservation Institute. More candidates will be identified in the coming year with a strong emphasis on organizations that directly serve the public, where the potential for improvement is greater.
Privatization will remain a key priority. The government's program has already devolved more than 18 Crown corporations and other corporate holdings to the private sector and other levels of government. The government will privatize CN Exploration, an oil and gas company, and will wind up Petro-Canada International Assistance Corporation and the Canadian Oil and Gas Lands Administration. These measures reinforce the consistent action the government has taken since 1984 to control the cost of government operations. They are also expected to engender considerable changes in the way departments and agencies do business-that is, in the nature and type of resources used as inputs, in the technology applied and in the organization and methods of program delivery.
June 13, 1991

The Main Estimates you have before you are those of a government serious about restraint and serious about reform. We are determined to cut expenditures and to organize and operate government operations in a manner that suits the real needs of Canadians.
I note that one of the motions today, Mr. Speaker, is about the Senate. I don't know where the New Democratic Party stands on the Senate. I hope the hon. member for Kamloops will enlighten us, but it has always been my understanding that they have wanted to dispose of the Senate, to get rid of it.
Now we hear them saying- if I believe what I read in the newspapers-that maybe they do not want to get rid of the Senate; maybe they want the Senate to stay as one of the institutions of government in this country. If that is the case, I hope the hon. member will enlighten us and explain to us why they have had this change of heart. Since I have been here, and it has been a few years now, they have always believed that the objective of the New Democratic Party was to eliminate and abolish the Senate.
In that vein, I do not think any of them, or very many of them, have ever taken an appointment. We can speculate now that perhaps the New Democratic Party is hoping that somewhere down the line it will be able to take some of its senior and long serving members and appoint them to the Senate. I look forward to comments from the hon. member for Kamloops as to what the intentions of his party are.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, let me make the point very clearly to my hon. friend from Burlington-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Since there are no questions or comments, the hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I appreciate the co-operation of my hon. colleagues to permit me to get to an important committee meeting. Let me say right from the outset to my hon. friend from Burlington that I consider the existing Senate of Canada to be a parliamentary obscenity.
I believe that the present Senate is undemocratic and has no place in a modern democracy. We have been on record since day one. I must say we have never accepted one of those obscene appointments as members of the New Democratic Party. We will not accept becoming some appointed hack, a bagman, or some kind of political flack to the Senate. The New Democratic Party will not
Supply
accept an appointment to an obscene institution in our democratic parliamentary system. I think that makes our position relatively clear.
I want to say that my hon. friend from Burlington was pointing out ways that the government was hoping to save money. Let me give him an excellent way to save money. That is why I propose this motion that we save ourselves $30,645,000 by cutting out the operating funds for the Senate of Canada.
Some people might say: "Well, listen, those folks over there do a fair bit of work, don't they?" I am going to share with you some information which I think will make any decent Canadian sick. Is the Senate working? Are the senators working on our behalf, on behalf of the citizens of Canada now?
During the month of February the Senate sat for a total of nine hours and five minutes. All month long the House of Commons is sitting day after day after day. The committees are meeting day after day, and the Senate manages to sit for nine hours and five minutes.
On top of that, this is the same group of people who wanted to get themselves $153 a day bonus to show up to work in the Senate. They would not make much money considering how often the Senate even comes together.
I want to say that during January it was even worse. Some days it met for one hour. Another day it met for an hour and 40 minutes. That was a pretty major working day. Then in March the Senate sat for a total of 12 hours and 40 minutes. In April it sat for a total of 12 hours and 40 minutes again and in May it sat for a total of 15 hours and 50 minutes.
In other words, what most people would do in an average working week, the Senate took four months to accomplish. This is, as I say, a parliamentary obscenity. This is wrong. This is an abuse of the parliamentary system. This is undemocratic.
My hon. friend made some cynical comments about what he thought might be our position. This comment is from the member of a government that appointed eight more senators. It had too many senators, and the government said that in order to jam legislation through the Senate that the majority of Canadians oppose, it was going to have to do something never done before in parliamentary history. It was going to add eight new Tory appointments. It found some flacks out there who had been long-standing members of the Conservative Party and gave them, if you like-

Supply


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I just must bring to the attention of the hon. member that whatever he may think, we still do have respect for the other place. I ask him to be very careful on how he expresses his views with regards to the other place. I would just like to bring that to his attention, and I think he understands what I mean.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Respect for the other place. From my comments, Mr. Speaker, it would almost reflect that I do not have respect for the other place, but technically speaking I suppose I have to say that I respect the Upper House, the Senate, the other place.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Let me just bring to the hon. member's attention, who has been here for a long time now, that the word obscene, for example, with reference to the other place, is unparliamentary. If he wants to refer to rules of debate on Beauchesne's, page 112, he can see that for himself. But I would like him to make sure that he does have a little respect for those who are in the other place because I do not think they talk like that about us here in our Chamber.


Nelson Andrew Riis: With all due respect, Mr. Speaker, I think the ruling from Beauchesne's would read that you cannot refer to an hon. member as being obscene. I am talking about an institution that I consider to be obscene. I think, in terms of parliamentary procedures, that is appropriate.
If this is offensive to some people I can think of better words or other words.


Mr. Baker:: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member who presently has the floor would check, I am sure he would find not only in Beauchesne's, but in Erskine May, in the Standing Orders of this place and in every other legislature in Canada, that it is not just a custom but written in the rules that you not make disparaging remarks in any way about the other place so referred to or about the judiciary.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not think I should go any further than that. The hon. member for Kamloops understands clearly. The hon. member for Kamloops has the floor.
June 13, 1991


Nelson Andrew Riis: I am just absolutely amazed, Mr. Speaker. We have the Liberals trying to justify their Senate appointments which are equally unacceptable.


Some hon. members:: Just follow the rules of the House.


Nelson Andrew Riis: The rules? Listen, Mr. Speaker, the people who are suggesting that I should be following the rules are the people who abuse the rules often in this House.


Some hon. members:: Who?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I am talking about the people opposite who from time to time have traded a new phenomenon and broken every tradition and every regulation that we have ever had in this House. All of a sudden I cannot refer and I cannot break any traditions.
Out of respect for this institution, I am not going to refer, as I did earlier, to the Senate in ways that reflect my views, but I simply want to say that the present government, naming eight extra senators, breaking longstanding conventions in terms of behaviour-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will just bring it to the hon. member's attention one more time. I do not want to be argumentative with the hon. member, but I would just like to refer to our new Standing Orders, Chapter II, Standing Order 18:
No Member shall speak disrespectfully of the Sovereign, nor of any of the Royal Family, nor the Governor General or the person administering the Government of Canada; nor use offensive words against either House, or against any Member thereof. No Member may reflect upon any vote of the House, except for the purpose of moving that such vote be rescinded.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Oh, Mr. Speaker, I will follow the rules, but I will tell you I do not do it very enthusiastically. My views of that institution are well known and perhaps I do not have to reiterate.


Mr. Darling:: Why repeat them?


Nelson Andrew Riis: "Why repeat them", my hon friend says. It is because I do not think he understands just what is going on over there. He is prepared to continue to shovel out millions and millions and tens of millions of taxpayers' dollars to keep that very gracious and appropriate and historic institution as it is. Well I say it is wrong. I say it is a waste of taxpayers' money and I bet if you went out across Canada and asked all 26 million Canadians, with the exception of about 112, that people would be in
June 13, 1991

favour of disbanding the Senate in its present form. That is what I am suggesting in this motion.


Mr. Mills:: They would like to ban us too.


Nelson Andrew Riis: "They would like to ban us too, my hon. friend from Toronto says".
I want to point out that with the senators working as I have indicated, nine hours in February, twelve hours in March, twelve hours in April and fifteen hours in May, it comes to about $2,425 a minute. I ask myself what we get out of the Senate. What do we get from the Senate? Do they criticize appropriate bills and so on? No, I do not think so.


An hon. member:: They play with kazoos.


Nelson Andrew Riis: That is right. They blow kazoos and do all kinds of interesting things.
Is it worth $2,425 a minute? I say no. My party says no. That is why we put forward this motion-and we will ask hon. members to vote on this shortly-to remove from the act granting Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1992. We are suggesting that we reduce this particular bill by $30,000,645 so that the senators will not have any operating funds. That will send a pretty clear message as to what we in this House think of the other place.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, to me as one of those 26 million Canadians, this is news that the NDP is now viewing the Senate with this incredible eye and with this incredible vision.
As the hon. member was attacking the Senate and attacking the waste of time that happens in the Senate, I tend to agree with him. Also at the same time I would like to see the hon. member looking at this House and the waste of time that happens in this House from time to time, from both sides of the House, the government side as well as the opposition side.
To talk about accepting an appointment to an elected body, I thought the hon. member probably would not even raise this question, especially in light of the latest array of appointments that was given to members on both sides of the House, or to members who were in this House before and are now enjoying some high-profile appointments on different boards and agencies.
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That is not to suggest that we do not have fine people in the Senate. We do have some of the finest people in our Senate who have served their duties both in the communities and in this House.
Therefore, I do not think it is fair to attack the Senate and attack the credibility of the Senate in terms of the quality of the people serving there. I think if we are to look at the issue, we should look at the system as a whole.
It has been echoed by the Leader of the Opposition. As well members of the NDP have been calling for an elected Senate for some time. I understand that now the government is addressing the question of an elected Senate. I think we should be moving forward in that direction. I do not think it will serve this House or the Senate to attack the credibility of the people who are there, although in every apple tree there are some defective apples. I think you will find that in every segment of our society. If there are those who are not effective in the Senate or in the House or on any other board, I think only time will tell and their term will come to an end.
I would like to congratulate the hon. member for at least addressing the issue, though I disagree with certain aspects of his presentation. I would hope that this opportunity will be taken by the government as well as the opposition to start bulldozing it through with reforms, in particular of the Senate and also of the House of Commons.
I want to take this opportunity to say how disappointed I was when yesterday I read in the newspapers, of the past few weeks the major assault that was going on against our senior public servants.
I will close very shortly. If there is any reform, that is the area we should reform. There is no minister, no member of this House, no elected official anywhere in either House who has the right to attack public servants. These people serve this community extremely well, and they are not and should not ever be again subjected to this assault.
I think that applies to all sides of the House, and we have all participated in this assault on our senior public servants. I just want to end by asking my colleague whether there is a change in terms of policy vis-a-vis the NDP views of appointment to boards and agencies or whether it has singled out the Senate in particular.

June 13, 1991
Supply


Nelson Andrew Riis: The motion singles out the Senate. I do not have a chance to talk about other appointments. I am not suggesting that no one should ever be appointed to any hard working contributory board; I am just saying that the Senate does not contribute anything to Canada.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, as I understood the hon. member for Kamloops, he was not taking a shot at the senators in a personal way. He was talking about the fact that there may be room here to eliminate some waste in terms of the money that is being spent.
Of course, with that concern for waste right now when everybody in the country is going through reorganization, there is no way we can exempt either House from that process of review.
I think he should also pass on these words of watching for waste or spending money that is not necessarily needed or that could be used more wisely. I think he should also pass on this concern to his friends and fellow NDP colleagues in the province of Ontario. We do not want a situation to creep into the province of Ontario. It can creep into anyone who has been around for a long time. Already, and we are not even talking a year, just this week it was announced that our premier, for whom intellectually I have a lot of respect, got a Question Period preparation team. They have calculated with this new budget he has acquired that it costs the taxpayers of Ontario close to $1,000 to prepare him for every question that we ask him.
Therefore, I think that yes, we have to eliminate waste in the Senate here. However, I think wherever we have friends in government right now we have to pass on that message I think Canadian taxpayers are equally concerned about all levels of government and the way we handle their money.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I appreciate the intervention by my hon. colleague. Yes, Canadians are concerned about how all levels of government are spending their tax dollars.
There is a reason for this motion today. If there is unanimity in the land on a single issue, it would be that the Senate as we know it today should be abolished. I have yet to run into a single person in my life who comes to me and says that he or she thinks the present Senate is doing a wonderful job and is worth $30 million a year in operating funds.
I have not found anybody who says the Senate is worth $2,425 a working minute. I have not found anybody. I have never in my life encountered a single person. That is why I say on this one issue that I think we can all agree the Senate as we know it today does not perform a valuable and useful function in a democratic society. As a matter of fact, it is an undemocratic society by definition.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I was amazed to hear the hon. member for Kamloops make the speech he did. Having heard his speeches on the subject of the Senate in this House recently, for him to have the gall to get up and make that speech has to be one of the most extraordinary performances in Canadian politics in recent years. He has shown himself to be as two-faced as one could be on this issue. The hon. member knows that. I know he wants to object to this.


An hon. member:: On a point of order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: There is no disorder here.


Mr. Breaugh:: I rise on a point of order. I listened to the Chair chastise the member for Kamloops for using unparliamentary language. I would ask the Chair to listen very carefully and to read the transcripts of what the member for Kingston and the Islands has just said, and I think you will find without any question the language was out of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands is well aware if he has said something that is out of order he will naturally apologize to the House.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that I referred to the other place as a parliamentary obscenity and I said it was an obscene institution. At that point there was an intervention that said the use of that word was unparliamentary.
I have referred to Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules & Forms sixth edition and find on page 147, citation 490, that it has been ruled parliamentary to use the expression obscene.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member was getting awfully close to where he might have said something unparliamentary, and I thought I would bring it to his attention. That word at that time was fine, but under section 18, page 12, where I read the ruling, it was pretty well given an overview.
June 13, 1991

I am talking about when the hon. member started; he was getting right into condemning the other place, and I thought I would just stop him at that point. I understand.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I have searched very carefully through the list of prohibited expressions in Beauchesne's and I regret to inform the hon. member for Ontario that "two-faced" is not there. I want to explain what I meant by the expression in relation to statements by the hon. member for Kamloops. He has now said he wants to get rid of the Senate and he has introduced a resolution today which will stop the payment of any money to the Senate. If by chance that is carried the Senate cannot carry on its work.
I recall not many months ago when he was urging the Senate of Canada, the other place; to use its full authority under the Constitution to block the goods and services tax.
His party, the hon. member for Kamloops claims, is committed to abolishing the Senate. How you could be more two-faced than, on the one hand, saying we want the Senate abolished and, on the other hand, saying we want the Senate to block a major piece of government legislation and urging the senators on a daily basis to block the legislation, I do not know, Mr. Speaker. It is as two-faced as-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Oshawa on a point of order.


Michael James Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, on a second occasion in a brief period of time you have allowed one member to accuse another member of being two-faced. If that language is appropriate in this Chamber I have no problem. I have a complete vocabulary and can use that. But in my view, having been in a parliament for some time, it is not appropriate and the Chair will know that it is context not-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will naturally check Beauchesne's and Erskine May and also other parliamentary publications. I will check this out and if it is I am sure the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands will come back and apologize to the hon. member.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, if it is unparliamentary, of course. I have checked the authorities and am satisfied from my checking of Beauchesne's that it is not. If Your
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Honour finds differently, of course I will respect Your Honour's view.
What I want to do is indicate the nature of that position that the New Democratic Party is putting forward. On the one hand, let us abolish the Senate; on the other hand, let us have the Senate block government bills. That is the-


Marlene Catterall: And the trade unions asked them for it.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Of course the trade unions supported the Senate on that. Lots of Canadians supported the Senate on that. That is why the New Democratic Party decided it better jump on the bandwagon.


Mr. Simmons:: What do you call it?


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It decided it had better abandon its policy of abolition and go for supporting the Senate. When it was politically convenient to support the Senate they were in there with the best of them, harping away on how great the Senate was and how it had better block this bill. As soon as the Senate did not block it because it got stacked by a number of Tory hacks, then we were stuck with the proposition where the New Democratic Party apparently changed its tune again-at least according to the hon. member for Kamloops.
But he has been wrong on this point before and I brought him to task on it before. I pointed out that his position on abolition, which he espoused so vociferously in this House about a year and a bit ago, was not in accordance with the party's position. I have some evidence here about that. I have a newspaper article from The Toronto Star. The hon. member for Ontario must be very familiar with The Toronto Star; it is published in his part of the province.
It talks about the position the New Democratic Party was finding itself in just last week before its convention. We had the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville who was supporting the idea of a Senate and changing it around. He wanted to make the Senate an elected body but he was quite anxious that half the Senate seats be reserved for women. He was apparently chairman of some constitutional committee in the New Democratic Party, so he is something of an expert in the party on this issue, I gather. I presume he speaks with some authority-I suspect more authority than the hon. member for Kamloops who has gone on a wing and a prayer in his speeches on this subject before in this House. He has gone off the party line, with respect.

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This committee submitted a report and apparently the report was prepared prior to the big pow-wow in Halifax last weekend. It says in this particular Toronto Star article that: "The committee, whose report will be considered at a party convention in Halifax this weekend, does not say whether it will be better to reform the Senate or retain the long-standing NDP promise to abolish it". In other words, they are dithering again. They are waiting to see what the Canadian people think, because if the Senate becomes popular, you-know-who will want to support the Senate. However, if the Senate stays unpopular, you-know-who will want to abolish it.
It is "sit on the fence" time, the new NDP technique. They have learned this from their colleagues in Ontario. They got elected with all these rash promises to do this and do that, but they are sitting on the fence on almost every one of them now because they know that those policies are very unpopular.


Roger Simmons: What do you call it? The "old picket fence approach".


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: It is the "old picket fence approach", as my hon. colleague suggests.
Then he says-and this is continuing to quote from the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville: "But it is probably the first time that a group in the NDP has floated the possibility of an elected Senate with certain powers".
It might be, except that at a previous convention there was discussion about this and I was able to quote for the benefit of the hon. member for Kamloops about a year and a half ago how this matter was under study as a result of some convention. I do not know what the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville is talking about, but perhaps it is the first time he had considered it.
Then he goes on with this. He said: "Proposals for a Senate with equal representation from each province are "absurd", but the committee ducked the question of just how many seats each region should have". Well, I can understand them ducking that. If they weren't prepared to go with the equal concept, they had to come up with something else, and that would be a bit difficult. You know, when you abandon principles and you have no principle to go on, how can you possibly come up with an answer to any question? We all know that the principles here were abandoned lock, stock and barrel.
Let us hear more about this committee and what it isn't sure of. After all, this is the party that, according to its leader, the hon. member for Yukon, has become the White Knight of Canadian politics-dashing through, making decisions right, left and centre, slashing the other parties to bits. Well, we all know that is a lot of poppycock.
Here is what it says here: "There is no consensus in the party as to whether or not there should be one House of Parliament or two", the member for Yorkton- Melville told reporters. Boy, they haven't even decided on principles like that. Maybe there should be one House, maybe there should be two-maybe three. They don't seem to know. They haven't the faintest idea what to do with the Canadian Parliament. And this from a New Democratic Party that prides itself on principles. Where are the principles? What has happened to the principles?
The principle used to be that you could not have a Senate, it had to be abolished. Now, it seems to be in grave doubt. Boy, these principles are going down the tubes.
I was hoping that the hon. member for Kamloops would enlighten us on what happened at the convention itself. I thought that perhaps he could tell us what happened with this committee report. But I understand that because the public opinion polls have not gone one way or the other, this issue like so many others was swept under the carpet. I think it was sent back to the committee so they could look at the issue again and come back with more.
The hon. members who are here were at the convention in Halifax. Perhaps they could enlighten us later in the day. I would be interested to know just what happened.
It is the old fifty-fifty routine, as the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood says. They really don't know what they are going to do; they are waiting to see how the polls go. If the polls go one way, the NDP undoubtedly will go with them. They are quite anxious to please the public at every turn these days, because they feel if they can please the public perhaps they can follow the example set by their colleagues in the province of Ontario and win an election.


Frankly, I do not believe that is likely. I think the New Democratic Party did better in getting its 20 per cent of the vote when it stuck to its principles, but it appears that it is willing to abandon those in a desperate bid to steal votes from the Liberal Party. I notice now that instead of us adopting their policies, which they always used to accuse us of, they are adopting our policies holus-bolus.
1 am delighted to see some support for many of the positions we in this party have advocated. The abandonment of the policy of nationalization of the banks, I notice, transpired in Halifax. All those socialist dogmas that have plagued the NDP since the 1930s are being washed away.


An hon. member:: They are becoming Liberals.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: They are becoming Liberals. I am delighted to see this deathbed repentance.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not know whether this is going to be unparliamentary language or not. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has the floor.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I stirred up such a hornets' nest on my left.
I want to turn to the party across the way because after all they are the ones who are causing the real problem today and that is why we are discussing their estimates.
I sat here yesterday afternoon and listened in rapt attention to a delightful speech delivered by the Leader of the Opposition on the subject of ministerial responsibility. In fact I think it could have been entitled, a speech on ministerial irresponsibility. I am sorry that the hon. member for Churchill was not here to hear the speech. He would have been entranced. It would have been an excellent lesson for him in constitutional law, which might have been helpful in this committee that I hope he is working on to try to solve the constitutional problems of the New Democratic Party.
The fact is the government got itself into a dilemma in recent weeks by its failure to deal properly with the persons working for the government and by its callous mistreatment of public servants. I think the opportunity that was presented yesterday to discuss this was a most
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worthwhile one. I feel that what the government is seeking to do is rewrite the rules relating to ministerial responsibility.
I note this morning the government members voted against the words taken from the Public Service 2000 report which is, after all, their statement of what ministerial responsibility means. They abandoned the concept and voted against it. This government is opposed to the notion. It is abandoning the parameters, the principles of our Constitution. The members who are supporting it should be ashamed of their conduct in supporting such an outrageous attack-and a consistent one I may say- in a pattern over the years that has helped seriously to weaken our democratic institutions.
I want to review briefly for members the list of things that I think could, at least, top the list of abuses the government has proceeded with that in my view have damaged this institution, both the Senate and the House of Commons.
I could start the list with the excessive use of closure and time allocation. We have never had a Parliament before where so much use of those tools has been made. Closure has been used 15 times now in this Parliament. That is a record. It has been a record for quite some time. I think it became a record on the seventh occasion it was used.
I do not have my list here to tell me how many times time allocation has been used, but I think it is seven or eight.
In addition, we have had unilateral rule changes imposed by closure in this House. There was negotiation on some of the points. I concede that. But on many others, the government knows that it proceeded unilaterally and against the expressed wishes of both opposition parties. Those rules were imposed through the use of closure after a very limited debate. They have restricted the rights of members of the opposition to carry on their responsibilities in this House. They have been designed to protect the government from criticism because the government, at 14 per cent in the polls, knows that it has a problem. Anything it can do to silence its critics is a blessing. That is exactly what they look for, an opportunity to silence the critics. We see exactly the same thing proceeding in the other place.

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Until December of last year we had a majority that was made up of members of this party. Nothing could have been more upsetting to the government opposite than to have to face the music in the other place when bills were sent down there that were no good. The veiy effective Liberal majority in the Senate, which the hon. member for Kamloops now talks of in such disparaging terms, was in fact a very effective, capable debating body which gave a very sober second look at the dreadful legislation this government forced through this House. It held the legislation up to public scrutiny. It allowed the public to see how bad it was. It went on cross-country tours and heard the views of Canadians when this government ignored those views for months and months and days and days of debate in this House.
There were no months of debate, just days, but month after month in Question Period the government ignored them. The hon. member knows that. He knows what I am saying is correct. If stacking the Senate was not enough-because what they did, as we all know now, was stuff the Senate with an additional eight Conservative members so that they could obtain a working majority in the other place-they are now proceeding to change the rules of the other place. The new majority has come up with a new set of rules that will limit debate in the other place so that it will become a rubber stamp for this government's rotten policies that have done so much damage in this country.
I think it is just another shocking example of the abuse of Parliament and its traditions and its forms that this government has indulged in. First of all you stack it, then you change the rules.
Sure, I have no trouble saying it with a straight face, and the hon. member I am sure agrees with me. I am surprised that he would have voted against the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in that vote this morning. Those are words that his government put forward as their statement and yet he was there with the best of them voting against it.
I want to turn to the appointment of the privacy commissioner as another example of the abuse of the processes of this House. The law provides that in the case of certain appointments, and the privacy commissioner is one, a resolution of the House of Commons and of the Senate is required for the appointment. The
Governor General in Council may appoint only after obtaining the approval of the two Houses.
What happened? The government introduced the motion to have the privacy commissioner appointed without any consultation with the opposition over the direct objection of the members of the opposition, and forced it through on a vote. In other words, there was no discussion. None of the usual parameters were followed.
The usual practice in all those appointments has been for consultation to occur between government and opposition and a consensus to be reached on the name of the nominee. Then, and only then, is the resolution normally introduced in this House, and it is normally passed then with a minimum of debate and by the unanimous agreement of all members.
No such discussions took place in this case. This was a case of a straight ram operation to jam this name through the House, a former employee of the Prime Minister rammed through the House. Favouritism and paying off debts, that is what this was. The opposition properly raised objections to this, and in the other place the matter was properly held up until once again the bully-boys from the government group forced the appointment through the Senate after the Senate had been appropriately stacked.
Then we could turn to the more recent attempts on the part of the government to change Question Period. They have decided that Question Period is the most damaging session of all for this government because there they have to stand and answer questions without notice, and they look so bad. It looked so bad just the last couple of weeks when questions have been asked on this Al-Mashat affair to see a minister of the Crown stand there and say: "I am not going to answer, Mr. Speaker. This matter is before a committee" and sit down. It is a complete abdication of their responsibility to this House.
Those ministers can answer in this House, and in case the public is in any way deceived ministers are entitled to give those answers whether or not the matter is before a committee. They have an obligation to do so, in my submission. They should have been here stating their answers in this House. They should be giving the facts to the House. Instead of that, they swept it off to a committee where they refused to allow the television cameras to go in order to ensure that the public could see how dreadfully badly these ministers have acted and how little they know about how to run their departments.
June 13, 1991

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We could then also look at the fact that they introduced a motion to deem these bills to be adopted at many stages, at least in the early part of this Parliament, ones that had been discussed in the last session of this Parliament.
I spoke on that recently, about a week and a half ago, and I suggest to Your Honour that that is another case of contempt and abuse of the procedures of this House. They used a motion to reinstate five bills, and they used closure on the motion and thereby avoided the opportunity to speak and criticize the bill at each of the other stages.
Finally, there is their abdication of the doctrine of responsible government, their failure to defend the public servants who are working for them in the government where the Secretary of State for External Affairs has been trying her best to defend her former colleague who is now the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs. He clearly should have said that the responsibility for the admission of Mr. Al-Mashat was his responsibility.
He should never have pointed a finger at any person working either in his own office or in his department. All the ministers have a collective responsibility. They cannot say that it is not their responsibility because they did not know.
There are lots of things that happen in the Government of Canada about which a minister does not know. For a minister to stand in this House and say: "I am not responsible because I did not know so-and-so or so-and-so, that person is responsible," is a complete abdication of ministerial responsibility.
It is a shocking, disgraceful way to conduct oneself. The ministers involved in this case, who in every respect may have been able to defend their actions and put up with some criticism from the public, are paid to take that kind of criticism from the public.
Instead of taking criticism they stood around and said: "Who can we blame? Who will we shuffle this off to?" They got into a little meeting. It was a star chamber court where they sat about and decided that so-and-so is guilty and so-and-so is guilty. "We will blame them and say they apologized and that will be that".
That is exactly what was done in this case. It was disgraceful. It was disgusting. Because of their conduct, all three ministers should resign immediately.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands through you, sir, that when it comes to the conduct of members of Parliament, it may well be that some of what he was saying is worthy of our consideration and reflection. It is inappropriate in the extreme for the member to believe that this is a need for change that takes place in only one political party.
I want to set before you, sir, some observations that I have made after having been here for about 17 years.
What is still, as it was when I first arrived in Parliament, a part of parliamentary rules in Beauchesne's and Erskine May today would be some of the following: In Question Period a question is not to be argumentative.
If the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands from the Official Opposition reflects upon it, has he heard an argumentative question? I believe that he has.
Questions are not to have preambles. Anybody who does an objective measure of Question Period will know that there is more preamble than there is question. These are breaches of the rules, breaches made principally by the party of the member who has just spoken.
It is inappropriate, improper and wrong according to the rules of the Table to have innuendo. I cannot remember the last Question Period where there were no examples of innuendo. People are being accused and stand almost convicted for no other reason than an accusation was made.
For the member for Kingston and the Islands to come here and somehow hold himself up in the holy sepulchre of purity and to pretend for the moment that he can condemn all others because he thinks there is some breach of the rules, when he says that we on the government side somehow are trying to change Question Period, I tell him that if he were to put all the people in Canada who believe that Question Period is an appropriate mechanism today in Prince Edward Island and all of those who think that there is something wrong and needs to be changed on Vancouver Island, Prince Edward Island would be 3,000 feet above sea level because the weight distribution would be so changed.

June 13, 1991
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Canadians do not believe that Question Period is serving their needs or their aspirations as to where a country should be.
I say to the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands through you, Mr. Speaker, that Erskine May says questions cannot be repetitive.
I came here when speakers used to say: "If the hon. member will check the records, he will see that that precise question was asked on Tuesday" and give some date two weeks ago. He would go on to another member. We now have Question Periods which repeat the whole question as many as five, six, seven times in a single Question Period.
The hon. member should know that any breach of rules is not a breach of rules that falls on one party, because he belongs to a party that is a principal partaker in the abrogation of the rules that have been so clearly and long established in this House. We cannot move when the mace is in motion, and yet members of Parliament here too frequently have disrespect for the mace. When the Speaker rises every member is supposed to be seated, yet often we see a Speaker rise and a member standing and the two are staring at one another. When The Speaker rises every member should be seated and there should be silence in the House of Commons.
I have spoken long enough, Mr. Speaker, and when you rise I will have to sit. But I say to the hon. member, could you answer me, in all clarity, is there not some reason for all of us to reflect on changing the rules of this House for more effective debate. It is a non-partisan issue, it is Parliament that is at stake and all of us, in the interest of our constituents in all parts of the country have a burden to make this place run better.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I, of course, agree with that part of the hon. member's statement, Mr. Speaker. The last question he put to me of course I agree with. We all have that responsibility and we all take it very seriously.
What I do object to, and I think he should know this, first of all concerns his suggestion that somehow Question Period today is radically different. I do not believe that it is. I think Question Period was the same in 1984, 1983, 1982 and in 1981 when the party that he represents
was in opposition. The New Democratic Party has been in opposition throughout that time and I do not believe its questions have materially altered in the course of the last decade or 20 years for that matter.
The hon. member thinks that maybe they have. If he looks at a recent article by Don McGillivray in, I think yesterday's, The Ottawa Citizen, he will see that on Mr. McGillivray's own checking over a 20 or 30 year period, I have forgotten how many years he went back-


An hon. member:: Thirty years.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Thirty years. He pulled out the Question Period each decade on the day and looked at what had happened and found that the pattern was very similar to what it is today. Almost all the questions were asked by the opposition. In fact, my recollection is that on two of the days every single question was asked by the opposition. We are now allowing some government questions which I think is a change. In addition to that, the questions were argumentative, they had preambles, they had innuendoes, they were partisan. All of that is part of the mix. There has been no change in that.
What has changed is the standing in the polls of this government. It has gone down to 14 per cent. So the Conservatives feel that something must be wrong with Question Period for them to be so bad, that is the fear.
I think it is wrong. I think the Conservatives should regard that and look at it very carefully and say: "Are we trying to change this for the wrong reasons?" If members look in their heart of hearts I think they will see that is exactly what is going on. They do not really care how partisan it was because they enjoyed it themselves when they were in opposition and had the opportunity to ask. They are so bad in government that they just keep slumping in the polls and Question Period does not help them get out of the slump. That is why they want to get it changed. They want more softball questions from their own members and the backbench so that the ministers can look good once in awhile when they answer a question. They do not look good when they answer our questions because most of the time they do not answer them.
June 13, 1991


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I thought the member for Crowfoot would sit down when the Speaker recognized me.
What I should remind both members is that the issue before the House is the proposal by our party that the government can save on its expenditures by reducing the amount of money allocated to the Senate. It is interesting that every time we make this proposal the Liberals rush up to defend the Senate and then slam us for whatever particular reasons they can.
The reality is that a body that has worked so little over the last four months cannot be justified. The reality is, and the reason the Liberals get up and defend the Senate is, that not only has it been used for patronage, but it also provides Liberal election planning. The Liberal Party of Canada, at this time, cannot survive without the Senate because it would not have an election planning body.
If you take a look at various senators-I will not go through them name by name nor province by province- their reasons for being there are to raise funds, to organize campaigns in various provinces or to be campaign managers either at the provincial level or at the federal level.
I noticed that the Liberal member from Kingston and the Islands said that the NDP is always plagiarizing their ideas. He used the word "hypocrisy." I think perhaps he should look at himself. I remember reading the Liberal proposal to the Royal commission on the Elections Act. The Liberals took my private member's bill, added four words to it and pretended that it was their own legislation. He says they gave us credit. They said that we had dealt with a similar matter.
I have a proposal. I should give the member for Kingston and the Islands a chance to hear about it now so he can draft his own legislation. We are introducing changes to our definition of what election expense is, so when we do that I hope he will be ready to follow suit.
I think one of the suggestions we could make is that the cost of the Senate be divided. The Tories would allocate their senators as part of their election expenses and the Liberals would agree to count their senators
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because they are involved, paid for by the public, and spend full time working on elections. I think it is only fair that since they like to steal our ideas with regards to election expenses, they would voluntarily include the cost of each and every one of those Liberal senators as part of their election expenses.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will give the hon. member a minute to finish.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: I should hope so.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Well, it is two minutes overtime now as far as questions and comments are concerned.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Well, you recognized him, it wasn't my idea.


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


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, the NDP as usual has put down what I think is an absolutely fascinating proposal. I want to say a few words about it and some other things in the few minutes I have at my disposal.
I want to say to my friend from Kingston and the Islands, who has great knowledge in this whole area of how Parliament functions, that I thought he overreacted. I say to him in generosity, I thought he had over-reacted this morning to the NDP shenanigans. Surely that is all they are. They are shenanigans.


An hon. member:: Now he is being parliamentary.


Roger Simmons: The member for Oshawa talks about what is parliamentary. I thought he would have done well this morning to know the rules himself, to have realized that if he is going to get up and repeatedly interrupt what was a good speech by my friend from Kingston and the Islands, he ought to at least have a citation. He quoted no citation. The word "two-faced" is perfectly legitimate. It is also very accurate in the circumstance.
What more could you ask of a vocabulary than it be, first, legitimate, and second, suit the purpose, that it be appropriate. What could be more appropriate than two-faced when you talk about what the NDP is doing in this particular amendment.

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Let us understand what they want to do. They want to wipe out the operational expenses that would be provided under the main estimates for the current year, as they relate to the Senate's operation. To do that, the member for Kamloops cites-he has done some arithmetic and we will assume his arithmetic is correct-that it is some $2,000 a minute. Of course, what he has done to arrive at that, I suppose, is to take the number of hours or minutes the Senate sits and then this operating amount that is in the estimates, and divided one with the other and come up with a couple of thousand bucks a minute.
An interesting question arises. He is telling us that it is his view that the only time the senators are at work is when they are in the Senate. That is what he has done in his bit of arithmetic; he has taken the number of hours they are in the Senate and divided it into the total expense of operating the Senate. And so he is extrapolating that the only time these senators are working is when they are in the Senate.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, and I put it to him, wherever he is now, the member for Kamloops, since he is not physically in the Chamber right now, is he not working either? Is that what he is telling us, that he should probably not be paid for that? I mean, how ridiculous.


Brian L. Gardiner: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have two quick points. One, I think the hon. member knows the rule in the House about referring to the presence or non-presence of members in the House; second, the member for Kamloops is attending a very important meeting at this moment. He knows that very well and he should not abuse the rules of this House.


Roger Simmons: I thank the gentleman from Prince George-Bulkley Valley. He should not be telling us that the member for Kamloops is attending a meeting because in so doing he is drawing attention to his absence from this Chamber, and he is breaking the rules, you see.
However, let me thank the gentleman from Prince George-Bulkley Valley. Let me use him as an example. You see, he is in this Chamber. I am allowed to note the presence of somebody. He is in the Chamber. I see him. He is bodily in this Chamber.
The question is, and it is an entirely theoretical one, if the member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley were not in the Chamber-which he is, I point out-then by applying the arithmetic and the logic of his colleague from Kamloops, who I have to assume is in the Chamber except I was told just now that he might be at a meeting somewhere, who says that the only time you ought to
apportion cost is when they are in the Chamber, then I put it to you, sir, as a theoretical question understand, that if my friend from Prince George-Bulkley Valley were not in the Chamber then should he be paid?
Maybe he wandered off to attend a meeting somewhere, maybe to talk to a constituent on the phone, maybe as a member of a standing committee, maybe doing one or the other 114 things you do which are pursuant to your membership in this Chamber. Is that the thesis being espoused by the gentleman from Kamloops, that the only time you work in this place is when you are physically here yelling your head off, as I am doing now, or sitting in the Chamber? What utter nonsense. What utter hypocrisy. What utter two-facedness.
I should perhaps tell my friend from Oshawa the latest story making the rounds about his friend-and I see him there so well- from Kamloops. It was said about him recently that if somebody on the government side, with all the extra money they are making with the GST, if somebody decided that maybe what we needed on this Hill was a swimming pool-


An hon. member:: Did you say swimming pool or cesspool?


Roger Simmons: Swimming pool. The member wants a cesspool, no problem. But let's stick with the swimming pool first.
Now it is suggested that if the government decided what we needed here was a swimming pool, the member for Kamloops would do two things immediately: He would jump up immediately and put down a motion condemning it, and then he would phone his secretary and say: "Would you go over and buy me a swim suit?"


An hon. member:: Could we use Pierre's pool perhaps?


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, that member will never get to use Pierre's pool.
However, I digress. I make the same mistake I had accused somebody else of making. Why do we get excited about a party whose slogan is "Having our cake and eating it, too". Why do we get excited about a party that has all kinds of principles, some of them are even compatible, but most of them are mutually exclusive. Of course, they are for the Senate and against the Senate. I say to my friend from Kingston and the Islands that he ought to know better. This crowd is for and against everything. They are against the Senate today in their motion, because it gives them a chance to get up and talk. But on Saturday in Halifax I read in the paper they were for the Senate.
June 13, 1991


An hon. member:: That is what I heard, too.


Roger Simmons: They were for NATO and they are against NATO. I have resolutions from the Montreal convention of the NDP a couple of years ago and another one showing they are for NATO and they are against NATO. They are for a united Canada, unless you listen to the member for Chambly, who is for Quebec sovereignty.
I say to my friend from Kingston and the Islands; Do not get excited about the crowd whose slogan is: "Having your cake and eating it too". Do not get excited about the crowd that has all kinds of principles, most of them contradictory. Do not get excited about the NDP, a party that can come up with a new principle any day of the week, just by negativing the existing principle. No problem.


An hon. member:: Get around to the banks. Get to the good stuff.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I understand there is a nuance here. It is a new refinement in the way the NDP writes its policies. They are not just simplistic and for and against things any more. They want to keep the Senate today; they just do not want to fund it. They want a kind of charitable, voluntary Senate.
They tell us the Senate is not doing anything. That is right, the Senate is useless. I just heard the member for Kamloops tell us the Senate is serving no useful purposes. Listen to their comments three days ago in Halifax, when they wanted half of the Senators to be women. Is that their commitment to equality? They want to put them in a useless organization, do they?
Sometimes if they were not so treacherous in the venom and the deceit they spread they would be funny. The deceit that the member for Kamloops spread just now about the Senate spending $2,000 a minute skates deliberately misleading some essential elements of the Senate; one is that when the Senate is not physically
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meeting as a Senate many other committees are meeting.
Secondly, many of those Senators have their constituents, whether organizations or individuals, who come to them, much as they come to members of Parliament. It is cowardly and dishonest for a member of any party to stand in this place and take the other place and the individuals in it apart in their absence. Particularly, when you tell deliberate, direct, falsehoods. That is one of the more cowardly things I have seen.
I have my views on the Senate and I can give them to you. In short, first of all, they ought to be elected. In terms of our present Senate, is it serving a useful function? Yes. Anybody who thinks it is not should go back and see what the Senate is there for in the first place. One of the reasons it was put there in the first place by Macdonald and the Fathers of Confederation, was to see that the regions were protected.
We from a smaller province like Newfoundland and Labrador look to the Senate, and have always looked to the Senate, for some of our regional protection. Is it doing its job as well as it could? No. But the same question could be asked about this Chamber too.
I come then to what my friend, the Conservative member for Crowfoot, was just saying because it relates to the point I want to make. He was talking about Question Period. He said that Canadians do not believe that Question Period is serving their aspirations. That is a fair statement. He said: Canadians do not believe that Question period is serving their aspirations. I would say that if he wanted to be completely accurate about it, he ought to be saying "some Canadians". Whether that "some" is 99 per cent or 15 per cent, "some" Canadians believe that.
I happen to run into many Canadians who want me to raise certain issues in Question Period, people like the columnist who said yesterday: "With all its warts, Question Period is a very good institution. Let us keep it".
That is an aside to what I really want to say to the member for Crowfoot.

