1991-09-17

Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 36(8) of the Standing Orders I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 187 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ORDER IN COUNCIL APPOINTMENTS


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, while I am on my feet, I am pleased to table in both official languages a number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110(1). These are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.



POINT OF ORDER


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I notice that the Minister of National Defence is not in the House to make a statement at this time, and I can appreciate the scheduling difficulties. I am wondering if the House would agree
to allow us to revert to ministerial statements at three o'clock to allow the Minister of National Defence to make a statement to the House.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member has raised a matter for the consideration of the House. Of course it can be done if there is consent. I look to the hon. parliamentary secretary for his response.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have not had a chance to consult with the Minister of National Defence this morning, so may I bring that to his attention? I will certainly come back to the House and advise the House as to whether or not we can do that.


Mr. Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



EXTRADITION ACT


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-31, an act to amend the Extradition Act.


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


Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-269, an act to amend the Copyright Act (fair use).
She said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present this bill once again. In the last session I was very pleased to have an hour of debate on this issue and then it was unanimously referred to the committee, which never considered it. I think one of the frustrations of being a backbencher is that it takes so long to get any issue of importance to your constituents considered.

Routine Proceedings


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 2, 11, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 31, 32, 36, 37, 54, 56, 61, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 71, 77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 88, 91 and 93.1 am surprised nobody called bingo.


Mrs. Maheu: Since 1989, how much has the government spent on the establishment of the Race Relations Network headed by Dr. Ralph Agard?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 5 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $92.
I am informed by Multiculturalism and Citizenship Canada as follows:
Since March 1989, a total of $50,676 has been spent towards the establishment of the Anti-Racism and Human Rights Network.


Mr. Caccia: For each fiscal year since 1988, how many (a) person years (b) dollars have been devoted to research on the effects of climate warming on (i) lakes (ii) fisheries (iii) forestry (iv) wildlife (v) ocean resources, and from which departments or programs were they obtained?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 20 hours
Approximate cost: $360
I am informed by the Departments of Fisheries and Oceans, Environment and Forestry as follows:
Insofar as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is concerned the estimated DFO annual resources since 1988 spent directly on the effects of climate warming on lakes, fisheries and ocean resources are:
			88/89	89/90	90/91
				AP	
a)	(0	Lakes	-	-	-09	Fisheries	8	8	8(V)	Ocean Resources	2	2	2' $000's	b)	0)	Lakes	-	-	-(ii)	Fisheries	80	80	80(v)	Ocean Resources	20	20	20
These numbers exclude salaries and logistic support such as shiptime.
Insofar as the Department of the Environment is concerned:
For the four year period 1988/89 to 1991/92, the following Canadian Wildlife Service A- base resources have been allocated to:
(9	Lakes (i.e. wetlands)	a)	b)North American Waterfowl Management Plan	0.2PY	41K(N	Wildlife:	a)	b)Western & Northern Region	1.0PY	7KNational Wildlife Research Centre	1.0PY	3K
These are total, not annual, expenditures for the four year period.
Insofar as the Department of Forestry is concerned:
(iii) Climate Change and Forestry was first separated as a budgetary activity in fiscal 1989-90. Previously, work done in this field had been included under another activity entitled "Impact of Atmospheric Pollutants on Forests".
FY 1989-90 Total PY allocation 3.0,	$ 16,000	O&M.FY 1990-91 Total PY allocation 9.2,	$ 185,700	O&M.$ 37,000	capital


Mr. Boudria: Did the Customs and Excise Division of Revenue Canada cause to be produced a poster highlighting a logo and the words "A Proud New Image" and, if so, (a) what is the purpose of this poster (b) who prepared the artwork (c) how many copies were produced (d) was any of the work attributed by public tender (e) to whom was the poster sent (f) what was the total cost to the taxpayer?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours
Approximate cost: $72.
I am informed by the Department of National Revenue as follows:
September 17, 1991

Customs and Excise Division of Revenue Canada produced a poster highlighting a logo and the words "A Proud New Image".
The purpose of the poster was to inform the Canadian public and the Customs and Excise employees of the new departmental identity which provides a quick and easy recognition of all Customs and Excise material. Until then, there was no common symbol for Customs and Excise.
The poster was created by the design firm Banfield Seguin and some 12,000 copies were printed.
Before commencing the work on the poster, the Communications Branch invited two designers to discuss their ideas. It was decided by a committee created within the Department to hire the firm Banfield Seguin.
The printer for the poster was chosen by DSS.
The poster was distributed to all Customs and Excise employees and to various offices of Customs and Excise.
The cost of designing the poster and submitting camera-ready artwork with colour separation was $2,171. The cost of printing the poster through DSS was $4,950.
The standardization of one common graphic for use by both Customs and Excise means significant savings.