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He says that Canadians feel that Question Period is not serving their aspirations. He is right in that some Canadians feel that. Maybe more Canadians feel it than we would like to think.
I have a question for him, and it is a question that comes to the specific issue of the GST. Since when did he and his colleagues on that side give a hoot about what Canadians feel?
About 85 per cent of Canadians told him in a poll that they did not want the GST, but the government put it through anyway. I do not see what the rush is to get out and alter Question Period just because Canadians do not like it, if I were to follow his strategy to date.
If Question Period needs some change, I am sure it will get changed. Let's not do it for the wrong reasons. The way this place is being castrated by the government, Question Period is one of the few remaining opportunities for some accountability. Yes, it is a bit untidy at times but let's not use the argument to change and improve it as an excuse for making a eunuch of it.
When I hear a government member talk about change as it relates to Parliament, you can usually decode that to mean "muzzle". You can assume, can you not, that if everything is going well for the government, it would not be talking about change. Why would you want to change something that is working well for you?
The very fact that members talk about change day in and day out tells me that somehow they may not be enjoying the experience any more. Maybe all is not well over there. When I hear them pontificate to me in flowing terms about change, I decode that to mean muzzle the place. I am going to oppose them at every turn on that.
Let's remind ourselves that in addition to that mischievous little motion put down by my ever present member and friend from Kamloops, this debate is all about the main estimates and the billions of largess that this government would want to expend on all kinds of schemes: $157 billion.
The former Premier of Newfoundland, Joey Smallwood, had a way which I cannot really imitate at all, much as I would like to do so, of drawing attention to a large sum of money. In Newfoundland terms, $157 billion is an astoundingly large sum of money. Joey would do it by backing away from it and coming at it a
step at a time. He would say: "Do you realize that we are not talking here about $157 billion. We are not talking $10 billion, $20 billion, $30 billion, $50 billion or even $100 billion. We are talking $157 billion." Then he would proceed to translate that into thousands of millions of dollars and so on.
The point needs to be made to the people of Canada and to us in this Chamber that we are dealing with one awful large lump of money here: $157 billion.
One of the things I ought to ask on behalf of the 85,000 people who sent me here, fishermen, farmers, shipyard workers, railway workers- until the government got rid of the railway a couple of years ago-ferry dock workers, unemployed, students: Is the government spending this $157 billion in the best way?
Certain of these expenditures are statutory. Certain of them we could hardly change even if we wanted to, but the government does have some flexibility. The government will be the first to point out that a large percentage of that goes to servicing the debt that the debt has doubled. The government does not point out but some of it is in the area of having some flexibility.
I want to come quickly to two or three issues. One is the issue of the fishery. I realize from your signal, Mr. Speaker, that my time has all but elapsed and I wish I had a few more moments, but I do not, so very quickly let me say that I would want to have said more about the issue of the fishery and what is happening to it in these times of stock collapse. This is at a time when people need help to bridge the gap -fishermen, plant workers and communities-and a time when the government is not making the best use of its limited funds to assist that sector of the economy. I could talk about how students, and university students in particular, are left high and dry because the government, through a sleight of hand, has actually cut back the amount of transfer payments for post-secondary education. I could talk about the new anxieties that are created among senior citizens and others because the government has cut back medical care expenses to the provinces.
The list goes on. There are so many things that we will want to raise during the course of this day before we give our concurrence to the passage of any estimates. I recognize my time is up for now, but maybe we will have another go at it later in the day.
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Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for Burin-St. George's, but I regret the fact that the issue of program spending, which he was in the middle of discussing when he was cut short by elapsed time, is an issue that is not only important for his riding, but is also important for all of our ridings right now. We are dealing with a government that has not only decreased program spending dramatically over the last five or six years, but, in the process of decreasing that program spending in light of the deficit that has been doubled, it has also increased the revenues that it receives by almost 50 per cent since it took office.
The government is not only taking less out of the economy in terms of stimulation, but it is also taking a lot more out of the economy in terms of its tax programs.
I would like the hon. member for Burin-St. George's to expand a little bit on the importance of this program funding and maybe the fact that there are some areas which are statutory and which the government cannot and should not touch. It has tried to grab some of the statutory payments to seniors, et cetera, and, of course, our established program financing. I think it is important for him to elaborate on the importance of where this money goes in terms of stimulating our small businesses and all sectors, whether it is the fisheries or tourism. Maybe he could elaborate a little bit on that.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Broadview-Greenwood. It is only in the last day or so that he and I were comparing notes on the severe downturn in the economies of our respective regions. He represents an urban riding in downtown Toronto and I have the pleasure to represent a very rural riding, 158 communities, the largest of which has a population of about 8,000 and the smallest a population of about 12 people.
So we are talking of two very different worlds, but it was interesting in our chat a day or so ago, to note that because the economy is in such devastation there are similarities emerging in what is happening and how people are coping.
He made the point to me, and I am sure he would not mind my mentioning this, that the small business sector is having some real difficulty. He said to me, in passing, that people in Toronto are now beginning to realize what rural Canada has been talking about. In rural Canada
there is often a cycle of activity; if the fishery is good then small business thrives and if the fishery is bad, either through market or the health of the fish stock and so on, then small businesses experience a very depressed situation.
To turn specifically to his question, we had to back off and say what is government all about? Government, I believe, is a free enterprise or ought not to be doing anything that free enterprise can do better.
I believe government was put in place primarely, and its continued reason for existence, is to do things that private business, small or large, cannot do for us. What better time to have a government that you can turn to than when the economy is at its worst and you need something to bridge the gap?
Specifically, I want to come not only to small business as it relates to my riding, but to the fishery. We have a situation in the fishery in Burin-St. George's and all over Atlantic Canada where 100,000 people, men and women, plant workers and fisher persons, including men and women, depend on the fishery. So it is a very big industry. One out of every four jobs in Newfoundland is in the fishery, for example.
When the economy is in a downturn is the time you most need a government. That is when private business cannot help and that is when government ought to be able to step in and help bridge the gap.
There is an argument the former Minister of Fisheries and now Minister of Employment has been espousing. To his credit, the new Minister of Fisheries, my pal from Newfoundland, from St. John's West has not been espousing this argument yet and I hope he has the good sense never to start it, because the government tells us that in four or five years the fish stocks are going to rebound.
If they are going to rebound and the fishery will be healthy in five years, why are we in such mad haste to dismantle the processing capacity? Why are we in such mad haste to retrain all those fishermen as labourers for southern Ontario or Alberta or wherever else they are shipping them off to? Why do we not find a way to bridge the gap over the next four or five years to keep those processing facilities up to scratch? We may have to mothball some of them, but let's not put the wrecking ball to them.

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Why don't we find a way to keep at home those people who have a lifestyle in Gaultois and in Grand Bank and those other communities in my riding that are under the gun? Why don't we find a way to keep their skills and their lifestyle intact for the next three or four years? We may have to find something for them to do in the meantime. We may have to do some training. That is fair ball, but let's not ask them to walk away from their life skills and their whole value system and way of life.
That is where a government in tough times ought to be expending some of its money. When I see the kind of money that we are talking about here and the fact that an extra $400 million more was made than they thought they were going to make in the first four months, I ask how that is for pocket money, an extra hundred million a month more than you thought you had in your pocket.
Surely Lord, surely to goodness, having that hundred million dollars a month, they can find a few shekels to help those poor fishermen, those poor plant workers I am talking about, instead of saying: "You have got to pack your bags and say goodbye to your loved ones forever." I hope that answers your question.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. friend and I have a short question to put to him. He was going on at some length saying what a fan of the Senate he was. I think that is an interesting position for somebody to take. It must be very lonely, I would think, taking that position. I wonder if my hon. friend could comment whether he thinks it is getting good value for money when the Senate managed to sit for nine hours during the month of February, 28 calendar days, and they managed to sit for 12 hours during the months of March and April. Then in May they went all out and actually were in session for 15 hours for the entire month.
My question to my hon. friend is this: Based on this working of the Senate, the amount of time that senators have spent working on behalf of Canada, his being a believer of free enterprise and wanting to make sure we were getting good value for money, does he think paying
nearly $2,500 a minute for this kind of performance is worth it?


Roger Simmons: First of all I say to my friend for Kamloops that it is not at all lonely saying we need an elected Senate. Many thousands of Canadians are saying that we need an elected Senate. Almost every thinking Canadian who understands our process of government will tell you we need a second Chamber. People in his own party as recently as this weekend will tell you that we need it elected and that we need a second chamber.
I come to the real point of his question about the $2,000 per minute. He might have listened to my speech, but he missed that sentence because I addressed that very particular sentence. I said to him and to the Chamber that I thought he had been quite dishonest to suggest that the only time senators worked is when the Senate is physically sitting. I turn the question around on him. Is he suggesting that the only time he works is when he is sitting in this Chamber? I understood if he is doing his job as a member of Parliament because I happen to be a member of Parliament too and when I go out of here there are a few other things I do. Sometimes people call me. I actually spend some time on the phone. I actually sign a few letters once in a while. I actually go to a committee meeting, and I know a few senators who do the same thing. I actually saw a senator in a meeting once.


An hon. member:: Once.


Roger Simmons: As a matter of fact I saw them several times. The point I make is that the gentleman from Kamloops knows he has lost this particular argument completely and so he gets up one more time and regurgitates his $2,000 a minute.
He is going to have to get more convincing or go off and buy those swim trunks I mentioned earlier.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments have now terminated. Is the House ready for the question?


An hon. member:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Oshawa.


Michael James Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I think what has transpired here this morning is perhaps what is
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troubling the people of Canada. The member for Burlington stood in his place and introduced the government's motion in a very casual way and it did not seem to cause much of a ripple in the Chamber. He indicated some of the difficulties the Government of Canada was having at the moment dealing with its financial problems.
He said, almost as a throwaway line, that they have come to a position where they cannot offer people who work for the Government of Canada any wage increases this years.
I think that is a remarkable statement. It is a statement of some financial difficulty. It is certainly an insult to all of those men and women who work for the Government of Canada, all of those who are on the front line of providing government services, because those poor people are unlike members here; they do not have the luxury of reading in a public opinion poll that the people of Canada are unhappy; they do not have the advantage of being able to send out a staff person to write a letter to some disgruntled constituent. These are all the people on the front lines. They are the ones who stand at a wicket somewhere and take abuse from the people of Canada over a system they did not devise, over policies they may not agree with. I have often thought it would be a useful exercise to take the Minister of Finance and put that individual out in a parking garage collecting the GST as people drive their cars out of the garage and listen to the comments that people make face to face, not an opinion poll, not modified in the staff report, but listen to it. He should get right in their faces and hear what the people of Canada have to say about the policies of this government.
Yet those who do that will get no wage increase. That is an insult for the work that they have done. Of all the people you could think of in our society who could perhaps get themselves in a position where they do not need any increase, who did not have any cost of living problems this year, whose rent did not go up, whose food cost did not go up, to whom the GST did not get applied, last on that list would be the people who work for the Government of Canada. They are out there every day whether they like it or not, representing the Government of Canada because they have a little badge on their sleeve that says, "We work for the Government of Canada", or because they work in an office with a sign that says, "The Government of Canada operates something out of this office".
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Every day they hear the frustrations about a million and one problems, about immigration, for example. They listen to all the tragedies right in front of them from the individuals and the families who face an immigration system that is extremely complicated and, by many standards, rather unfair. They take that abuse first-hand.
For them the government says there is no money in the kitty to give any increase at all this year.
The second thing I heard the member say, again almost casually, is that the government is very attracted to the notion of user fees. Having been around parliaments for a while, I have seen this debate in other chambers. It always sounds attractive for governments to institute user fees because it has that wonderful notion about it that you can charge people a second time for a service they have already paid for.
I know that the argument on the other side of the coin is that -while they may have built and paid for the hospital, now that they are actually using the facility we are going to get them again. If they have the audacity to use a hospital we will charge them another user fee. If they have the audacity to go fishing we will charge them another fishing licence. If they have the audacity to drive on one of the roads we built with their tax dollars, we will charge them again. It is another great source of income.
Well, we are turning the comer in Canadian politics when we enter into these concepts. One of the things that makes Canada different from many other nations in the world is the concept that we, collectively as a nation, pool our money and our income tax and we build different kinds of things for our people. We build roads and hospitals and we provide services. People have a reasonable right that, having paid for it once, they really should not have to pay for it again. A user fee is a polite little word that suggests one other method of taxation.
I,	like many Canadians, have begun to investigate the process of just how much taxation people can take. Just because you call it by another name, just because you call it a user fee, does not make it anything other than what it is. It is a tax. When Canadian consumers go into stores these days they are getting to the point where they are recognizing that when you charge a provincial sales tax and a goods and services tax and any other kind of tax, there is a dramatic impact on what you pay for goods or services you receive. It is getting to the point where people can see that clearly on their bill and they are starting to say: "Wait a minute. How stupid does the government really think I am? Just because it calls it by another name, does it think I will not recognize that it is a taxation process"?

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Does it think they will not know the difference between shopping in Kingston, Ontario, and anywhere along the Thousand Islands, in Clayton or in Alexandria Bay? Does it think people will not see the difference in the taxation process between two countries? Well, of course they will. Does it think that by setting up some kind of border process which collects even more taxes that it will stop people from shopping in the United States when they have a chance? Well, it will not.
People should simply understand that the taxation levels in this country have gotten to a point where those who are left paying taxes, that broad band of people who have, perhaps, a weekly pay cheque or an hourly rate, sometimes known as the middle-class, are really beginning to feel the pinch of taxation at all levels. If one could simply define: "It is fair. We are going to do this on the income tax. If you make more money you will pay more money in income tax". People would not like that very much, but they would at least understand that there is a logic there, that those with an ability to pay, ought to pay. What they are objecting to is that every time they turn around they are getting hit with some other form of taxation and they know it.
They do not care whether the kid who pumps the gas into their car looks like a tax collector or not. They are beginning to understand that he is a tax collector. They do not care whether the woman who works in the little comer store looks like an agent for the Government of Canada. They are aware now that that person functions much of her day as a tax collector for the Government of Canada and they are mad about that and they ought to be.
Also they ought to be mad about this. They ought to be mad that services they have already paid for are being taken away from them or that they are being charged extra for those services. They ought to be angry about that and they ought to tell this government. This government ought to drop the opinion polls and drop all the people it hired to do public relations work, go back home and listen to them.
In the last few days I have heard Conservative members, a long way in the backbench, albeit, but Conservative members, stand in this Chamber and reflect some of
that frustration. Maybe it is true that it is not good enough to hear from the opposition side that your financial policies are unpopular. I am sure, having been around Parliament for a while, that they have heard this in their own private caucus meetings.
Now you are beginning to hear it here in the Parliament of Canada. The message is not getting through. There are some who would be callous enough to say- and I would be one of them-that what is happening here is that the government is not popular at the moment, that it is gathering up a war chest, a kitty for the next general election, and that between now and election day there will hardly be a Canadian left standing who will not get a cheque from the Government of Canada for something, some rebate, some grant, some award, some giving back of their own cash.
I would say to the Canadian people, think about this. If somebody robs you on the street today, holds your money for two years and gives you back a portion of it two years from now, should you be happy about it? I do not think you should, and I would bet that by the time the next general election rolls around, the people in this country are going to understand that basic, unalterable fact that you have taken money out of their pocket now and it really does not matter whether you give them back a portion of that before the next election or not. They ought to remember what you did now, and what was the end result of your financial policies.
In a very casual way, the member suggested that the government has to look at some alternatives, some contracting out. When I was first a provincial member and saw this little exercise being tried, it looked to me like something that maybe we should think about. Then I discovered some odd things happening. When governments talk about contracting out, what they mean is that they are going to take people from permanent, paid position here, they are going to leave them right there, right at that desk, but they are going to call them by a different name, and they are going to call it contracting out. The next week that person will do exactly the same job in exactly the same place, and what they have lost is their status as an employee.
June 13, 1991

Governments like to pretend that they can then write up huge reports at the end of the fiscal year and say, look at how much we have cut the civil service. I do not know what the parliamentary word for that is, but I do know that the same people work in the same buildings, do the same jobs, and someone has found a device for calculating that they are really not there, that somehow they have disappeared. Oddly enough, it always turns out to be friends of the government who run the companies that get all of these contracts. It always turns out that it costs more money and not less.
So what governments try to do is focus your attention on the notion that there are less people working for the Government of Canada. You have to read the fine print and find out that no, there really are not, and it does not really cost less money. They are just called by a different name.
It is the same process that they are using now in taxation, that somehow if you call a tax by a different name it is no longer a tax. The people who are paying out the change every day are beginning to smarten up. They are beginning to understand that it does not really matter whether you call it by a different name, it is a tax. It does not really matter whether you pass a law saying: We are going to put all of this money into a special fund, not the Consolidated Revenue Fund anymore, and we are going to pay down the deficit. It does not take very much reading of the fine print of that law to discover what is happening is that it is business as usual. All the money goes into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and then they are going to set up a new accounting process which puts it into another account. Before the end of the fiscal year, they are going to take that money and pay down some part of the deficit. They make a promise in that bill that will crank up the same kind of idea next year.
People understand it does not matter whether you have one piggy bank on the kitchen table or two, it is the amount of money you put into piggy banks. What happens is that it costs you more money to buy the second piggy bank. That is the kind of shell game that this government has embarked upon.
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One of the things that I hear constantly where I work, in my own constituency when I walk around, is that people challenge the role of all the institutions we have. If they have watched this debate this morning, they have a good reason to challenge that. They have a good reason to say: Did we actually pay somebody to go to Ottawa and stand up and play those kinds of silly games, that you can call people two-faced, but you cannot say they are hypocrites? Does that make any difference anywhere in the world? No, it does not, and they know that.
You can quote Beauchesne and Erskine May until you are blue in the face. It works in here. Try it in a pool room. Go into a local bingo and tell them: Listen, the words you just used are not on the list. Beauchesne does not approve of those words, so you cannot use them. See if that changes the course of the argument. Well, it will not. The shame of it is that there are people in this Chamber who believe that somehow if you learn how to play the word games, it changes the nature of it all. It does not. You can delude yourself into thinking that a Parliament is about reading Beauchesne's, about finding a list in Erskine May or that it is some kind of game about whether everybody is an honourable member. It is not.
People watch every day and see the kinds of words that come out of this Chamber. They say: "What a bunch of foolish people. Don't they know there are serious problems in this country? Don't they know that we have to stop and look at all of our institutions?"
Do you not really know that people all across Canada are asking the interesting question: "Why are people in the Senate playing kazoos?" Is that what it is about? Is the Senate such a valuable institution? How is it that the government can simply decide one fine day that the Senate is not doing what it is supposed to do, and therefore we ought to put some more people into the Senate?
Do you think people do not understand the game called stacking the deck? Sure they do. They have seen it a million times where they work, whenever they have had an argument, whenever a debate was going one way and all of a sudden somebody decides that the debate is not going that way because they are bringing in more troops.

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They have probably seen a write-up of a Liberal nomination meeting. They know what stacking the deck is. They have been in a debate like that. They understand all of that.
There is something missing in this Chamber, at least I have not heard it because we do use parliamentary language. Maybe the country would be better if we set aside Beauchesne's for a day and said: "Let's just get together and report to the people of Canada what we have heard on the streets in our constituencies last week."


An hon. member:: Hear, hear.


Michael James Breaugh: It would be an interesting debate, I must say. I am sure there would be many across the country offended by the language that would be used, but there is a certain tenor to all of that that you really have to hear. Maybe it cannot be expressed in parliamentary language.
Maybe those who are big fans of the Senate would care to go out on the street in your community and express the fine words about the sober second thought and all of that.
What we are trying to do as a political entity is what I am sure every political entity in the country is trying to do. I do not understand why people really believe that electing a Senate in its current form is going to solve its problems.
This much I do know. There are people in this country who fervently believe that regional differences which have not been addressed by the Government of Canada over a long period of time can only be solved by somehow redesigning the second Chamber. I am not that dumb. I am at least prepared to listen to what they have to say. I am at least prepared to hear their arguments. If someone would figure out a way that we can elect a Senate, fine. If someone can figure out what they are going to do after we elect them, I think that is pretty important. If someone can suggest some changes in the relationship between the Senate of Canada and the House of Commons that would work, I am prepared to hear that argument and to accept it. Everybody else in this Chamber had better be prepared to hear it and accept it as well.
Governments at all levels in this country are being challenged and not in polite academic ways. They are being challenged on the streets, in the factories, in the playgrounds, in the arenas every day all across Canada,
and it seems that governments cannot hear it. That is a tragedy.
I have followed for some time the government's frustration with the Question Period. I have seen it here and in the other Chamber. I am amazed that somehow anybody in his or her right mind feels that if we limit it to 30 seconds, that will solve the problem. That is not the problem.
I have heard really good questions in other chambers go on much longer than 30 seconds. If people know what they are talking about, are reasonably secure in their facts and are putting forward good arguments, it is not a question of whether it is 29 seconds long or four minutes long. It is a question of relevance.
As I listen to my constituents talk about this Chamber, that is the question they have on their minds: "What the hell is going on down there?" I have to admit I am hard pressed to explain what is going on down there. I do not know. I am listening to it. I am there every day. I am watching it all unfold. It makes no sense to me.
I saw a headline the other day. I think it was Preston Manning who accused this Parliament of being a "disgrace". I admit he has got me. It is a disgrace that this is the national Government of Canada, the biggest Parliament we have, and it cannot get its act together. Why not? I do not know, I just got here.
Is it because people are so mesmerised with their own wonderfulness? I have been in politics for awhile. There is nothing wrong with a big ego in politics. If you do not have one you will not survive. But is that all there is to it? Is it just word games? If it is, let us do it on the cheap. Let us take all of these wonderful wordsmiths and find them a nice place to go for the summer. It will cost them $1.95. Give them a free lunch and let them get out there, and we will call it our constituent assembly.
I can find you all kinds of people who will serve in that constituent assembly for nothing. We do not have to call it the Senate, we do not have to pretend that it is a Parliament. It is a bunch of people yakking in a field.
For those who think that parliaments are distinguished places, I want to remind you that the very first Parliament was exactly that, a bunch of people yakking in a field, and the field was called Runnymede. They had a great argument that there was no one in their jurisdiction who could address the needs of the common people, and so they called it a House of Commons.

They then wrote books about it. Perhaps that was the downfall. Perhaps it was the downfall of the parliamentary system that someone wrote a book called Beauchesne and another guy wrote a book called Erskine May. Somehow these have become almost biblical in stature, rule books for a Parliament, and Parliament does not have to be relevant, it just has to follow those rules.
I would bet if you took any person from across this country and brought him or her to this door over here and said: "Okay, you have a couple of minutes. Tell these people what you think of them." I think I know what would be said. It probably would not be parliamentary, probably a great deal of frustration and disgrace that this is their country, that they have a say, that they thought you were a decent human being, that you had a contribution to make, and they cannot see you making it.
I am an advocate and always have been of the parliamentary process. I think it is much better than the congressional process, but it has its warts. There is something about a parliamentary process that means once you get elected your brain is removed and that somehow, when you leave your caucus room where you have had your great arguments about the issue of the day, you are no longer allowed to speak to that.
In part, our little motion says: "Let us begin to investigate the institutions of Canada. Let us see if we can find a better way to construct a role for a Senate, if that is what you want. Let us see if we can at least make it democratic. Let us see if we can find a function for that."
But I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, number two on my list is this place; this place is a disgrace and it ought not to be.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I have only been in this Chamber for just under three years, but I want to say that the hon. member for Oshawa, who is a member of the New Democratic Party, has made one of the finest speeches that I have heard in this place. I want him to know that everything that he has just said is exactly what I hear in my riding. I would not argue a comma with this member.
But I do want to ask him a specific question. In the beginning part of his speech, he talked about the frustration that people are having with the tax system, and he specifically referred to the middle class. Again I
Supply
agree with him totally. In the last two and half weeks, when I have not been in the Chamber but in my riding, I can tell you that everyone, whether they are in small businesses, medium sized businesses, large businesses, everyone is so frustrated with what is happening.
In relation to the complexity of the tax system, we have just come through a period where people have just finished doing their tax returns, so naturally that frustration is intense. It is even more intense when you think that a lot of these people right now have either lost their jobs or they are afraid of losing their jobs. There is a lot of tension in the community and morale is at an all-time low. Part of our responsibility as leaders of our communities is to deal in hope. We seem to be having a difficult time, as the hon. member has said, in putting it together. I would like to ask him a very specific question: Because he has had experience in both chambers, provincially and nationally, does he have any specific ideas on how we might be able to reform the tax system so that the concept of fairness, the concept of efficiency, and all those things that might put some hope and motivation back into a community can exist? Does he have any ideas on that?


Michael James Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, I have had a chance to observe legislatures and parliaments around the world now for a fair bit of time. They are all different. They have their own little customs. They all develop their own taxation processes. The test the public puts them to asks: Is this fair?
At the moment I believe it is accurate to say that the taxation process in Canada is unfair every time you turn around. What angers people, as well, is that it is all-pervasive.


An hon. member:: What should we do?


Michael James Breaugh: For example, when the major thrust of your taxation process is something like a goods and services tax, which is collected at the comer store, people object to it. People go to the comer store to buy goods and services, not to pay taxes. When there is a developing thrust in your taxation process which does not include sitting down at the end of the year to decide what is fair, that everybody is paying their fair share, then that concept of fairness is totally lacking in the taxation process in Canada.

Supply
I have heard some people talk about a minimal tax or a flat tax for everybody. That is perhaps a little simplistic for the world. But there is merit in that, and it is simply this: when people look around and see others making far more money than they are and paying absolutely no income tax, they think there is something wrong with the system and they are right. There has to be a base level of taxation based on income, I believe.
Second, I am constantly lost by governments at all levels with their little schemes about avoiding taxes. I think that message has got out to the Canadian public as well. Canadians do not understand, nor do I, how it is that the wealthiest people, the wealthiest corporations in our society, can wind up paying no taxes at all when they pay taxes every time they turn around?
I think the first principle that has to get injected into this system is some sense of fair play. Because, to be blunt, people think they are being screwed, and the truth is they are and they know it. They also know that collecting taxes at the comer store is wrong. They have to be declined dramatically.
I do not suggest for a moment that this is a simple thing, but I think that if you do not get back to a fairness principle, you will never have a taxation process that will be accepted by the population at large, because it should not be.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. gentleman a question concerning his comments regarding this Chamber, Parliament and legislatures in Canada. If you go back over debates in this Chamber, and debates I suppose in practically every other provincial legislature, you will find that the same criticisms were made of the Canadian system as the Canadian system has evolved.
Since the hon. member has visited other legislatures and passed an opinion a few moment ago on the congressional system, I wonder if he has come to any conclusion as to what procedure should be followed to change, as he puts it, the procedures in the House of Commons to make it, as he also wishes, more relevant to the year 1991. What should some of these major changes be, and why does not he like the congressional system?
As he pointed out a moment ago, he said our system was better than the congressional system.
Does he think perhaps one of the major problems is the fact that individual members of Parliament do not have the ability under the present rules to investigate the administration or to change legislation in their legislative role?


Michael James Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, those of us who have been in legislatures and parliaments in Canada literally drool when we go and see an American congressional system that concentrates a lot of power on the individual member. You look at the kind of facts and figures that they get out of their governments and say: "Boy, would it ever be great if we had a finance committee that actually started off the budget year with every scrap of financial information that the government had, and then made recommendations about what we should do." If only that were our starting point. The big flaw in the congressional system, of course, is very simply that everybody is an individual player. If you go into a legislative chamber in the States where there are 100 members, there are 100 political parties at work and they are all free agents.
The big advantage of a parliamentary system is the cohesion. When you go to Westminster and watch the British system at work you say: "You belong to a party system as I do, in a parliamentary system as I do, how dare your Conservative members get up and challenge your government?" Why is it that when you watch Westminster at work there is as much laying of the lash from the Conservative side of the House as there is from the opposition side. Somehow we got diverted from the parliamentary system in Canada and we are more devoted to our parties than we ought to be. It is our curse.
I know it is a shocking thing to say, but it would be delightful if in this Chamber members on all sides rediscovered their brains and used them and used their human skills. It would be delightful in this parliamentary system if the government of the day had first to convince ordinary members on its own side, its friends, that the directions and the policies of the government, that the laws they wanted to propose were the right ones and if they could not get it through their own caucus they did not bring it in here.
June 13, 1991

I have been around long enough to know that that is the theory. That is the way the books write it up, but in practice what happens is the minister walks in and says: "This is the way we are going, folks" and everybody goes out over the cliff. If somebody just had the common sense to say: "Wait a minute, that is a cliff there; I don't want to jump off that cliff. Convince me. Don't tell me what I have to do. Convince me." Then the parliamentary system would work as it was originally designed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question? I am sorry there is no more time left. Questions and comments are now terminated.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to stand and-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is this a point of order or on debate?


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, when you said shall the question be put, is it correct to assume you were referring to only the first portion of the entire question? By accepting your motion and voting on it by a voice vote, were we to then move on to the second portion of the same question which is under consideration in the House? Does this mean that every member can, after that vote, then proceed-in fact some members have already spoken-and speak again to the same main motion under a different heading?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, this is true. We are on Motion No. 1. With this motion, whether it carries or not, we just carry on to Motion No. 2. We have until 10 o'clock tonight. Does the hon. member still want to speak on Motion No. 1? If not, I will put the question.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion, the yeas have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), I have been requested by the representative of the Chief Government Whip to defer division until a later time.
Accordingly, pursuant to Standing Order 45(5)(a), the division on the question now before the House stands deferred until 10 p.m. later this day, at which time the bells to call in the members will be sounded for not more than 15 minutes.
Shall I call it one o'clock?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this day.
At 12.58 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Lyle Dean Mac William (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Transport and Communications has condemned this government's decision to gut Canada's international radio broadcast service.
Senator Finlay MacDonald says Canada's voice to the world has been silenced. Radio Canada International has now eliminated seven foreign language services and three-quarters of its foreign programming. These drastic cuts to a service with a world-wide reputation have sparked national and international outrage.
It was front-page news in Japan, where the Prime Minister recently opened a new embassy.

June 13, 1991
It is ironic that a government which is obsessed with broadening international trade fails to see that RCI is the best way Canada has of promoting itself to the rest of the world.
I urge the Prime Minister to listen to his colleague's warning. RCI is Canada's link to the world. Our policies and our industries were effectively explained on a world stage. Let us not cut an invaluable service which gives Canada an international identity.


TAXATION
Mr. A1 Johnson (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, middle income Canadians feel that they are overtaxed. They feel that the tax system is unfair and much too complicated. They know they bear a heavy burden because of the excessive spending of the previous government, but there is no excuse for unfairness and complexity.
We have family allowance, the child tax credit, the dependent child tax credit, the equivalent to married credit, the child care deduction, the GST credit, the spousal deduction, and a plethora of shared cost programs. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
Middle income Canadians also know that the system is unfair. A married two-earner couple, with a combined income of $60,000 and three children, pays up to $5,500 more in taxes than an unmarried couple in exactly the same circumstances. More extreme differences exist when comparisons are made of other family structures and tax inconsistencies.
I urge the government to act quickly to simplify the tax system and make it fair for everyone, regardless of the lifestyle they choose.


COMMISSIONER OF OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, Mr. D'Iberville Fortier, the Commissioner of Official Languages, reaches the end of the mandate he was given by this Parliament in 1984. A new
Official Languages Act, the delay in producing regulations, the Conservative goverment's failure to act decisively, court challenges, language conflicts-these are some of the major obstacles and challenges that marked Mr. Fortier's term. His position has certainly not been an enviable one.
As the Liberal critic for Official Languages, I can testify to the tremendous effort and legal battles it took to defend minority rights. The courage shown by Mr. Fortier during the past seven years, against all criticism and despite emerging radical groups, has been remarkable, Mr. Speaker, and we are truly indebted to him.
The new commissioner will have to act with as much energy and vigour and have the same dynamic approach as Mr. Fortier. Only with people like him, who truly respect Canada's legislation on linguistic minorities, will we be able to ensure some day that both official languages in this country are treated equally. Thank you, Mr. Fortier, and the best of luck with your future plans.
* sfc *


BANKRUPTCY ACT
Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, today the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs tabled a new bill on bankruptcy and insolvency.
On November 29, 1985, under No. 245, I presented a notice of motion, and on May 20, 1988, I tabled in the House of Commons a motion, which was adopted, asking the government to consider establishing a special wage insurance fund that would be responsible for paying workers any wages pending when a Canadian employer goes bankrupt.
Mr. Speaker, I must say I was veiy pleased with this bill which contains measures dealing with business restructuring, winding-up arrangements and personal bankruptcies; creates a wage claim recovery program; legislates the rights of unpaid suppliers; and finally, includes various technical changes designed to make it easier and less costly to administer this legislation. This is the kind of initiative designed to help all businesses and all Canadians through a difficult period.
June 13, 1991


STUDENT EMPLOYMENT
Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, today the headlines in the local newspapers of Northumberland give no assurances to students looking for work this summer.
Over two-thirds of students registered at a student employment centre are unable to find summer jobs. Meanwhile, there has been no increase in the Summer Employment Experience Development Program, otherwise known as SEED.
The fact is that unemployment levels in my riding are higher than the averages used to calculate the SEED allotments.
In addition, there was an unexplained dramatic decline in allotment between 1989 and this year. This has meant many important programs in my riding have had to suspend summer programs which not only employed many students but benefited communities in important, economic and social ways.
The minister has made the commitment to redistribute funds to areas with the greatest change in unemployment above the provincial average, and therefore I strongly urge him to review the figures in Northumberland and increase SEED funding to more adequately reflect the desperate situation facing many young people in Northumberland.


CAPTAIN ROSELLA BJORNSON
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, Captain Rosella Bjomson was the first female in Canada hired to fly a commercial jet. She was recently honoured during National Transportation Week when she received the National Award of Achievement in Halifax on May 30. In Winnipeg, she received the Manitoba Award of Achievement on June 6 of this year in recognition of her exceptional leadership and success in opening the aviation door to women.
Captain Bjomson was bom and raised in Alberta. She was first hired in 1973 by Transair, now Canadian Airlines. Today, 18 years later, she is the only female jet captain employed by a scheduled airline in Canada.
Well done, Captain Bjomson. Well done, Canada.


PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE DAY
Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, June 12 is an historic day for Filipino Canadians. Although we are now Canadian citizens, we carry in our hearts the memory of that day, 93 years ago, when our great-grandparents freed themselves from Spanish rale.
At that time, the Filipino people came to understand independence did not mean being alone, working in the interest of yourself; it meant standing together to attain greater goals.
Today, though we stand on Canadian soil, we carry from our motherland that spirit of independence.
Indeed, we believe the meaning of independence is unity, working together for the greater whole. This is one of the values we bring to Canada, along with goodwill and and understanding toward others. Happily they are values shared by all Canadians.
I hope the Filipino people in Canada and all Canadians will join us in celebrating Philippine Independence Day as we join together in our common search for national Canadian unity.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Jean-Luc Joncas (Matapedia-Matane):: Mr. Speaker, on December 5,1990, the CBC closed its three television stations in Eastern Quebec, depriving the people of the Lower St. Lawrence, the Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands of a vital communications medium.
This situation has led to a dangerous level of underbudgeting for the CBC's radio stations, because initially, managers of television and radio stations had restructured their operations so that radio operating costs would be largely absorbed by the television budget.
Mr. Speaker, my constituents are worried, and they are afraid that what happened to television will happen to radio as well.
Mr. Speaker, I share their concern, and I want to ask the minister responsible for the CBC to do something about this right away.


DE HAVILLAND
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, my what an interesting course has been followed in the privatization of de Havilland.
First the government sells it to Boeing, or should we say pays Boeing to take it of its hands. Investment Canada thinks it is great-it always does-but Boeing decides its hands are full and sells it to the ATR consortium. Hence, privatization leads to government ownership, only not our government.
The opposition identified trouble ahead from the very beginning in lost jobs, lost research and development and lost production of the Canadian Dash-8 series. After all, ATR's commuter plane competes directly with the Dash-8.
Our government saw no problem because privatization is good. Investment Canada saw no problem because foreign ownership is good.
The European community is as concerned as our government is not about the reduction in competition in commuter aircraft and will examine it.
The sale delayed, de Havilland's survival is now endangered by the loss of orders caused by uncertainty and doubt and the stupidity of this government.
What will the government do to make it right? Buy de Havilland?


REFORM PARTY
Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Calgary Southwest):: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Reform Party gave a speech on Tuesday night right here in Ottawa. He spoke at length but never once mentioned that he was in favour of controlling government expenditures by cutting thick layers of middle management in federal administration. That is his policy and it affects the residents of this city of Ottawa.
He also never mentioned his policy of a 15 per cent cut to federal program spending across the board in every area. This 15 per cent cut means seniors receiving the OAS and GIS would have their incomes reduced by $120 per month or $1,427 per year. It seems to me the Reform
man has one message for Calgary and another message for Ottawa.
Why is he not consistent across Canada?


CO-OPERATIVES
Hon. Jean Chretien (Beausejour):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on an issue which is of great importance to my constituents, many of whom belong to co-operatives.
The co-operative is very important to Atlantic Canada. People in local communities, farmers, fishermen and consumers studied the problems that faced them and decided to solve those problems through the use of co-operatives. They have had great success. Today more than 174,000 families own 174 co-operatives.
With the GST, this government has created an unfair and unacceptable tax system which tilts the playing field against co-operatives. Today, if someone in Shediac or Buctouche wants to buy a share in a co-operative, they must pay GST.
On the other hand, someone wishing to invest in a large multinational corporation can buy the shares without paying the GST.

Furthermore, the GST is applied to certain foods purchased directly from a co-op, but it does not apply to the same foods purchased from a multinational chain. Because of this double standard, co-ops in the Atlantic provinces stand to lose over $1 million. This region needs a strong co-operative movement.
I feel the government should review this problem and give co-ops throughout the country a fair deal.


BANKRUPTCY ACT
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, today, the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Conservative member for Bellechasse, the Hon. Pierre Blais, tabled new legislation on bankruptcy and insolvency.
It introduces provisions to protect workers affected by bankruptcy who lose their jobs and, in many cases, the wages they are owed.

From now on, these workers will be able to seek reimbursement for their unpaid wages up to a maximum $2,000, plus $1,000 for expenses in the case of travelling salesmen. They will receive this reimbursement within four to six weeks.
Mr. Speaker, this is a measure designed to help all Canadian workers.
I say: congratulations to the Tory government!


CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING
Mr. Ken James (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, the last edition of the cross-border report outlined the critical role of the Canada Customs in addressing the cross-border shopping issue.
In Sarnia-Lambton, cross-border shopping is visible through the line-ups at the Blue Water Bridge and the worrisome impact on local businesses.
The problem is serious, with no quick fixes. It will require effective, collaborative action by a number of players. This, however, does not preclude the federal government from seriously looking at our policies as they contribute to cross-border travel. This includes Canada Customs.
Locally this may include the trial of a PACE amended type program, the trial of tourist lanes or the use of new technology. Some or all may help improve service at the border, especially for our commuters and American travellers to and from the many tourist attractions in our area.
At the Blue Water Bridge, more personnel will help us address the line-ups. I have written directly to the Minister of National Revenue requesting more Customs personnel at the Blue Water Bridge.
With more personnel and other initiatives, the objective must be the collection of all applicable duties and taxes. We want no more wave-throughs and the absence of excessive line-ups at the Blue Water Bridge.


BELLA COOLA
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, for many years the native and white villages of Bella Coola shared the same water supply.
However, when the federal government put in a new system on the reserve, the white village was left with an inadequate, badly contaminated water supply. Now the native supply has also been found to be contaminated, requiring much more work.
The Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is now working with both parties to resolve the problems. It makes good sense for both villages to co-operate to establish one good, safe system rather than duplicate costly installations.
I call on all parties to work together to provide a safe and secure water supply for all, not just for part of the populations. We need more examples of native-white co-operation, not confrontation.


MEME BREAST IMPLANT
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, despite the removal of the Meme breast implant from the market, thousands of Canadian women remain deeply troubled by the lack of information available on the safety of breast implants.
It is now apparent that research into the Meme is being guided not by the desire to provide impartial and factual information, but by political considerations.
A woman in Montreal has been told by a surgeon that he will remove her Meme implant only if she agrees to donate that implant to a research project at McGill University, headed by Dr. Carolyn Kerrigan, who is doing research funded by the manufacturer of the Meme and is the same doctor whose report on the Meme for the Department of National Health and Welfare claimed there was no health risk with the Meme.
Are members of the medical profession now more concerned with manipulating research than finding the truth and allaying the fears of Canadian women with the Meme implant? Are they being aided by this government which has demonstrated over the last several years that it has neither the resources nor the intent to give us the answers regarding the Meme implant?

June 13, 1991
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
I know that the minister said in the House yesterday that he does not like to be put under pressure during Question Period, but I would remind him of the advice of Harry Truman: "If you can't take the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen".
Yesterday it was announced that Mr. Gordon Smith, Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations, was being reassigned overseas. Can the minister tell the House why Mr. Smith was let go? Why is the senior constitutional adviser to the government being sent overseas less than 60 days before the government tables its position before the country?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I find it passing strange that a great, well-known Canadian nationalist like the Leader of the Opposition would have to quote an American. Can he not find a Canadian to quote if he is trying to throw a jab across the House? He does however ask a serious question.
It should be made very clear that everyone in this government, and I am sure the hon. member who has had the opportunity to work with Gordon Smith, has the highest regard for his professional abilities. He is a first-class public servant and we look forward to continuing to work closely with him in his new assignment.
This is the number one priority file of the Government of Canada. We thought it made more sense to have the senior public servant in the country who is well experienced in this file working with me, working with the Prime Minister and working with our committee to ensure that we make the most progress possible toward renewing this country in the way that I believe the Leader of the Opposition and certainly members of this government want to see happen.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: What the minister is trying to tell us is not quite clear. We don't know whether he was fired or not. I would like to ask the minister: Did he discuss career plans with Mr. Smith yesterday? Or did he let Mr. Tellier do the dirty work and tell him he had been transferred? Or did Mr. Smith himself asked to be transferred to another position? What happened? Canadians want to know the facts. Why are we asking Mr. Smith to go overseas, far away from these issues, when the government called him back less than a year ago to work on this important dossier?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, at least the Leader of the Opposition is now quoting Canadians, not Americans. At least that is something.
I think I already answered the question. A decision was made by the Prime Minister. I was consulted. As usual and as is normal in the circumstances, the first conversation was between the clerk and the deputy minister. And then I had a personal conversation with someone for whom I have a great deal of esteem and whom I consider as friend: Mr. Smith.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the appointment of the Prime Minister's right-hand man, Mr. Tellier, as Secretary to the Cabinet on Federal-Provincial Relations, means that the Prime Minister has retaken control of the constitutional file.
The Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs was appointed precisely because he was supposed to have some credibility and because he was not directly involved in the constitutional process last year. How can the minister operate at arm's length when he and the Prime Minister both have the same right arm?
I used to be in that job. I have been there before, and I want to ask a very serious question of the minister of constitutional affairs. How can he stay on as minister when the Prime Minister has so little confidence in him, when the Prime Minister made him his dignified parliamentary secretary?
June 13, 1991


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, there have been circumstances in this country when two parliamentarians, two Canadians, ran for the leadership of a party and one won and the other went away and sulked.
The example that the Prime Minister and I have set is that we both ran for the leadership of our party. When the Prime Minister was chosen the leader of my party and the Prime Minister of my country, I worked very closely with him. I continue to do that. I have no worry about that at all.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Bring in the coffee, go get the coffee, very close.


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau -Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
Before the minister assumed his new responsibilities, the newspapers reported that he insisted on working at arm's length from the Prime Minister. How can he claim today that he is still working at arm's length, when his deputy minister no longer reports to him but directly to the Prime Minister?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, here at least we work as a team, and I am absolutely confident we can continue on that basis.
I really would like to know, since the hon. member is his party's critic for constitutional affairs, whether the Liberal team can be as united and as effective as our team where constitutional matters are concerned. I hope so, because in that case, it will be good for the country.


André Ouellet: I realize, Mr. Speaker, that today, the minister is having a lot of trouble maintaining the semblance of credibility he wanted to have in the constitutional dossier.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


André Ouellet: Clearly, the answers he has given during the past few days and especially today cause one to question his ability to take care of the constitutional dossier himself, without having right behind him a Prime
Oral Questions
Minister who is prepared to gamble, to roll the dice on Canada's constitutional future.
My question to the minister is this: Could he confirm to the House that his suggestion was that the Prime Minister appoint Mr. de Montigny Marchand as the new deputy minister and that the Prime Minister refused and appointed Mr. Tellier instead?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's information on the situation in External Affairs is as incorrect in this particular case as it has been in other instances.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade.
Following yesterday's meeting on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade talks I understand there were six committees created which defined the priority areas for the talks, but nowhere on this priority list were environmental issues, workers' standards or indeed social standards.
Will the minister give this House some assurance that he will work for an agreement on workers' rights, on environmental standards and on social standards, or will he say there will be no trade deal until we have those for the people of Canada and for the people in Mexico and the United States?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, the discussions that we had yesterday were related to the trade negotiations themselves. They were not related to the parallel work that we will be carrying out with the Mexicans and the Americans on questions that she has just raised on labour standards and environmental standards.
As I am sure my hon. friend is aware, we have a memorandum of understanding with the Mexicans where we are discussing-and we have had it in place for a little over a year now-environmental issues. That work will be going on.

June 13, 1991
Oral Questions
I had a discussion with my colleague, Mr. Serra, and told him that we would like to have a group come down to Mexico City and discuss the work of that group in relation to the process of the trade talks.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, continually during the Canada-U.S. trade deal the minister said that it was just a commercial agreement and that it did not affect these other areas. However, if we talk to the 313,000 unemployed right now who have lost their jobs since the trade deal or the 1.5 million unemployed in Canada, if we talk to those people who had manufacturing jobs-and since 1989 one in six of those jobs has gone-clearly this government has to take seriously the concerns of working people and their futures and the futures of their families.
Many of the jobs, and the minister knows this, have already gone to Mexico. I could give a long list, but there are jobs from Burlington, Cambridge, Waterloo, Pene-tanguishene, and across Canada. We have seen companies moving out of this country. As one company official recently said: "These are jobs that will never come back to Canada".
During the last trade talks we talked about-


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. leader to put her question.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: The minister has said there is no need for worker adjustment programs during these talks. Will the minister stand up for Canadian workers and make sure there are adjustment programs here in Canada? He certainly did not do it before. Will he take workers' concerns seriously this time?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me point out that the impact of the trade talks with Mexico is quite small in relation to the size of the free trade agreement with the United States.
In this case we are talking about $2.2 billion trade with Mexico, two-way trade; with the United States it was over $200 billion.
Since the free trade agreement with the United States we have increased the amount of funding for training programs by some $500 million to $800 million. We have
responded to the needs of people who are moving from one job to another.
My friend has referred to the impact of the free trade agreement. I understand her difficulty in differentiating the effects of the recession and the effects of free trade.
I commented the day before yesterday in the House that the impact of the free trade agreement has resulted in our trade surplus with the United States growing from $14 to $17 billion and our exports to the United States growing by 12 per cent, both since 1988. In addition to that there has been a positive swing in Canada's direction of some six and a half billion dollars of foreign direct investment. There are many examples and I have a book here which outlines them.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that all unemployed workers across this country would love to see that book, but they cannot eat it. They need food on the table and they need jobs in this country. On another matter, Mr. Speaker-

Yesterday, Carla Hills, the U.S. negotiator in free trade talks with Mexico and Canada, his country, told journalists that according to her, everything was on the table. Nothing is excluded. Yesterday, however, the minister refused to say whether culture was excluded from the talks on the agreement with Mexico and the United States. I want to ask the minister responsible for these negotiations: What is he going to do to make the United States understand that culture is not negotiable?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I have said time and time again culture is not negotiable. What Mrs. Hills said yesterday is that these matters were not discussed because it was not the forum for that type of discussion. If I asked Mrs. Hills whether marine transportation was on the table, she would say absolutely not. If I asked Jaime Serra Puche from Mexico whether the ownership of the oil energy reserves was on the table, he would say absolutely not.
June 13, 1991

Similarly, if I am asked by either of them whether culture is on the table, I say absolutely not.


IMMIGRATION
Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, according to public documents, on April 30, Paul Tellier, the Prime Minister's chief public servant, gave advice to the Prime Minister that the press line on the Al-Mashat affair was, and I quote: "That ministers would respond that Mr. Al-Mashat met requirements as a retiree, was processed under minimal standards and was not accorded preferential treatment."
Today in press reports the Minister of Employment and Immigration has stated that this press line was a lie. The minister has said in effect that the Privy Council Office, which reports directly to the Prime Minister, was counselling ministers to tell a lie to Parliament. What has the Deputy Prime Minister or the Prime Minister done to investigate these extraordinary allegations?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I will preface my answer by immediately stating that maybe my choice of words yesterday to a reporter-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: -was poor or too severe. I never intended to say that officials came to me and said go out and lie to Canadians.
What I meant to say was that if we had bought the media line that was offered to explain the entry of Mr. Mashat into Canada we would have misled Canadians. That is why, on May 14, the Secretary of State for External Affairs and I gave a report as to how this happened. All the facts are before the committee and nothing has changed.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, for the last three weeks we have seen ministers of this government committing acts of verbal gymnastics.


Some hon. members:: Order.


Mr. Speaker:: There may not be anything wrong with it, but I did not know where it was going. The hon. member will put his question.
Oral Questions


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, this is where it is going. I think it is absolutely essential that this government, under the circumstances of these allegations and the statement made by the minister in the House, that once again he is changing his story. Is it not absolutely imperative this government reopen the parliamentary inquiry that was shut down this morning by its own members? Are we going to get to the truth or not of this case? Will the Deputy Prime Minister have the inquiry meet this afternoon to question this minister?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, my sense is that the opposition is really not interested in the facts, they are more interested in pursuing their own theories and allegations, allegations which have yet to be substantiated.
Ministers have appeared before the committee. They have outlined a chronology of events. Officials have appeared before the committee. Still hon. members opposite are carrying on a witch hunt based upon their own allegations and theories. Well, they had their chance; why did they not do their job properly?
If hon. members of the opposition could not find evidence to substantiate their theories and their allegations, then why don't they knock it off?


Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration and it concerns the astonishing statement that he is reported as having made today. I quote it verbatim because it is not a very complicated phrase. "They wanted me to lie."
There is no explanation in the story by way of direct quote as to who "they" are. Therefore, this statement is profoundly disturbing-calling into question the very integrity-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member could put his question.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, the statement calls into question the integrity of civil servants and politicians alike. We on this side are interested in the facts. Will the minister give us the facts as to why he said "they wanted me to lie"?

Oral Questions


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated that maybe my choice of words yesterday were poor. I did not mean to cast any implications.
He talks about the integrity of the Public Service, and I know the high esteem the hon. member-especially of the Liberal Party and the NDP-have for our Public Service. I saw how they treated Mr. Tellier so I understand his concern.
I never meant to cast doubts on the integrity of the Public Service. The words I should have used were that if I had followed the line suggested I would have misled Canadians, and I did not want to mislead Canadians. Hence, we are before a committee. They have all the facts, but he is still on his witch hunt. Go ahead.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, the words are clear: "They told me to lie." There is no explanation about who "they" are. Talk about an innuendo against the entire civil service.
What is the minister going to do? These people do not have a public forum to defend themselves. What is the minister going to do to remove the cloud of suspicion he has placed over their heads with his cavalier phrase.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I have already explained that maybe the words were a bit harsh. But if the member really cares about the facts, let him look at the evidence before that committee. Tike the media line that was offered and tell me, if I had come out and told Canadians that line what would I have done? I would have misled them and I did not want to mislead Canadians. The government does not want to mislead Canadians, and we haven't. The facts are there but you seem to like to continue keeping Canadians in the dark. Go on.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister.
The minister has said "the media line that was offered was wrong". I want to ask the minister a very straightforward question. In view of the fact that according to the evidence the committee has heard, the media line that was offered on April 30 was that which was prepared by Paul Tellier, the Clerk of the Privy Council.
I want to ask this minister a very straightforward question. Who were the officials to whom he is referring when he says "they wanted me to lie; I refused to lie".
Who were those officials who wanted him to lie, that offered him a media line? Who prepared that media line that he was going to be offering up at the advice of public servants? Either come clean or stop the innuendo.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, I have already answered the question. If the member is really interested in knowing the facts, let him go to the evidence that was presented before the committee which, by the way, still has to report to this House.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I have referred the minister directly to the evidence before the committee which indicates that the press line that was prepared for the Prime Minister by the Clerk of the Privy Council indicated that ministers were to lie and say that he was not accorded preferential treatment.
I want to ask this minister a straightforward question. Who was it that told the minister that the media line was in fact to indicate that there was no preferential treatment for Al-Mashat? Who told him to lie and who prepared the lie in the first place? Was it the Clerk of the Privy Council?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the committee is considering all the evidence before it. I think the answer to the hon. member's question is in the evidence that was given before that committee.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, at the committee the ministers were not under oath.
Yesterday, the minister said-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Just for a moment, I want to make a comment. Hon. members know that when we have an intense issue there are always temptations to either be very aggressive or to respond accordingly.
Second, we have been trying over a number of days to deal with the not altogether easy issue of how to handle the matter, some of which is outside the committee and some of which is in. I want it made very clear that I do not believe I would be doing my duty as your Speaker if I allowed preambles, no matter how well disguised, that amount to an accusation that somebody is not telling the truth.
June 13, 1991

I would ask hon. members to keep that in mind. I would hope that the hon. member for York South- Weston did not intend that. Please put your question.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister said: "They wanted me to lie. I refused to lie." A few minutes ago the same minister said: "If I followed the line I would have misled Canadians." It means the same thing. He is accusing civil servants of counselling him to tell a lie.
I would like to ask the minister, if that is the case, if in fact he was counselled by officials to lie to Canadians and to this Parliament, why did he not say so in version A or version B or version C or version D? Why did he wait until yesterday to make that allegation?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, for anyone who cares to look at the facts that are before the committee, he will see that I said nothing new yesterday. Everything is before the committee and the committee will draw its own conclusions and hopefully Canadians will do the same.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, the minister today is confirming why 71 per cent of Canadians have formed the opinion that this government is not telling the truth in the Al-Mashat affair.
I would like to put a question to the minister again. I would like to ask the minister very specifically, when he made that statement yesterday about civil servants lying and when he repeated it again today in the House, exactly what did he mean and why did he not inform Canadians sooner that senior civil servants were counselling him to tell lies?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the Liberals give truth to the adage that truth is often stranger than fiction. They do not seem to be able to swallow the truth. They have it, the committee has it and it will report to the House.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe -Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, this minister is having trouble keeping his story straight for more than 30 seconds.
The fact of the matter is that the minister is quoted in the newspaper as saying: "They wanted me to lie. I refused to lie". Now the minister says: "I did not mean to
Oral Questions
use those words". The minister was on Radio Canada today at noon, reaffirming this story about being asked to lie, in both official languages. In English and en frangais the minister has claimed he was asked to lie.
I ask the minister: Who asked you to lie? What was the lie? Will you come before a parliamentary committee?


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, the answer I gave earlier still stands.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. Let me be kind and say, with whatever word, with whatever adjective the minister cares to describe what people tried to influence him to do, we will accept any adjective he wants. But will he tell us, at least, what it was that certain people who are now unnamed, tried to influence him to do and why did he not tell the parliamentary inquiry when he appeared before it about this undue, improper influence exerted upon a minister, by whatever name he wants to categorize it? There is only one name Canadians understand. It is a whitewash and a cover-up and a lie.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. member to withdraw.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, because of my great respect for the Chair, I withdraw the word "lie".


CANADA POST
Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for Canada Post.
The government has expressed great concern about cross-border shopping by Canadians. With that in mind, how can the minister explain why most Canadian mail, including mail from Toronto to cities like Vancouver, Winnipeg and Calgary, is trucked over American highways, therefore avoiding using Canadian goods and services, purchasing Canadian gasoline or paying any Canadian taxes?

June 13, 1991
Oral Questions


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: I assure you that Canada Post pays Canadian taxes. Indeed, under the direction of this government, it has gone from being a recipient of Canadian taxes to the tune of $400 million to paying a dividend last year of some $50 million and showing a profit of $150 million.
Canada Post is committed to delivering the mail within the standards that have been laid down. Every quarter auditors measure the performance. It is now the most efficient postal system in the world. They deliver the mail from Toronto to Calgary or Toronto to Vancouver and vice versa, as quickly as possible through private carriers. Most of it goes by airline, as a matter of fact, for those distances. Sometimes the airlines fly over the United States on the way to their destination.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister.
Why would the Government of Canada encourage, or for that matter force basically through their bidding system, companies to drive through the United States? It is a lot of the mail, not just a bit of the mail that is going right through the States; therefore, they are not paying Canadian taxes on the services they buy. They are not providing jobs for Canadians. What kind of policy does this government have?


Harvie Andre: I really wonder where the hon. member is coming from in terms of this question. Canada Post is endeavouring to deliver the mail as quickly, as efficiently, accurately and as cheaply as possible.
Ninety per cent plus goes by air. Ground transport is usually for parcels and so on, but they try to get it from point A to point B as quickly as possible. They use Canadian truckers, Canadian drivers and, indeed, they are now returning profits to Canadian taxpayers who suffered too long because of the way the post office used to be run.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mr. Bill Attewell (Markham-Whitchurch-Stouff-ville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the President of the Treasury Board.
Canadians are feeling taxed to death and are demanding that cuts be made in the huge federal bureaucracy. I was pleased to hear last February that civil servants' pay will be frozen this year. The February budget also included a commitment that several layers of management will be eliminated and that 10 per cent or at least 475 executive jobs in the Public Service will be terminated.
Many business people have had to downsize their companies and lay off employees in order to survive, and they had to take these steps quickly. It is over three months since the budget announcement. I want to know if the government has made substantial progress in its commitment to cut at least 475 executive public servants and eliminate layers of management.


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell the hon. member that based on the information we have gathered from various departments, I would say that the reduction is progressing rather well.
I have asked for a report to be made to me by September 1, 1991. I would like to remind him that we have indicated in the budget that a reduction of 475 managers would have to be achieved over a period of two years.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
The government has known for more than a year that the term for the Commissioner of Official Languages would expire this week, yet, there have been no consultations with the opposition and no parliamentary resolution to appoint a new commissioner has been tabled.
June 13, 1991

Considering the constitutional discussions taking place and considering the attacks that are being made on linguistic duality, this level of incompetence is not acceptable.
When will the government commence negotiations or consultations with the opposition for the appointment of a new commissioner? Will we have that resolution to appoint a new commissioner before the House adjourns next week?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I cannot assure that such a decision will be made before the end of the week, but I certainly will take the hon. member's question as a representation.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out, the government has known for a long time that the appointment would expire this week, and there is no excuse for this delay.

Mr. Speaker, minority language communities in this country are keenly aware that the situation is delicate and urgent. Is the government prepared to propose a successor to Mr. Fortier before it adjourns next week? This is very important.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated to the hon. member, I am sure that the matter is in hand.
I do not have all the facts at my disposal at the present time, but I will certainly get back to him as soon as I can.
^k -k -k


WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland -Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications, and it is in one carefully crafted sentence as outlined in the Standing Orders.
The weekly newspapers were pleased to learn that current postal rates for Rate Code 2 weeklies were extended to March 1992. Some weeklies under Rate Code 3 cannot realize the benefits. Will Rate Code 3 weeklies be given some consideration as Rate Code 2 weeklies?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I thought the question was excellent.
Oral Questions
A program announced a few days ago deals with Rate Code 2, or community newspapers. In the case of Rate Code 3 newspapers which are regional and national weeklies, on March 1 my predecessor announced a program to assist them to the tune of some $2 million a year for the next three years.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are paying millions and millions of royalty dollars to American broadcasters because this government did not understand, did not consult and did not adequately defend Canadian cultural industries in the last round of the free trade negotiations.
Why do Canadians in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada for that matter, have to pay twice as much as Americans for every single channel that they watch, the same ones that they watch. What is the minister planning to do about that?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, my colleagues, when they negotiated the Cana-da-U.S. Free Trade Agreement did an excellent job in protecting Canadian culture. That is precisely why Carla Hills is attempting today to reopen the issue and why we are saying no.
As it relates to the issue of retransmission on cable, I am pleased to say that my hon. friend was at the luncheon at the Canadian Cable TV Association three days ago where I gave an excellent speech and outlined all of our positions on this.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the minister was satisfied with his performance. I can only tell you that the cable industry is not as satisfied as the minister is. The cable industry has been waiting six months for this minister to keep his promise, to keep his word, and to issue guidelines that can be used by the copyright board in the setting of royalty rates, which he has not done yet.
Is not the real reason why this minister cannot set those regulations and has not presented them because the Americans want to pluck even more than the 75 per cent to 80 per cent that they have plucked to date from Canadian pockets? When is this government going to say enough is enough. Do you not think that $38 million out of $51 million transmitted is just too much?

Oral Questions


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I watched my friend closely during that speech. She did not choke on her dessert when I got to that portion. She was very happy and looked very content with the initiative being taken by the government.
If the industry was waiting six months for me to take this action, the first four and a half were taken waiting for me to become minister. I have only had this job for about six weeks now. What I indicated in the speech was that my colleague the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and I would be giving guidance to the copyright board. We will be doing that. There will be public hearings. They will have an opportunity to take on board all the concerns expressed by my hon. friend.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mrs. Carole Jacques (Mercier):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence.
Yesterday, the Citizen's Committee of Guybourg sent the Minister of National Defence formal notice demanding that decontamination of the Longue-Pointe garrison property be started immediately.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what the minister intends to do about decontaminating this property.


Hon. Marcel Masse (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, this is a serious matter, and both the Department of National Defence and the Department of the Environment are concerned about a situation that is the result of many years of industrial development in the region.
A number of studies have been made in the past few years, and another study is currently being conducted to determine what action should be taken. I can assure the hon. member and the people of the area that we will do everything we can.


Mr. Nowlan:: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary to the chairman of the defence committee, the member for
Crowfoot. I congratulate the hon. member on his reelection as chairman of the defence committee.
Does the hon. member intend to have the defence committee sit during the summer months to consider Rear Admiral Thomas' resignation and/or the defence paper and position before cabinet comes out and tells us all what is going to be done?


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, it is the present intention of the defence committee to consider veterans affairs, which we have been doing. We will be going to Sunnybrook Hospital this coming Tuesday.
The hon. member asks me to answer the question and that is next. I think the question put by the hon. member for Annapolis-Hants is very appropriate, that we as a committee take a look at defence policy. We have indications that there will be a policy pronouncement coming veiy soon, in the early summer. It is the intention of the committee to take a look at that policy when it is there, to be a vehicle through which the public of Canada can make a response. The committee can then put its analysis to it and make recommendations.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Shefford, but only one question, please.


BANKING CENTRES
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Finance). In December 1987, the Prime Minister announced in Montreal, with a great deal of media fanfare, that the city would become an international banking centre. Today, three years later, I would like to ask the minister how many Montreal banks are operating as international banking centres, and how many jobs were created thanks to his government's plan to establish international banking centres.
June 13, 1991


Mr. Speaker:: The question is getting very close to the kind of question that should be on the Order Paper. If the minister wants to deal with it-


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I can inform the hon. member that we, as a government, acted in response to a request from Montreal to make certain mechanisms available to them. We did, and I think it is up to Montreal to comment on the results of our co-operation.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member will appreciate that I wait until the House is a little quieter so that I and others may hear him.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Madam Speaker, I would appreciate it if the government House leader would indicate the business for tomorrow, Monday, and for the remaining part of next week.
While the minister is on his feet, I would ask him a follow-up to what I had previously asked him and to a question that was directed to the Deputy Prime Minister today concerning the appointment of the Commissioner of Official Languages.
Could he give us an update in terms of the process that will be put in place for this particular appointment, when in fact members of the opposition, particularly the opposition leader, would be informed and consulted on this most important matter? I understand the Deputy Prime Minister took it as a representation but I had asked him.
Would the government House leader indicate whether he intends to have some discussions later this day on the terms of reference with regard to the motion concerning constitutional affairs? I am in the process of writing a brief letter to the minister indicating some concerns that we have on this matter. Perhaps he might want to receive it before replying in detail.
Business of the House
Finally, would the government indicate whether or not it will be tabling a bill before June 21 with regard to freezing salaries of public servants? Is it the minister's intention to table a bill, or is it his intention not to proceed with that before June 21?


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, today we will be continuing debate under the order of Supply which will conclude at 10 p.m. with the introduction and passage of the appropriations bills that follow from the estimates.
Tomorrow, pursuant to a House order, we will proceed to complete third reading of Bill C-ll. Then I would like also to complete second reading of Bill C-10, the Excise Tkx Act, as well as complete report and third reading of Bill C-2, the National Energy Board bill. There have also been discussions with my colleague, the Minister of Labour, and members of the two parties in respect of legislation to bring to an end a grain handlers' work stoppage on the west coast. This is causing considerable financial harm to the farming community, which does not need any more bad news in terms of what has been happening vis-a-vis international prices and markets.
On Monday it would be my intention to call for continued second reading of Bill C-20, the budget implementation bill. In terms of the remainder of that week, I would hope to have discussions with opposition House leaders to determine how we might most expeditiously complete the program for the following week.
In terms of the Commissioner of Official Languages, as I have indicated the Prime Minister certainly intended to have the discussions with the leaders of the parties. I know that there has been difficulty in terms of travelling plans. While the Prime Minister was in the city, the Leader of the Opposition was not, and vice-versa. But there will certainly be those consultations in respect of naming a commissioner, and I will have to get back to the hon. member to tell him specifically what efforts are being made to conclude those as early as possible.
The terms of reference for the joint committee on the Constitution I believe have been made available to both parties for examination. The President of the Privy Council has had discussions with the constitutional spokesman for the Liberal Party, as well as with the leader of the New Democratic Party, about these terms of reference. I understand there is general acceptance, but if there are recommendations for improvements I am sure those will be entertained.

June 13, 1991
Privilege
The desire of the government is to get this committee sanctioned by Parliament so it will be in a position to work in the fall when the federal government's paper is available. We all hope and pray that the work of this committee will come to a successful conclusion resulting in a more unified country.
I am not able to confirm or deny the question of whether a bill will be tabled respecting a freeze on the Public Service other than to make the general commitment that the policy and the intentions of the government outlined in the budget continue to be in effect. There has been no change in the government's position in respect of what was announced in the budget.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, through you to the government House leader, I appreciate his remarks with regard to business for tomorrow, but I am wondering if you might consider, because of travel plans of some of our critics, that we could proceed with Bill C-10 and perhaps with Bill C-ll thereafter.
The minister has referred to the terms of reference of the constitutional committee. Quite rightly there have been discussions among the various parties. We have a number of concerns that I will put in writing and deliver to the government House leader forthwith, and then perhaps later this day if we could peruse those that would be very helpful.
Finally, with regard to the appointment of the new Commissioner for Official Languages-and I say this quite seriously-I would hope that the government would proceed expeditiously and provide the necessary information to opposition members on this matter. Although members are travelling and schedules are varied, perhaps if the Prime Minister were to initiate in writing his concerns and his perspectives on this matter, this might help to facilitate a decision which we believe is fundamental to our country and of course to official bilingualism.
Could the government House leader give us some assurances with regard to the bill, the constitutional committee and the Official Languages Commissioner?


Harvie Andre: Certainly in terms of the bill I would concur with that suggestion. There is no problem in that
regard. In terms of the table officers the order would be Bill C-10, Bill C-ll, and Bill C-2, perhaps altered, depending on discussions in respect to the bill to end the work stoppage and the grain handlers 'strike on the west coast.
In terms of reference I really do not have anything to add. I cannot speculate what might be in the hon. member's letter, but I am always pleased to receive mail from the hon. member. I just hope he gets the postal code right.
The third point dealt with the Commissioner of Official Languages. I will certainly pass on the representation of the hon. member to the Prime Minister.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Madam Speaker, on this same point, the last point the government House leader addressed with regard to the Commissioner of Official Languages, I wonder if the government House leader could assure the House that the position will not be left vacant over the summertime. He knows that a resolution of both the House of Commons and the Senate is required in order to make that appointment, so I wonder if he could just assure us that this position will be filled over the next week.


Harvie Andre: I can certainly assure the member every effort will be made in that regard.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I have received notice of a question of privilege.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Murray W. Dorin (Edmonton Northwest):: Madam Speaker, earlier this week I provided the Speaker with a letter outlining a question of privilege that I wished to raise today.
The matter involves events last week where several members' constituency offices were targeted for vandalism which involved gluing posters to the windows. I learned over the course of the weekend through an article that appeared in the newspaper that a staff member from the constituency office for the hon. member for Edmonton East said she had participated in the planning of this.
June 13, 1991

I believe it is totally inappropriate for a member of this House or their staff to be involved in the wilful vandalism of government or House of Commons property. I have had to have these posters removed, and other members have, and bills have been incurred which will ultimately be paid by the House of Commons and thereby the taxpayer.
I think there are precedents involved where contempt has been found involving the placing or the publishing of posters. I do not want to take the time of the House today to outline them all, but they are mentioned in, among other places, Griffiths, Parliament; Functions, Practice and Procedures.
There are two points here I would like to make. First of all, I think this could be resolved in a number of ways. If the persons responsible are prepared to pay for any damages, then that could be satisfactory. However, Madam Speaker, I think that the hon. member and a person working, employed and paid by the House of Commons should be willing to provide the names and details and information to you. If it was thought appropriate, it could be taken up by the Board of Internal Economy and/or the Management Committee of the House. I think there is a responsibility to do that.
Madam Speaker, beyond that, if it is found by you to be a case, I would naturally be prepared to move the appropriate motion. However, as I said, there may be other ways to resolve this matter.
It is important to deal with it, however, because we in this House know what happens with precedents, even when we transgress a line and it is not that substantial a transgression. The fact is we must deal with this matter because we realize the kind of escalation this could lead to. I ask that you consider this matter and the references to Beauchesne's on this and on the fact that in the past there have been instances of contempt found relating to this sort of thing.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, unfortunately, as is often the case in such matters, I fear the dispelling of the charges made will take slightly longer than the making of the charges. I would like to say at the outset, for myself and for all members of my staff to the best of my knowledge, I neither advocate, support, nor condone vandalism, the wilful destruction of property, public or private.
Having said that, I would like to deal with the question of the vandalism committed against the hon. member's office, who did it and how it was arrived at. I had hoped that in his presentation to the House today, the member would offer research evidence on the matter somewhat greater than simply reading an article from the June 7,
Privilege
issue of The Edmonton Journal. Unfortunately, no such evidence was forthcoming. Let me put him straight on a couple of counts.
The first deals with the meeting identified in the article. I shall read the sentence. I quote: "Curran", that is my constituency assistant, "who is a member of the network", which is to say the Action Canada Network, which does not, properly speaking, have members, but we will let that pass, "said she attended the meeting which planned the poster campaign as a private citizen".
In speaking to my constituency assistant, I found out that the meeting referred to and, in fact originally raised by the reporter and not by her, was the annual general meeting of the Action Canada Network in Alberta held several weekends ago over the course of a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I attended the same meeting. All kinds of things were discussed at that meeting and absolutely no particular actions were decided upon at that time.
As well, I have through conversations with others determined that members of the interim steering committee of the Action Canada Network, of which Ms. Curran is not a member, were the ones who decided that the printing and circulation of a poster to Action Canada Network sympathizers would be undertaken. What those sympathizers then did with that poster was left up to them. Again, Ms. Curran had absolutely nothing to do with that.
Finally, I would note that Ms. Curran is not alleged by anyone to have actually taken part in the postering that has so distressed the hon. member. That is good, because I can assure that she did not.
For the hon. member to say, and I quote exactly his submission in this House, that Ms. Curran was involved in the planning of this is utterly incorrect.


Murray Dorin: She said it herself.


Ross Harvey: No, I am sorry. What she said was, and it is not a quote, it is a paraphrase. Ms. Curran "said she attended the meeting which planned the poster campaign as a private citizen". What was meant by what my assistant said to the reporter at the time was that she was present at the Action Canada Network annual general meeting in which all sorts of things were discussed. And had the hon. member taken the time to talk to either the reporter or the constituency association or, I would hazard, anyone involved with the Action Canada Network at the leadership level, he would have been able to discover that for himself. However, failing that, we are burning the time of the House in this pursuit.

June 13, 1991
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In any event, I would conclude by noting that there is no hint anywhere here that can be sustained that my constituency assistant was in any way involved in any improper activity and I greatly resent the implication that she was.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Edmonton Northwest brought to the attention of the Chair the fact that there was some vandalism recently at his constituency office in Edmonton. In his presentation he said that there seemed to have been a possibility that someone who works in the constituency office of the hon. member for Edmonton East may have been involved.
I did allow the hon. member to answer. Of course it was his right.
The hon. member for Edmonton Northwest may have a grievance. But the notion of privilege extends to his role in the House or in committees. I can understand the way he must have felt arriving at his office and finding vandalism. He certainly has a grievance. He may even want to seek redress through the courts, but I cannot see how his privilege has been affected either in the House or in committees or how this could be in contempt of the House.


Murray Dorin: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I do not want in any way to disagree with the opinion of the Chair, but I would like to file, in this particular case with the Table, a research report done for me by the Library of Parliamentary as background on this matter. It is for the information of the Table and the Speaker.


Ross Harvey: Madam Speaker, on the same point of order. To start with, is there any rule under which the hon. member can table something like this with the Table? Assuming that he can, I had asked that he supply me with a copy and he agreed to. So that is fine.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I think the hon. member has offered to table it, but it would not be an official tabling.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Pauline Browes (for the President of the Treasury Board) moved:: That Vote 1, in the amount of $56,606,000, under FINANCE-
Financial and Economics Policy Program-Program Expenditures in
the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31,1992 (less the
amount voted in interim supply) be concurred in.
Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State
(Finance)): Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak today on Motion No. 2 in today's order of proceedings before the House.
The motion suggests that the government should abandon its financial and economic policies. On the contrary, it is vital that we continue to implement these policies for the very good reason that our financial and economic program is working directly at getting Canada out of the current recession and back to growth and job creation.
The government's plan for economic recovery, introduced in the February budget, emphasizes controlling expenditures and reducing inflation. This is the key to the lower interest rates that will boost consumer spending and business investment to fuel growth and new jobs.
This approach has its critics and of course that is no surprise. After all, for nearly 20 years through the early 1980s, Canadians were accustomed to a federal government with fiscal philosophies that could be summed up in two words: charge it. In fact, in 1984 the government was handing out $1.33 in programs and services for every dollar it collected in taxes. That philosophy has had harsh consequences.
June 13, 1991

We are now paying the price over and over again for too many years of consuming more government services than we are willing to pay for. This is the reason our national debt will reach $400 billion by mid-year; about $15,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada. That does not include another $100 billion in debt by other levels of government.
The interest costs alone on the federal debt lead up over $43 billion next year. That is equal to 36 cents of every tax dollar Canadians pay. It is more than the government spends on Old Age Security, unemployment insurance, veterans' pensions and family allowances combined. That is why the federal budget refuses to buy short-term recovery at the cost of a return to surging deficits and runaway debt. The lessons of the last 20 years make that point bluntly. This spendthrift approach only creates a vicious circle of higher inflation and interest rates, leading us back to the inevitability of economic decline, lost jobs and lower government revenues.
We have instead taken a different path based on a continuing commitment to deficit and debt control. The February budget severely restrains the cost of government, including wages and salaries for the Prime Minister, the cabinet, for members of Parliament and for the federal Public Service. It extends the two-year expenditure control program introduced in 1990, including limits on the growth of transfers to provinces, so that it will now continue through 1994-95 and the saving achieved will total more than $15 billion.
What makes this a watershed budget is that it also takes dramatic measures to achieve nothing less than a fundamental change in the political culture of government spending. These interlocking measures will transform good financial management by government from the realm of promise and political will into a matter of law. By so doing, they can play an important role in changing the expectations of Canadians regarding government spending, municipal and provincial as well as federal.
As part of this fundamental change, we will introduce legislation to impose mandatory limits on the annual program spending for the next five years. Flexibility will be confined to a very limited set of contingencies. It will not preclude new programs to meet new needs, but these must be funded from within the total legislated spending ceiling. In short, it will soon be against the law for the federal government to overspend.
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The second leg of our commitment to guarantee spending control lies in the proposed debt servicing reduction fund introduced in the House yesterday. This fund ensures that all revenues from GST will be used to service debt and reduce the debt, and not to fund new program spending.
The third thrust of our strategy was to announce specific inflation targets to bring inflation down to 2 per cent by the end of 1995.
By working to meet these targets, we can establish the conditions that will make possible a sustained and lasting decline in interest rates. This will help control the interest charges on the national debt.
This interlocking strategy will deliver concrete and decisive results. The deficits for 1990-91 and the coming year will be held to $30.5 billion despite the difficulties caused by the recession. That is down from the $35 billion we were looking at when we started the budget planning process.
Then, for 1992-93, with economic recovery, lower interest rates and restrained government spending, the deficit will fall sharply to $24 billion. Three years after that, by 1995-96, it will have dropped to just $6.5 billion, the lowest deficit in nearly 20 years.
As well, the need for new government borrowing on financial markets will be eliminated even sooner, by 1994-95. This will meet the goal we first set out in the 1989 budget and will represent for the first time in 25 years that no such borrowing is needed.
Last, we will no longer be borrowing money to pay the interest on the money that we have already borrowed.
Underlying these results will be the truly revolutionary change in the politics of budget making that the plan launches. I want to be clear about what it means. It means any federal government that wants to exceed the specific limits or to use the GST revenues for a purpose other than debt reduction, will have to go to Parliament to change the law.
It will have to explain to the taxpayers of Canada why it plans to spend more of their money, and the government will have to justify publicly the consequences that this will have for the deficit and the debt, for taxes and for its own credibility.

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I have said that these spending controls make this a watershed budget. At the same time, they build on the commitment of good financial management that has been the basis of this government's program since 1984.
Some people do not share that view. It is easy to use hindsight to say we should have taken even tougher steps than we did, but it is important to recognize how far we have come, the real progress made in dealing with financial problems the government inherited nearly seven years ago.
The fact is that the federal government's spending programs and service have been under tight control since 1984-85. This has required tough and often unpopular measures.
Payments to VIA Rail and CBC have been scaled back. We have eliminated programs on home insulation and oil substitution. Military bases have been closed. The structure of the Old Age Security and family allowance programs were changed to recover these transfers from high income Canadians who did not need them. We reduced the size of the Public Service substantially to the level of the early 1970s.
Thanks to these measures, we were able to hold increases in spending to an annual rate of just 3.7 per cent. That is well below the rate of inflation and the growth in our economy, and is well behind the growth in the over-all provincial spending.
By contrast, in the 15 years prior to 1984-85, the federal government program spending increased on an average yearly rate of 13.8 per cent. We have achieved a really remarkable change.
The results of our spending restraint have been substantial. As a share of Canada's economy, spending on programs has fallen from 19.6 per cent in 1984-85 to 16 per cent this year, the lowest level since the 1960s.
Without this restraint, federal program spending this year would have been $30 billion higher and our deficit would have more than doubled from what it is to nearly $70 billion.
This spending restraint has also substantially slowed the growth of the national debt. In 1984-85, the debt was growing at an annual rate of about 25 per cent. Today this is down to less than 10 per cent, but this is still not
acceptable. With our budget measures, we will eliminate completely the need to borrow money within four years.
When they hear these figures, many Canadians then ask: "Why is the deficit so high and the debt still growing?" The answer lies directly in the impact of compound interest on the $206 billion debt we inherited. The fact is that the interest payments on the 1984 debt are the only reason for our deficit position today and the direct cause for the debt having nearly doubled.
The next question people often raise is: "Why are you not making absolute cuts in total program spending rather than just restraining its growth in order to bring the deficit down even faster?" The answer lies in what the spending involves and the important public needs it serves.
More than half of all the program spending consists of major transfers to persons and to other levels of government. The transfer to individuals includes monthly Old Age Security benefits, family allowances, veterans' pensions and unemployment insurance.
Since half of these transfers are directly to the elderly, it is a combination of an aging population and full indexation of benefits to inflation that have made this the fastest growing area of government spending.
The other largest target area of program spending is, of course, provincial transfers. This is designed to support health care, education, welfare and other services of direct benefit to Canadians. Growth in this area over the past six years has averaged 6 per cent, just behind the growth in the transfer to individuals.
The rest of the program spending covers every other aspect of government activity including national defence, the internal operation of the government, foreign aid and programs for science and regional assistance. In many of these areas we have imposed dramatic disciplines. For example, transfers to business which cover regional development and science and technology spending has been cut from $4.7 billion in 1984-1985 to just $3.6 billion this year. Over the same period, spending on the operations of government has grown an average of only 1.2 per cent a year. Taking inflation into account, this means that the real cost of government today is actually 25 per cent less than six years ago.
June 13, 1991

These figures should drive home just how little room is available to make further cuts. An absolute reduction in total program spending simply could not be sustained without a serious impact on programs to help Canadians in need and on other essential services.
This does not mean that the deficit battle cannot be won. Rigorous spending restraint combined with the impact of lower interest rates and the higher revenues made possible by economic recovery will do the job. It is to make sure the job is done that we are instituting the legislated spending limits proposed in this budget.
Again I want to emphasize that there is no misplaced optimism or mathematical mumbo-jumbo at work when I say that the deficit will come down to $24 billion by 1992-1993. We will no longer be faced with the transitional costs of the GST, representing a $2 billion saving. The gulf war spending is behind us. The expenditure control plan will deliver savings of another $2.3 billion. Lower interest rates will ease the burden of servicing the debt, and economic recovery will reduce unemployment insurance costs and strengthen government revenues.
In turn, this sharp drop in the deficit combined with national recovery will see the debt begin to shrink as a portion of our economy. This threshold step will mean that government revenues, combined with the continuing benefits of lower interest rates and government spending caps, will be sufficient to eliminate the need for new borrowing in 1994-1995 as the budget states.
The legislated spending limits and the inflation targets we have set out should encourage all Canadians to recognize that we can no longer afford to buy government services on credit. They are also powerful tools that the budget provides Canadians to continue challenging their politicians about spending.
Our program of financial and economic policies is already proving its worth. While there is still real weakness in our economy, we continue to be confident that growth will resume in the second half of this year and rebound strongly in 1992.
This is not just a government perspective. The World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund this spring shares that view, projecting 1992 growth for the Canadian economy of 3.5 per cent, a
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growth rate that, according to the IMF forecast, would lead all G-7 nations except Japan.
Looking further ahead, the continued easing in inflationary pressures expected over the near term will set the stage for strong growth over the medium term. We expect the real GNP growth to average at a rate of 4 per cent over the 1993-1996 period.
As I said, there is real evidence that we are indeed on track for that return to growth in the next six months.
Short-term interest rates have fallen over 5 per cent since their peak in May of last year. The real rate for 90-day commercial paper has declined from 9.6 per cent a year ago to 3.2 per cent this April. The Canada-U.S. interest rate differential has narrowed from the peak of over 500 basis points to under 300 basis points.
Reduced interest rates have helped generate a welcome upturn in the Canadian housing industry, a leading indicator of recovery. In April, housing starts were up more than 30 per cent over March. They increased another 16.4 per cent in May to an annual rate of 149,000 units. In fact, the total number of housing starts this April and May were 42,500 units higher, a more than 44 per cent increase over the same period last year. Employment has continued to increase for three consecutive months to 34,000 jobs in May, virtually all of them full time. And, while the unemployment rate edged up slightly last month after falling to 10.2 per cent in April from 10.5 per cent in March, it was the result of an increase in the labour force itself and not because of job losses.
There are other positive sides. The manufacturers' shipments of automotive products, another important indicator, increased sharply in March. The Conference Board of Canada index Business Confidences increased 29 per cent in the first quarter, with more executives expecting economic improvement than at any time since 1984.
The negotiated wage settlements, an important source of the inflationary pressure that pushes up interest rates, increased only by 3.4 per cent in April, down substantially from 6.2 per cent average increase in the settlement during the first quarter.