Mr. Rideout: With respect to the anticipated 1993 closure of Canadian Forces Base in Moncton, has there been any change in the scheduled closing date, and if so, what was the rationale or basis for such change?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 7 hours and 20 minutes
Approximate cost: $134.
I am informed by the Department of National Defence as follows:
In April 1989, it was stated that the closure would occur over a three year period beginning in 1993. Plans are not complete, but it is still anticipated that the final closure of CFB Moncton will occur in 1996.


Mr. Rideout: Has the Department of National Defence called for a contract for the construction of a new supply depot in Moncton, N.B. and, if so, (a) how many responses have there been for this contract (b) when is the awarding of the contract anticipated?
Routine Proceedings


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 6 hours and 55 minutes
Approximate cost: $126.
I am informed by the Department of National Defence as follows:
Stage 1 of the Request for Proposal for construction of a new supply depot in Moncton, New Brunswick was completed in December 1990.
a)	There have been twenty (20) responses to Stage 1 of the Request for Proposals.
b)	Current plans call for the contract to be awarded following the completion of Stage 2 of the Request for Proposal process. The timing of the release of Stage 2 has not yet been determined.


Ms. Campbell (South West Nova): With respect to the Groundfish Development Program under the
Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program, (a) how many proposals have
been approved in Nova Scotia (b) what are the (i) names (ii) locations
of the successful applicants?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours
Approximate cost: $72
I am informed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as follows:
The silver hake portion of the Groundfish Developmental Program was approved on March 20, 1991 and the following six companies in Nova Scotia were given allocations:
1.	Nova Scotia Dragger Fishermen's Association- Yarmouth
2.	IceKing Seafoods Ltd.-Bedford
3.	D'Eon Fisheries-West Pubnico
4.	Laurence Sweeney Fisheries-Halifax
5.	Arctic Fisheries Ltd.-Yarmouth
6.	Kwitamaqney Corporation-Cape Breton
The following companies were given allocations from the remaining stocks under the program on May 23, 1991:

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings
1.	National Sea Products Ltd.-Halifax
2.	Clearwater Fine Foods Inc.-Bedford
3.	Marque Resources-Bedford


Miss Campbell (South West Nova): With respect to the Fisheries Alternatives Program under the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program, (a) how many proposals have been approved in Nova Scotia (b) what are the (i) names (ii) locations of the successful applicants?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 5 hours and 20 minutes
Approximate Cost: $98.
I am informed by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency as follows:
With respect to the Fisheries Alternatives Program under the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program, there have been 11 proposals approved in Nova Scotia. The names and locations of these successful applicants are as follows:
1.	Town of Shelburne, Shelburne, N.S.
2.	Shelburne County Business Development Centre Limited, Shelburne, N.S.
3.	St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, N.S.
4.	Beverly Spears, Little Dover, N.S.
5.	Sandy Kavanaugh, Canso, N.S.
6.	Shelburne County Boatbuilders Association, Clarks Harbour, N.S.
7.	Guysborough Tourist Complex Limited, Guysbo-rough, N.S.
8.	Lockeport Recreation Enterprises Limited, Locke-port, N.S.
9.	John Jarvis Holdings Limited, Whitehead, N.S.
10.	The Dorian Motel, Canso, N.S.
11.	Louisbourg Harbourfront Park Limited, Louis-bourg, N.S.