June 13, 1991
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Let me say that we are not out of the woods yet. We could still lose the path to recovery if we abandon our commitment to restrain spending and bring inflation down. We must not let that happen. This government will not let that happen, because it would mean abandoning our commitment to the economic future of all our citizens, including those still facing hardships.
There is ample evidence to suggest that our financial and economic policies are working to put Canada back on the path to sustained growth and productive economic activity in the years ahead. I would ask the hon. members to bear this evidence in mind when the motion is put before this House.


George Baker: Madam Speaker, I wonder if the hon. parliamentaiy secretary could comment on the subject of government finances and cutbacks that members of Parliament are being lobbied about at this very moment by the Canadian Nurses Association. The report by the Canadian Council of Welfare just a few days ago predicts that very shortly transfers to the provinces for health care will be reduced to zero at various times for each province. Specifically this is a great concern that we have with many people, including our nurses who have been leading the charge in the last couple of days here in Ottawa.
I would like the hon. gentleman to comment on that concern about medicare. With his many years here in this Chamber, I wonder if he could comment on the question generally and on what the government's position is.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, generally speaking our major concern-and while I know there are specific instances of nurses and other groups who may feel that they are being disadvantaged by not having a rise in their wages- is the long-term effect that continued growth in the public debt and continued growth in the deficit is going to have on this country in the long term.
We are moving into a new world, a global economy, and we are seeing massive changes in manufacturing styles in the world. We are seeing new productive facilities coming into place that require massive capital expenditures by people in business, and we are seeing an ever increasing debt load of services that the general public is demanding.
We have to tiy and find a balance between these things, and we are doing that to the very best of our ability. It may mean that there are some people who may
feel that they are disadvantaged by the course that we are taking. But our objective is to get more people working, to see that our industries are re-equipped in the proper way so they can compete in the global market, to see that we can knock down the barriers between our provinces and get trade moving fluidly across the country. That is what our objective is. We are not taking a swing at public servants or nurses or anybody in particular. We think the matter is so serious that it has to be shared around the country. I know that when you ask someone who feels they are on the edge, that they have nothing to share, then we feel for them and we do what we can through whatever programs we have available to assist them.
On the other side, if you look at the revenue we have had coming into the government over the years and the fact that for a number of years we have had to go offshore and borrow $30 billion, it is almost a locked-in position.
You bring out a budget and what happens? Your revenue is $30 billion under what you take in, so you just continue to allow that to grow until you have a massive public debt on which compound interest works miracles and makes it double and quadruple in a short period of time. The first thing you know, it affects your ability to operate outside the countiy. It affects the rate of inflation and the interest rates in the country. It has just gone far enough and we have to do something about it. That is why we have put these various programs in place to try and rectify what has happened in the past.
I do not want to comment on why it happened, how it happened, or the political climate of the time or the social climate of the time. I lived through it and the hon. member lived through it, so we both know it very well. I think we are doing the right thing. I guess time will tell.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, first of all, before I go into another matter, in the member's last response, he referred to borrowing money offshore. The implication I got from that response was that we were borrowing approximately $30 billion offshore each year. That concerns me somewhat. I wanted to give the member an opportunity to correct that, if in fact, that was not what he said. I think he probably would want to correct that. My understanding is that somewhere between 18 and 25 per cent of the deficit is borrowed offshore now, as opposed to the rest being borrowed domestically.
June 13, 1991

I throw that over to the member for his opportunity to clarify for me what he meant by that.
Second, he has talked in his speech today about getting the deficit down to a more manageable position. I specifically wanted to have him talk for a minute to this House and to the people of Canada about the legislation that has been proposed both in the throne speech and the budget, the debt servicing and reduction fund. There have been various interpretations of this.


Mr. Belsher:: It is on the right track, is it not?


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: The member for Fraser Valley East said they are on the right track. I think if they did get the deficit under control, they would be on the right track. What I want from the member for Burlington is some indication that this is not simply a shell game. It seems to me that in the budget they have talked about various moneys going in to be used to service the national debt.
Quite frankly, right now we are servicing the national debt. That is the interest charges we pay; 35 cents on each dollar we take in is paid in servicing our national debt. Is this debt servicing and reduction fund simply a public relations thing to show the people that money is going somewhere where it is already being paid?
I am a little confused and I think the people I have talked to around Canada are a little confused. Is the government trying to pull the wool over the peoples' eyes? I would like the member to respond to this.


William James Kempling: When I made reference to borrowing $30 billion offshore, I was speaking in very broad terms. I know that the percentage we borrow offshore will vary from year to year according to domestic conditions and markets offshore.
What we have done in the last few years is to move from medium term notes and bonds to rather short-term money. We have been able to ratchet that down and we are not borrowing that total $30 billion offshore. In fact, since I have been in this House, I can remember a time when the Government of Canada encouraged provinces to borrow offshore because that would put pressure on
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the Canadian dollar and drive its value up. That is gone now, and we are not interested in pursuing that avenue any more.
As far as the other part of his comment goes, the debt servicing and reduction fund is not a shell game. We are in better shape than some of the provinces are, because a lot of them have issued bonds of a fairly long-term nature. They have to let those bonds mature before they can pay them off, or pay a penalty for paying them off early. Most of our dead instruments are relatively short term, many of them less than a year, many of them less than two years. As the money comes into the debt servicing and reduction fund we will be able to pay those obligations off, and therefore will not require the amount of servicing as far as the deficit is concerned. Of course, this will reduce the national debt at the same time.
You can stand in your place and say: "Well, we are going to bring the deficit down". This is my 19th year here and I have heard it so often that it is almost tattooed on my forehead. But to do something to convince people that we are going to bring it down, I think is worth while. That was the purpose, to say: "We are going to devote the revenue from the GST into the debt service and reduction fund".
I had many people say to me: "I do not mind it. If you are going to do that with the GST, I do not mind it at all. And the same with the sale of Crown corporations. Well, what do you do with that money? If you are going to dedicate that money to debt service and reduction, that is fine, that is okay with me". And so that is what we have done.
All I can say to the hon. member is that it is not a shell game. I would just suggest that he watch it closely, keep his eye on it, and I am sure he will because I know him to be a member of honesty and integrity. We will see how it goes a year from today.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Madam Speaker, I am speaking to the estimates of the Conservative government. One of the reasons I wish to address this question is due to the myth this government has tried to create.

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This government first came to power in 1984 on a program of fiscal management. It told the people of Canada it could manage the monetary aspects of our economy far better than the people before had done.
I must say that in 1984 I was quite naive and I thought perhaps the Conservatives might accomplish that. I must say I have been extremely disappointed, as have the rest of the people of Canada, because they continue to do and say one thing and do whatever they feel like doing behind closed doors.
One of the first things they do is they come up with stacks of estimates. These estimates are a bunch of figures and they look not bad. But the first thing you have to realize is that these are not necessarily just the moneys they are going to spend. These figures are often misleading, because it takes nothing at all for this government to bring in Supplementary Estimates. All of a sudden it is a whole new ball game, and the government has not really explained to the people of Canada what it has done.
The other thing that I wish to address is this: I first came to office in 1988 and in early 1989,1 was assigned to the public accounts committee. I was very interested in hearing many of the Auditor General's reports and they are all public. Since then I have taken on the task of going over many of the Auditor General's reports.
One of the things discovered is that if one takes the Auditor General's reports from 1985 through 1989, one finds a long chronicle of moneys mismanaged, expenditures inadequately disclosed or not disclosed at all and cost overruns. All of the items are on public record and many of them have been the subject of news coverage in the past. The cumulative effect of all these items is mind-boggling.
If one goes through and quietly adds some of these numbers up, one realizes that had these problems been addressed right from beginning, one would have saved billions of dollars. It is no laughing matter. It is certainly something that they could have done had they wanted to when they first formed the government.
The other thing that has happened is that they have used creative bookkeeping. I like to use that term because it is something that accountants can relate to. When one does not want to really disclose something one changes the format by which one presents it. That makes it very difficult for people to compare year to year.
I decided to try and review the budgets of the government from 1985 to 1989.1 picked those years because the Auditor General's reports were present for those years. I wanted to review them sequentially from 1985 to 1989 and to find out the yearly increases beyond the level of inflation in each year. Then, I wanted to break these down into spending areas: defence, health, welfare. I subtracted amounts that related to transfer payments because obviously the government has veiy little control over funding in this area unless it just decreases it. It cannot control its spending as much as it would like to I am sure.
One of the things that surprised me was that one could not do this. One could not compare year to year. Do you know why? Prior to 1987-88, government budgets were prepared according to program envelopes, nothing wrong with that, namely: economic and regional development, social development, services to government, Parliament, defence, external affairs and fiscal arrangements. This permitted expenditures within each area to be tracked from year to year.
In 1987-88, however, a brilliant move: the federal government introduced a different format, supposedly for better bookkeeping, I would think. Who knows? One never knows for sure.
Only defence spending remained in the program envelope. Other more generalized categories such as major transfers to persons and transfers to other governments replaced program envelopes, whereas earlier fiscal plans contained additional tables relating specifically to program expenditures by category. These too were removed.
In 1989-90 the budget format was again altered, this time to include three new categories: subsidies, Crown corporations and other operations. These three categories had not previously existed and accounted for approximately $32 billion in government spending.
Do you understand what I am getting at? It is very easy to generally say: "See what great guys we are", because there is a lot of room for hiding and manoeuvring and all the rest of it.
The result of these format changes, of course, is that while cumulative program expenditures can be compared from year to year, it is no longer possible to determine the increases within any given area of spending. Strange, isn't it?
June 13, 1991

It is worth while noting that program expenditures which amounted to about $87 billion in 1984-85, the year the Conservative government came to power, have increased to an annual amount of $103.5 billion. Just interesting. We are not talking about interest charges here; we are talking about program expenditures. There is a little bit of difference. Why the huge increase? It may be justified and it may not be, but at least, when you look at the auditor's report, $500 million annually could have been saved within these program expenditures if moneys had been managed with regard to economy and efficiency.
Many times when one looks at the Auditor General's reports one realizes that program objectives are not met, maybe due to political interference. The Auditor General infers that but does not necessarily say it. It is quite obvious when one considers the building of a correctional centre in an inappropriate area and it just happens to be the region of the party leader's riding.
I have got details of it here. This was reported for the year 1986, as having happened in 1986, which is before my time. I am just repeating what the Auditor General said in those years. It states:
Political objectives outweighed program objectives. Correctional Services was required to build for no program reasons and was required to build institutions at certain economically depressed areas to increase employment.
This may be a good idea, but it certainly is not good fiscal management.
This meant that Correctional Service Canada had to build at higher security levels than needed, such as protective custody, when it already had surplus capacity. That was in 1986.
Ten billion dollars was lost due to a late decision to cancel the special handling unit at the Atlantic institution, creating a contingent liability of $1 million to the contractor. One goes on and on.
One hears about additional costs of $4.6 million due to major design changes. That is not a small amount of money, think about it, $4.6 million. A drop in the bucket. We talk about deficits and how well we manage things. We have another one here that says $1.7 million went for brick cladding for concrete walls. Additional.
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What I saw when I was looking at all this is that it is almost a given that when a government contract goes out, whoever gets the contract gets cost plus. One wonders. One gives out a contract and then one comes back and adds in one's extras. There are examples of that everywhere. One does not have to go very far. Every year it seems to happen.
Now what kind of controls it has over its tendering process, I do not know, but there are very good examples of it. One can go through the Auditor General's report and it is very obvious.
One of the ones that just happened, I think it was reported in 1990, was the amount of money paid by DRIE in February 1987 to a company in Alberta for the development of a turbo-charger, despite the concerns of the NRC. In January 1989, the new Department of Western Economic Diversification took over this program and made a second payment despite information not being provided in accordance with the agreement. To add insult to all of this, in March 1989, it learned that the prototype that it had been funding had been destroyed in 1987, but the final payment was made anyway. After all, it was a buddy. Who knows? What is the justification?
These are examples that are taken directly from the Auditor General's report. Each and every one of you can get the reports out yourself. Some $148,500 was approved to construct a golf course, including the retroactive reimbursement of cost despite program criteria requiring that no significant contractual commitment be made prior to a request for funds. When they went out and asked for the money the project was almost finished. Kind of a neat deal, eh? I would like to do that. I will go out and build myself a house and then I will go and ask people for money and they will give it to me. I think a lot of people in Canada would like that.


An hon. member:: Sure.


Diane Marleau: Those are the kinds of things that have been going on, despite all the claims of great management and great fiscal responsibility.
The first myth that this government brought forward was that the Liberals were such terrible spenders. They were such terrible spenders that they took over this terrible debt. One of the things they failed to mention was that for 1984-1985, Marc Lalonde, who was then finance minister, had projected a deficit of $29-some billion, which was very high. It was the end of a terrible recession.

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What they failed to tell people was that they allowed this deficit to rise to $38 billion because it gave them a cushion, a real neat cushion. At the end of 1984-1985, rather than having a deficit of $29 billion, it was $38 billion. Let me point out that the recession was well on its way to being over. Things were coming back, things were looking very good.
Let us just set things straight here. We went from a projected deficit of $29 billion to a deficit of $38 billion, and they say: "Well, it was the Liberals that did it", except they formed the government in September 1984. The fiscal year goes for longer than that, much longer than that. They had a party and they paid off whoever they had to pay off and built whatever they had to. And I love it when I get them responding because it always tells me-


Shirley Maheu: It means it hits home.


Diane Marleau: -that it is hitting home. This is one of the truths that has not been said.
Then this government continued to spend, continued during the best years that we have had since the Second World War, having high deficits despite increasing taxes more than 31 times, till it brings us to today. We now have these extremely high taxes, where we are asking Canadians or telling the Public Service: "Tighten your belts, you cannot have an increase, you cannot do this".
Does this government do it? Does this government lead by example? Absolutely not. Just think of it for a minute. This is a country with a population of 26 million people. We have how many ministers? Is it 40? Correct me if I am wrong. There are so many of them, it is difficult. They add them and subtract them, and there is always a new one somewhere. There are 40-some ministers. In the United States, with a population how many times larger-


Shirley Maheu: Some 150 million.


Diane Marleau: It is larger than 150 million. How many ministers do they have to run that country? Under 20. So I wonder, if the Americans can do it with under 20, why cannot we? The Conservatives like to do everything that the Americans do. As a matter of fact, if they are in power much longer, that is where we will be. We will be with the Americans, we will belong to them.
In this case, maybe they should be following a little bit in their mode. If I can tell the people of Canada what happens in ministries, each minister has to build himself a little power base. If you have a very small staff, then you have no clout. You have to build this power base and have all these big offices, and you have to have all of this staff. You have to justify your existence. Therefore, your budgets have to be larger. And the fight goes on. Then this minister writes to that minister, and that minister answers back, and then there is a lot of justification for jobs.
If you want to create employment at that level, that is fine, but you should not run on the fact that you are fiscally prudent because that is not a fiscally prudent method of behaving. I am very interested in seeing this government finally come out and do something and really show the people of Canada that they can be fiscally responsible, not just tell others to be fiscally responsible. That, to my way of thinking, would be the way to go. We create ministries so we can supposedly help areas of the country. We call it regional development and sometimes the grants are good. Often they are not worth much of anything.
In terms of some of the things I have uncovered under the Auditor General's report, bridges that lead to nowhere. We have all heard of that. Highways that are built for reasons that do not follow the criteria of the program. There was a host of them in 1989 that were reported under energy, mines and resources that were under the Canada-Nova Scotia Development Fund.
Many questions were asked in the House of Commons at that period of time. Of course there was a non-answer.
When we say that the people of Canada have absolutely no faith in this government, we know why. It tells you one thing and does exactly the opposite. It tells you that the GST will be revenue neutral. Obviously it is not.
Their own member who is the chairman of the finance committee said over and over again that it was going to be a cash cow. Everywhere else that the program was brought in, large amounts of money were brought in that were supposedly unforeseen.
June 13, 1991

I am waiting to see what the government is going to do because now it has seen the light. It now has a deficit reduction account. I just love it. I think that is a great idea. When I go home, I am going to open myself another account and I am going to start putting money in that account.
The only problem is that if I do not have more money coming in, how am I going to cover the other account? It is going to get larger. You only have so many pockets and you only have so much money. You can play around all you want. The fact of the matter is that we still have a problem.
You have to be more responsible. That is what we are saying. Whether you like it or not, you have not been responsible I ask that you go back to your ministers and tell them to get together, streamline.
I am supposed to be speaking to Madam Speaker. I am sorry, I had forgotten in the moment I have. My colleagues on the other side are so happy with my speech that I understand they are going to go right back to their ministries and ask them to streamline things, to quit pretending, and to start being honest.
Maybe the people of Canada will like this a bit better. It cannot get much worse.


Ross Belsher: Madam Speaker, I have listened attentively to the hon. member for Sudbury. She has asked us to go back and streamline ministries.
Streamlining ministries in order to save money means you have to cut out public servants. Is that what the hon. member is asking us to do? Is she asking us to cut down the size of the Public Service? I suspect that this is what she is inferring today.
I think she inadvertently is making that as a suggestion. I am not sure that she predicts that.
She talks about the projections when we came to power of what the former finance minister in his budget address in the spring of 1984 had made in this House of Commons. She failed to realize the economic paper that was put out by the finance minister under the capable leadership of the hon. member for Etobicoke Centre in November of that year, how we set in train and how we
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were going to try to get our arms around money that was being spent.
In today's edition of The Citizen, if she were to read it, it says that the Tories have literally reversed the country's fiscal picture by adding $30 billion annually to the credit side of the country's ledger.
In other words, there was more money going out to pay for the programs and transfer of payments to individuals than what was coming in to the tune of $16 billion. Add that to the interest charges of the $200 billion debt that was there and you have quite a difference.
That has been reversed. That has taken a lot of hard work and is taking place. If per chance there is more money that comes in through the GST than we had planned on, we are going to put that money against the deficit reduction so that it does not go into paying for more programs.
The Canadian people have been asking for this and I suspect if the hon. member were to be honest with us today, she would have to admit that her constituents are telling her that about the GST. My constituents are saying that and I suspect that her constituents are not that different. She said she has made a study of the various Auditor General's reports. I would ask her, did she not realize that the Auditor General, about three years ago said: "At long last, I can now say that the money is being spent where it was allocated to be spent". That was the first time in his tenure, and he had a contract for six years; I think it was in the fifth or sixth year of his contract-that he was able to make that statement.
Does the hon. member not admit that is a very positive remark from the Auditor General and goes a long way to signifying that at long last the government now knows where its money is being spent? True, too much is being spent. I agree with her. The hon. member will have to admit that there were already pieces of legislation that had been enacted and so we had to turn around and change the structure. That is precisely what the GST was, a structural change. That is difficult. Structural change is difficult.
I might add that the hon. member's party did not try to help us. They had a lot of criticism, but never any constructive suggestions as to how we might improve it. It was just a case of: "Do not do it. Leave things the way they are". However, things were not working.

June 13, 1991
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I have to end my remarks at this point. Does she not admit that what she reads in today's The Ottawa Citizen and on page 28 of our Quorum really is quite factual? I would encourage her to possibly consider mailing it out to her constituents asking for their comments.


Diane Marleau: Madam Speaker, I am going to start with the first item he addressed himself to: Did I want to lay off all of the public servants who work for all these ministers?
What I say is that it is not the public servants who are at fault in this whole thing; it is the ministers. When you have a minister of native affairs and a minister of state for native affairs who do absolutely nothing or next to nothing, I cannot figure why there has to be two of them with their chauffeurs, their cars and their big offices. That would send a big message; I like the idea of cutting back.
On the contrary, this government has tried to blame the public servants. I think it is an absolute shame they are projecting to freeze salaries of public servants, especially the very low-paid public servants.
Do you know that a large number of public servants in this country earn below the poverty line, and you are freezing their wages? Yet you come to us and tell us what a great job you are doing. If you really want to freeze wages, then do it for everyone. Do not single out one group of people who have worked very hard for you. That is another problem you are creating by being that difficult to deal with, your people cannot work properly for you.
If you are always giving your public servants a hard time, how do you think they are going to feel? Do you think they will go to work every day and be happy and super-productive? I tell you, absolutely not.
On the question of taxes and the great fiscal management, I am going to tell you what is happening in my riding and it is happening all over Ontario.
In the early years of the recession, especially in the riding of Sudbury, we were very hard hit. As a group of people, we worked together to build on our strength, our resource sector. We had an entrepreneur who did a very good job. His name is Ken Burgess. He started a business and he went into manufacturing. It was a spectacular success. He expanded and he opened six plants across Ontario.
I am going to tell you the announcement he made on Tuesday of this week. He is closing all of his manufacturing plants. He says increases in taxes, and the higher Canadian dollar are hitting that group of eight companies hard and they have decided to just plain close up shop.
One of his businesses was in Cambridge. I quote from an article in The Sudbury Star, quoting Mr. Burgess:
Every third building in Cambridge is empty right now. Hundreds of
companies a week are moving out of the Ibronto area and to the
United States-I think the manufacturing days in this country are
numbered unless our governments wake up.
Tell me, is that not an example of the kinds of things that are being said everywhere? I hear it in the House every day. I do not know what you are hearing but I heard of this man who was successful in very difficult times and now suddenly in 1991 he is closing all his manufacturing plants because he cannot compete.
When is this government going to face what they have done to the people of Canada with these taxes? It is an absolute shame that our own people cannot compete because the environment has not been created for competition. The day they start recognizing this and doing something about it we will all be a lot better off. It is not just a question of saying one thing and doing another. It is a question of all of us working together. None of us is perfect, least of all the people across the way.


William James Kempling: Madam Speaker, the hon. member implied in her comments that we had somehow or other added another $9 billion to the deficit when we came into power. I want to tell her how that $9 billion came about and she can go back to the auditor general and get his explanation.
We came into power with a budget that was already in place, a $29.5 billion deficit-


Diane Marleau: I don't believe that for a minute. You would say the same thing about the NDP.


William James Kempling: The Auditor General came to us and said there are $9 billion of expenditures that have been included as capital expenditures and are no longer capital expenditures. They are straight-line expenses. Therefore you are going to have to increase the deficit by $9 billion. That is how it came about. It was nothing that we did. It was money spent by Marc Lalonde and his people. That is the first thing.
June 13, 1991

Go back to the Auditor General, check it out, and he will tell you the truth.
The member talks about reducing the number of ministers. When I came here years ago we did not have a Minister of State for Small Business. Through pressure from a variety of people we suddenly had a Minister of State for Small Businesses. He used to send questions and notes across the floor to us: "Please ask me a question. I haven't anything to do". In 1979 when we went into his office to see what we would do with his operation we found there was a Minister of State for Small Businesses, a secretary, a speech writer, a driver, and one researcher. That was the total ministry. He had no line responsibilities. He was not responsible for any legislation. He came in the House of Commons, sat in his seat and sent notes to the opposition which said: "Please ask me a question. I am lonely".
That is what your government did.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, I leap humbly into the breach. I have heard some interesting things about debts and deficits today so I think I would like to start speaking today about the deficit and deficit reduction.
What I have seen since being here, and particularly since 1984, of course started long before that. I agree, with the member for Fraser Valley East that it started before that. It seems to me that what has happened over the course of time is that both of these parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, can take a lesson from the squirrels. During the summertime when food is bountiful and the nuts are plentiful they go out and gather nuts and they save for a winter day so that they have something to eat.
It seems to me that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have forgotten that winter is just around the comer. In the good times, since 1984, the economy has been fairly buoyant and the present Conservative government has forgotten the winter-we are now in the dead of winter-and there are no nuts. They haven't collected them, they haven't saved them; they have been eating everything in sight. This party hasn't paid any attention at all to what is going to happen later. They have not paid attention to history and learned that at the end of every upswing comes a downswing. They have
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continued in this way each year that I have been here. I have looked at the budgets and have seen that they are going to reduce the deficit. At the end of the year when we got the figures in, I found that no, the deficit has not been reduced. In fact, because of this or that or the other thing, whether it be the Persian Gulf war, the interest rates, or whatever, we haven't been able to reduce the deficit.
If I recall correctly, two years ago it was going to be $28.5 billion. Last year it was up to almost $31 billion again. Now this year I heard the same figures again-$28 billion-and maybe this time the government will make it. They finally listened to the opposition. They listened to the New Democratic Party and are starting to drop the interest rates.
I remember when the Minister of State for Small Businesses was before the committee on his estimates two years ago. In questioning him he threw a question back to me and asked: What is small business looking for; what do you say they are looking for? At that time I remember I told him that they were looking for lower, stable interest rates. Well, they are starting to get lower interest rates. And if the minister did it, then congratulations to him. But they have finally started listening to us, after two long, hard years. The Minister of State for Small Businesses talked to the Minister of Finance and convinced him that was what small businesses wanted. They needed it, they needed it to survive.
But before the minister gets too blown up with importance, I want to read a little quote to him from a research paper from his favourite institution, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, prepared for their offices back in January, I believe. It says: "Business conditions have undoubtedly been worsened by government policy, most notably the federal government's monetary and tax policy. The high interest rate strategy has placed a particularly heavy burden on small businesses which do not enjoy the financing flexibility open to large firms. The impact has been particularly severe in construction, manufacturing and the retail trade. In addition, the detrimental effects of the stubbornly high interest rates, coupled with a high Canadian dollar at a time of economic recession, has been exacerbated by the federal government's goods and services tax."

June 13, 1991
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Madam Speaker, we now have lower interest rates and hopefully they will get lower and stabilize for the sake of the small business community. But we still have the goods and services tax. No matter where I have gone in Canada since January, since the implementation of this dastardly tax, I have heard the small business community complaining about the implementation, the administration and the cost to them of the GST. I have spoken to lawyers and small business firms, I have spoken to medium sized firms, the ones with computers, the ones that say "we can do the work, but it costs us heavily in time and money management."
The criminal lawyers tell me that they give a single quote-$1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $2,500, whatever it is-to defend a person on a criminal charge. Well, they either raise their rates by $500 to round it out, and they don't feel that they can do that in today's recessionary times, or they eat the GST. The criminal lawyers I have spoken to in the last couple of months tell me that they are, in fact, eating the GST.
I have spoken to insurance agents in small communities across Canada who tell me that as a result of the exempt provisions in the goods and services tax, they cannot write off their capital investments or they can write them off but then can't take the rebate for the GST, the input tax credit.
This causes an undue burden. What do they do? They have to pass on that cost once again to the consumer or cut back in their meagre profits.
Food retail outlets in my province and in my communities such as Super Values, IGA and Giant Foods all sell a combination of foods, prepared foods and items such as women's hygienic products, tampons and the like. These have GST attached to them. In this particular case, one of the examples I gave is unfair to women. It is as important to women as sustenance and food. This government should consider that in looking at where it is going and what it has done with this tax.
It goes on. It was interesting in going to a couple of places recently and seeing the small family shops shut down, and talking to the people about it. They were saying that they had shut down just after the Christmas trade of 1990 and prior to the GST in 1991 because they
were not willing to go through the hassle at that stage in their lives. Some of them were older and had been in business for a number years and did not want to go through the extra burden of trying to look after this tax.
Talk to the farmers who are members of the small business community. I think it was stated well by a potato farmer in Prince Edward Island when he said: "We work from dawn until dusk. We come in, we eat, we go to bed and the cycle starts again. We do not want to have to come in and have to do this extra bookwork after a full, long day's work in the fields to keep up with the GST." That is what has happened under this tax. The government has continually hurt the small business community.
It is interesting to note what has happened as a result of the fiscal and monetary policies of this government. We warned the government some two years ago that if it brought in the GST at that stage, we would be in the depths of a depression. That was two years ago. I am no economist and I knew it and this government continued to ignore it. Now what has happened is that we have the highest rate of bankruptcies, business failures and personal bankruptcies that we have ever seen in Canada. The rate is higher than it was in the depths of the 1981-82 recession.
The last figures I had show bankruptcies for 1990 total 11,642 and they have increased some 32 per cent already this year. They surpassed, for the first time, the 1982 recessionary peak of 10,765 business failures. This is an increase of 34 per cent.
This government is proud of its fiscal and monetary policies. It tells us how great it is doing and yet at the same time we are watching the business community taking a bigger beating than it has ever taken in Canada in modem history in this made-in-Canada recession. It is unbelievable.
The government continues to tell us how great things are going, how good its monetary policies are and how wonderful its fiscal policies are. I have got one word for it, hog-wash, simply hog-wash. We have got major failures.
I will refer again to this document from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business: "There is however a sharp contrast between the position of the banks today compared with the early 1980s."
June 13, 1991

Does it ring a bell? Who puts $30,000 a year into the coffers of the government? Certainly not the small business community. We see a sharp contrast in the position of the banks today as compared with small business.
I quote further. In referring back to the 1980s, they say:
At that time the banks were burdened by losses they had incurred from their massive loans to large corporations and Third World countries. Today, the banks are in a much better position, and could well afford to be more patient with firms struggling to survive in an uncertain and difficult business environment.
It appears that the friends of the government, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The tax policies of this government have shown that. The figures over the last few years show that the burden has shifted to middle and low income Canadians and away from the top wage earners.
If we couple the banking situation and the GST, we note that in the use of credit cards, VISA, Master Card, American Express, the merchant fee that is paid, whether it be, depending on the card, 2 per cent up to 5 or 6 per cent in some cases, is added at the end of the tally which includes both provincial sales tax and the goods and services tax. So on a large ticket item a merchant can end up paying 2-1/4 or 3 per cent of the 7 per cent that has been paid on the item.
If you look at the figures of what is charged to credit cards throughout the course of a year in Canada and look at what the GST is on those figures and then you multiply it by the percentage that they take up in a merchant fee, we know that the banks now, as a result of the goods and services tax, are getting somewhere in the area of $16 million extra as a result of the merchant fee on top of the goods and services tax. That is using 1989 figures. The figures for today, I would suggest, would be higher, given the fact that there is an increase or has been an increase in the number of credit cards outstanding in Canada and the number of transactions going on those particular credit cards.
It is interesting to see how closely aligned are the government and the big banks. In going further with that and talking about bankruptcies, the government today tabled the new Bankruptcy Act. It is interesting because they have set up another fund, which is a good idea, to ensure that wages of those working for firms, corpora-
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tions or others which declare bankruptcy or go into receivership get paid something for their wages.
What the government did was interesting. It set up a fund and it is now going to cost the employers 10 cents per week per employee to be paid into this fund. As I understand it, this will also be paid by federal, provincial and municipal governments.
Once again we look at the trickle down effect because the municipal governments cannot deficit finance as can the provinces and the feds. They are going to have to come up with the money out of their budgets. Where do they get the money? They increase the property taxes to the ordinary citizen of their communities and the small business person.
I want to ask why they have not set up a priority system? The Minister at Consumer and Corporate Affairs essentially told us, "Well, it did not seem to be the route to go, that if they set up this, it was a separate system, self-administered." If you look into it deeper, what it comes down to is the banks did not want to give up their priority to a preferred creditor such as a wage holder.
Yet if we look at labour standards legislation in all of the provinces, it ensures that wages are looked after in priority to everything else that they have jurisdiction over.
Of course, the provinces do not have jurisdiction over the federal government and Revenue Canada. It was also interesting that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs has looked after the revenues of the country. That is admirable, to say that the directors and executive members of a corporation will be jointly and severally responsible for the debts of that corporation.
I could not find anywhere in that legislation anything that gave the small business person the same kick at the cat as the federal government. That is something the government should look at if it really, truly believes in the small business community.
If I look further into the estimates, it reminds me in looking at cutbacks, the centralization of services and what not, that we often have a tendency both in power, I suppose, and with our bureaucrats who assist us in our legislation and in our policies to ignore the small communities and how important various services are.

June 13, 1991
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In Penticton, the largest community in my own riding, there are rumours running rampant that an old age pension, guaranteed income supplement and Canada Pension Plan office will be closed and centralized to Kelowna, up in the next riding up.
You might say well, it is all in the Okanagan Valley. Fair enough. But if you look at it in people terms, it is totally different. In those areas, about 35 per cent of all citizens are over 65 years of age. They often do not care to talk on the telephone. They like to catch a ride with their neighbour or drive themselves and go see someone face to face in a small office. When you are on a limited income, and you have to drive from Osooyos to Kelowna, about 140 or 150 kilometres, it is a great imposition. It is four hours of driving time in order to see the person you want to talk to about a problem with the old age security.
My office is in the same building as that particular office, and I see the number of people who go in. I have a number of those people coming into my office when they have difficulties. It is a real convenience. It is not as if it was a small community. It services a veiy large area.
Sometimes I wonder about some of the policies of the government. It has to pay more attention to people and less attention to policy and friends. The estimates and where the government is going, both fiscally and monetarily, leaves a lot to be desired. I believe I speak for the people of my riding. I speak reasonably for the people in the small business sector as the critic for my party, the New Democratic Party, when I say that something has to be done.
We have started, as the minister has told us, in getting lower interest rates. That is a start. But if we are going to continue, if we are going to start putting people first, we have to start here in Parliament.


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Madam Speaker, I just want to pose a couple of questions to my hon. friend who made a number of philosophical statements at the beginning about the way he believes the fiscal policy of the government should be operated to help the small business community.
The hon. member mentioned deficits and expressed his concern that the federal government has been spending too much money. It is amazing to hear that from an NDP member because never, since I have sat in this House, have I ever had an idea yet from the NDP on how to cut spending. Their proposals are always to increase spending.
Anyway, he says we should have cut spending more than we did although they never helped us with any ideas on how to do it. I want to bring him back to a different province, the province of Ontario which now has an NDP government.
I have a press release here that announces that the Moody Bond Rating Service has lowered the province's credit rating by two notches. It has been followed by the Canadian Bond Rating Service, the Dominion Bond Rating Service and Standard and Poors.
Standard and Poors said this about the NDP government: "The lowering of the rate reflects the large budgeted increases in operating an over-all deficit in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992. Very modest declines in these deficits are planned for three succeeding years."
This is an NDP government in office doubling the debt of the province of Ontario in four years. It has moved the deficit to historic levels. As a result, Ontario no longer has the highest credit rating of any province in Canada. The rating cut will cost the province an extra $15 million this year alone in added interest costs. Every time Ontario Hydro borrows an extra billion, it will pay out $2.5 million in extra interest costs.
Governments are like anybody else. The higher the risk, the more they pay to borrow. The federal leader of the NDP sitting in this House says that she is proud of the approach to fiscal management of Ontario's NDP. Proud is her word.
The NDP is raising spending by 13 per cent in one year. It is bringing in a record annual deficit. Scaring off investors and losing your credit rating is nothing to be proud of.
June 13, 1991

I want to ask the hon. member whether NDP really stands for no down payment. You and your children pay later.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to answer this question.
It is wonderful to have a cabinet minister stand up and bare-facedly tell the people of Canada that the policies of the Tory government are working.
It has been recognized in Ontario that this made-in-Canada recession is as a result of Tory mismanagement since 1984. We see the minister stand up and preach to us about where we should be saving money when this government pitches out truckloads full of goodies to its corporate friends and ignores the people.
This Government of Ontario finally put people first. It finally put people first, after following on years of Liberals and Tories, and Tories and Liberals. We have had the same old nonsense for years and years.
When you come down to it, we are going to see the fact that Ontario has now levelled out as far as the line of credit goes with other provinces, provinces run by Conservative governments who have run their provinces down the drain over the years. This debt which the minister has talked about is not nearly as bad as he makes out. It is less per capita than what the federal government has racked up over the last few years.
Let me talk just briefly about what I call a corporate mentality where this government thinks nothing of shovelling money out for little perks for its friends. It still has not given consideration to small business or the regular people. Give the regular people a break.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I am sorry I did not hear all of the member's speech. I was coming from another meeting.
I think he should be aware of the fact that in the province of Ontario-he has sort of baited me on this-one of the problems that we have right now with the NDP government is that it is afraid to make decisions.
I want to deal with one specific sector. That is the housing sector in the province of Ontario, which is almost equal in creating wealth and jobs, from dump truck drivers to plumbers to carpenters. It affects consumer goods, etc. The Government of Ontario, the Bob Rae government, has not signed off on one plan of
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subdivision since it took power almost a year ago. There are literally thousands and thousands of affordable houses in these plans of subdivisions which would create jobs overnight. This would mean that the deficit attack the province of Ontario took in its last budget would not be necessary.
Rather than making the taxpayer pay put those people who can go out and create wealth and create tax revenue to work. They want to work. They would rather work than sit back waiting for the Minister of Municipal Affairs to sign off on plans of subdivisions. In a market where people are crying for housing, especially affordable housing at $150,000 a home, the government is sitting idly by. I think you have to be very careful when you tout your NDP government and justify its deficit because there are many, many things it could be doing to unleash the productive capacity of that province, which needs to be unleashed so desperately.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Madam Speaker, it is interesting that we have a member of the Liberal Party talking about expecting miracles from a government in a very short time. We almost have that with what, as I understand, the Ontario government has done. It inherited approximately $2.5 billion of this deficit, it had transfer payments cuts of $3.5 billion-


An hon. member:: Cuts.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: They were cuts directly from the federal government. As I understand it-


An hon. member:: He is a Liberal.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: As I understand it-


An hon. member:: Keep the Liberal Party.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: It is wonderful-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: For some reason, I do not feel very involved in that exchange. I think everyone is supposed to be talking to me.


Henry Perrin Beatty: It is a lovers' quarrel between the Liberals and the NDP.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: There is one minute left for the hon. member to conclude.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: There has never been any love between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in spite of what the minister says. There has been no love between the New Democrats and the Conservatives either. We will continue to fight both the Liberal and the Conservative regressive and repressive policies toward ordinary Canadians.

June 13, 1991
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The budget of Ontario builds on the $700 million anti-recession program announced last year by providing a total of $4.3 billion for capital spending on hospitals, schools and other infrastructure this year and by initiating programs to help workers and struggling businesses through the recession. This government in Ontario has shown what a New Democratic Party government can do in trying to clean up a mess left by the Liberals.


Mr. Darryl L. Gray (Bonaventure - Iles-de-la-Made-leine):: Madam Speaker, perhaps our colleagues across the floor would like to take note of some of the figures and facts that I shall be giving and see how a very efficient government operates. At the same time, I would reserve a couple of my comments for the end, since I did not have the opportunity to ask a question of my colleague.
This year the main estimates totalled $158 billion. Through these estimates the government is seeking Parliament's approval for $47 billion in new spending authority. The remaining $111 billion represents statutory payments that have had previous parliamentary approval.
These main estimates demonstrate our continuing commitment to control spending and contain the cost of government, the need for significant changes in the way government operates, and our commitment to deliver services to Canadians in the most efficient manner.
Since taking office in 1984, this government has given a high priority to reducing the cost of government operations while still providing Canadians with the programs and services they need. In this regard, much has been achieved over the past six years. Annual growth in program spending has been reduced, on average, to 3.7 per cent. In this regard, we have to look at annual growth in operating and capital spending, including public service salaries which we have dropped to an average of 3.3 per cent; and the Public Service has been reduced since 1984-85 to roughly the same size it was in the 1970s.
These achievements show the government's commitment to increased efficiency through the rigorous control of expenditures as well as the implementation of
innovative management procedures. These achievements also reflect the government's commitment to good management and to the careful stewardship of the taxpayers' dollars. Our record is one of success.
The year-over-year increase in the main estimates is the outcome of a number of decisions affecting the budgets of all 142 programs delivered by 118 departments, agencies and Crown corporations appearing in the estimates. This increase can be divided into two broad categories: adjustments to statutory items, which amount to $7.2 billion, and changes to voted items, which amount to $2.7 billion. Therefore only 27 per cent of the growth in the main estimates relates to voted items.
Statutory spending is $110.6 billion, or 70 per cent of total estimates and will grow by 7 per cent. Spending in this category includes such things as major federal transfers to Canadians in respect of Old Age Security, guaranteed income supplements and family allowances, and transfers to the provinces for health, education and social assistance.
It is important to note that the major factor underlying the growth in the voted portion of the main estimates is the carry-forward items, funded initially through the 1990-91 supplementary estimates. Items previously approved through supplementary estimates account for 44 per cent of the year-over-year growth of voted main estimates. The other categories such as higher personal costs, increased workload and new program initiatives, play a relatively minor role.
On a consolidated basis, four areas account for more than 80 per cent of total allocated budgetary spending: public debt charges take up 27.4 per cent of the total; social programs 36.1 per cent; fiscal arrangements close to 11 per cent; and defence spending 8.1 per cent.
Social programs are the largest component of over-all spending. During 1991-92, the federal government will direct $57 billion, which is 36 per cent of its allocated main estimates, to improve the social conditions of Canadians. The departments of Health and Welfare Canada, Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Employment and Immigration Canada make up over 90 per cent of the spending in this sector.
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Through these social programs, the government is continuing its efforts to help those in greatest need through programs of assistance to the economically disadvantaged. The government's programs and policies will continue to ensure equality of access by all Canadians to the benefits of Canadian society.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member knows that it is unparliamentary to read a speech in this House. Therefore I must conclude that the hon. member is reading from a document. If he is reading from a document we can read it ourselves, and for that purpose I would ask him to table it for our benefit.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member will allow his colleague to do as others do at times and speak with notes in front of him.


Darryl L. Gray: Madam Speaker, as I said at the beginning of my speech


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Bonaventure-ties de la Madeleine.


Darryl L. Gray: Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, I had a lot of figures in my speech, but obviously, the opposition doesn't like figures and doesn't like facts.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Darryl L. Gray: However, that is all part of my responsibility, Madam Speaker.

I will send a copy of my speech to the hon. gentleman
across the way.
These estimates fully reflect the second year impact of the expenditure control plan announced by the Minister of Finance in the 1990 budget. In the budget the Minister of Finance announced a number of reforms intended to bring about both immediate savings and lasting efficiencies in government programs.
The key to this program of restraint is a continuation of the expenditure control program together with tight controls on the cost of government operations which are
expected to produce a savings of nearly $870 million to Canadian taxpayers in the current fiscal year.
Over the five-year planning period, 1995-96, cumulative savings to Canadians will amount to over $5.2 billion. The expenditure control plan is extended to 1995-96. The budget also contains further measures beginning in 1991-92 to restrain spending on programs and operations of federal departments and agencies.
Over-all spending on operating and capital for existing programs will be effectively frozen as of 1990-91. This will be accomplished by a 3 per cent cut in the 1991-92 budget and capital budgets of each department.
In addition, departments will be required to absorb any increased salary costs arising from new collective agreements. As a result any wage increases will be paid for by a corresponding reduction in the number of jobs. Depending on the results of collective bargaining, this could entail a reduction in employment affecting as many as
6,000	jobs in the civil service.
Together these measures have reinforced our message to Canadians that the days of easy spending by the government are long past. The reality is all the more significant as we come through a period of economic recession and downturn coupled with unforeseeable external pressures for new spending.
Our budget also contained other significant initiatives. First, the Minister of Finance on behalf of the government is bringing forward draft legislation to put statutory limits on spending. This should provide Canadians with greater assurance that program spending will be managed within the fiscal framework.
Second, the government will reduce discretionary grants and contributions by $75 million. The hon. House leader, Harvie Andre, has been discussing with colleagues how these reductions can best be achieved.
Third, the government will streamline its operations by reducing the number of its executives by 10 per cent.
These reforms are necessary to make funds available for essential programs and services. However, reducing costs is only one aspect of the reforms of this government. These measures also reflect a profound realization that the present cost and complexity of government operations can no longer be justified to Canadians. If this government is to serve Canadians well, we must do it through new forms of service delivery and through organizations that are more efficiently managed.

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Therefore, to improve efficiency within the Public Service, innovative management practices will continue to remain a priority of this government.
The government has introduced a wide range of initiatives since taking office in 1984 to improve the management of the expenditure of our budgets. The actions have been taken and will continue to be taken and they will produce results for all Canadians and Canadian taxpayers.
For example, revenues from external user fees now exceed $3 billion, which is more than double the 1984-1985 levels. The government is continuing to seek out new areas where the application of user fees are appropriate.
The government, through initiatives such as this has adopted a management strategy based on a more businesslike and frugal attitude to its operations. This, I understand, goes against the policies of our counterparts, the New Democratic Party across the way.
It has implemented measures to realize cost savings and improved administrative practices to deliver programs more effectively. This has been achieved through such initiatives as contracting out, special operating agencies and privatization.
The government believes that many services and functions are best carried out by public service employees. However, to provide a full range of options for delivering services to the Canadian public, certain functions are better done through the private sector, through contracting out.
Special operating agencies continue to be a viable mechanism for improving the delivery of our very important public services to the Canadian public.
Six more agencies have been announced through these main estimates, including the Canadian General Standards Board and the Canadian Conservation Institute. More candidates will be identified over the coming year, with a strong emphasis on organizations that directly serve the public where the potential for improvement is greatest.
Privatization will remain a key priority for this government. The government's program has already devolved more than 18 Crown corporations that have other corporate holdings to the private sector and other levels
of government. The government will privatize CN Exploration, an oil and gas company, and will wind up Petro-Canada International Assistance Corporation and the Canadian Oil and Gas Lands Administration.
The initiatives reviewed have helped move the government a considerable distance in managing itself more productively. The government will maintain its twopronged approach of top-down restraint on departmental budgets and of management policies that modify the institutional and working environment of public service managers.
These measures reinforce the consistent actions the government has taken since 1984. We must control the cost of government operations. We are also expected to engender considerable change in the way departments and agencies do business, that is in the nature and type of resources used as inputs in the technology applied and in the organization and methods of program delivery.
By changing the atmosphere in which government business is transacted, it becomes easier to make the structures more business-like. In keeping with the business-like environment, the government will be eliminating person-year controls and moving toward operating budgets.
Person-year authorities are a control mechanism used to limit the average number of employees that a department or an agency can use in the delivery of its programs. A person-year represents the employment of one person full time per year or for one year the equivalent of three persons for four months.
Controls on person years are used by the Treasury Board to complement conventional budget controls. This system of controls has served over the years to limit the size and cost of the Public Service and encourage the search for labour-saving efficiency which we can also use in cost saving factors. This has been confirmed by the Public Service 2000 task force report and the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The Treasury Board has begun to withdraw its control of person-year authorities in cases where suitable budget-based controls and incentives are in place to induce cost-effective, management decisions and the most efficient use of resources.
June 13, 1991

I would close by saying that when we speak on behalf of the government in terms of Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates, that this movement toward operating budgets is a reflection of our commitment to Canadians to promote efficient practices within the Public Service. As I mentioned, the PS2000 task force and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts agreed with this.
The government is confident that operating budgets will promote more effective use of the taxpayers' money. This change is another example of our government's commitment to reform that will perform better service to Canadians.
I have listened to the other comments that were made by my hon. colleague across the way and will not go into more details concerning the New Democratic Party government in the province of Ontario. However, one thing I have learned since 1984, being a member of Parliament and, of course, we know that sometimes if we come from Quebec it makes it a little hotter than if we happen to come from other parts of the country, one thing that my people have told me at home since 1984 is that they want to pay, they want a service. If they do not pay then they have to cut back.
There are two methods that this government or any government can use, we can tax or we can cut. Our government is, in the most humane way, trying a little of both, which we have tried to approve and apply on behalf of our government. The NDP government can only talk about corporate bums, but the corporate bums supply thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country. Ontario is going through the situation now where business is going against them because they do not like their budget.
We cannot insult everyone, but what we shall do as the government is be very human and very Christian, if I can speak from the Christian point of view. Being a Christian of persuasion myself, and God fearing of any religion, without insulting any religion across Canada, we will administer this government so that all Canadians can have services that they need and we will be there.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Madam Speaker, excuse me, I thought the initial reading of the document that the hon. member presented was fairly
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sterile and lacking all evidence of the humanity that he claimed at the end. I suspect that there are a good many Christians in this country. Perhaps we should subtract 14 per cent from all the Christians in the country who will be dearly offended by the claim that this government's policies are based on Christianity.
I would just like to take a moment to deal with the Ontario budget, it having been raised. I think it bears justification to reflect upon the components of this $9 billion deficit that has raised the ire of the wealthy Liberals and the wealthy Conservatives.
Let us just point out first of all that sneaky, little $2.5 billion deficit that the Liberal Party left behind when it was so brutally rejected by the people of Ontario. Let us also keep in mind, Madam Speaker, as I am sure you have, the $3.8 billion in transfer payments withdrawn from Ontario by this government, remembering that Ontario pays the fat portion of transfer payments to the other provinces.
Let us also take into account that something in the order of 200,000 industrial jobs were lost in Ontario. That translates into two things: a vastly increased burden on social assistance; and dramatic cuts in the revenues available to Ontario. Ontario is confronted with a situation in which it has had to prepare the damage done to ordinary Ontarians, who are Canadians, by this government that seems to insist that Ontario somehow does not fit into its equation of what Canada is all about when it comes to economic policy.
I did not hear anything here about the dramatic need for example of a government involvement recognized by studies from the department under this government, that is industry, science and technology, about the necessity of this government getting started with a program to enhance research and development in the parts industry. I doubt that I will ever hear it since this government has abandoned any notion of targets for R and D.
I did not get up here in order to engage in a long speech that would have me engaged in the rather easy ridiculing of both the Liberals and Conservatives for their perfidy, but I want to ask just two questions. First, the hon. member made mention early in his reading of savings to the taxpayer. There has been a good deal of

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discussion over the last couple of days about possibilities for providing savings to the taxpayer. I think that among his colleagues there are those who look at that already existing $400 million excess from the GST and say: "Well now, why don't we cut that GST to 5 per cent?" I am wondering whether the hon. member agrees with his colleagues, some of them very illustrious colleagues, some of them well read in the field of financing, who have suggested this. I wonder if he agrees with that.
Second, I wonder if he could enlighten us, after having given us a very complete, albeit unnecessary definition, of what a person year is, as to whether he has taken into account the number of person years that have been substituted for by other budget items, that in fact lead to the same number of people working in various departments. But these are not counted as person years because they are contracted out, part-time-usually part-time for women by the way, Madam Speaker-exploitative of women. I would like to see if he has an estimate of how many of those person years have been substituted for by other expenditure lines for people who are not counted at all in the process.


Darryl L. Gray: Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is of course very wise in the way of his words. I was just wondering as he was talking about the GST if in some instances he is suggesting dropping the GST from 7 per cent to 5 per cent. Perhaps if we did do that the extra 2 per cent would pay off the NDP budget in Ontario.
We are serious when talking taxes; Canadian taxpayers pay it across the country. The serious thing is that we have in excess of $400 billion that we have to pay. I will leave the question of whether GST comes down from 7 per cent to 5 per cent to the recommendation of all Canadians whether they want to pay it off with the new fund or whether the Minister of Finance decides that he wants to drop it to 5 per cent. That will be one thing.
One thing we can be sure of is that the NDP government will not drop its income tax in the province of Ontario.
With regard to contracting out, the question that I would ask my hon. colleague, if the process that the federal government has brought in since it has been in
power for contracting out in terms of efficiency and in terms of money savings and what has been done for the service of Canadians, if he has any proof-

-that it doesn't work, Madam Speaker, I would ask them to give me the information. Thank you.


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member about something that happened here over the last two or three months. It appears that the government agenda over the last two or three months has basically hijacked and removed the parliamentary procedure of supply, the means by which Parliament, through its committees, scrutinizes government spending.
In the very small area that I work in, in the justice area, I can say that we have had total committee time to scrutinize government expenditures in the very supply process that we are debating here today, of 1.5 hours. That is virtually nothing in the face of budgets of several billion dollars.
I will be fair to the government and recognize that in a number of ways its ongoing initiatives to reduce the deficit and the current made-in-Canada recession, in part by government policies, has impaired that. However, I wonder if the member could comment on how we could in this House improve these procedures in such a way that it could never happen again, the hijacking of that estimates scrutiny agenda that I have just described, so that we can do our jobs on both sides of the House as parliamentarians. What would he suggest that we do to avoid this ever happening again?


Darryl L. Gray: Madam Speaker, I think if my hon. friend in posing his question would look at the recourse there is still available through the House of Commons, with the standing committees, with the government operations committee, which I understand has fairly equal representation from all parties involved in it, perhaps another time around, according to the polls, you might have to have more parties involved in it.
June 13, 1991

In terms of the input, it is there. As for the scrutiny, to say it will not happen again-of course the ultimate scrutiny lies always with the Canadian population. What does not get said in the House of Commons, what does not get said in committee, as the gentleman knows being a member of the opposition party, obviously gets said in public through the media. So there are many checks and balances in it.
In spite of the frustration of sitting in opposition, which my party has done also, I would say to the hon. member that the way the procedure works at the present time, he can see that with the checks and balances, it balances out fairly evenly, probably I would say to my liking as a Conservative member of Parliament, more even for you than for me.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, as I listen to the member wax eloquent on the government's program of expenditure restraint, which every household and every business in the country is going through, I think he put it forward in a way that I would have to challenge. The program spending for 1984-85 was $86.6 billion. For the current fiscal year, it is $108.3 billion, an increase of $22.3 billion. Now, the budgetary revenue in 1984-85 was $70.8 billion. The current fiscal year budget revenue is $120.7 billion, an increase of revenue of almost $50 billion.
Really, what you have done is you have not only increased your program spending from 1984-85, but at the same time you have taken an extra $50 billion out of the economy.
My question to the hon. member is this. What do you tell your constituents when they must say to you: "My goodness, you are taxing us to death. The paper burden on the GST and other tax systems is driving us crazy. You are turning us into bureaucrats." What do you say to those people when they are going through the deepest, darkest recession that this country has ever had?


Darryl L. Gray: Madam Speaker, What I would tell my constituents would be that in 1984, when I was elected, we were looking at a budget from the former Liberal government with an annual deficit of about $40 billion. In
1988-89-90, we are down to $28, $29 or $30 billion. A reduction of $10 billion.
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You mentioned an increase in program spending, whatever the amounts are. Unfortunately, sir, I do not have them before me.
On new programs, I ran my campaign in 1984 saying that we had "Canada Works". The only thing we could do in my area on the Gaspe in the Magdalen Islands, was build picnic tables so the boys and the women could get 10 weeks of unemployment insurance stamps. We have changed that through our Jobs Strategy Program.
If new programs have been introduced, which I believe are to the benefit of all Canadians, then there will be an increase in that.
One thing is certain, the budget, from $40 billion, is down around $30 billion, which is to the respect of my Prime Minister and our Ministers of Finance, because we have cut back in spending as opposed to the increased spending of several other provinces. That has now happened.


Sheila Finestone: Madam Speaker, I am quite pleased to stand to talk to this issue today. We have many, many matters we could look at concerning the government's budget. We could be looking at the choices that government makes in many areas and its impacts on the daily lives of people across this land.
I just have to look in my own riding at the food banks, at the number of students who cannot find jobs, at the tax burden businessmen have been talking to me about, at the concern the hungry, the poor, the sick and the elderly are expressing with respect to the health services and the cuts to equalization payment funds, the capping of the kinds of transfer payments that we are helping out with in many areas.
Today I have really chosen to focus on the approach of this government in the field of culture and communications over the past seven years as is highlighted particularly, in its budget.
In the throne speech there is not a single word about culture. There is not a single word about this enormously important industry in the throne speech and the budget, which are supposedly focusing on national unity, on rebuilding consensus in this country, on the Constitution. We have not seen one new word about building this new Canada. There is not an ounce of mortar to hold the bricks together in this country.

June 13, 1991
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It is true this government has a majority in a democratic society. We have to respect their right to govern. But you can also question their right to the poor choices they have made in public policy for the people of Canada. There is no place that it can be reflected more clearly and more succinctly than in the field of culture.
I can say that this government has been in receipt of a wealth of knowledge and incredible benefits which have come from information from an infinite number of task forces and studies. These have cost, through the three ministers who have gone, well, two, the third one is just in, two Ministers of Communications and Culture, have spent over $10 billion in studies and examinations-

And all this to see what is happening in communications and culture. This is all very well, except that we need action, positive action, not this hacking away at the roots of a country.

Do you know that these task forces cost $10 billion? With all this time and effort, with all these so-called consultations and with all the standing committee work, this government has had no excuse to delay facing its responsibility in the area of communications and culture, which I said, I feel personally, and I think our party has demonstrated, is vital to the building of a sense of national identity and national unity.
There is little doubt of the importance of this sector to our economy, to the workforce, to the tourism industry. It provides us not only with that sense of Canadian identity and Canadian uniqueness, but it presents a very distinguishing mechanism by which we can identify ourselves on the world stage as Canadians.
There is no doubt that these means of expressing who we are, whether it is through the dance, theatre, song, songwriters, television, film or radio, are how we can identify ourselves so succinctly. My colleague here knows that very well and is a strong supporter of French songwriters and French singers.

I am thinking of Michel Seguin, but there are many others who are very important to Canada's cultural environment.

Not only is culture a very vital element in nation building and a unifying force, but I would like to underscore its importance to the Canadian economy. Do you know that it has been the fastest growing element in the Canadian economy? Did you know that? It is absolutely fundamental. In 1987, the labour force engaged in cultural activities was estimated at 400,000 Canadians. So says Stats Canada, according to Allen Gotlieb, the present Chairman of the Canada Council.
Arts related employment was as large as the agricultural sector in terms of employment. In fact it was the fourth largest sector of employment in Canada. Cultural revenues were estimated at $13.7 billion in 1987 and have grown immeasurably, as I will point out shortly, since that point. There has been an incredible ripple effect on the over-all economy. The income in this sector, with tourism and all the other benefits-whether they are the hot dogs or the peanuts sold, or the popcorn in the theatre that we all like, or the Coke or Pepsi-is in the range of $29 billion. Those are a lot of zeros. The industry buys a lot of food, provides a lot of jobs and is on a par with the metal and mining industry, in terms of revenues.


Ross Belsher: So whatever we are doing with culture, we are helping it.


Sheila Finestone: It is a very big, important and beneficial area of our society. I would like the hon. member to read the Masse-Levesque commission report on national development in the arts, letters and sciences which was tabled in the early 1950s at a time when there was very little federal involvement in the arts. That report realized that Canadians' cultural identity, if we were to survive, required an activist role-one of partnership between the federal government and the provincial government, municipal governments and the private sector. That is how we have established Canada on the world map. We have produced, and can be very proud of, artists who are the expression of who we are within Canada. I am sure you would agree with that point of view.
June 13, 1991

This is not to say, when I talk about the federal role, that the provinces must not play an important role in cultural endeavours. However, I would caution that provincial initiatives are most effective when they are complemented by a federal presence in the sector.
For example, restraining the flood of foreign cultural activities would overwhelm the capacity of any single provincial government. Our proximity to our friendly neighbour, the United States, poses very special problems that are best met collectively right across this land. The pervasiveness and the power of the American cultural machine-through its film industry, television industry, music industry, the integration of those industries, and its distribution and marketing-is such that a fragmented system of cultural support and promotion would be easily overwhelmed if we did not stand together as Canadians shoulder to shoulder, coast to coast, en anglais ou en franqais, n 'importe.
We need to be vigilant in this government. A headline in The Globe and Mail today reads: "First day of trade talks produces discord". What does that headline go on to say? It says: "Canada-U.S. disagree over cultural industries". Sure they disagree because Canada has been able to and-if it continues to stand tall-can stop the overflow of American cultural homogenization around this world by saying that every country has the right of access to a certain percentage of its own market. If America has 94 per cent of our film market, how much does it want-100 per cent, or should we be allowed to have 3 per cent, 4 per cent, 5 per cent, 6 per cent? Could we go on to 10 per cent of our own market? That is something we should be allowed to do. If the American people, the average people in the United States, understood what the Jack Valentes and Carla Hills of this world wanted to do they would say: "Quit it, stop badgering your good friends and neighbours, the Canadians".
I believe that where we have now had the Constitution of Canada dominating our agenda with the Belanger-Campeau commission, with the Allaire report, the current discussions around the devolution of culture and communication powers to the provinces are very worrisome.
The total removal of the federal government from these cultural fields would have a devastating impact on
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national unity and on cultural sovereignty in Canada, leaving us with an arrangement of a purely political and economic nature.
I would like to quote the Canadian Conference on the Arts which says: "Canada would cease to be a nation and would become a corporation." This side of the House sees a public federal role as necessary and complementary to the provincial, municipal and private sector initiatives to ensure viable, cultural activities. We see the role of the CBC, the National Arts Centre, Telefilm Canada, the museums, the National Archives, the library, the National Film Board and Canada Council as well as other federal institutions and programs as important and key.
They must be kept to reflect Canadians to Canadians. Without an activist federal government in the cultural arena, Canada will be nothing more than an association of economic states. There will be little opportunity to develop in the way of foreign influences and in the way of our personality.
The federal government's recent actions in this budget of 1991 hit the arts community very hard. In total, culture has lost $169 million for 1991-92 and the carnage may not be over. The big losers will be the four large projects: the performing arts buildings for Toronto, Edmonton and Montreal as well as the cultural research institute announced by the former Minister of Communications only days before the budget.
We need that research institute. I do not care where you put it, but you need to put it in and you need to integrate it into the kind of work that we are doing so we can do our work intelligently with the proper number crunch figures and the proper goal set for the future within this country.
These four projects totalling $151 million have supposedly only been delayed, according to the government. The main concern to the arts community is the government's intention to reduce its over-all grants and contributions to all sectors by $575 million over the next five years.
This year, grants and contributions will be cut by $75 million and each year thereafter by $125 million. It is still not known how Canada Council, Telefilm Canada, the Museums Assistance Program, the Cultural Initiatives Program and the postal subsidies program will be affected.

June 13, 1991
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With regard to the postal subsidies program, we heard the minister today talking about how marvellous the post office has been since it was privatized, but he forgot to mention that he saved $110 million on the backs of the Canadian cultural industries, newspapers, magazines and community newspapers of this country.
If you look at the graph which was presented to us this morning in committee, it is extremely interesting to see that the government can talk about how good it has been in terms of allocation of current dollars. That is lovely, except it forgot there is an inflationary factor. Every one of us knows that it does not cost the same amount of money to buy a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread today as it did in 1984-85.
Here we are in 1991-92. If you look at the current dollars versus the purchasing power of the constant dollar, you would see that this government's allocations have gone down significantly.
I will not give the figures now but if someone wants to ask me after, I would be happy to give a breakdown of these figures. What has gone on here is that the decisions by this government are now going to be reviewed on a behind-the-scenes basis by the hon. Harvie Andre, the government House leader.
I would like to suggest that he may not be in the best position to review a lot of the things that we have been talking about. His review would remind me and hearken back to the Nielsen review, which was rather dramatic and Draconian.
As well, I have been hearing how we have been so good to our youth. We well know that there is a Canadian Jobs Strategy allocation program and a Summer Opportunities program. They all have special fancy names, but what they mean is that students and community groups need help and extra manpower during the course of a time frame which is generally the summer time. That money has been cut in my region alone by close to 20 per cent. That is a serious concern to the arts and cultural community because that jobs strategy cut will be in the amount of about $100 million. It represents a cut of about 5.5 per cent and it occurs at a time when cultural organizations have been pushing for new training and for human resource development programs for the burgeoning youth and cultural communities, which are really vibrant, exciting and dynamic. I know if you go,
as I do, to youth theatre programs, to the amateur development programs, to the parks and the playgrounds, to the CEGEP level and see some of the productions that have come out-


Dennis Joseph Mills: Degrassi Junior High.


Sheila Finestone: And today, thank you, Degrassi Junior High is a perfect example. There is so much talent out there, but we need to find the tools to enable them to demonstrate and produce and direct at a national level.
When I look at the CBC, the government's lack of vision and commitment has produced a starveback of our national broadcaster. In fact since 1984, this government has been slashing away at the CBC. If government cuts, inflation and increased costs due to the government's GST, and lack of action in providing for ephemeral rights in copyright are all taken into account, the CBC has lost between $240 million and $400 million in only seven years. Last December, because the government throttled the CBC, the corporation was forced to take measures to address the shortfall of $108 million by closing stations in Goose Bay, Matane, Toronto, Comerbrooke, Sydney, Rimouski, Sept-iles, Windsor, Saskatoon and Calgary.

I was in Rimouski when nearly 5,000 people demonstrated against this decision. They were furious. I went to Newfoundland, in Comerbrook, and I had the same experience with hundreds of people who demonstrated their objections to cutbacks that were both inevitable and intolerable. There were petitions, and action was taken by both employees and listeners. However, this government is deaf and dumb. It doesn't understand the issues, it didn't do anything about it. Meanwhile performers were in a bad way. And they still are, with an average salaiy of about $15,000 a year.

So local productions for the most part have stopped. Radio Canada International, Radio-Canada international, has been reduced, as has the parliamentary channel. We pick this up on a temporary basis. We are still talking about privatizing the right of elected members of Parliament to speak to their constituents without worrying about whether the private sectors like how we put it on, the hours we have used, whether we have exempted their time and who shall be seen. It is ridiculous.
June 13, 1991

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As a result of these cuts, 1,100 jobs have been lost, all because the government does not understand why we need a public broadcaster. They do what no one else can do. They bring us the voice of Canada from coast to coast to coast. No private broadcaster can afford to do that. The public broadcaster does it, and does it well. It is important that we keep that link and allow among the exploding spectrum of choices that we have, from America, Europe, Britain, France-all wonderful, and choice should be there-a national voice which sets standards. We cannot afford to continue decimating that service across this land.
Now we have the status of artists legislation, which is welcomed in this House and by the arts community, but I wish it was a little bit more substantive. A lot of it is smoke and mirrors because the concrete ability to realize an improvement in the effective spending power and income of the arts community is not there yet. We have forgotten about income averaging. This arts community knows very well that this year you may be well employed, this month you may have a job but next month you do not. There are good artists and those who are learning to be effective, who are painting and starting to sell. This year they sell well but next year they do not. They have to have income averaging.
This government will not hear of changes within the revenue code or the Revenue Act, which would only be sensible if you addressed the arts community and its particularity.
We did not do anything about bankruptcy protection, which is fundamental. We have done nothing about the public lending rights. We are moving to an open shop from a closed shop and you, Madam Speaker, understand l'Union des artistes et ACTRA who know about ensuring their own artists a job before foreigners come in here. The Americans have moved from an open shop to a closed shop. So thank you very much. There we go, we will not even have access to the American stage, but they can come in here and take jobs from our workers.
With Radio Canada International I guess the best argument is that the Prime Minister's own friend, the Senate chair of the Transportation and Communications Committee, Findlay MacDonald, spoke about it in the media and was quoted widely and wildly. I would read into the record some of what he had to say, but I just want to make a point of bringing to your attention as
well-I have one minute left-that we cannot forget the National Arts Centre and the museums.
We have a War Museum. We sent our troops to war. We have pride in these people who represented us and defended us. We treat them so shabbily with the way we look at our museum, but we put millions and millions and millions into bricks and mortar in Quebec. I do not care if you want to move the War Museum to Quebec, but at least let's have something that will honour our citizens and the work that they have done and the valour that they have displayed, not disgrace them. Do not hide from view the beauty and the wonders of the arts and the artefacts that we have from the efforts that they have put in.
The National Arts Centre is also of great concern. There is a $369,000 deficit and there is no accountability in the system that was set up and complete disregard on the part of that board of trustees and its directors. That is worrisome.
I would love to have read what Findlay MacDonald had to say because I think that it displays the inability of this government to have a cultural vision, to understand the importance of Canada's voice, not only provincially, not only federally, but internationally. That is what we went ahead and cut as well. We cut our own throats. We are perfectly ridiculous in the way we manage our budget and make choices.
It is not to say that I do not understand that we need deficit cutting-yes, we do, and we have to be better managers-yes, we do, but you have an opportunity and you have choices in the course of that opportunity. This government's choices have been disgraceful, particularly in the arts world where the bricks and mortar have to be held together so that this country is a country that can stand tall in the world of nations.


Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Madam Speaker, I rise first of all to express my congratulations to the hon. member for an excellent speech and presentation on the whole spectrum of subject matter in the ministry of Communications and Culture. It was an education to listen to her and I will read her remarks with great interest. I have the honour to serve with her on the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture. Twice today I have enjoyed a very educational experience as we had a presentation earlier this morning from the officials of that department and that was also very informative, interesting and wide-ranging.

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I would like to ask the hon. member if she could-


Sheila Finestone: What is his riding?


Mr. Bird:: Fredericton-York-Sunbuiy.


Sheila Finestone: All right. Thank you.


John Williston (Bud) Bird: I would like to ask the hon. member if she could identify those areas in communications and culture where indeed the deficit could be attacked, where the soft priorities are as opposed to the high priorities. I may have missed areas of her presentation, but I also share her general views that we do have to be financially responsible in Canada. I thought she spoke almost as a Conservative in the closing comments of her speech and I would be interested again, for my information as a neophyte in the area of communications and culture, to understand where those areas of deficit reduction might be found in the ministry, in the terms of reference of the Ministry of Communications and Culture.
Also, while she is at it, she mentioned, and I think very correctly so, that there are certainly issues and opportunities in the whole spectrum of communications and culture to make a significant contribution to the resolution of our Constitution into national unity. Perhaps she could identify for my information and the information of others in the House where those particular opportunities may be.
I look forward to working with her closely in future months on the committee and I would listen with interest to her response at this time.


Sheila Finestone: I welcome the question from my colleague from Fredericton.
As the House draws to a close and we are all getting a little bit overwhelmed with the number of meetings and the hours that we are spending, I appreciate more than ever the kind of work that we have to do, although the public thinks we do not work and I have tried to calculate what our 18 hour days really add up to.
Through the ability to respond to my hon. friend who is now the chairman of this committee, and I wish him well in that task, I would like the public to know that together I think that we can look at the kinds of questions he just asked me.
He made a cute little comment. He said: "You almost sounded like a Conservative", because I talked about fiscal responsibility. I guess, my hon. friend, the difference is that I am definitely not a Conservative, nor am I an NDPer. I am not frozen in either ideology. I chose to be a Liberal because I believe in fiscal responsibility. I believe that one must support the social needs and the social values of this country while balancing them on the scale of justice with respect to economic need.
You need to have that scale go in a fair measure and in a fair balance in the course of a mandate. In the instance of the Conservative government we have had, you have been blessed with seven rich years. If you had been fiscally responsible as a government over those seven rich years, during the coming seven lean years, I hope it will not be that long, we would have had the kind of cushion that would have enabled us to live much more sensibly in the years ahead.
With respect to this scale of justice and where I would have looked to cut or to have been more fiscally responsible, I tried to indicate this morning that I thought the Department of Communications ought to look at how we use our money in the production of film, which would be video, one of the communicating tools that is most effective and has the greatest impact on our society. We know that adults watch about 24 hours a week of television. We know that children spend more time watching television than they spend in school. Therefore, the production and distribution of those communication vehicles, television and videos, are very key. If we look at it and priorize where we are going to put our moneys and use them effectively and not scatter them in a variety of programs and institutions, then I think we could be more effective.
Over all, I would suggest that my choice is no deficit, no cuts and careful scrutiny of where we spend it. The goal is the growth and development of a Canadian cultural industry which will cement this nation through knowledge, understanding of its growth, its beautiful history, its wonderful stars and the role models whom we have in every field of endeavour, just as much as in any other country. Certainly we have just as many super stars as the Americans have except we have not promoted them.
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I would not cut in actual dollars anywhere. I would refocus my priorities because I think that there is something we cannot afford to do; we cannot afford to cut in our cultural properties and in our cultural agencies. We can afford to cut elsewhere. It is a matter of priority, and that is how I would look at it.
I think I pointed out in terms of the hon. member's third question on federal and provincial that it is absolutely fundamental that we maintain a national presence and national institutions which show and encourage the presence of excellence across this land. This does not remove obligations and rights from provinces and municipalities to foster the kernels of greatness, the folklore and the general culture within their own area of expertise.
I think that where you can run complementary programs such as Quebec does in film development you also see the potential. Money is put in through the potential of capital cost allowances and tax write-offs. They know. If anyone knows, it is Quebecers who know, and I include myself in that Quebecer scene.
We know that it is those instruments of song, dance, film and video that absolutely protect and enable the growth of the culture expressed through those artistic endeavours. They have used fiscal policy to enable the growth and development of those instruments. That is what I would do in terms of federal-provincial relations.
I certainly would not remove the federal presence or the national institutions. I would support a shared jurisdiction along with the private sector.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Saint-Maurice, for a short comment or question.


Mr. Denis Pronovost (Saint-Maurice):: Madam Speaker, I will be very brief. I have already said in the House that I thought it was unfortunate the government did not maintain some of Radio Canada International's services. The hon. member for Mount Royal made a reference to the Polish service, which until quite recently, had
2,926,000	listeners in Poland who were able to listen to the voice of Canada on radio.
I thought it was really unfortunate, and I deplored this withdrawal from the airways. However, I have the
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following question for the hon. member, the opposition critic for communications. Wouldn't it be time to realize that short wave, in particular, is no longer as effective and as valid a communications medium as it was a few years ago? One example is France. Before, the only contact the French had with Quebecers was through Radio Canada International, on short wave. Today, Madam Speaker, the French can watch Le Telejoumal as well as a whole series of television productions from Canada,thanks to TV5.
The best way for Canada to become known throughout the world is via television, not short wave, since ratings for the latter have gone down considerably throughout the world. This medium is now used only in Africa and Asia.


Sheila Finestone: That is one way, but there are others as well. I can tell you that what we are coproducing with France, and France will certainly carry out the distribution of cultural products in terms of films and music as well as videos around the world, will be distributed in French world-wide. I hope the day will come when there will be more English coproductions to reflect our reality too.
That being said, the fact remains that we certainly looked closely at all the precious tools we have and the most efficient use that could be made of them here in Canada. I appreciate the hard work our colleague from Saint-Maurice did with regard to CBC International. I know how much he wanted this important international tool to be maintained. I know he fought a pitched battle both in the Committee on Communications and Culture and behind the scenes with the minister and others.
I know that he did not want the elimination of the service in 19 languages and the accompanying staff cuts, heralding the disparition of this marvelous tool which had put us on the map. I think his views were shared by some, seing that even Moscow complained about this cut.
So, I would like to thank my colleague for the work he has accomplished and I hope that he will keep asking for the reinstatement of all the funding and staff required to allow CBC International to fulfil again its role as the voice of Canada abroad, which made us an internationally-known dreamland.

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Mr. Andre Harvey (Chicoutimi):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate today. The motion before the House fails to take into consideration all the positive aspects of our economic and fiscal policies. To start with, I would like to say that it takes a lot of patience and willpower to listen to speeches like the ones we heard from members of the Liberal Party of Canada and from the hon. member from Mount Royal in particular, about the cuts made by our government in areas as important as, among others, equalization payments. This afternoon, I checked with the Department of Finance about transfer payments to the provinces. They are in three parts, and I think there is a lot of confusion amongst Liberal and NDP members. The first part is the Established Program Financing, the second equalization and the third the Canadian Assistance Plan.
I listened to what the hon. member for Mount Royal was saying about equalization. I wish that, in the next few days, she would check the actual figures because, in Quebec in particular, they increased from 3 billion dollars in 1984 to 3.8 billion dollars in 1991-92, and now 4 billion dollars. That means, for Quebec, an increase of 100 per cent , in equalization payments over just eight years.
In politics, it is very hard to avoid being overly partisan and saying just about anything, but I urge the Liberal Party of Canada to analyze the figures concerning transfer payments to the provinces. Since 1984, there has been an increase of up to 6 per cent per year. It is an area where our government has been most generous. I have all the figures here and I might come back to them later on, Madam Speaker. Still, I believe that when you say something in the House, you should have the correct information.
Regarding Quebec in particular, the transfer payments were 8.153 billion dollars in 1984, Madam Speaker, and they will reach close to $11 billion in 1992-93, an increase of almost 35 per cent. I do not see any reduction there, it is a rather substantial increase.
In a speech putting into question the financial management ability of our government, there should not be any question regarding the significance of our economic development program, as outlined in the February 26 budget. The objective of the Budget is crucial: to get Canada out of the present recession and put it back on the road to growth and job creation.
We must emphasize that our government is trying to completely change all the political culture that had been built and nurtured by the former Liberal government. This policy recognizes that the key to economic recovery and durable prosperity during the next few years is the development of a climate which would help bring down inflation and interest rates and keep them down.
All Canadians gave us a clear and strong message during the consultation period that was conducted by the former minister of Finance, and the future will tell how effective his actions and his management are. The clearest message was the need to reduce the interest rates while, of course, taking the free market into account, so that all Canadian businesses could be able to compete internationally.
In order to reach this objective, the plan sets out specific goals whereby inflation would be gradually brought down to 2 per cent by 1995.
Our main actions deal with three particular areas, Madam Speaker. The first one relates to federal spending control. We should emphasize that it is the federal government which, in the last six years, has shown the most restraint in its spending, as opposed to the municipal and provincial governments. Government spending growth has been kept below a 3 per cent. No other government, Madam Speaker, has maintained that rate. This performance has been recognized by all world organizations and by OECD, among others.
There is also the second aspect, the deficit and debt reduction. It takes a lot of gall, Madam Speaker, for a Liberal member to say that the government should have acted more responsibly. They went as far as mentioning the name of Marc Lalonde who pushed the debt from 18 billion dollars to 200 billion dollars and who doubled the deficit in one year, from 14 to 28 billion dollars. They dare to tell us that we have no sense of responsibility! I find it unacceptable for a member to stand up in this House and say such exaggerations and inaccuracies. As to our strategy of drastically cutting the costs of government operations, especially salaries, Madam Speaker, of course, we hear attacks mostly by Liberal and NDP members. It is normal coming from opposition parties because for 20 years, we saw a management philosophy that could be called "put it on my account". We kept spending without ever paying. It is unbelievable! We have even been held responsible for the 1984 deficit of $40 billion, a few minutes ago. And it is when our government came to power that the deficit started to
June 13, 1991

decrease. It went down 25 per cent since we came to power.
It is the reason why, Madam Speaker, our plan for economic recovery and our budget rejected specifically this approach of irresponsably increasing public expenditures and the deficit. Such spending would inevitably bring back higher deficits and a galloping debt that would in turn lead to another period of economic slowdown. The budget rather reaffirms the fact that a better control on public finance is an essential element of the balanced economic framework that we must put in place to insure a permanent recovery and prosperity.
The public will be confident that our progress in reducing inflation and interest rates, and in increasing productivity and personal prosperity, will not be engulfed in the quicksand of deficits ans public debt, with the resulting tax increases necessary to face the situation left behind by irresponsible people.
To develop our plan for economic recovery, we turned to the future, but we also drew lessons from our past economic development. It required a lot of courage, Madam Speaker, to redress the situation left by Marc Lalonde and associates. During nearly 25 years, from 1950 to 1973 inclusively, Canadians saw their national economy and personal prosperity improve considerably. Canada's standard of living nearly doubled within one generation. The growth did not happen by chance, it was not accidental, it resulted from sound economic policies. Inflation rate was then less than 3 per cent, which helped maintain interest rates low. Federal government annual deficits were low or non-existent. I recall that unrestrained and uncontrolled deficits appeared in 1974, particularly under Messrs MacEachen and Marc Lalonde.
As I said, federal govemement annual deficits were low or non-existent. Companies increased their investments considerably. We became more productive and more prosperous, and employment progressed markedly. Unfortunatly, these lessons were forgotten from 1974 to 1984. Governments had let inflation go sky high before trying to control it with restrictive monetary policies. However, those policies were always relaxed before
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prices had really stabilized. So the net effect of each series of policies was to have them firmly ingrained in the public inflationist wishes and bad habits, and the govemement only compounded the problem by spending more than he received in taxes.
The philosophy of the day was to live beyond one's means. That is why, Madam Speaker, it was so difficult for us in 1984 to be a responsible government and to commit ourselves to controlling the deficit. That is why the deficit escalated to 38 billion dollars, almost 40 billion dollars, Madam Speaker, with a budget of about $100 billion or 105 billion dollars while the national debt shot up from 27 billion to over 200 billion dollars. It is no wonder then that economic growth and production went down between 1974 and 1984. Businesses had to fight on two fronts: on the one hand, stronger government interventions, tax collections and the national debt- clearly, the government had no choice-and, on the other, growing competition world-wide. Heaven knows that factor is not decreasing.
The weakening of the Canadian dollar was not sufficient to stop those trends. We are still paying today for that incredible period. If it was not for the service of the debt that we inherited in 1984, Madam Speaker, there would be no deficit and our debt would not have reached the $400 billion mark it will cross this year.
Since 1984, the government has been busy rebuilding the foundations necessary to support a sustainable economic prosperity. Our record shows the very real progress we have achieved. I take this opportunity to mention to you again, Madam Speaker, that international organizations, have acknowledged that Canada has now a policy and a plan for economic recovery which is the envy of many other countries, particularly if we consider the initial situation which we had inherited.
The debt growth has been considerably reduced from a 22 per cent annual rate to about 8 per cent, Madam Speaker. The deficit, though still too high, has been reduced by half in relation to the national revenue. Inflation has been brought down to a level equivalent to about half of the average rate in the 1974-1984 period.

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However, to help our country overcome its current problems and achieve a long-lasting prosperity, we must work harder to put our public finance on a sound basis. The economic recovery plan suggests basic and decisive measures to that end-and, Madam Speaker, I am pleased to mention them: the capping of wage increases for members of Parliament and federal civil servants over the next four years; the extension until 1994-1995 of the expenditures control plan established last year with a view to bringing the deficit down to $6 billion from a level of $40 billion it reached when we came into office, Madam Speaker; the adoption of legislative measures setting absolute caps to the federal government programs expenditures over the next five years.
Unbelievably, Madam Speaker, this is the only government in the world to legislate in order to push its economic renewal plan through.
We will use the GST surplus, among other things, to better control the federal debt. That is unprecedented in this country. Under this legislation, GST revenues will be allocated only to reduce the runaway debt, and not for new expenditures as the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party ask us to do repeatedly.
With these measures, Madam Speaker, we will achieve real progress. For 1990-1991 and the next fiscal year, our deficit will stay at $30.5 billion, despite recession-related problems. We could well have had a $35 billion deficit because of this recession, but thanks to the government expenditure control program, the deficit stayed at $30 billion.
Then, in 1992-1993, the deficit should fall considerably and drop to $24 billion, and then fall, three years later in 1995-1996, to its lowest level in 20 years, $6.5 billion. For the first time in 25 years, the federal government will have no new loan to incur at that time.
What we have to deal seriously with is the credibility of our goals for deficit reduction and debt control. From 1985 to 1990, Madam Speaker, our annual projections for the Gross Domestic Product growth, the inflation, the unemployment rate and the interest rate have always been quite accurate, compared to forecasts made by 14 private organizations.
In fact, a recent study published in the Quarterly Economic Review, from the Department of Finance,
shows that over the entire 1985 to 1990 period, our global forecasts have been the most accurate. So, we should really look forward to 1995 with confidence.
At the same time, we consider ourselves realistic when we say that the deficit will drop to $24 billion by 1992-93. It is easy to understand, Madam Speaker. We will no longer have to support the transitional costs for the GST, which will represent a $2 billion savings. Obviously, there will not be another war in the Persian Gulf. The expenditure control plan will help with further savings since we are keeping increases in expenditures by departments to a bare minimum. The increase is not to exceed 3 per cent.
There have been years, particularly under Marc La-londe as Minister of Finance, when expenditures increased at a rate of between 15 and 19 per cent a year. That was quite an achievement. The decrease in interest rates will also reduce debt charges. It has already started to do so. The economic recovery will help reduce unemployment payments and increase government revenues.
In turn, this large reduction of the deficit, combined with the recovery of the national economy, will favour a reduction of the debt in proportion to our economy for the first time since 1974-1975, when the disaster started under the government of Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
This major reorganization will mean that government revenues, combined with the sustained benefits accruing from lower interest rates and expenditure restraints legislation, will be sufficient to eliminate the need to borrow by 1994-1995, not 2020, Madam Speaker, but 1994-1995. That is in line with the goal set in the 1989 Budget in spite of all the problems encountered since. Because of higher interest rates and the recession, we did not change the date; instead, we took appropriate financial means to put our economy back on track.
I would like to point out, Madam Speaker, that all the salary restrictions we are imposing on parliamentarians as well as on the entire public service tell the Canadian people, both in the private and the public sector, what the markers should be in Canada in terms of salary increases if we are to succeed in bringing down inflation and the interest rates. We simply cannot afford to grant raises that promote inflation.
June 13, 1991

This leads me directly to the other part of our plan for economic recovery. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the result of lower interest rates translates into a reduction in inflation expectations and a change in our habits as a society. It is no wonder that, for the past decade, the countries with the lowest inflation, namely Germany and Japan, have enjoyed the lowest interest rates. The lesson is good and we should persist, Madam Speaker.
Federal expenditure control and salary restrictions are important steps in alleviating inflationary pressures. But the economic recovery plan goes even further. It sets out specific targets to bring inflation down to 2 percent by the end of 1995.
These targets will add a public dimension to reinforce and support our government's financial and monetary policies, Madam Speaker. Setting out clear and realistic targets will encourage Canadians to lower their inflation expectations and help us stabilize prices more quickly and with much less disruption.
We will make it, because these targets reaffirm and make clearer than ever before this government's commitment to price stability. With the full support of government, the Bank of Canada will make sure that these targets are achieved and the copying of expenditure will only reinforce this commitment. These measures will revive the confidence of Canadians and encourage them to change their behaviour, whether we are talking about prices set by companies, long-term contracts, negotiated wage settlements or the inflation risk premium demanded by investors. They will be less demanding when they realize that the value of their income, their investments and their savings will be maintained. That will ease the transition towards lower interest rates and strengthen the competitive position of companies and workers vis-a-vis the international competition that is invading our homes, Madam Speaker.
The economic recovery plan is more than just a commitment to economic progress and sound financial management. It is a concrete and durable strategy aimed at creating confidence in the economy and economic growth, and in the long-term prosperity and security of Canadians, on a sound foundation, a strategy initiated in 1984.
The plan for economic recovery is based on the fundamental realities of today's world. To remain competitive in the global context, countries and companies must put this at the top of their list of priorities in their
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policy planning process. This conviction was the driving force of the agenda for economic renewal we tabled in 1984 and the structural reforms we implemented to get rid of obstacles to industrial efficiency and to stimulate our economy and our ability to compete.
These structural reforms include deregulation in the energy and transportation sectors. All Canadians are aware of the consequences of those measures, Madam Speaker. As for measures to help the unemployed acquire new skills and obtain the training they need to find jobs and keep them in a rapidly evolving global economy, we have changed the old Liberal approach that allowed people to work a few weeks and then live off the government for the rest of the year. That is not what Canadians want. That is why we put the emphasis on training.
We have invested several billion dollars in training, because people change jobs more frequently than they used to, an average of every five years, so we had to make funding available to retrain Canadian workers, and we did that, Madam Speaker.
I would have liked to expand on certain statements made by the Liberals this afternoon about the financial situation of this country, which is steadily improving. The deficit was about $40 billion when we came to power, and a few years from now, it is expected to be about $25 billion. I would have liked to talk about transfers to the provinces, which have increased steadily since 1984. There is a lot of rhetoric about this particular issue, but I can say that in Quebec transfers have increased 35 per cent since 1984, and I am very proud of that.


Mac Harb: Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned the national deficit, indicating that it was high when the Liberals were in power.
As the hon. member will recall, in 1983 or 1984, the debt was approximately $170 billion. Between 1984 and 1991, the accumulated debt increased to $400 billion, which it about three times the amount of the debt inherited from the Liberals.
I simply want to tell the hon. member that, if we cut government jobs and stop producing and providing services to the Canadian people, we are sure to be able to pay off the deficit and the debt within five years, more likely ten. But that it not what a sensitive government, a people-oriented government truly concerned with the social welfare, the well-being of the population, would do.

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As one of my colleagues pointed out, we should not have to sell the furniture in order to pay the rent. But that is precisely what has been going on since 1984. Just think of the cuts in health care and education, of the expenditure freeze imposed upon these two areas over the next five years. That is incredible, at a time when we should be investing even more in these areas.
And what about the universality of our health system, put in jeopardy? That is incredible, especially at a time when western and even eastern countries are looking to the Canadian model. In education, the government is contemplating a bill to deal with productivity and education over the next ten years. That is a rather ambitious program. On the other hand, cuts have been ongoing ever since 1984.
As for housing cuts, this is a question of special concern to the Liberals and the Canadian people. There are presently some 230,000 homeless people throughout Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada and the North. So, cuts in housing are surely not the reasonable or logical thing to do.
The public service suffered cuts too, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, it was not the right area. I would have liked the government to carry out a study to find out if indeed there was a surplus.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. I may remind the hon. member that this is the period for questions and comments, not for speeches.
The hon. member should either put his question or finish his comments, since other members would also like to ask questions and make comments.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I do not really want to get involved in this debate, but since the hon. member spent almost 80 per cent of his time attacking Mr. Lalonde and Mr. Trudeau and other distinguished members, I really had no choice.
So my question is this: Since recently, the tax rate here in Canada has become the highest of any western country, could the hon. member indicate what his government's intentions are regarding a national strategy to
deal with matters of inequity and regional economic development across Canada?


André Harvey: Mr. Speaker, I knew the old Liberals weren't very good at figures, but I didn't think the new ones were as bad. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, that they are hardly in a position to accuse us of being unable to control government spending. If you don't have the figures, if all you have is a ball park figure, I have them. This afternoon, I took the trouble to go to the Department of Finance and ask for them. Your old friends MacEachen and Lalonde were there in 1981-82, when the deficit was $15 billion. A year later, it was $29 billion! Not bad, a 100 per cent increase in one year.
You asked me if we have acted responsibly. Yes, we have, because since we came to power in 1984, the deficit started to go down and it will continue to do so, because two or three years from now, we hope to bring the deficit down to zero and have a balanced budget, Mr. Speaker. And what about transfers to the provinces? They don't have the figures either. They say whatever they like, because they never have the figures. I have them, Mr. Speaker, and I can table them. These are some veiy recent figures on transfers to the provinces. I can give them the figures on established programs financing, for example. I can give them the figures on equalization; I can give them the figures on the Canada Assistance Plan. This is an area that concerns health care, education, welfare and in fact any sector where there is a transfer of funds. I can tell you there has been no reduction in funding in any of these sectors. In fact, there has been an annual increase in funding of nearly 6 per cent since 1984.
However, as a responsible government, our message to the provincial governments is to ask them to try and cut spending and rationalize costs in areas where they have full jurisdiction, even if we do participate in the costs. As for regional development, I would ask you to analyze carefully all the agencies that were created in the West, the Maritimes and also in Quebec, where in co-operation with the government of Quebec, we spend several hundred million a year on development in peripheral regions, something the Liberals never did. Funding for specific programs has been frozen, Mr. Speaker, espe-
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daily in my region, but with the co-operation of the Government of Quebec we are able to deliver the goods.
Mr. Speaker, I would have liked to continue in this vein, but we will have a chance to get back to this.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Abitibi, very briefly.


Guy St-Julien: I would like to comment and ask a question about the Liberals who were talking about the financial situation. Mr. Speaker, if we go back to 1983-84, in January 1984, Marc Lalonde introduced the Scientific Research Tax Credit. He said that this innovative measure to encourage private research would cost the government about $100 million a year. It ended up costing $200 million! They passed the $100 million mark on the very first day. It was a mad rush, because this turned out to be a stupendous tax loophole. Companies, big brokerage firms and big law firms went on a roll, at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer. They made millions risk free, even before the actual scientific research started, and then there were the others, the people who committed fraud.
Mr. Speaker, an item in L'Actualite said it was the robbery of the century, perpetrated by the Liberal government. In fact, Conservative minister Michael Wilson had to put on the brakes in a hurry. It was his first official act, but it was already too late. In nine months the bill went up to nearly $3 billion, one-tenth of the national deficit. This is enough to build 50 hospitals in Canada.
My question is this: Could the hon. member for Chicoutimi tell us this evening whether this disastrous Liberal program, implemented in 1983-84, contributed to the federal deficit?


André Harvey: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and allow me to thank the hon. member for Abitibi who does a tremendous job for his constituents and is very much involved in all the issues. He works veiy hard every day for the people in his riding.
I can inform the hon. member that this was the Lalonde shortfall: an extra $3 billion of federal debt, Mr. Speaker. That was the kind of disaster, the kind of neglect the Liberals institutionalized. The day before the budget, it was discovered that they would cut $200 million, but so what, millions or billions, the Liberals were not particularly concerned. That is why we needed a more responsible government to get on with the job.
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Regarding research and development, I would like to point out that our strategy is to help small businesses, not to throw money at the multinationals for research but strictly as an incentive to do research. We give up to 100 per cent of the funding allocated to research and development. This is good for the Canadian economy, because we are convinced that people in the business- small businesses and company owners-will do research in advanced areas that are more likely to create jobs.


Mrs. Coline Campbell (South West Nova):: We are
here tonight to talk about the government's estimates. Having listened to my colleague across the way on the debt, I am still waiting-and have been since February- for the bill that would ensure that all those extra GST revenues would go to pay off the debt. That is what I call irresponsibility on the part of the government. It is allowing those funds to go into general revenues instead of paying off the debt. We will get the bill in September and let's see if it is retroactive to January.
This government does not know what responsibility is all about. We have had to listen to aspersions on the civil service, we have the GST against the people's will. This government does not know what responsibility is, either to the civil service or to the Canadian people.
I want to talk about two areas of irresponsibility here tonight, relating to defence and to the fisheries in an area that should not have the problems that this government has created.
We know that this government is supposedly doing a review of our defence policy, the second in four years. It cannot even plan long term. It is doing the review to determine what the goals should be for our defence policy and how the department spends its almost $12.6 billion budget in the 1991-92 Estimates that we have before us.
We have heard all sorts of rumours in the media and leaks from the Department of National Defence as to what this review will mean. It might mean base relocations, it might mean base closures, it might mean withdrawing from NATO, it might mean anything. However, it is all speculation. This government loves to play with people's speculation.
However, the government has not involved the Canadian people in deciding what the role of the Department of National Defence should be. We do not know whether it is a cost-effective review. We do not know if it is just a trial balloon to see how the Canadian people will react.

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Canadians want a review, they want to know how this government plans to spend the almost $12.6 billion budget. They want to know where our defence policy is going to be in the next 20 years and what purpose Canadians think the military should serve for Canada. In other words, they want a review process that is going to be open, fair and responsible.
To date they have not seen this. They want to see that they are getting the best bang for their dollars, and to date they have not seen that.
In the United States, where a similar process appears to be going on, the elected people are going to the people to see what the effects are and what the defence policies should be. Not here in Canada. We do it by speculation in the press.
There are a number of areas where money could be saved or reallocated without cutting our militaiy muscle. Indeed, I think we could save enough to reverse the trend and actually start building up our military again.
Let us look at these figures. A March 1988 survey in Armed Forces International ranked Canada highest among all western nations with a ratio of 16.2 generals for every
10.000	active duty personnel. At that time, I think the active duty personnel in Canada was roughly about
80.000	to 85,000 people.
That ratio of 16.2 generals for every 10,000 active personnel is higher than the United States. It is higher than the United Kingdom and it is even higher than the Philippines. Donald Grant, in The Globe and Mail on May 27, had an excellent review of this point. He said: "In 1990-91 we had 122 people with a rank"-in Canada, not somewhere else-"of Brigadier General or higher. They had average salaries ranging from $94,000 to $131,000 per year".
He said that we have more generals than we have tanks, 122 generals to 113 tanks. That is okay, it is important to have a back-up general in case one of the tanks breaks down.
We have more officers than we have privates, 16,096 privates to 18,861 officers. To top it off, Donald Grant- and I thank him for his analysis because he writes on
military affairs and he is in The Globe and Mail and if he is in The Globe and Mail it has to be real-writes that the almost $12.6 billion budget for defence supports only
10,000	service people who are combat ready or who support combat ready troops.
Mr. Grant has described our Armed Forces system as a triumph of bureaucracy over common sense. I agree that this government is allowing this to continue. As long as we do not have a public and fair debate across Canada on what our military should be we will continue to have a top heavy military, a top heaviness that is unmatched anywhere in the world.
I ask the minister of defence whether he is looking into this factor. Will he give us a cost effective military that is oriented toward active duty soldiers and training. Let us look at the figures in the estimates again to see where else we can find questionable spending.
In the 1990-91 estimates we find that $90.4 million was spent on other professional and special services. This is a military that is top heavy with generals already. There is no specific accounting for these services, just a figure in the column.
We also find that $21.8 million was spent on consulting services, whatever that means. It should have been defined.
Another $30.4 million was spent on contract administration. These figures alone total $182 million and none of it goes directly to putting sailors on boats, soldiers in the field or pilots in planes. In short, none of it goes to defending our country.
The Department of National Defence does not need to spend millions on consulting. Just go and ask the Canadian public what its priorities should be. Ask the generals to go to the public with their defence policy to determine whether it matches what Canadians want.
I could bring a panel of housewives from South West Nova who know how to spend their budgets better than the Department of National Defence does. I guess the minister does not see the relevance of a real public debate on national defence. I do not claim to have all the answers but I think I know what some of the right questions about our defence policy should be.
June 13, 1991

I hope the minister will look first at improving efficiencies within the existing budget before he cuts further into our military muscle.
I hope he will also look at the purposes of our national defence policy.
Canada is the second largest country in the world by land mass. We have a huge coastline which needs defending against commercial and military threats, to defend our jurisdiction within the 200-mile limit. We have a claim to Arctic sovereignty which is not accepted by our closest and strongest neighbour and yet we cannot control it. We did away with the Polar-8.
We have an enormous air space. We have national emergencies in which the military is needed to give a hand. We have an expertise in international peacekeeping which could soon be in great demand given the end of the cold war. However, when it came time to sending combat troops over to the Middle East we did not have enough.
These are the proper ends of a Canadian defence policy. These are the proper ends which I think all Canadians want to have a public and open discussion about.
How to put a priority on these things is what we should be debating here publicly and across Canada, but if we are to meet these needs we will have to increase what we spend directly on recruiting and training service personnel, not decrease. We will have to greatly increase the size of our active duty service component.
The 1989 figures show that Canada ranked second to last among NATO countries, with 1 per cent of the labour force being defence personnel. This puts us behind Greece, Belgium, Ibrkey and even Portugal.
Looking at NATO, Greece's defence personnel as a percentage of its labour force is 5.6 per cent. Canada's is 1 per cent. It is at the bottom, except for Luxemburg which is pretty close to Canada with 0.9 per cent. We have the biggest country in that group of NATO countries and we cannot come up: Greece, Turkey, Belgium, France, the United States, Portugal, The Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Denmark and then Canada and Luxemburg. The average for those NATO countries is 2.5 per cent.
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It means that we need to have more people in our Armed Forces, not cut back as seems to be the remedy of the top-heavy generals as they are looking at it, rather than looking at a realistic approach of a $12.6 billion budget.
We have to protect our sovereignty. We do not need to disgrace the role of our trained seamen and our other forces with not having the ability to have backup. When it came to sending the three ships over to the Middle East, they had to be trained on the way over. Fortunately, the equipment had been sitting around waiting for a contract, which is still not complete, to put that equipment on and they had to be trained on the way over. That does not seem to be very logical training.
Before I move to fisheries, I just want to say on that subject that I think it is most unfair of this government to allow speculation to be part of its review process in the department of defence polity'. It is unfair to Canadians who want a full and public debate about the objectives of our defence policy. It is unfair to the military personnel who have served Canada so well and it is unfair to the many Canadians who directly and indirectly depend on the military.
I think Canada wants a military it can be proud of, one which can answer the needs as I have already said.
Now I want to move to another area, the fisheries. I want to talk about it because the question the fishing industry is asking is: what is the fairness of asking an industry which is only getting by to pay for a monitoring system of which it is not able to offset the cost? The market will not return the cost that it has to pay per pound for the monitoring system.
The boat quotas are one third of what it caught in the past. The one or two cents a pound it has to pay for the monitoring in the future are the profits it would have made.
I would hope that this minister of fisheries will last longer than his two predecessors. In two and half years we have had three ministers of fisheries. It shows how bad the fisheries policy is. I would hope that this minister, who has been asked to meet with all parties involved in the industry, big and small, large companies, small companies, big fishermen, small fishermen, inshore and offshore, will discuss the stupidity of this policy. He has not met yet. It is a most important issue. We saw what happened in Newfoundland.

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Right now, in the Scotia Fundy, he has not even appointed someone in his office to whom they can talk. He has no assistant responsible for the Scotia Fundy. How is he going to deal with a problem when there is not even somebody within his office for the people to talk to, to ask him to come and deal with it, let alone for me, as a member of Parliament, who asked him since the beginning if we could have a meeting? I have given up asking for that meeting.
I want to explain the system of dockside monitoring which I have been talking about. This system is being implemented in Scotia Fundy by an employment program from manpower. It is now training 133 new people, but not for the Department of Fisheries. These fishermen and these companies will have to pay in the future to have somebody come down and monitor and weigh their catches.
I will get to where it is coming from. The industry did not ask for this. I want to explain what happened just this Sunday in one small harbour. A boat was coming from George's Bank. Think of a 65-foot dragger coming from George's Bank with only the 30,000 pounds of ground-fish it could have because of regulations. It had probably travelled 12 hours to get there and it phones in. This is what the dockside monitoring does. You have to hail. Hail is picking up a phone which some of the small boats never had to have before. They need to have a phone system so they can phone onshore. It has to be six hours before you can land your fish. Six hours before, regardless of a storm or whatever, and you have to wait outside that dock for three hours after you get there if it is not within the full six hours.
This boat was on time. It had said it would be there at 8.30 in the morning to be weighed. Now, this is Sunday. The boats cannot tell when they are going to go fishing. The weather has a lot to do with whether they can go fishing in the course of a week. It had gone. It was quite warm in Nova Scotia last week. Most people would say it was one of those beautiful times when you would not want to have fish waiting in any hold because of the heat. It would start hurting the price of the fish on the market.
That does not matter to the Department of Fisheries. That is inconsequential. The boat came in with 30,000 pounds, arrived, as it had hailed and told it would be, at
8.30. Nobody was there except the company, the loaders and the unloaders for the company who were getting paid double time because it was Sunday. No one came. Finally, the owner had to get in his truck and go down the road quite a distance to get a fishery officer to come back and make sure he had the same amount in his log that he hailed six hours before. There was nobody there to check it.
I know you are giving me a signal, Mr. Speaker, but this is quite important. I want you to get the right picture. It is that additional insult to people that this minister has got to come down and take a look at.
There are two things that have to be remembered. This is a program imposed by the department to help it monitor the fish.
It is a program that no one goes out to fish. It does not look at it that no one would go out to fish unless there were fish to catch. I do not know any fisherman who would go out to fish if there were not fish to catch.
I do not know any fisherman who would not have abided hailing his load in, by a log book and a random inspection of his load. That department does not look at that. It has to have people go down there, look at it and weigh it.
I have one more minute, but I hope somebody in here will ask me a question on this because I could go on for quite a time on this.
On top of all that the minister has got to come down. He has got to walk around these streets. He has got to go into the restaurants and see the insult to the communities.
One of the municipalities wrote to the minister a while back:
The Municipal Council for the District of Digby wish to object to
the Fishery officers wearing sidearms, especially in public places
such as banks, post offices, stores-
This minister of fisheries has a lot to learn and a short time to learn it in. The first thing he could do is start consulting with the people who want to consult with him, the people in the industry, and he is not going down there, to talk about this dockside monitoring and the threat of somebody with a gun to an innocent fisherman.
June 13, 1991


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member a question.
I would like to first point out to her that I received today a copy of the number of licences issued in 1990 by the Scotia Fundy Region for foreign vessels associated with the fishery in Nova Scotia. There were 80 factory freezer trawlers from foreign nations fishing national allocations. There were 36 large vessel licences for what it calls supporting fishing fleets. There were 18 foreign vessels fishing and doing research work with no observers aboard. There were 48 special fishing factory freezer trawler licences to foreign vessels, a total of 249.
I also received, and the hon. member would be interested, what they call a herring by-catch licence amendment which says: "While conducting the silver hake mackerel fishery, the vessel", in this case foreign vessel, "is permitted to take an incidental catch of herring that may not exceed 30 per cent of the total weight of mackerel".
It appears to me, and the hon. member can correct me if I am wrong, that shows an incredible favouritism toward these large foreign vessels which have Canadian licences fishing on the hon. member's coast in Nova Scotia.
I wonder if she could comment on the favouritism shown to the foreigners and the discrimination against Canadian fishermen.


Coline M. Campbell: I appreciate my colleague's question. I know that I share his concern as to the numbers. Just looking at that, once it got beyond 106 to the foreigners, I thought of the letter which came in today from one of my constituents. I will get back to the mackerel. In other words, they could catch all the mackerel and still catch 30 per cent more herring. I would think that every person in my riding who relies on the herring industry should be very upset and, as the hon. member knows, we have quite a good herring fishery.
I want to just say something about those. After I did 80 factory fishery ships and 36 large vessels, I gave up counting because in this letter I received dated June 10, it talked about boat quotas. In 1990, the same year the hon. member is talking about for all these foreign ships, of the 105 C-l specialists, and I am sure that my colleagues know what a C-l specialist is, it is a 45 foot boat, around 50 per cent of the 105 were independent.
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Now six months into boat quotas for 1991, there is only 10 per cent left.
You tell me how you can explain to somebody that you can have only 10 per cent of C-l specialists left when there used to be 105. You are telling me that there are about 165 foreign licences fishing where these boats used to fish. What is the sense of the policy?
I do not want to go into that. The reason for this is that these licence holders received very low boat quotas. The quota was less than 150,000 pounds per licence. I want to say that those 36 large vessels are on a by-catch. Their by-catch in the groundfish will be more than the 150,000 pounds. The boat quota went to these people.
It is sad to think that we have come to this point, that we give to foreigners and do not allow the people in our area to fish within our own waters. It is sad to think that we cannot have a policy from the Minister of Fisheries that would answer the people, and a minister who would look at the policy and say: "This is crazy."
I am hoping that the Minister of Fisheries, who comes from Newfoundland, is going to be able to say it. Certainly, the other two could not, and they got kicked out of that position.
When you have a policy that gives more off-shore quota in a by-catch-we do not have a marketing policy to market the fish-to those foreigners who come over here, there is something wrong with Canada.
It goes back to the responsibleness of this government, a government that will not listen to our own Canadians. It will listen to the Americans.
I kind of laughed this afternoon when the Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs quoted an American in answer to my leader. The Americans are the only people this government listens to. Maybe he would listen to an American in the quote. The government does not want to listen to Canadians.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-Trinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member for South West Nova on such a fine presentation.
I would like to take note of the comments that she made at the beginning of her speech with respect to the defence policy, the military budget and the importance of the Canadian Forces Base Cornwallis which happens to be in her riding.

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Mr. Speaker, if you will give me a couple of minutes, I will use that base and relate it to defence policy in such a manner as to let you and the House know why we do have concerns about the policies and where they are going.
Right now, Canadian Forces Base Cornwallis is the training base for anglophones in the Canadian Armed Forces. It has been that way since World War II. I do not have to tell you what the impact of the economy is for a base that size. It is a major base.
Roughly eight months ago, the hon. member discussed with me the possibility, the likelihood and the rumours of the base closing. My response was: "We do not have to worry about that yet, because we do not have a defence policy."
Until we do get a defence policy, I do not imagine that there will be any additional bases closed to the ones that were closed in 1989. Mr. Speaker, I hope I am still right, and so does the hon. member.
Now I am hearing all kinds of spurious rumours about Cornwallis. Cornwallis happens to be the one because it relates to the hon. member, but there is CFB Calgary, CFB Shilo, CFB this and CFB that. This is not the way to run a defence policy. This is not the way to run a country.
You have military bases there and first of all, those people in the military get terribly upset, insecure and over wrought by those rumours. I do not want to bring the gulf into it but quite frankly, I think they deserve better than that.
You are always going to have rumours in government, but I do not see this government putting any filter on the rumour. I do not see it squashing the rumour, and I do not really hear much talk about a defence policy.
My point here is really on question and comment. I would ask the hon. member to respond to this. If she believes that there will be a defence policy, before the announcements of everything that is going to happen that have been rumoured for the last three or four months, what impact will this have on her riding right now and in the future?


Coline M. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member, the defence critic for the Liberal Party, who has done a very fine job. South West Nova did have CFB Barrington at one time but then the boundaries were shifted. I know what it was like for Barrington to lose that. We have Greenwood and the spinoff. CFB Cornwallis is in an area that services perhaps 20,000 people. Its workforce I would say probably gives to that area directly and indirectly in economic spinoffs 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the local economy.
The reason I am saying that is because we used to have a fishery but the largest employer in the area is Cornwallis in Annapolis West, the riding of the Minister of Finance of Nova Scotia. It is there as well as in the part that is the spinoff into the Digby area.
I could go on, Mr. Speaker. There is a very effective committee working with officials and others in the area to see that this government is well informed and trying to take part in the public discussions that should go along with national defence policies.


Mrs. Louise Feltham (Wild Rose):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak in today's debate.
The motion before us offers the opportunity to review the trust of the economic policies followed by our government over a number of years and extended in the budget measures of February 1991.
It is important in approaching this debate to be very clear as to just what the subject is. It is certainly not the details of the program spending of certain departments and in the case of Motion No. 2, specifically, the program spending of the Department of Finance.
The items in the estimates to which objection has been taken are those which concern primarily the development of economic policy, not specific areas such as taxation or federal-provincial transfers, but economic policy generally and as a whole.
It is therefore a real pleasure to participate in the debate because I can take some time to reflect on our government's approach to the economy in the broadest sense possible. To do this I want to start at the beginning. For the government, that was the state of the economy
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and the government's finances when we took office in late 1984.
We all remember the recession of the early 1980s with the extremely high interest rates and inflation, the loss of jobs, and the unwillingness or the inability of the government of the day to take effective action to deal with the underlying problems of the economy.
The government came to office determined to deal with those problems, to make our business more competitive and our economy more efficient. I remember well the extremely difficult state of the government's own finances. Program spending by the government had risen to 19.6 per cent of the GDP in 1984-85, compared with an average of 17.7 per cent in the 1970s. Of course that does not take into account the money which had to be spent on servicing the growing public debt.
Our revenues and expenditures were so out of balance that the revenues did not even pay for the program spending, much less meet the requirement to pay interest on the public debt.
The deficit for the 1984-85 fiscal year turned out to be $38.5 billion or 8.7 per cent of the GDP. This was an enormous amount of money and evidence of a profound malaise in the nation's finances.
In 1984 the debt was growing at an annual rate of about 25 per cent. In approaching the situation the government did not allow itself to be panicked into hasty, piecemeal action. We did not start throwing money at every problem, hoping that somehow it would go away. We recognized that there had to be order and clear guidelines.
Having taken the necessary time, the then Minister of Finance came to this House and the people of Canada with an agenda for economic renewal. This was in November 1984. In it he set out the principles which underline the actions taken ever since that time and which still form the basis of our policies today.
That agenda clearly pointed to the need to restore competitiveness in our economy and order to the government's finances. In formulating policy and developing measures, those two imperatives have been constantly in the government's mind. They have shaped the way we have approached problems and have enabled us to make difficult and unpopular decisions, knowing at all times that they were part of an over-all plan to do what had to be done for Canada.
Now I want to go over, very briefly, the key measures and the policy which have marked the years since 1984,
years in which there has been great economic progress made by individuals, the government and the country as a whole.
Our policies have dramatically expanded the economy's potential to grow and create wealth. This is the result of consistent, comprehensive action by this government to bring our national deficit under control and to free the private sector from structural barriers and burdens that impeded its efficiency and its ability to compete.
One important goal is to preserve and create jobs. To do this we must be competitive. One of the prerequisites to ensuring our competitiveness is a stable and healthy economic environment that encourages productive business investment. That is why the overriding agenda of this government since 1984 has been to create a more favourable economic environment for business by taking action in the two areas where we have a direct impact on the economy and where we can achieve the greatest long-term benefit.
The first of these areas has been to take action to reduce the deficit. Fiscal soundness is a key to our competitiveness because it will free up domestic savings needed to finance the deficit. These savings can then be channelled into more productive investments creating a more efficient and more vibrant economy.
We have made significant progress in this regard. We have cut waste and inefficiency in the operations of government. We have been successful in forcing the federal government to live within its means, especially on the operating side. A full 70 per cent of this progress results from expenditure restraint and not from revenue increases.
Success in restraining spending will help to make the economy more competitive and create a climate appropriate to economic growth. It will provide more savings for productive investment and create wealth and jobs for Canadians. It will, in short, make the economy more competitive.
Along with our work to control government spending we have also moved to strengthen the ability of the private sector to compete and create a bigger economic pie for all Canadians. We began by transforming a chilly investment barrier into a positive screening and review mechanism, Investment Canada. Investment Canada is now fostering a friendly, receptive and helpful investment climate.

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We have also moved to strengthen and improve the climate for free enterprise through new business framework legislation that safeguards fair competition. The new Competition Act is providing long overdue stability to the competitive environment. Similarly, amendments to the Patent Act strengthen intellectual property rights, which for a long time had been asked for.
To encourage a more dynamic and active private sector, we have been overhauling and reforming much of Canada's regulatory framework. Wherever possible we are eliminating unnecessary restrictions and discouraging new regulations that are not necessary.
Perhaps most dramatic has been our deregulation of the energy and the transportation sectors which permitted a more market-oriented and market-driven approach.
Measures of reform of the financial sector have also been presented to this House. Our policies to reform this sector will ensure that it remains healthy and competitive. In doing so we are building on one of the most sound and reliable financial systems in the world.
We have a strong deposit-taking system, we have a strong capital market, we have world-scale life insurance companies. We possess the ability to finance our capital requirements in a very effective and efficient way.
Another important way in which we are reducing the government's role in the economy is by selling government-owned corporations to private interests.
Since 1984 we have privatized more than 20 Crown corporations. We will continue to privatize Crown corporations and we will sell investments where government ownership is no longer needed to meet the public policy objectives.
At the same time, we have promoted economic growth through a variety of means to encourage business. We have also taken steps to stimulate greater private sector research and development. Next to Australia, Canada provides for the most favourable tax treatment for research and development expenditures in the industrialized world.
To be competitive in today's information intensive economy requires a skilled and a flexible workforce. That is why we have put forward a proposed labour force development strategy. This strategy, which has been
before the Senate for almost a year, places a strong new emphasis on worker retraining and upgrading of skills. The strategy provides for increased federal funding for labour force upgrading and seeks ways to encourage the private sector to double its training effort.
Central to our government's efforts to build a stronger more competitive economy, with greater potential for economic growth, is the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. As Canada depends on trade for 30 per cent of our Gross Domestic Product it is vital that we secure access to our largest and most important trading partner. Gaining broad secure access to a large American market means additional sales and more jobs.
It means greater productivity. It encourages investment in world-scale plants and state of the art technology to meet the international competitive challenge. It allows greater economies of scale and specialization. That means increased economic growth.
Together with the U.S. and Mexico we are now looking forward to a North American free trade agreement. A trilateral accord would transform a free trade area of nearly 275 million people into one of almost 360 million, larger than the 12 countries of the European Community-
Trade liberalization has been a key element of our economic success. That is why we will continue to take an aggressive approach in pursuing opportunities to secure and expand access to our most important markets.
If we are to have a healthy growing economy, we cannot have a tax system that distorts economic decisions and penalizes economic initiatives. Again, this is why we are committed to continuing the process of tax reform. Under our corporate and personal income tax reforms implemented in 1987 we created a tax system that is fairer, simpler and more effective. It is a system that has helped strengthen the economy and improve the quality of Canadian society. A system that is internationally competitive.
We have also moved forward on the major challenge of sales tax reform when we implemented the goods and services tax. In today's fiercely competitive global environment the GST is a vital tool for economic advance. Fifty years of studies and reports called for an end to the existing federal sales tax.
June 13, 1991

The former federal sales tax was antiquated and unfair, nothing less than a job killer and a growth destroyer. There is not a single industrialized country in the world today that still maintains a tax like ours at the manufacturing level.
In its place we have developed the GST, a modern efficient tax of a kind that has been adopted by 48 other countries. It eliminates completely the hidden burden of tax that previously applied to so many goods and service businesses. It ensures that imported goods no longer receive an unfair advantage over those we produce at home. It will strengthen the ability of our exporters to profitably pursue international markets. At the same time, because of the refundable GST credit, it will also be a fairer tax for lower and modest income Canadians. In fact, three-quarters of families headed by seniors or single parents will have more after-tax income under the GST than under the old system.
The February budget marked a further stage in the development of economic policy. In his budget speech, the Minister of Finance produced evidence that, despite a recession-and we must always remember that we are in a partial recession at this time-the policies of the government have indeed been working. He has also presented measures to strengthen and expand the effectiveness of that policy.
The plan for economic recovery has three main elements: one, clear, achievable inflation targets; two, putting the government finances firmly on a course to a balanced budget; and three, severely restraining the operations of government.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for an encouraging presentation. If one did not have the background knowledge about what has happened in this place for the last couple of years, I would say that we are on a pretty good track.
I do not want to belittle anything the hon. member for Wild Rose said but I do want to set the record straight on a couple of things that were mentioned. I am sure it was not intentionally out of context. However, I would like to put it in the context that I believed it was in when I heard it.
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First of all, I want to go back to November 1984 and the first budget of this particular government. I think it is not conjecture or wild guessing on my part that it is fair to say that the Conservative government inherited a growing Canadian economy at the time-it was growing at 4.7 per cent, in real terms. That was really a remarkable recovery from the 1981-82 recession. As is the case today it was a recession, but it was different because it was one of the worst recessions to hit Canada since World War II. However, it did not just hit Canada, it hit the United States, it hit North America, it hit the European community, it hit the world. The parallel is not quite the same.
This one is different, at the government's own admission. This is a recession that has been made in Canada. The government even boasted about creating the circumstances which have caused the conditions in which this particular budget has been put forward. That is point number one.
The second point: I would like to again remind the hon. member about some facts and figures. We have heard them various times but I will put them in a slightly different context. When Mr. Wilson presented his first budget in November 1984 he projected a deficit of $34.5 billion. He went on to say that with this set of projections and no policy changes the deficit for the fiscal year would be $34.5 billion. He said: "This is what we inherited", and I think that was suggested by the hon. member.
Mr. Speaker, $34.5 billion is what was established at that time as the benchmark, but we know that in 1984 the deficit in fact really climbed to $38.3 billion and that has now become the benchmark. Well, that benchmark was not established by a previous government.
It has been suggested that the government has had to borrow to pay off the debt. In 1984-85 the debt was $199 billion. At the end of this fiscal year it reached $388.5 billion. Next year, of course, it is going to be more than $400 billion.
I think the point here is servicing the debt. Next year it is going to be around $419 billion as projected by the government's own figures. On the assumption that the Conservatives have no responsibility at all for the 1984-85 deficit-which may or may not be correct-Canada is now paying interest on $189 billion of debt and the next fiscal year on $220 billion of Conservative debt.

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First year, second year, third year, I could understand. Blame it on the Liberal Party. But come on, guys, four years, five years, six years, seven years, is it not time to take on the responsibility? When are you going to stop?


Louise Feltham: Mr. Speaker, I would like to answer my hon. colleague's last question first. Perhaps inadvertently I will also answer his first question.
My hon. colleague talks about the year 1984 and a debt of $199 billion. I, as a small business owner and as someone who has always been interested in finances, can sit down and very easily understand how a deficit that was in place, or a debt that was in place in 1984 could have accumulated with the interest that has been attributed to that $199 billion, in these many years. I think it is very easy to ascertain how we are in a position of $400 billion.
What I also wanted to touch on is that this government not only inherited $199 billion in debt. If we did, I think today we would be looking at a zero debt. What we took over was not only a national debt, we took over a program deficit. We respond, as we read today in a local newspaper from a top writer who said, it was like going out and using your credit card. When you use a credit card and you purchase things, you know in the future you are going to have to pay for them.
Now we are not only trying to pay off all of the purchases that were made prior to 1984, but we still have an interest that is growing daily on those purchases. Also, I think it is veiy important that all sides of this House look at what we have done with this $16 billion that was in place as far as program spending. No business, no one, could possibly inherit programs and a policy in place and say that any government must continue to give the services that had been established. We could not cut back $16 billion in one year, two years or three years.
As I have said so ably-I think so-in my speech, this government came in with a pattern. We came in with a purpose and unfolded the way we are going over the years. We have stayed with that policy.
Today we feel very confident because at this stage we now have the money in place to look after the programs.
We are also putting some money each year towards the debt. This is a remarkable challenge and I think we have handled it very well.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: I would like to say that the hon. member has as I see, given great enthusiasm to her colleagues across the way with a nice reading of her speech. I heard her talk about the advantages of privatization, among other things, and I would like to ask a question about deregulation and its great advantages.
I was wondering whether she could provide what she sees to be the advantages in the sale of de Havilland to Boeing. The government paid Boeing substantially to take it off its hands and is now about to sell this privatized company to a government consortium involving a French company and an Italian company.
In other words, we have sold our own aeroplane manufacturer, via the United States, to the Europeans. That of course means a sale of the Dash-8 to the makers of the ATR commuter plane.
Now the EEC executive has said that this might be a non-competitive arrangement.
I am just wondering if we could have a brief description of the advantages of this sale. What advantages are going to accrue to the workers and research and development in Canada and what is going to happen if the European community executive re-examination leads to a rejection of the sale as unfairly limiting competition.
Mrs. Feltham Mr. Speaker, my colleague has asked me a question on which he has evidently gathered a lot more information and a different version than what I have.
I have not seen the figures that he is talking about and if they do exist, again they are open to interpretation. However I would like to say to the hon. colleague that when the NDP forms the government, maybe they will be able to give us some points on how to sell off our privatized items.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to contribute my few comments to the debate tonight.
June 13, 1991

I would like to try to frame my comments about the government spending priorities, which of course is the issue that we are discussing. I would like to try to frame those comments in the concept of community values.
I hope to be able to demonstrate that when you look at the spending priorities as determined by the estimates of this government, you can demonstrate that this government really does not understand nor does it really care about community and about community values.
What does it mean, first of all, to care about community? What does community really mean? First of all, it means supporting the comer store in your neighbourhood where your children might go in the morning in the summer to buy a popsicle. It means hoping to make the kinds of policies and programs at the federal level that will ensure that that comer store can remain viable. That it does not go out of business because you are choking it with red tape and extra taxes and taking any of the ability away from that individual entrepreneur to make a living in that community.
What does community mean? It means supporting your local RCMP services. It means ensuring that the funding for adequate policing is there in all our communities so that the officers have the budget and the manpower or the person power, if you like, the staffing, to ensure that they can get out into the community. That they have enough officers available to respond to the emergency needs that arise, but also to be out in the community, walking the streets, talking to the people, to have a demonstrated presence, a physical presence of local policing services. I will get back to the RCMP a little bit later. They are a very visible aspect of our Canadian identity, right there at the local community level, whether you are talking about a small community in the Maritimes or a small community in my riding of Okanagan-Shuswap. The presence of the RCMP is a visible aspect of our sense of Canadianism.
Community means supporting our local community newspapers, through the provision of the kinds of subsidy programs that have been made available to them so that they can ensure the mailing costs are not so staggeringly high that it puts them out of business. Until recently we had a reasonable program, I think, of helping those community newspapers, and the government is wont to eliminate those subsidies. Thankfully it has now backed off on that for the next little while, so that many of the
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newspapers that were looking at a very, very bleak future indeed, have at least got some breathing space. The members and my colleagues on this side hope to be able to convince the government that taking away those programs of subsidies to the community newspapers is going to harm communities throughout Canada.
Community values also means supporting your rural post offices, making sure that they remain a part of the community. In many small areas throughout British Columbia, and I am sure many other provinces, people in the small rural communities meet on a regular basis at the local post office. That is almost the hub, the social centre if you like, of the day-to-day business of the community. People meet there, pick up their mail, pick up their parcels, they chat about what the weather is today, they might talk about what is happening around them. It is a social centre for the community. And this government has shown that it does not understand that sense of community, because it wants to take those rural post offices away, as it has. I think over 500 to 600 of them have now been closed. If the government has its way virtually every rural retail outlet across Canada will be shut down. And that centre, the heartbeat of the community, will be taken away from those people, and the service will be contracted out to various retail operations.
That demonstrates to me, and it certainly demonstrates to my friends and colleagues in Enderby and Sicamous and Salmon Arm and up in Celista in the north Shuswap, and Sorrento, in areas like Lumby, like Falkland, those small communities, that this government simply doesn't understand the sense of community.
Supporting community and community values also means programs for regional job creation, retraining of people who have been put out of work by the fiscal and monetary mistakes that this government has made over the past years. It means getting those people back into the workforce, back into the employment stream, to give them a sense of pride and meaning. That is what community is-regional job creation programs for the forestry workers and the mill workers who have been put out of work in my community, up in the area of Canoe and Sicamous and Salmon Arm. Unemployment levels in some of those small communities unbelievably reach upward to 40 per cent. I am speaking in particular of the community of Sicamous and Malakwa. Those people have been out of work since before Christmas.

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Why? Well, it is because of some of the fiscal priorities that this government has set. I will talk about those in a little while and get back to them.
But supporting community and community values means finding a way of getting those people back to work, and it is something that this government, for whatever reason, simply does not understand. Community means making sure that our young people in the interior of British Columbia do not have to leave the towns in which they grew up in order to find a job. It means they can obtain the training in job training programs and post-secondary education programs that should be available to them so they do not have to leave and go to the larger urban centres such as Vancouver or Edmonton, or wherever, so there is not this migration of young talent out of our rural communities into our urban centres.
That is what supporting community means, allowing our young people to stay in the communities that they grew up in so they can take pride in that community, feel a part of that community, and work for their own future within that community.
A Mulroney vision, this government's vision, is not one which reflects community values. It is not one which, I might hasten to say, Canadians share. This government's vision of Canada and the future of this country enshrines what you could only describe as being the corporate agenda where success is measured in monetary terms rather than in social and socio-economic terms.
Canada is much more than the bottom line on a corporate balance sheet and what is good for Bay Street and what is good for the fat cats here in Ottawa is not necessarily what is good for the rest of Canada and the people out there in the regions of Canada understand when I speak those words because they know it right in their guts that the people, the system, here in Ottawa does not reflect their aspirations. It does not reflect their priorities. It does not reflect their sense of community and what this country means to them. That is why this government is headed hell-bent to defeat in the next election.
The policies dreamed up by this administration in the smoky back rooms of the Langevin Block across the
street, the policies dreamed up by the backroom boys of this government do not reflect the goals, they do not reflect the aspirations, they do not reflect the concerns of average Canadian people, whether you are talking about a small community in British Columbia or a small community in Labrador.
It has been more than 50 years, almost 60 years now, since the social democratic movement in Canada was bom. It was bom out of the politics of that kind of alienation. There was a fundamental dislike and distrust back then in the early 1930s of the elitist powers of Ottawa and the Bay Street fat cats. That movement way back in the 1930s formed in the tough times of the 1930s by a coalition of western farmers, western workers, Canadians from virtually all walks of life because they cared about their community, the future of their community, the future of their province, the future of the regions. They recognized that this country was being ran by an elitist group for its own self-aggrandizement. They said back then that it had to stop.
Fifty years later we are still fighting that battle. We are still fighting the tendency toward a central Canada fixation where the people who are making the decisions in this country do so on the basis of what is best for central Canada rather than what is best for Canada as a whole.
The social democratic movement way back then had a simple principle upon which it was established. That principle was that this country should be ran for the benefit of everyone, not just the benefit of an elite few.
The social democratic movement, under the old CCF, now under the New Democratic Party, never had the opportunity to form a national government in Canada but I want to say also that throughout the years, this traditional reform movement, if you want to put it that way, has played a pivotal and crucial role in enhancing community values. It has pressed the governments of the day to implement programs of real social and economic reform.
I want to say that the New Democratic movement, the old CCF and now the New Democratic movement in Canada has been the real movement of social reform in Canada. We have been the pioneers in advocating progressive programs like public health care-
June 13, 1991


An hon. member:: What are you talking about?


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: You know very well, sir, what I am talking about. Just look back at M.J. Coldwell, just look back at Tommy Douglas. You know very well that those were the voices of concern for social democratic principles in Canada. They were the ones who pressed for public health care. They were the ones who pressed for old age pensions. They were the ones who pressed for equality rights in Canada and the protection of workers in this country. These were programs that recognized and stressed the value of community.
Those same programs that were fought for long and hard over the years have now been jeopardized by this administration and this government which has no sense of what community means.
I must be twitching a nerve over there. The rhetoric is getting heated indeed.


An hon. member:: You woke up the member from Cariboo-Chilcotin.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: At long last, they have wakened up to the reality.
One look at the spending estimates and the fiscal priorities of this government demonstrates to me, very, very clearly, that this government does not care about community. This government does not care about the erosion of a first-class health care program in Canada. It does not care about the increased burden and the increased cost to post-secondary education that our students are having to bear more and more.
It does not care about the scientific community. Just look at the amount of research and development that is going on in this country compared to the GNP. It is a disaster. Canada, one of the OECD nations, has one of the lowest priorities for research and development. That is why our scientists are leaving. That is why we have a brain drain of scientific and academic talent from this country.
This government does not understand the need to support basic research and development, the need to support the academic and scientific communities in Canada. That is why we have got such a difficult problem ahead of us.
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The government wants us to be competitive on the international market. I heard the member, who spoke before me, talk time and time again about the need to be competitive. Well, you cannot have a competitive society if you do not have trained people. The only way you can train those people is by providing them with a sound education.


An hon. member:: And all you have got to do is look over there and see how much it hurts.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Oh it is hurting indeed. Look, they are leaving already, they cannot stand it any longer.
This government also does not care about our cultural community. Look at the cuts to the CBC, $108 million. They rolled over and played dead. When the CBC board of directors came to them and said: "We are short $108 million, we are going to have to throw 1,100 people out on the street and we are going to have to cut 11 regional stations, help us". The government turned a deaf ear. It rolled over and yawned.
The government does not care about Canada's cultural community. It has been freezing funds for our cultural community. It has been freezing funds for Telefilm Canada. It has been starving our performing artists. Do you know that the average income for an actor in Canada is $15,000 and yet this government slashed $18.1 million from the cultural sector, on the ground program delivery funding. Cut it, slashed it, killed it, and, at the same time, it awarded its own bureaucracy in the Department of Communications a 13 per cent increase, $41 million. Is that talking about community priorities? It does not understand the cultural community. It does not understand the scientific community.
I said I would come back to the question of the RCMP. It will give you a good example of what I am talking about.
Last year this government cut $19.4 million from the RCMP, supposedly to help pay for the cost of the gulf war. That cost British Columbia $4.1 million in funding for the B.C. region of the RCMP. As a result of that it had to trim programs. That meant it had to cut or close RCMP detachments in many smaller communities throughout British Columbia.

June 13, 1991
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In my own constituency, Falkland, Enderby and the community of Lumby, three smaller communities, had their detachments closed. The administration centralized into a larger community. Why? Because it did not have the money to spend to do the job it had to do. That is what happens to small communities when you start to withdraw the necessary funding required to put those programs on the ground.
The former Solicitor General came to the conclusion: "Gosh, it worked so well when we cut $19.4 million, let us try and redo the contracts because they are expiring on March 31 and we will withdraw 5 per cent of the funding and put that 5 per cent on to the backs of the province and on to the backs of the municipalities". That 5 per cent cut-back federally meant that small communities throughout British Columbia, communities like Vernon and Salmon Arm, would have to bear from 10 to 25 per cent increases in their local tax base in order to keep their police force. Does that give any indication that this government knows anything at all about the sense of community values?
Post office closures. I talked about that before. This government has closed hundreds of post offices. One of the largest rural closures is in the town of Enderby which also got nailed by the RCMP cutbacks. The community of Enderby is really wondering just what this government is up to. It feels completely and totally abandoned. It has lost its post office and its RCMP services. Is it any wonder it asks: "What the devil is going on in Ottawa"?
Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the signal there was a time indication. I wonder if you could give me some indication as to the time I have left, if there is time. I was not sure if you were signalling to me or just scratching your ear.
I see that my time is up. If I could just summarize. The best way to summarize exactly what I have been saying, and I do not very often quote Proverbs, but I think it is a very appropriate quote in this case. That quote simply says, and I refer to this government: "They have no vision, and when there is no vision, the people perish".


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, my NDP colleague just made some general points which I think are very easy to reverse. He wants more expenditures. He does not want to pay any kind of taxes. He does
not want to reimburse the national debt. Even the convenience stores in this country cannot work that way.
There is one thing he said about the CBC; $1.4 billion a year. That is the expenditures the Canadian taxpayers are paying, $1.4 billion per year. Look at the ratings of CBC Radio in St. John's, Newfoundland. Seventy-five per cent of Canadians living in St. John's, Newfoundland never listen to CBC Radio. In Grand Falls, Newfoundland, 90 per cent of people living there never listen to the CBC Radio. In Toronto, 77 per cent of people there listen to the CBC Radio. In Edmonton, 89 per cent of people living there never listen to CBC Radio. In Prince Rupert, 61 per cent of the citizens there never listen to CBC Radio. The CBC and CBC Radio are very important to Canadians, but we must retain one thing. We also have private radio and TV stations in this country and these radio and TV stations never receive one dollar from the federal government.
They are there. They are very competitive. They are making good programming, but the Liberals and the NDP never talk about the private stations we have in this country which are doing very good work.

All they talk about is the CBC, Mr. Speaker. I think this is an important point. This government is spending $1.4 billion yearly for the CBC. That is a lot of money for one network considering all the other ones. I think that is very generous, that this government is giving very generously to Radio-Canada and the CBC.
My NDP colleague mentioned also, and I will conclude on that, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian health care system. He is scaring the seniors by telling them that we are destroying the system and that we will not treat them.
The fact remains that, this year, the federal and provincial governments will spend $91 billion on the national health system, or about $2,800 per person, from the infants to the seniors. That is still a fair amount of money!
The difference between the New Democratic Party and us on this side is that they want to spend more money on health while we maintain we are already spending enough in that area and that that money must be put to more efficient use.
June 13, 1991

I think that the government's solution is better than the one put forward by the NDP who want to spend more money but are not ready to rationalize.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. When an hon. member rises in this House and reads statistics from a document, he cannot just read the statistics without tabling that document or at least saying where those statistics came from.
He said that the people in Newfoundland do not listen to CBC Radio when that is the only station a lot of people can get. The hon. gentleman cannot just quote statistics which do not exist.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Would the hon. member from Saint-Maurice tell us briefly where the figures he is quoting are coming from?


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of quoting for the benefit of the hon. member, figures from the polling firm BBM, which operated not only in Quebec and in Ontario, but also in the west and in Newfoundland. These figures are in the public domain. Any member of this House can have access to them.
The hon. member from Mount Royal has the figures for any city across Canada and she will gladly give them to him whenever convenient.


Some hon. members:: Order!


Denis Pronovost: All the hon. members have to do is to check the figures. They are available and in the public domain.


Some hon. members:: Order!


Denis Pronovost: As annoying as it may be for the Liberals, Mr. Speaker, this is a fact. It is not my fault if Canadians are not listening to CBC Radio, but it is a fact-
Soine hon. members: Order!


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The point of order should not be deducted from my colleague's time. That was unconscionable. The response should have been to table the figures as he is supposed to according to parliamentary rules.
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Mr. Soetens:: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to rise in support of the last point of order because I would like to hear an answer to the very eloquent question which was put, to see if the NDP can muster one.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I would be glad to try to answer the allegations made by my colleague.
I do not know where he gets the figures, but it does show his lack of understanding of the essence of the $108 million cut. He makes the argument of the $800 million cut and the fact that nobody listened to CBC Radio here, there or the next place.
He does not know what he is talking about, because we are not talking about cuts to CBC radio. We are talking about cuts to CBC television. He is trying to build an argument about the lack of audience for CBC Radio justifying the cuts when it does not have anything to do with it.
It does not demonstrate that he does not have very much knowledge of the essence of the argument.
In terms of the member's comments regarding Canada's health care system, the member seems to fail to recognize that the cost of the health care system in the United States per capita is some 25 per cent above the cost per capita of the universal medicare system that we have here in Canada.
The member seems to have completely ignored the fact that the United States is now looking at Canada's medicare system as a possible model to emulate because of the fact that the unit cost, the cost of delivery for each individual in Canada, has been recognized as being so much lower for the equivalent level of care in the United States. That does not indicate to me that because we happen to have socialized medicine in Canada the cost structure has gone wild by any means. It is a very responsible program and the member simply has failed to recognize that.
Just one last point that the member made because he wanted to talk about the fact that the government cannot continue to spend, spend, spend. We are not suggesting that. We are suggesting the government maintain the spending levels that it has traditionally had in support of those programs. The problem is that the government has its tax priorities all backward. The fact is the corporate taxes in this country are now only about 14 per cent. Eighty-five per cent of the tax burden in Canada is borne

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by individual taxpayers, and that is the problem. We need real tax reform in this country.


An hon. member:: Hear, hear.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Until we get real tax reform, we are going to have those kinds of inequities.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Very briefly, I would like to say to the hon. member for Okanagan-Shuswap that I get a little troubled when I hear someone stand in this House and let on that a particular party is the only one that has values and start quoting other famous New Democrats. I would like to remind the member from the New Democratic Party that it was a New Democratic Party in Toronto that just a few months ago worked through the night to help destroy our bid for the 1996 Olympics, which would have affected jobs from coast to coast. It would have brought tourism dollars here, and there was absolutely no support from the New Democratic Party on that. So do not talk about your budget.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you can hear me but I will try to answer the question. The member raises a point regarding recent decisions made by the provincial government in Ontario.


An hon. member:: No, no, the city government.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: It was the city government, right. All I can say to the member is that sometimes those tough decisions have to be made.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I rise with pleasure today to participate in this particular debate on the spending estimates. It was just some months ago that I had another opportunity to rise on this debate and at that point I was fortunately able to save the taxpayers a couple of million dollars.
I do not have any immediate suggestions which will do that at this particular point in the debate, but I do want to start off with a couple of very direct comments which I think are very relevant to the debate we are facing today.
Recently, Mr. McKenna, the premier of the province of New Brunswick, made some very appropriate comments which were quoted in The Globe and Mail on February 28, which was about the time that the budget discussions were going on. He said: "Governments must conduct themselves like private citizens: borrow if necessary for capital assets such as a new home, but pay as you go for current expenditures like the groceries".
I thought that was a really appropriate statement by Mr. McKenna and I thought I would follow that along just to see what happened in the spending estimates which we are dealing with today and the spending estimates which we have had in the past. It is coincidental that today in The Ottawa Citizen there was another article which I would also like to quote. It also has very direct relevance to the debate we are involved in right now. It is an article written by Marjorie Nichols, a staff reporter for The Ottawa Citizen and I would like to quote from it very briefly. In the article she said: "The budgetary deficit numbers actually distort the fiscal truth. In fiscal year 1984-85, the Liberal budget deficit was $38.3 billion of which $16 billion went to pay for groceries, federal programs and salaries. In fiscal year 1991-92, by contrast, the Conservative deficit will be $30.5 billion, all of which is interest charges on the national debt."
I find it interesting that Mr. McKenna said that governments should not borrow to buy groceries-which is obviously what previous governments had been doing-and now Marjorie Nichols in response says "Isn't it great, the government isn't borrowing money to buy groceries, it is borrowing simply to pay the interest on debt"; debt going back to the early seventies and going on from there.
I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this debate, and I guess there is another series of reasons. First I want to thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for inviting me to participate in this debate with such extensive notice. It certainly gives me an opportunity to pass my notes on to you.
But what we are dealing with is, in fact, estimates that deal with about $158 billion in spending. As is typical across the way, there has just been a family squabble between the two parties and now another of the family says "peanuts" to $158 billion. Well, that is what they thought when they were spending $100 billion and now they think it is $158 billion and it is still peanuts.
Within that there are two aspects, and $111 billion of that money is in fact money that is very directly targeted for items that have been approved in previous budgets, and are ongoing expenditures year after year; the other $47 billion is in other spending programs.
June 13, 1991

Really it is these spending programs and controls that bring government expenditures totally in line. One of the things I find interesting is that last year the government tabled a document called Where Your Tax Dollars Go in conjunction with the budget. There is an interesting chart in this that I am sure you have had an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to peruse. It shows the various program areas of government spending and how the government has, in fact, spent the money.
The interesting part of the chart is that section dealing with the cost of operation of government. It deals with the cost of the civil service, government travel, government advertising, the office buildings, the telephones, the paper and the cost of the operation of this place.
It shows that the government is in fact spending less in 1990-91 than it did in 1984, and that is after absorbing some 35 per cent inflationary increases. So, when you talk about spending controls of those very things that Canadians expect us to control, those things dealing with simple operation of government, I think we have done a remarkable job. I am talking about 1990-91 in this particular book, but what is more interesting is that dealing in the 1991-92 estimates we basically have frozen that cost of government. Here after six years we haven't increased the cost and in the seventh year we are not going to allow it to increase any further.
That is unfortunate in one sense, because I do have some very direct concern and sympathy for many civil servants who are affected by that particular freeze. It is unfortunate that we have to say to the employees of the Canadian government that we are sorry but we don't have 3 per cent, 6 per cent or 9 per cent salary increases to give you. This year we have no more money available than last year. That is not an easy thing to say to them. But we have to restrain expenditures and so we are doing that. Yes, it is unfortunate that they are affected, but I guess you would agree, Mr. Speaker, they are affected and we here in this House will be affected in exactly the same way. So what we are asking our employees to do, we the management-if you want to call us that-are also doing.
So I think the restraint that we are preaching is, in fact, the restraint that we can be very proud of because we are doing it right here in our own operations.
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But it goes further than that. When we talk about spending estimates, we have to talk about a whole series of other things. I find it interesting having just listened to my colleagues opposite. They are talking about how we, the terrible Tories are doing terrible things to all of these social programs in Canada.
Of course, our contribution to many of the social programs is through transfers to provinces. I would like to talk particularly about one province, and it happens to be the province that I live in. I would like to relate it to my riding, and to the Treasurer of the province of Ontario who, of course, is a member for another riding in Ontario.
In their budget presentation, a great portion of it was a huge deficit. That deficit, I can tell you, is unacceptable to the constituents of Ontario riding as I am sure it is unacceptable to the constituents of all of the province of Ontario. What did they say in their budget presentation? They said that the Government of Canada was reducing its transfers to the province of Ontario and it was because of those reductions, to the tune of $3.4 billion, that they had a deficit as large as it was. Now, that is what they said.
I happened to have an opportunity to check this out. I noticed that in 1984-85 when we were first elected and 1990-91, the Government of Canada increased its transfers to the province of Ontario by $3.2 billion which, at an average rate, was 7.3 per cent a year. Imagine that in an inflationary time of 4 per cent to 5 per cent, the Government of Canada was increasing its transfers to the province of Ontario by 7.3 per cent. I would be hard pressed to say that the Government of Canada was dishonest or unfair to the province of Ontario by transferring it that much money.
The leader of the NDP in this House said: If we were the Government of Canada, we would spend the money just like they are doing in Ontario. That means that she would give them that $3.4 billion. I guess they feel they are short. What does that mean? It means that this year, in this year's budget, the Government of Canada would have had to increase its transfers to the province of Ontario by 42 per cent. Can you imagine that, 42 per cent. And they have the gall over there to say that is the kind of increases we should have. Yes, 42 per cent in a 5 per cent inflationary environment.

June 13, 1991
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Maybe that is not what they mean. Maybe what they mean is if the government had not cut back a little bit every year for the last seven years, we would not have to give them 42 per cent in one year. Well, what does that mean? I can tell you what that means. What it means is that instead of in the last seven years increasing the transfers to the province at a rate of 7.3 per cent a year, we would have had to increase them at a rate of 14.6 per cent a year.
Now, is that not a tremendous number, 14.6 per cent a year rate of increase to the province of Ontario? I do not know where they think the money comes from, but I know my constituents are complaining about where it comes from: that trucker's strike that you all saw a few weeks back. It started at the comer of Wesley Road and Highway 401 which is right in the heart of my riding. I can tell you there are an awful lot of my constituents who are rather upset about the spending that exists at all levels of government, including this one right here, but also including the one in the province of Ontario.
When you listen to members opposite carp and cry about the rate of spending, I can tell you that the Government of Canada has nothing to be bashful about in our transfers to the province of Ontario. This year, in fact, our transfers to the province of Ontario will go up by some $220 million. Not down, but up $220 million. So when they talk about programs being devastated, it is certainly not being devastated by things that the federal government is in fact doing in the province of Ontario. It is coincidental that I have these numbers for everywhere else in Canada .1 note, for example in British Columbia, that we increased transfers there at a rate of 5.6 per cent a year for the last six years. Again, this is a number that is rather substantial.
In Newfoundland, I am happy to tell you, we increased it at a rate of 7 per cent a year. Again, it is not a bad number considering a 5 per cent inflationary environment.
Having said that, we are aware that there are sacrifices that we are asking Canadians to make in this particular
concept of getting our financial house in order. We just cannot ignore it any longer.
Financial management, responsible financial management, was our commitment in 1984.1 was not here in the first four years so I am not going to really comment about whether it was good, bad or indifferent. What I will say is that in 1988 I stood for office and was subsequently elected in November of that year. So I am here and I can say, "all right, I might have had some input". I did have some input in the '89 budget, the '90 budget and the '91 budget. I had opportunities to do so.
I do not have a problem standing here in the House saying "I was involved in that budget. Here is the money we are spending. Here is how we are spending it." Is it perfect? Of course not. We all would like to say, "Well, we could do a little more here; we could do a little less there", but we are Conservatives. We only get 98 per cent. That is the best mark we could get.
I compare that 98 per cent to the mark I would give the NDP in Ontario and although I might be biased, I would suggest that they certainly would not get a passing mark. Maybe the hon. member from the NDP might want to get up and give a comment.
What did we do from there? In 1989 we brought in our budget which set out some medium term fiscal plans to reduce our deficit and bring an end to government borrowing in markets by 1994-95. The budget reaffirmed this plan in 1990, as it said it would in 1989, and of course, here we are in the 1991 spending estimates and we are doing that.
In 1984 the federal government was handing out $1.33 in programs and services for every dollar it collected in taxes. Can you imagine that, $1.33 for every dollar it collected. That was a real bargain for Canadians. They did not realize what kind of a bargain it was. Unfortunately, they should have all been standing up yelling and screaming in 1980, '81, '82, '83, '84, "enough of these bargains. Cut it out because we know it is not going to be a bargain in the future." Unfortunately, that is where we are now. It is no longer a bargain. No wonder Canadians are dissatisfied when for every dollar of taxes they pay, they now only get 66 cents of service.
June 13, 1991

I would be dissatisfied. If I walked into the local convenience store, the local grocery store, the local men's wear store to buy something and you put something in your hands and the guy says, "well, that will be $10." You give him $10 and he takes the scissors, cuts away $3.40 worth of it and gives it back to you and says "here is $6.60 worth of the $10 item."
That is what we are doing now with the taxes we have and that is why I am pleased that in this debate, we are talking about expenditure. That is the subject we are dealing with here and I think the government is being very responsible in controlling that expenditure so that at some point in the future when Canadians in fact walk out to spend that dollar of taxes, they will ultimately achieve a dollar of service.
That is a challenge. It is a very serious challenge, but without addressing it today and tomorrow as we did in '89, '90 and '91, it just would not work. But we are not without heart. We are not without conscience. I notice that the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds is here in the House. He has comments and concerns and you know, it would be really easy for me as someone from southern Ontario to simply say, "why did we have an extra $3 billion in the spending to help the farmers of Canada in their time of need?"
I know that members opposite do not want to talk about the fact that we do have concerns. We could have come in with a $27.5 billion budget deficit, but we said, no, that is an expenditure to help the farmers of Canada. I do not have a problem supporting that.
That is one area. The other area was referred to previously when we were talking about some of the areas where government spends money. There was a comment about the fact that the Government of Canada does not do its share on research and development, and we are compared to the OECD countries.
The member was right when he talked about whether Canada contributes as much in research and development as other countries. In total on a per capita basis, no, we do not, but if you take it back a little further and look at the taxpayer contribution per capita, the Government of Canada does very well, thank you very much. What is missing is the business community, the business environment. What they need, some way or another, is encouragement to do their share in research and development
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to make sure that the whole Canadian level of research and development is done appropriately. It is certainly not a problem of federal taxpayer dollars. The federal government is very clearly contributing in a very appropriate fashion.
So, where are we? Well, today with this budget, some time in mid-year, our total debt will reach $400 billion, which is about $15,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada. The interest alone on that debt will be about $43 billion.
It happens that last Monday or Tuesday I had a school group here from Bayview Public School from the town of Pickering, in my riding. There were about 40 of them from grade 8. I asked them: "Are you kids aware that each one of you has a debt of about $15,000"? They kind of looked at me and said: "No. Why do I have a debt? I do not have a debt". I said to them: "Well, you do have a debt, because we, your parents, are spending money on things, some of which you take advantage of, but we are spending money faster than we are willing to pay for the services we are providing". The kids kind of looked at me and said: "Well, is that not your role then, Mr. Soetens. Is it not your role to make sure that we do not spend money faster than we should so the debt does not go up"? I said to these students, "Yes, certainly, partially, it is my role". That is why, in 1988 when I was elected, the major item in my campaign was my comment that if I was elected I would do my utmost to make sure that the Government of Canada restricted its spending, held its spending in line so that we reduced the deficit.
I stand here ready to conclude that this Canadian government has the best record of all government levels, provincial or federal. Certainly, over the last seven years we have controlled our spending and kept it substantially lower than the rate of inflation. Although we have not solved the ills of of the country when it deals with fiscal or debt problems, I am comfortable to say that we are certainly going in the right direction.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I am sending over to the hon. member who just spoke some information from the Department of Finance. These are the charts from the federal Department of Finance for this year in transfers to the provinces, 1990-91, compared to 1991-92. He is now having the two charts placed on his desk by the page.

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I just wanted to bring to his attention that in 1990-91, compared to 1991-92, this year Newfoundland is receiving less in equalization payments, less in total transfers. The minister in the front row is trying to tell the hon. member that, indeed, the Government of Newfoundland was overpaid. Is this what he is trying to say, overpaid? But it is not true. No, because I can also table a letter from the Minister of Finance that says in addition to these estimates cuts, Newfoundland has to pay back $71 million at a rate of $34 million a year. The minister is nodding his head, so now he knows what I am talking about.
In other words, the Province of Newfoundland is quite different than the other provinces in that we are receiving less in transfer payments. I wanted to ask him whether he is aware that his colleague who spoke before him who is now talking to the minister, just provided me with a sheet that he was quoting the BBM rates. He mentioned Newfoundland as having CBC Radio stations that had very small percentages of the market. What he was quoting from was a document which said that in Gander-Grand Falls the CBC has only 10 per cent of the listening audience and that there are a number of stations in the market, 11 radio stations in Gander, Newfoundland, and 11 in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. That is the market and therefore the CBC only had 10 per cent of that market.
The hon. gentleman should know that there is no such thing as 11 radio stations you can pick up anywhere in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
I want to ask the hon. member who just spoke as he has had a chance to look at these documents, will he now not admit that the province of Newfoundland is receiving far less money in transfers this year than it did last year. That is different from every other province in Canada.


René John Soetens: I want to thank the hon. member for sending over these charts. As you can see there are a lot of very small numbers on them but I will be glad to respond because I note on the 1990-91 estimates, if I read your chart correctly, it says that there is a transfer of
$1 billion and $5 million. Or, if you want to take the total of cash and tax, it is $1,461,000,000. If you take the next chart, using the cash and tax combination, it says $1,454,000,000 which is a reduction of about $7 million.
That, I grant you, is less, but what the member does not mention in his submission is that the reason it is $7 million less is that last year and the year before they got $71 million more. The fact of the matter is, looking at this, the numbers are, in fact, not anywhere near that.
Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to send this chart over before I spoke, so I will send it over after I speak. I have a chart which I will bring over to you personally which shows that, in 1990-91, Newfoundland received $2,427 in per capita transfers from the federal government. That is the largest transfer from this chart which I got from the finance department. I will share this chart with you. It was $2,427 in 1990-91, and in 1991-92, it is $2,474 per person, an increase of about $50 per person in transfers from the federal government to the province of Newfoundland.
I appreciate that the member may say that a $50 increase is not enough and I wish I could stand here and say we have sent you $500 per person more, but we just do not have the money. I hope that has clarified that position, but I have some other lovely charts here as well.
All I can say is that I understand that the Minister of Finance in the province of Newfoundland said we had a good budget. If he thought it was a good budget, and 47 per cent of the money he uses in his budget comes from the federal government, he obviously cannot be complaining about our budget at all. And why are you? You are from Newfoundland.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member to whom I listened with great interest gave himself a grade of 98 which he admitted was only a subjective guess. We can lend some objectivity to this estimate. The real grade is 14 per cent. That is the grade given to his party by the people of Canada right now and I suspect that that means that he will not have to worry about the next four years.
June 13, 1991

The hon. member has been at great pains to suggest, and causing all of us pain I must say, that those of us who argue, not that the deficit should be increased but rather that priority should be changed, are in some fashion arguing for an increase in the deficit.
Let us dismiss this out of hand. He was saying that he was asked by some children what he was doing about that $15,000 debt. In typical Tory exploitive fashion they are trying to convince children to be propagandizes. I wonder if he was able to explain to them how in the world they were going to earn the $15,000. What he did not address is that it is going to be very difficult 20 years from now for those kids to be earning enough to pay $15,000, even for a Honda, so long as the present government's policies with respect to science and technology continue.
Now, he does not seem too concerned about our relative position with the OECD. Everybody in the OECD is interested. Almost everyone who has looked at our economy is interested. I would dare say that those kids are interested in the fact that if things keep on going as they are there will be no jobs.
I want to understand what priorities justify spending in the order of $1.7 billion on a space program that the Americans are not even convinced should be set up. I want to understand what priorities have us move a science establishment 100 miles at a cost of almost $500 million. I want to know what priorities have the government investing $2.7 billion in an oil field that is going to mean more technological development in the United States than in Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to respond. I have to acknowledge what the member said. I do not know whether it is 14 per cent or 16 per cent but we are down there somewhere.
The only thing I would comment on is that before the budget and then after the budget we stayed at 14 per cent. Before the budget in Ontario it was at 56 per cent. I would hazard to say it is falling like a stone. If you get down to 14 per cent it will be as you are passing through on your way to lower numbers.
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There is another point I wish the member had talked about. He criticizes our policy because he is afraid that those poor kids will not be able to drive a Hyundai. I only wish the member would have, coming from such a large automobile manufacturing community, that he had talked about buying some inexpensive Ford or Chrysler or GM product. But no, that is not of interest to him. He would sooner be talking about an imported car. That is an example of what we are talking about.
We talk about priorities. Let me give you one further priority because I know there are other speakers. The member has criticized our budget for our priorities.
In the province of Ontario we have a very serious problem in the manufacturing sector. We will all acknowledge that.
If that problem is such a priority you should know that in the Ontario budget the only departmental budget that was cut was the budget of the Ministry of Industry. The very department that has problems is the only department the NDP cut. Now we know where its priorities are.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his kind comments.
I had prepared some notes, but in view of the high level of discussion and the intellect that has been passing me by this evening, I have decided that I am going to take a slightly different tack from what I was planning. I am going to have to resort to a few statistics-


An hon. member:: Get the RCMP to look for your notes.


Fred J. Mifflin: No, no, I do not need that, I can find them myself. I will be forced to use a few statistics because, like my hon. colleague from Gander-Grand Falls, we always use statistics that matter. The statistics that I will use, for all those who are interested, come from the budget books that were prepared by the Minister of Finance.
Before I talk about them-and I am going to watch the time very carefully, Mr. Speaker, because I do not want you to have to cut me off one more time-I want to talk about predictions. For the viewers in Newfoundland, sometimes we get confused when we hear about GDPs, EEC, OECD. Some of that stuff is gobbledegargon to me sometimes, and I am sure to a lot of other people.

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I want to talk about something that takes me back to my Newfoundland background, the background of a simple sailor.
I try to look at things in the smallest and most simple terms. I am looking at predictions. In the business of being at sea-most Newfoundlanders by definition know all about the sea-if you make wrong predictions, you are going to have to suffer dire consequences.
Let me give some examples. If your prediction on the tide is wrong-and the tide has a big range-you can end up by going aground, high and dry. That has happened to a lot of people.
If you predict that the weather is not going to come on and you have your ships, or boats in the case of fishing boats, alongside you will be blown adrift because a storm will come up overnight and your lines will break.
If you are at sea and your prediction about where the eye of the storm is going to be is really wrong, you are going to end up in the eye of the storm and not know it. You might sink or lose a lot of equipment and perhaps a few people.
If you make a wrong guesstimate on all of these various factors that influence mariners, you are going to arrive at your destination at the wrong time. Give or take a couple of minutes, that is okay, but we like to have arrival times within about five minutes. Even that is considered on the border of being professional.
Mr. Speaker, can you imagine somebody with a nautical background who is used to making predictions and has seen predictions pretty well on tab coming to the House of Commons and hearing predictions? You listen to them with great intensity. You take notes, go back and look for trends and projections, and then you hear another prediction. You say: "Good Lord, this cannot be the prediction that was made before."
I will be honest with you, Mr. Speaker. I have been very confused in the relatively short time that I have been in this House. Let me explain why. I think it is only fair that I go back to 1983-84, and I do not want to repeat what I said here earlier this evening.
In summary, the last Liberal government projected a deficit of $31.3 billion, and the deficit rounded out to $32.4 billion. That was not right on, but it was not too bad when I look at some of the other predictions.
I want to look at the 1984 budget. I do not want to go into the details, but I will say-the hon. minister was commenting on how close or how far off we were-that the projected deficit in 1984, the first budget of this government, was $34.5 billion. What did it turn out to be? It turned out to be $38.3 billion.
As a matter of fact, this government now uses $38.3 billion as a benchmark, as opposed to the previous figure. That is a prediction. Some predictions do not go right. I do not want to go through the succeeding budgets. However, I want to start when I really got into business in the election year 1988.1 arrived in the House of Commons in 1988. That was my year.
During the campaign, there was some confusion as to what was happening in the budget. In February 1988 the Minister of Finance predicted that there would be a 2.8 per cent growth rate that year. In fact, the actual growth was 5 per cent. That is an indicator to me, with my simple sailor background, that there were forces of inflation that should have been and could have been recognized at that particular point in time.
Were they recognized? I remember very definitely promises being made of a prison in my riding in the town of Harbour Grace. There had not been so much excitement in the town since the town was set afire in the 1900s.
The prison was promised and there were other promises made. I think they worked out to around $13 billion at the time. Somebody estimated them at that.
During the 1988 election I tried to stay on top of all the issues, but I never once heard the terms "the problem we have with our deficit, with our budget, the problems we have with the national debt". They never arose once, they were never in an election campaign.
I arrived in this House shortly after the 1988 budget, and what did I see? I saw a budget introduced called Canadian Economic Prospects in the Nineties. Then, all of a sudden, we heard all kinds of new terms which I had not heard during the election campaign. There were a number of problems identified. There were inflation increases, the interest rates were rising and then the word "deficit" came out, the big deficit that we had, the weakness in the domestic saving and the growing foreign indebtedness that we had. These were all new things to me.
June 13, 1991

I listened with great interest as the emphases on the 1989 budget, not surprisingly, were the following: the need for this and the need for that but still encouraged were the high interest rates, the high exchange rates, taxes were to be increased and expenditures restrained. The Minister of Finance thought that growth and demand would be moderate, growth in consumer spending would be moderate but resilient, I think was the term used, and labour market pressure would ease as would the cost pressures.
What happened? This is not conjecture, and this is not partisan politics, these are facts: By the end of 1989 the deficit remained the same as it was in 1984; the exchange rate moved up from 75.4 cents to 84.5 cents on the American dollar, and growth was reduced from 5 per cent in 1988 to 3 per cent.
We had the warning signs that economic times were going to be tough. The Minister of Finance really did have a chance to correct this, because the warnings were unmistakable. What did he do? He pursued the same policies, and if you look at the 1990 budget, it would appear to be a continuation of the chapter of the 1989 budget without any notice of a time warp. If you put the two budgets together, you would think that the 1990 budget was a continuation of the 1989 budget, despite all these warnings that were afloat, if I could use that term.
In the 1990 budget, the Minister of Finance exuded confidence, confidence that "after a short term of economic slowdown in the first half of the year, the imbalances would be corrected by the natural forces in the economy," and I am never sure what that means, and "sound growth would be resumed by 1991".
Inflation was projected to decline from 5.5 per cent in 1989 to 4.5 per cent by the end of 1990, and to 3.5 per cent by the end of 1991. The decline in interest rates was predicted and growth of 1.3 per cent was projected. The unemployment rate was then 7.5 per cent. It was projected to be 8.5 per cent, and then declined to 7.6 per cent. Why 7.6 and not 7.5 or 7.7 or 7.8? I do not know. 7.6 per cent in 1992-1995.
Even the most benevolent of the economic observers regarded these predictions as totally out of whack. Had these predictions worked, and at the time I hoped they would, we would not be in the state we are in today. I
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would also remind the House that the prediction for the deficit at that time was that in 1990 it would be $28.5 billion and by 1993 it would be down to $14 billion.
We now know that the recession really started in about the second quarter of 1990. It may not have technically started, but the beginning was back there. As much as a year ago the economy was sliding downhill veiy fast.
I remember being here at Question Period for so long and the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister would not even use the word "recession". They did not identify it. They talked about all kinds of euphemisms and this, that and the other thing.
The expression that I remember so well was "a period of adjustment." What in the name of heaven that means is beyond me. You have to die to go to heaven.
Let me give the backdrop for the 1991 budget. It is not pleasant, but I have to remind us all. Unemployment is rising. The tax burden is so high that people are starting to do strange things. Inflation is rising. Bankruptcies have reached a record level.
We are presently in the middle of not a minor recession but a major recession, made in Canada and not world-wide like it was back in 1981-82. Public finances are running out of control and the country is in serious trouble.
This is the background for the 1991 budget. This is the background which the government admits it created. It even boasts about creating it. This is the sad tapestry against which the mosaic of the 1991 budget was created.
I am not going to go through the budget of this year because there have been many speeches made on it. I think really on all sides of the House, depending on your view, members have quoted things and taken different viewpoints and I am sure it has been very instructive to the Canadian people. I am not going to engage in partisan debate about who did what, why it was done and so on.
I am going to stick to the projections and the predictions. In going back to 1984-85 I am amazed, I am aghast at the predictions that were made and how far off the mark they were. By golly, if a mariner made the kind of predictions that were made over the last six or seven years, we would be aground. We would not be afloat. We would be cut adrift. We might even be sinking.

June 13, 1991
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I hope that this is not the condition we find ourselves in today. I am more optimistic than that. I believe strongly in this country. I believe we are going to be able to pull ourselves out of this mess, but we are going to need something better to do it.
Whatever has been tried in the last six or seven years has not worked. I am not being partisan now. Going back to being a mariner, when you take over the watch from the officer of the watch or when you take over a ship from a captain, for a couple of weeks you can blame it on the guy who was there before you. You try not to do that, but there are certain things. If the drogues are missing you have to say "well, they were not there when I took over".
After six months in command you cannot turn around any more and say it is the skipper's fault, the one who left. You cannot do it. If you did, you would not be credible.
I wish, of all the things that I wish from the other side of the House, that it would stop blaming any government after a certain period of time. It is just not credible to the Canadian people, so it is not helping itself in doing that. I wish it would not do it because it is absolute and utter nonsense.
I want to remind the Chair before I get into my concluding remarks here that in the 1985 budget the Minister of Finance predicted that he would reduce the annual deficit to $20 billion by 1990. It is now 1991 and the deficit stands at $30.5 billion, the same as it was the second year that this crowd was in power.
If you want to make predictions, you could make all kinds of predictions. If I had more time I would answer some of these intellectual and perceptive questions which have been put in front of me, but I know that we are all interested in time and I may even quit a few minutes ahead of my time.
I engage in music from time to time, as we do in Newfoundland. I am a Newfoundlander. I love the sea. I make predictions about the sea. I like to play music. I like to sing. If you ask a Newfoundlander what he thought of the budgets we have had-if you pay attention, I want to
say something to you over there-what would they say about these budgets?
They would say that the tune of the budgets for the last six years has been "Happy Days Are Here Again", budget number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, number six, "Happy Days Are Here Again". What are they saying to this budget? They are saying: "It ain't necessarily so".


Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to pick up on one of the points that my colleague from Newfoundland raised. He seemed to provoke a certain gaggle of comment from the other side when he discussed the financial year 1984-85, which was the first financial year the Conservative government was in office. Since that is, as he said, often referred to by it as kind of a benchmark year I think it is important. I think it is important for the people of Canada to understand where we are at and where we came from. The government keeps referring to that year as being the last year of Liberal deficits. It talks about $38 billion plus as the final deficit of the Liberal administration.
I would like my colleague to pick up on this theme. The concern I have is that we are in a time in Canada when people are getting a little bit fed up with the fallacious myths that the government promotes in order to defend itself when it is indefensible. The last budget for that year projected a budgetary deficit of $29.6 billion for 1984-1985.


Ross Belsher: Whose budget was that?


John Paul Manley: The hon. member is trying to listen, but he is talking at the same time and he is finding that difficult.
In November 1984 the new government brought in an economic statement in which it said: "Yes, the deficit was going to be in excess of what Mr. Lalonde had predicted". He predicted $29.6 billion. By November 1984, Mr. Wilson, then Minister of Finance, said that for the current year, which was then more than half over, the deficit would be $34.5 billion. He said in his economic statement, and I quote: "With this set of projections and
June 13, 1991

no policy changes, the deficit for this fiscal year would be $34.5 billion. This is what we inherited".
Within a few months of that statement, the government reached the end of the year and managed to spend another $4 billion. That is where it got its benchmark.
I would like to ask my colleague whether he agrees that was a deliberate attempt by a new government to ram every expenditure it could into the expenses of the Government of Canada for that year in order to establish the highest watermark possible and forever after say that is the reason it has to pay such high interest charges.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for making that point clear. Governments are very clever at doing things. Sometimes they are opaque and sometimes they are not quite as opaque as they either could be or should be. However, in this particular instance it is blatantly obvious what happened. Now, one does not want to suggest that the methods are here, there or everywhere, but I would have to agree with my colleague that, in what was it, four or five months, a relatively short period of time, with no changes in policy-as was indicated by the Minister of Finance of the day-we went from $34.5 billion to $38.3 billion. That became the benchmark. That, to me, was very similar to the budget of 1988, the election year, when all the indicators said that inflation was going to be a lot higher than predicted. If the proper action had been taken at that particular point in time we would not have found ourselves in the position that we found ourselves in 1989, 1990, and 1991.
One has to understand the motives of the government and-without trying to make accusations one way or another-one has to say: "Well, this is what has happened in the past". I am not going to predict the future but I get worried when I see $400 million extra being collected. Now that $400 million does not mean anything unless it is put against the base. That is against a base of $1.8 billion, $400 million more than was projected on a base of $1.8 billion. That is 22 per cent more.
We have a lot of experts in the Department of Finance and I am not attributing any partisan politics to them. I am saying that they are experts, probably as good as we have in the world, and the best they can do is predict and be off by 22 per cent in three months, revenue neutral. If that is a prediction and if that is how close they are to
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what is going to happen in the next year, my God, we are in trouble.
However, we are not in trouble because there is a reason for that $400 million. I would suggest there is a little war chest put away somewhere. When the time is right we will not hear too much about the debt created by this government, we will not hear too much about fiscal responsibility, we will not hear too much about extra GST money. We are going to have to find out how much it is going to take to build another prison in Harbour Grace for example, maybe build a few schools-in short, to buy peoples' votes with their own money. Shocking, despicable, and wrong.


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception for the excellent address he gave here today. I only wish he had another half hour or hour so that he could talk about the problems in the fishery that we have.
I want to ask the hon. gentleman this question, if he cares to comment on fisheries policy. The hon. gentleman heard the exchange here earlier on. A member of the government stood up, a member of the communications committee. There is circulating a document which I have seen which quotes the BBM, the official service that surveys all radio stations in Canada. The committee is given a document that says that CBG in Gander only has 10 per cent of the listening audience, CBT in Grand Falls only has 24 per cent, and CBN in St. John's has 25 per cent. He says with that percentage it is a waste of money. Then he said that in this document-given to members of Parliament, given to the committee, obviously with the intent of trying to close them down eventually-it says that there are nine AM stations in St. John's, Newfoundland competing with the CBC. There are 11 AM stations in Gander, Newfoundland competing with the CBC and there are 11 AM stations in Grand Falls, Newfoundland competing with the CBC.
I am wondering if the hon. gentleman will pass judgment on this? Are there 11 radio stations in Gander, 11 in Grand Falls, and nine in the city of St. John's? Can he pass judgment on this serious question?


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member I drive in my riding in my car. We can pick up three radio stations. If we are lucky, maybe four. Where are the 11 stations in Grand Falls? Where are the nine stations in Gander?

June 13, 1991
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They came from the same place as the projections came from in the budget, exactly the same place-in their minds.
On a serious note, and I do want to talk on a serious note, in the Speech from the Throne made when I first came to this place there were a number of points made. There is really one point that I want to comment on very seriously. In the 1989 Speech from the Throne there is a paragraph I want to read: "My government will propose amendments to the unemployment insurance program in order to improve the program's effectiveness and its fairness. These changes will-"
Mr. Speaker, let me tell you what the government did, what it said it was going to do. Everybody said: "Oh, wonderful. This is great".
What it did was the following. At that time UI worked this way: the employer paid 43 per cent, the employee paid 31 per cent, and the government paid 26 per cent. At that time in 1989 the government's contribution was $3 billion out of $13 billion.
In less than two years, to cover the cost of the government's withdrawal-it did not say it was going to withdraw, in fact in October 1988 it said it was not going to change a thing, not a thing. Everything is going to be fine. Don't worry about free trade. UI will never change.
If this is not a change, it is like another projection. It is something I do not understand. In less than two years, to cover the cost of the government's withdrawal which has happened in two years, for every $100 of employable earnings from the employee, the premium rate rose from $1.95, that was written, to $2.80, an increase of 85 cents or 45 per cent.
The employer's contribution rose from $2.73 to $3.92, another 45 per cent. I am going to make a prediction. I do not think it is over yet. I think there is more on the way whether it is called inflation or not. I will just finish off with that particular point.


Mr. Pat Sobeski (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of the main estimates and for supplementary estimates for the fiscal year 1991-92.
What I would like to do is take a little time. Unlike the last speaker, I prepared some notes and I am going to stick with them.
What I would like to do now is quote a Labour Prime Minister from Britain in 1976 at a Labour Party conference. This is what he said: "We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that option no longer exists, and insofar as it ever did exist, it worked by injecting inflation into the economy. Each time that happened, the average level of unemployment has risen. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. That is the history of the past 20 years."
That is James Callahan, the British Prime Minister speaking to a Labour Party conference in September 1976.
A finance minister in a budget speech said the following. You will also enjoy this. The finance minister said: "We intend to continue severe restraint. Our experiences this past year and our prospects next year force us all to recognize the central problems of control of public expenditures."
Many of you might think that sounds like the current finance minister, but it was Edgar Benson in October 1968.


An hon. member:: Wasn't he a Liberal?


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: He was a Liberal finance minister, speaking 22 years ago, saying: "Hold the line".
This is from another budget. The hon. member does not want to listen to this one. In this budget speech, the finance minister said: "Cutting taxes instead of increasing spending reflects the government's determination to oppose restraints upon its own spending." That was in February 1973, and the finance minister was John Turner.
In May, 1976, when the Liberals introduced wage and price controls, they said: "In recognition of the widespread feeling among Canadians that present circumstances demand restraint in government spending". If you take a look at spending in 1973 and 1976, we are not surprised on this side. Canadians were not surprised, because we did see a lot of government spending.
June 13, 1991

I have another article here that is by Mike Duffy. We all know Mike Duffy, the twin brother of the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: In this article, he said: "For a nation that has been truly blessed, Canadians are in a terribly foul mood. Over and over, Canadians keep being told there is an easy way out, but those Mulroney Tories are too stubborn to try it." Duffy says: "Give me a break. I do not know of a single politician who would rather make a tough decision if there were easier, simpler answers to the problem. The fact is that in our current economic situation, there is no easy answer."
Later in the article, he says Canadians did have a choice.
The hon. member is having difficulty believing a journalist said this. Ten years ago, when John Crosbie was the finance minister, he said it best when he brought in a budget in 1979 that has been referred to, the first time we heard it: "Short term pain for long term gain". That was the budget of 18 cents a gallon.
What happened in that election? Canadians said: "I am sorry. We do not want to pay". And what did they do? They re-elected the Liberals. After the Liberals were re-elected they continued to spend money they did not have. They took out the little credit card and kept moving it through.
In 1980 the deficit of Canada was $11.5 billion. Canadians said: "No 18 cents a gallon. We do not want to face up to that". So, they re-elected the Liberals and the deficit went from $11.5 up to $38.3. We might even discount it back with the comments from the member for Ottawa, but the annual deficit tripled in those four years.
Those are comments from British Prime Ministers, finance ministers, but I have some comments from some Canadian constituents. Last November, I asked my constituents to give me input that I could pass along to the finance minister when he was preparing his budget. These are comments that came in to me three or four months before the budget came out. These are comments from Canadians. I do not know which party they support, but they probably support Canada. These are ordinary Canadians.
Here is one quote: "When my budget is tight, I have to cut charity donations and cut out non-essentials. Charity
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begins at home. The government must as well. Keep all program spending to pre-1989-90 levels". That was one constituent.
Another one said: "A further general tightening up is necessary to bring spending under control". There is a constituent with common sense: "Tighten your belt".
Another one said, and this is a good one: "There is no easy way to cut costs when your spending has already outstripped your revenues. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, then all Canadians must bite the bullet".
Another constituent wrote in saying: "I am getting sick and tired of carrying the bulk of taxes and wish the government would practise what they preach and start cutting back".
Finally, another constituent wrote in and said: "It takes courage to tell the nation that we must live within our means and act accordingly or face the devaluation of our currency to dissolve the national debt, but in doing that you would ruin people like myself who have saved responsibly".
This person recognized that if you do not get the debt under control, if you allow inflation to grow and inflation grows to 20 per cent, those Canadians who have saved responsibly are seeing their savings eroded away because of inflation.
Canadians might look at the projection of the $30.5 billion budget deficit for the fiscal year 1990-91 and 1991-92, and wonder how the government earned the reputation as a resolute fighter against excessive spending.
The amounts are the same so how can the government say it is fighting the deficit? Well the yardstick by which progress must be measured is the level the deficit could have risen to had we followed the free spending ways of previous governments.
In the current fiscal year, Ottawa must turn to the public financial markets for only 15.7 per cent of its cash needs, compared to 27.3 per cent in 1984-85.


An hon. member:: Remarkable progress, excellent.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: To put that in terms to understand, what we are saying is that in 1984-85, when the government was spending money they had to go out and borrow 27 per cent of that in the public market. Today, in this budget here, we are out borrowing 15 per cent, because the government revenues have also grown.

June 13, 1991
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I think if Canadians look at it in those particular terms, they can understand that if you have to borrow less money, you must be controlling your deficit.
When we took over, Ottawa was forced to borrow enough money to cover all its debt servicing costs and the $16.1 billion in program savings on top of that. In 1984-85 the government was bringing in revenues of approximately $70 billion. Government spending, not including interest on the debt, was some $87 billion. Here we are as a government, as a nation, bringing in $70 billion and spending $87 billion on programs which Canadians at the time had voted their governments to provide.
There is a shortfall in those programs of some $17 billion. What has happened over the past seven years is that government revenues have increased. Why have they increased? Because more Canadians are working since 1984 and the government has increased taxes. No one is denying that. What has happened is that instead of running a deficit of $17 billion on programs, we now have a surplus of some $12 billion. So we have seen on program spending, improvement. Because of that improvement we are able to take that excess $12 billion, and are we spending it on new programs? No, we are trying to control our expenses and what we are doing is using that money to pay on the interest which has accumulated over the years.
We have also seen many different ways of looking at the debt. Some people have suggested that the debt in 1984 was some $200 billion and they say the debt has doubled in the last seven years. That is true, the debt has doubled. Why has it doubled? Partly because there is $200 billion sitting there and whoever the government was it would have to pay the interest on that $200 billion.
For those Canadians familiar with a simple thing called compound interest, they would know that you have to carry that burden and that accounts for a large portion of the debt we have today.
The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has called on Canadians to go on what it calls a deficit diet reduction plan. Being on the deficit diet simply means that we have to curb our appetite for government programs.
The Chamber of Commerce said that we can no longer assume that we need something, a new community program, for example, for which we can automatically turn to any level of government for the cost. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said that all Canadians must reduce their expectations of government. The business community is first in line to cut back on its consumption from the public purse. It says we need broad public support if governments are going to bring all government spending and consequently the deficits and the debts under control.
As major transfers to other levels of government represent almost 25 per cent of all federal program spending, these programs definitely have to come under review from the finance minister. Under the Established Programs Financing, the federal government provides equal per capita financial assistance to all provinces to carry out responsibilities for health care and post-secondary education.
Since 1984-85, the amount spent on established programs financing has increased by $5.4 billion to almost $20 billion. There is another transfer payment called "equalization" which provides substantial additional assistance to lower income provinces through the equalization program. Its purpose is to enable all provinces, rich and poor, to provide reasonably comparable public services, including health and post-secondary education at reasonably comparable tax levels.
Equalization payments, which have increased to about $8.2 billion, represent an average increase over the past six years of 7.1 per cent.
Under the Canada Assistance Plan, the federal government reimburses provinces for 50 per cent of the eligible expenses for social assistance payments and services to persons in need.
The Canada Assistance Plan programs have increased from $4 billion to just under $6 billion in six years.
As my time is concluding, I would like to talk about the cost of financing the debt. Again, we talk in terms of billions of dollars. It is difficult for anyone to understand exactly what a billion dollars is. The cost of financing the debt back in 1968 was about 12 cents on every tax dollar. By 1984,32 cents of every tax dollar went toward interest on the debt. Today, it is close to 35 cents on the dollar.
June 13, 1991

What that shows is that once you have this debt around your neck, this burden of debt, it is difficult to move out unless you do one of two things. What we are trying to do is control spending.
Deficit reduction is not easy. Tough choices have to be made. The budgets of the last few years and these estimates are part of a total package that is balanced. What we are trying to do with these budgets is build on the future not borrow from it. That is why this government is taking aim at the prime objective for the future: the problem of a growing debt. Our debt is a problem and we have to work toward it.
While some may think that the cost of successful debt reduction may seem high, the price of failing to get our debt under control is unimaginable.


Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your recognizing me.
I just want to make some comments on the debt and the deficit. When we, the Conservative government, came to office in 1984, the national debt was around $180 billion. It was not $200 billion as was made out in one of the comments. The annual debt at that time was around $41 billion. So from that time on we increased the debt to $400 billion, but our revenues in 1984 were $70 billion and we had a negative balance of $40 billion. So the total budget was $110 billion.
If you compare our revenues right now they are about $110 billion or $120 billion and the deficit is still over $30 billion annually. It is the same thing if you had a mortgage for instance of $180,000 and after six years you had to borrow because your mortgage went up to $400,000. In the meantime, your income had increased by 40 per cent. How would you judge a person like that? You would say he is drinking, he is spending like a crazy sailor.
So this is the way that this government has been handling the economy. The Conservatives say that they inherited a national debt of approximately $180 billion, but do not forget that this debt came along because there was a lot of spending in the last 20 years before.
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It did not happen suddenly. The Conservative government doubled the debt while increasing taxation in about six years.
I would like to ask the hon. member whether he thinks this is responsible management of public finances.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: It is a pleasure having a question from a member who twice has been elected to the House of Commons, and both times he ran as a Conservative but he forgot to mention that. I do like his example of a mortgage, because this is something I think every Canadian can understand. A person goes out and buys that first house. Let us say they buy that first house for $150,000, their income is $30,000 and they take a five-year mortgage. Every Canadian understands that. What happens during the first five years of that mortgage is that based on that income generally they can pay the interest and at the end of five years when that mortgage comes due on that house they have paid off very little of the principal. When they renew that mortgage, their income has gone from $30,000 maybe up to $37,000 and so for the next five years they are in a little bit better position and they can pay more off on the mortgage. Then when they renew that mortgage again in the third term their income is up to $50,000 and then they are in a position in which they can really start to pay off that house.
The hon. member knows that. Every other Canadian understands that. The member in his question acknowledged that the revenue from the government has grown because since 1984 there are about 1.2 million more Canadians working, and so government revenues have gone up. The strategy of the Conservative Party is no different than the strategy of those Canadians who are buying their houses. Their income grows and then they are in a better position down the road to pay off their mortgage, and that is exactly what this government is going to do. The only difference is that when we have our mortgage burning party, you will not be invited to the party because you do not deserve to be invited.


Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: To the
person who just spoke, I have The Economist for June 8

June 13, 1991
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and it has some interesting statistics. I would like to get his comments.
In terms of industrial production, Canada is down minus 7.4 per cent over the year. The only OECD country that has done worse on the list is Spain, at minus 10.
GNP or GDP: Canada is down minus one over the last year. The only countries that have done worse, as I look at the list quickly, are the U.K. at minus 1.5 and Australia at minus 1.5.
Retail sales: Canada is down 15 per cent over a year. I do not think there is any country that has done worse in the last year.
Unemployment: Canada is at 10.2 per cent. The only country of the OECD countries that has done worse appears to be Spain with 15 per cent.
Prices and wages: Canada plus 6 per cent-these financial geniuses over here. Italy is the only country that has done worse at 6.8 per cent; Sweden, 10 per cent; U.K., 6 per cent.
In the broad definition of money supply, Canada is up 8 per cent; again the only countries that have done worse are Italy, Spain, Sweden and the U.K.
I know that the only subject those opposite like to talk about is the deficit, and if any of them think that is going to save their political necks at the next election, I wish they would raise their hands. No hands are going up. One hand going up.
Will the member tell us about this sterling financial performance that his government is giving to Canadians versus all of the other OECD countries?


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Mr. Speaker, again I appreciate the question. There is a tremendous question in our minds because we are curious as to what party this member will be in when the next election comes around.
He asks a question and I will give him a serious answer. My riding also includes the city of Kitchener. Everybody in this House knows that the city of Kitchener, with B.E Goodrich-Uniroyal, is possibly going to lose
2,000	jobs. The potential is there. The question is about long-term investment, what direction should we go.
In the mid-1970s the Liberal government's strategy was: "Let's build a competitive industry in Nova Scotia with Michelin. So let us move Canadian tax dollars to
build tire plants in Nova Scotia even though we have tire plants in Ontario." That was the Liberals' strategy.
As a result we have in Ontario an old industry competing against new industry funded by Canadian government money. Here we are, some 14 years later as a result of that investment strategy-


Ms. Clancy:: What are the statistics on the service side?


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: The bottom line of that investment strategy was that it was good for Nova Scotia but the people who paid the price were the people in my riding in Kitchener.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and put a question to my good friend from Cambridge. He and I have a special relationship in that I represent Newfoundlanders and so does he. In his constituency of Cambridge there are many thousands of Newfoundlanders in exile.
I have a question for the member for Cambridge. There is such excitement on that side of the House. I have never seen people go so enthusiastically to their electoral doom.
The member for Cambridge made a fine speech. He did not tell us about the windfall of $400 million in GST that has been garnered over the-


Mrs. Campbell (Vancouver Centre):: That's great news to bring the deficit down.


Roger Simmons: I know the Minister of Justice would love to make her maiden speech and I invite her to do so when I sit down, but in the meantime if she could keep her little trap shut.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. Before resuming debate, on a point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the unanimous consent of the House to revert to-


Mary Catherine Clancy: A point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I will listen to the point of order of the hon. member.


William James Kempling: I would ask the unanimous consent of the the House to revert to reports from committees.


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
June 13, 1991


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The House heard the motion. Does the House agree with the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of the Legislative Committee C on Bill C-2, an act to amend the National Energy Board Act without amendment.
The Legislative Committee C on Bill C-2, an act to amend the National Energy Board Act, has the honour to report the bill to the House in accordance with its Order of Reference of Thursday, May 23, 1991. Your committee has considered Bill C-2 and has agreed to report it without amendment. A copy of the Minutes of the Proceedings and Evidence relating to this bill are tabled.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings]



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle (p. 1646).
Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, my point of order is that I was in the midst of a question. I yielded the floor on the instruction of the Speaker to allow a point of order. One would assume that once the so-called point of order has been dealt with we would go back to where we were.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. When I gave you the floor I said very briefly. The questions and comments period was over when I recognized the hon. member for Burlington.
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Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Mr. Speaker, I would be more than happy to listen to the question and respond to it.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting point that the members on the opposite side of the House appear to be caught in a time warp. They do not appear to be able to see very far beyond the date of 1984.
I think, in particular, that the member for Cambridge is caught in some sort of a time warp. I begin my remarks on the estimates with my lack of understanding that if everything is as wonderful as that member would have us believe in his remarks, why are he and his cohorts not more popular? This may be because I come from the maritimes and we sometimes have difficulty in understanding these things. It is, in the words of a famous King of Siam, a puzzlement.
I want to know if everything is so wonderful, as the hon. member suggests, why we have had 32 or even 33 tax increases over the last six years. I want to know why subsidies have been cut. Most particularly, I want to know why the At and East subsidy to the eastern ports on the carrying of grain has been cut. I want to know, if everything is so wonderful and this government is in control, why there has been no help for the port of Halifax.
Indeed, I want to know why we cannot even get an answer as to why there is no help for the port of Halifax. I want to know why there is not a fairer tax structure for Canadian National so that the port of Halifax does not lose business hand over fist, as it has been doing in the last several months. I want to know, if everything is so wonderful, why the foreign fleets are over-fishing in the Atlantic fishing grounds and why Atlantic fisherpeople have to stay at home, why they cannot catch anything close to their quotas.
I want to know, if everything is so wonderful, why unemployment insurance was gutted so that seasonal workers in the Atlantic region are facing at least half a year with no jobs, no UI, no training programs, no nothing from this government. I want to know, if everything is so wonderful, why we only have three VIA Rail trains out of Halifax in the run of a week now, when we used to have two a day.


An hon. member:: That is all the ridership they had.

June 13, 1991
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Mary Catherine Clancy: No, no. That hon. member over there is incorrect. There was a 98 per cent ridership on VIA Rail in the Atlantic. In the words of Casey Stengel: "You could look it up". Well, maybe you could not but maybe somebody could.
If everything is so wonderful, why has the CBC been slashed to bits by this government? If everything is so wonderful, and perhaps this is the most telling point of all, why are the hon. members opposite so exorcised? Why do they not just ignore what I am saying? There must be some truth to the comments I am making for there to be such an overwhelming response from my hon. friends on the opposite side.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, a point of order.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, he would like a point of order. Give it to him.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: On a point of order, the hon. member for Ontario.


René John Soetens: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member has spent five minutes asking some very important questions. I would ask if I could have 15 minutes of her time to respond to those questions, so that she knows exactly why.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It was not a point of order.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I again make my point that if the member of Terry Toones over there keeps on making so much noise there must be something that is getting on his nerves, if indeed such nerves exist. Perhaps, the only thing that does exist over there is nerve.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mary Catherine Clancy: If everything is so wonderful-and there they are. They are still upset. I do wish they would calm down.
In the last couple of days I have crossed the country from east to west and back and I have talked to Canadians. I have talked to Canadians in Vancouver. I have talked to Canadians in Ontario. I have talked to Canadians in Nova Scotia. I have talked to Canadians from all over this country; cab drivers and waitresses, people who work in hotels and people who work in convention centres.
There is still one thing that can only be described as a burr under the saddle of the average Canadian and that burr under the saddle is the GST. The GST, the tax from
Hades. If you do not understand that reference, gentlemen, you again could look it up.
This tax has created some of the most unmitigated hardship this country has ever seen. We have seen businesses going under at a rate heretofore unknown in Canada. We have seen depression.


Denis Pronovost: We have to pay interest on your debt.


Mary Catherine Clancy: It is clear the hon. member, or I should say the hon. current member for Saint-Maurice, is particularly upset over something, but I would rather he did not take a point of order. He can talk to me later or he can write me a note. He can write.
This tax has caused unmitigated hardship. I listen to cab drivers. I listen to people who work at minimum wage jobs and I hear the hardship that this government has perpetrated upon them with this, the worst tax in the history of Canada.
I go back now, I go back as we talk tonight on the estimates, on these nefarious estimates that are being put forward by the Government of Canada.
Of all the things that are unacceptable to me as the member for the great city of Halifax, I come back once again to the question of the At and East grain subsidy.
I have risen in this House five or six times in the past several weeks and questioned the Minister of Transport and the Associate Minister of Transport about help for the port of Halifax.
I wonder about those members over there as they go on their merry way destroying this country as we knew it, removing any trace of infrastructure.


Ross Belsher: Trying to make it better, Mary.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Twenty bucks, five bucks over world price for 20 years, Ross, just remember that.
The government is trying to succeed in taking the infrastructure of Canada and laying it to waste from coast to coast; the ports, the trains, privatizing Air Canada, privatizing Petro Canada, turning this country into their view of a free market economy with no government intervention and no government caring because it says to the strongest goes the battle and the devil take the rest. The devil take the weak, the devil take the poor, the devil take Atlantic Canada and the north and parts of the west. I will tell you, the devil is going to take somebody and he is going to take them pretty quick.
June 13, 1991

I look at those members over there and say if everything is in such good shape, why are you so upset? If I were in your position and believed that everything was in such good shape, I would sit there and smile beatifically and say "oh well, the opposition has nothing to complain about because we are doing such a wonderful job for the country that the Canadian people all love us and will re-elect us."
I do not know the actual figures for the rest of the country. I do know that in Atlantic Canada my party stands at 61 per cent. That was yesterday. It may be 63 today.


Mr. Hudon:: There is no re-election today.


Mary Catherine Clancy: No, but it is coming and probably sooner than you might think.
If these gentlemen and ladies on the government side are so happy with everything that is going on in this country today, why are we hearing excuses? Why are we hearing everything but the actual truth of the matter?
Why are we hearing defensive responses to the questions of the opposition? Why are we hearing these things? We are hearing them because the Conservatives know they are in trouble. They know that the average Canadian considers them to be unworthy of their trust. They know that the average Canadian considers them to be unequal to the task of putting this country on the road to recovery and on the road to success, whether we are talking economically, constitutionally or whether we are talking decently.
It is indecent what the policies of this government have done to this country, indecent. There are people in this country who are suffering, living lives of quiet desperation because of government policy. There are women in this country who have lost jobs. They were not great jobs to begin with because this government has never been all that hot at creating great jobs for women, but they have lost the jobs they had.
We have heard of the number of bankruptcies in this country, the small businesses that have closed and the retailers going out of business. Well, who do you think works in most of those buildings and businesses? I will tell you who works in most of those low-paying jobs. I
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will tell you. Women. Women have been among the greatest victims of this government from its first days in office to this very day.
Is the hon. member getting tired? I am so sorry. Why do you not go and take a nap?
I want to say that this government will be remembered. This government, to borrow the words from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, will live in infamy for what it has done to this country. There is a famous statement-


William James Kempling: 


Mary Catherine Clancy: Try to use the English language and not scatological terms.
There is another famous phrase but I do not know who coined it. The first person I ever heard use it was a Tory cabinet minister in Nova Scotia: "If it is not broke, do not fix it". It is something that this government should be more familiar with because Canada was not broke in 1984. It is sure on the verge of total breakup right now. It is sure on the verge of a transformation into something, probably a parking lot for our neighbours to the south, deliberately created by the policies of this government over the past seven years.
The subsidies are gone; the infrastructure is gone or going; the traditions and the beliefs of Canadians have been shaken to their very foundations. There is nothing being offered by this government that Canadians can look to and say: "There it is. That is something I can hold on to. That is something I can believe in. That is' something that can give me some faith and belief in the future; for me, for my family, for my children and for generations to come".
It is a terrible thing to do what this government has done in destroying the infrastructure of a country, but I suggest that it is a more terrible thing to take the dreams, ambitions and hopes of an entire nation and dash them to the ground. That is what this government has done and what it continues to do.
They are quiet on the other side now, which is nice for a change, and I am glad. In this silence from the other side, in this inability to respond to the charges I have made, I say to the members of the government: reflect well, think on it, not for your electoral future but for your belief in a country which we are all supposed to represent.

June 13, 1991
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Mrs. Dorothy Dobbie (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, a very short question for the hon. member. She talked about the dreams and hopes of an entire nation. I thought that was very interesting because it seems to me that the previous Liberal regime lived on dreams, pipe-dreams, and created illusions for the country that were absolutely impossible to realize.
They created such a sense of expectation that could never possibly be fulfilled that there was no possible hope for Canadians except to have those hopes dashed.
I would ask the hon. member why she would think that the practical, pragmatic, down-to-earth, realistic vision that we are building for Canada would not be something that would have a better expectation of having some ultimate result. The hon. member talks of dreams and hopes and visions as if those were realities. I would suggest to her that reality is what we live every day, bread-and-butter issues, not spending beyond our means, not telling people that they can have what they cannot have and that somebody, something wonderful in the future, will pay for what we are going to give them today in order to get re-elected.
This government has had the common sense, the will, to do what we think we must do because we know what is absolutely necessary for the future of the country. The country is not built on dreams alone, it is built on good, solid, financial, economic policy. I would ask the hon. member to tell us what her good, solid, financial, economic policy would be.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, there are two questions in that. First, I would like to say that I, too, believe that governments are built on good, sound financial management, and it would be nice if this government knew how to do it. It clearly does not, and has not for seven years. She talks as if this government has done some of these things absolutely deliberately, which I did not even accuse them of. I am thinking of the cancellation of At and East, for example, which will close the Halifax grain elevators now working at a quarter capacity, and lose 426 jobs in Halifax. It has closed the Saint John elevator, lost 80 jobs in Saint John, New Brunswick. I think I could be wrong, one of my friends will correct me. We are looking
at the loss of 250,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector in the province of Ontario in the post-free trade era.
These are just a few bagatelles, no doubt, to this government, but there are human lives and human stories behind every one of those lost jobs. I would like to see the member from Winnipeg come to Halifax and talk to the 426 families that do not have a pay cheque and cannot even look forward to UI to get them over the hump because of the policies of this government. If that is its vision, if that is its sound financial management, well, I say it is spinach and I say to hell with it.


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, I think some comments are in order, when we consider some of the remarks made by the hon. member for Halifax.
She started her speech by referring to the ridership on VIA Rail trains in the Halifax area. She said that before the cuts at VIA Rail, VIA trains had a ridership of 98 per cent in the Atlantic region.
I am sorry to have to correct the hon. member for Halifax but this is just not true. It was 38 per cent, Mr. Speaker, and these figures are in the public domain; they can be checked at any time by any person in this country.
The highest ridership was between Montreal and Toronto, but in the Atlantic region it was 38 per cent. She referred to VIA Rail but forgot to say that this government took the bull by the horns, because in 1988 it costs Canadian citizens, who are here this evening and who are listening, $1.2 million to keep the line open between Senneterre, Quebec, and Cochrane, Ontario, although the railway line in question raised only $69,000.
I think we should be reasonable. Furthermore, 65,000 Canadian citizens have free passes for travel on board VIA Rail trains. These people are part of the ridership statistics. These are facts that must be considered.
The hon. member for Halifax also told us that the government was destroying Canada's health care system and social safety net. This year alone, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government and the provincial governments will spend $91 billion on health care. This represents $2,600 per Canadian. I think our government is generous.

In concluding I will repeat what she said about the CBC, that we are destroying this corporation. This year, Canadian taxpayers will spend $1.4 to keep the CBC alive. I will give you an example. We are generous because in Halifax we have CBC radio and 80 per cent of the people never listen to CBC radio. Ninety-three per cent never listen to CBC stereo FM, Mr. Speaker. That is the truth.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That's not true!


Denis Pronovost: The hon. member for Halifax says it isn't true.
In concluding, I will say these figures are in the public domain. They were published by BBM, a polling firm, and your colleague from Mount Royal will confirm that any time.

This government is very generous to the CBC. This government will continue to be generous to the CBC but there are also private broadcasting companies in this country that receive no money from the federal government. They are doing a very great job. The Liberal Party and the NDP never recognize the contribution of private broadcasters in this country.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to respond to the comments from the current member for Saint-Mau-rice. I just want to say these statistics are wonderful. First of all, these are the statistics brought to you by the same wonderful group of people who think there are 11 radio stations in Gander, Grand Falls, Newfoundland. They also think there are six radio stations in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. Since Glace Bay is my home town, and one of the central towns of the member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, I am quite sure that our hon. House leader would be surprised to hear that. We would have a lot higher advertising bills in our election campaigns were this the case.
I think consequently that statistics from the current member for Saint-Maurice are possibly slightly suspect. If he would like to check his statistics on the Scotian and the Ocean, he would find that indeed there was a 98 per cent ridership and those were the trains out of Halifax.
I cannot let the comment go unmarked that 83 per cent of Haligonians do not listen to the CBC. This is a base canard that cannot be allowed to go unargued. I can say, as the only member of Parliament as far as I know to
Supply
have received flowers from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation when she was elected, that when I worked for the CBC in Halifax we had an 84 per cent share of the market in Halifax at the time. That may have diminished since I have taken my golden tones to another House. However, I still will tell you that last Friday morning, I, along with thousands of other Haligonians and Nova Scotians attended the CBC Information Morning birthday party. If nobody was listening, why could you not get a parking space for miles around; why were the Sheraton Hotel and environs jammed to the doors by happy CBC listeners? I have no idea, if nobody in Halifax is listening to the CBC, why everybody talks about what they heard on the CBC wherever Haligonians meet.
I suggest that the current member for Saint-Maurice, if he perhaps ever came to Halifax, would know a little bit more about the situation. But in the meantime, he should perhaps leave the representation of Halifax to me.
Oh, wait, sorry, one further comment. I want to say that I did not-and I apologize-make a single comment about what this group has done to the health care system in Canada. I certainly could have. I will be happy to, because it is a disgrace and a disaster. But the member was clearly either not listening or listening to someone else.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you a little story. I hope I have enough time to get to the happy ending, which is when the Conservative government took over the reins of this country.
Let me go back just a little bit in time and talk about a regime that saw itself slipping from power. It said: how do we keep hold of the reins of power?
I hate to attribute motives that may have been less than honourable to past members of this House, but I think evidence shows that there was a very deliberate plan in place by previous governments of this country to keep the reins of power. They used the opiate of the people, their own money, and the federal government's spending power, to keep them sedated, to keep them feeling that somehow everything was rosy, that all things were wonderful and that the time to pay the piper would never come.

June 13, 1991
Supply
I lived in those times. I was a young girl, in fact, when those times occurred. I remember the days in 1967, for example, when we were right at the peak of our international power when we actually had a surplus in this government.
The dream merchant came along who had wonderful things to peddle but did not have anything very solidly founded in reality. He convinced Canadians that if they would just follow his plan for this just society, this new Canada, that somehow all their dreams would come true.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind you that there was something else happening in the world in those days. It was the time of flower power. It was the time when everybody was on something a little strange, smoking weird weeds and things like that. Canadians and the rest of the world had lost touch a little bit with reality.
Canadians can be forgiven for following the song of the pied piper, for getting carried away on these Utopian dreams that said: "We can have it all right now. Everything we want will come to us and it will be ours. Nobody ever has to pay."
Nice story, but like all fairy stories this one had to come to an end. In fact, the pied piper of Hamelin did not have a dream to lead us to. The money he was spending on us kept us sedated, that opiate of the people, our own tax dollars that we use to feed people, to keep them quiet and make them feel secure that everything is all right.
All of that bubble burst, and we came in touch with reality. In 1983-84, I remember as a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Winnipeg and as a member of the community, the absolute desolation that people felt. There were no jobs out there. There was no hope for our youth. We did not think that Canada had a future. We were mired in debt, and worse, we had no leadership. There was no plan. There was no vision. There was no future for Canada.
That changed in 1984. The current Prime Minister came around. This government was elected. It had a plan. It had a sense of the future. It had a sense of direction. We are taking the country toward a goal that has promise, vision and reward. This is not just an illusion. These visions and these promises are based in firm, solid reality.
I am proud to be part of that reality and very proud to be part of that government. I hope that I did not bore you with my speech. The hon. member opposite obviously enjoyed it very much. I saw her applauding. She agreed with every word I said as she so frequently does.
I think that if Canadians at large would really listen to what we are saying and see what we are doing, they would understand that we are building a very firm foundation for the future. There is a Canada out there that we can all feel proud of and one that will give everybody, all of our children, some kind of hope for the future.
Canadians are proud. In two weeks, we will be celebrating Canada Day, and Canadians will have an opportunity to think about what it is that gives us this sense of pride, vision, the future and nation. Part of that will be their own sense of having a firm economic foundation and a government with a sense of leadership, direction and vision. They will be glad that the fairy tale was over in 1984.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being ten o'clock p.m., it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 81(16), and order made Thursday, May 23, 1991, to interrupt the proceedings and put forward every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion no. 1 standing in the name of the hon. President of the Treasury Board.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


Mr. Gagliano:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If you seek unanimous consent, you will find such consent that the vote on Motion No. 1 will apply to Motion No. 2 and Motion No. 3.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on the same point of order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I ask that my name be added to the list of nays on Motions Nos. 2 and 3. Unfortunately I was unable to get into the Chamber in time for the vote on Motion No. 1.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I have the same dilemna. I would like that my name be added to the list of Liberals who will vote against this motion.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I was not here for the first vote, but I would ask that my name be recorded with the nays against Motions Nos. 2 and 3.


Mr. Speaker:: So be it ordered.
The House will now proceed to the deffered vote on the motion No. 2 standing in the name of the honourable President of the Treasury Board.


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Members
Alima nd	Arseneault
Atkinson	Attewell
Crosby (Halifax West)	Dionne
Dorin	Edwards
Fontana	Foster
Hockin	Hughes
Keyes	Leblanc (Longueuil)
MacLaren	Marin
McGuire	McGuire
Merrithew	Nault
Nicholson	Nowlan
Nunziata	Parent
Proud	Rideout
Schneider	Stewart
Thompson	Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)	Vanclief
Van de Walle	Vincent
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-Wood	-Assiniboia)
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


CONCURRENCE IN VOTE 1-NATIONAL REVENUE
Harvie Andre: -That Vote 1, in the amount of $820,602,000, under NATIONAL REVENUE-Customs and Excise-Operating Expenditures in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992 (less the amount voted in Interim Supply), be concurred in.-


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Members
Allmand	Arseneault
Atkinson	Attewell
Crosby (Halifax West)	Dionne
Dorin	Edwards
Fontana	Foster
Hockin	Hughes
Keyes	Leblanc (Longueuil)
MacLaren	Marin
McGuire	McGuire
Merrithew	Nault
Nicholson	Nowlan
Nunziata	Parent
Proud	Rideout
Schneider	Stewart
Thompson	Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)	Vanclief
Van de Walle	Vincent
Wilson (Swift Current -	Maple Creek-Assiniboia)
Wood
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


CONCURRENCE IN MAIN ESTIMATES
Harvie Andre: That the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992, laid upon the table on Tuesday, May 14, 1991, except the items disposed of earlier this day and less the amounts voted in Interim Supply, be concurred in.
Supply


Some hon. members:: No.


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


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


Mr. Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Members
Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing)
Benjamin
Breaugh
Catterall
Dingwall
Baker
Blondin
Campbell (South West Nova)
Clancy
Ferguson

Supply
Finestone
His
Gaffney
Gauthier
Harvard
Hunter
Karpoff
Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast)
Langan (Mission-Coquitlam)
LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-Canso)
MacLellan
Maheu
Marleau
McLaughlin
Milliken
Nystrom
Parker
Robinson
Simmons
Taylor
Fisher
FUlton
Gagliano
Harb
Harvey (Edmonton East) Jordan
Kilger (Stormont-Dundas)
Kindy
Laporte
Lee
Mac William
Manley
McCurdy
Mifflin
Mills
Pagtakhan
Prud'homme
Rodriguez
Skelly (Comox-Alberai) Whittaker-50


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Allmand
Atkinson
Crosby (Halifax West)
Dorin
Fontana
Hockin
Keyes
MacLaren
McGuire
Merrithew
Nicholson
Nunziata
Proud
Schneider
Thompson
Tremblay (Rosemont)
Van de Walle
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Wood
Members
Arseneault
Attewell
Dionne
Edwards
Foster
Hughes
Leblanc (Longueuil) Marin McGuire Nault Nowlan Parent Rideout Stewart Thorkelson Vanclief Vincent ;-Assiniboia)
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, you will find unanimous consent, I believe, that the vote on the Main Estimates will apply to the Supplementary Estimates, the Appropriation Act on second reading, report stage, including committee of the whole and third reading.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the President of the Treasury Board I direct my question to the government House leader as to whether or not the Appropriation Act is in its usual form.


Harvie Andre: I can give the House leader of the Official Opposition that assurance.


Mr. Speaker:: Accordingly, Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992, laid upon the table Monday, May 27, 1991, are being concurred in. Accordingly, Bill C-24, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31, 1992, is deemed read a first time and printed, deemed read a second time and referred to committee of the whole, deemed reported back to the House without amendment, deemed concurred in at the report stage, and deemed read a third time and passed.


CONCURRENCE IN SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES (A), 1991-92
Harvie Andre: That the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1992, laid upon the table May 27, 1991, be concurred in.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
++NAYS


Harvie Andre: that Bill C-24, an act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the Government of Canada for the financial year ending March 31,1992, be read the first time.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.
Mr. Andre (for the President of the TVeasury Board)
thereupon moved that the bill be read the second time and referred to Committee of the Whole.


PAIRED MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
Members
Allmand	Arseneault
Atkinson	Attewell
Crosby (Halifax West)	Dionne
Dorin	Edwards
Fontana	Foster
Hockin	Hughes
Keyes	Leblanc (Longueuil)
MacLaren	Marin
McGuire	McGuire
Merrithew	Nault
Nicholson	Nowlan
Nunziata	Parent
Proud	Rideout
Schneider	Stewart
Thompson	Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)	Vanclief
Van de Walle	Vincent
Wilson (Swift Current -Wood	-Maple Creek-Assiniboia)
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the second time.
Accordingly, the bill was deemed considered in Committee of the Whole and reported back without amendment.


Harvie Andre: that the bill be concurred in.



[Stage Direction]
Members
Allmand	Arseneault
Atkinson	Attewell
Crosby (Halifax West)	Dionne
Dorin	Edwards
Fontana	Foster
Hockin	Hughes
Keyes	Leblanc (Longueuil)
MacLaren	Marin
McGuire	McGuire
Merrithew	Nault
Nicholson	Nowlan
Nunziata	Parent
Proud	Rideout
Schneider	Stewart
Thompson	Thorkelson
Tremblay (Rosemont)	Vanclief
Van de Walle	Vincent
Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-Wood	-Assiniboia)
Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.


Harvie Andre: that the bill be read the third time and passed.


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.


Mr. Speaker:: It being 10.38 p.m., pursuant to the order made Monday, June 10, 1991, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow, at ten o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 10.38 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, June 14,1991