Mr. Whittaker: 1. Did the government issue a pamphlet in the beginning of 1991 regarding Child Resistant Packaging, subtitled Information for Seniors, and if so, (a) from which department were the funds allocated from (b) from what specific budgets were the funds obtained (c) what are the overall amounts of the budgets (d) to
whom were these pamphlets sent (e) what method was used in determining the recipients of these pamphlets (f) what is the total cost of distributing these pamphlets?
2. Was the contract for this printing put out to tender (a) was the cost of black-and-white printing considered over full-colour printing (b) what was the cost difference between black-and-white printing and full-colour printing (c) what is the total cost of printing this pamphlet?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 11 hours and 20 minutes
Approximate cost: $204.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
1.	Yes
(a)	As part of the Department of National Health and Welfare's increased communication emphasis, and in follow up to concerns over the misappropriate use and reliance on child-resistant packaging (CRP) that is intended to deter but not stop all child poisonings, the Department authorized publication of a pamphlet.
(b)	Funds were allocated from the Drugs Directorate operating budget.
(c)	The overall amount of this budget was $13,919,321.
(d)	The pamphlets were sent to all recipients of Family Allowance and Old Age Security cheques.
(e)	Family Allowance was chosen as a distribution vehicle as this method identifies on a national basis all families with children that may be impacted. Old Age Security recipients were also selected, again as a universal distribution mechanism, to reach grandparents who are caregivers and have children visit their home. Seniors have recognized difficulties with CRP and, therefore, often do not properly close the containers.
(f)	The total cost of distributing the pamphlets subtitled Information for Seniors was $2,949.00.
2.	The contract for printing this pamphlet was put out to tender.
(a)	The cost of black-and-white printing was considered.
(b)	The cost difference between black-and-white and full-colour printing was $5,808.68.

September 17, 1991

(c)	The total cost of printing this pamphlet was $52,806.11.


Mr. Murphy: Since June 6, 1990, has any correspondence or communications been exchanged between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, any Cabinet Ministers and/or their agents and the Members of Parliament for Levis, his lawyer or anybody working on behalf of the Member for Levis, on the issue of Bill C-79, and, if so, (a) list the correspondence and communications (b) in any of the communications and/or correspondence was there a request for action with regard to Bill C-79, and, if so, list the persons who made the requests.


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 3 hours
Approximate cost: $54.
There was no correspondence or communications exchanged between the Privy Council Office and the Member of Parliament for Levis on the issue of Bill C-79. A copy of Order in Council P.C. 1991-813 dated May 7, 1991 was faxed to the Member of Parliament for Levis on May 7, 1991 from the Privy Council Office.
As for any communications between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Ministers and the Member of Parliament for Levis, it is not the policy of the Government to divulge communications between Members of Parliament and Ministers.


Mr. Murphy: Since June 6, 1990, has any correspondence or communications been exchanged between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, any Cabinet Ministers and/or their agents and the Member of Parliament for Lotbiniere, his lawyer or anybody working on behalf of the Member for Lotbiniere, on the issue of Bill C-79, and, if so (a) list the correspondence and communications (b) in any of the communications and/or correspondence was there a request for action with regard to Bill C-79, and, if so, list the persons who made the requests.
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House
Routine Proceedings
of Commons): Time required to prepare this answer: 3 hours
Approximate cost: $54.
There was no correspondence or communications on the issue of Bill C-79 between the Privy Council Office and the Member of Parliament for Lotbiniere.
As for any communications between the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's Office, Cabinet Ministers and the Member of Parliament for Lotbiniere, it is not the policy of the Government to divulge communications between the Members of Parliament and Ministers.

Question No. 36-Mr. Young (Acadie-Bathurst):
How many classification audits of Departmental Public Service
positions were completed in 1988,1989 and 1990 and, in each case,
what were the findings for each department?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 5 hours and 25 minutes
Approximate cost: $97.
I am informed by the Treasury Board Secretariat as follows:
See attached.
During the 1988-89 biannual audit, 3,303 positions throughout the Public Service were audited. Two hundred and forty-eight, or 6.4 per cent of the sample, were considered to have been incorrectly evaluated. This is a significant improvement over the results of the last audit conducted in 1985-1986 when 11 percent of 3,568 positions were found to have been incorrectly classified.
Annex A shows the departments audited and the results for the biannual audits of 1988-1989 and 1985-1986.
The third triennial audit has been underway since February 1991. The departments should have completed their reports before the end of February 1992.

Routine Proceedings


[Stage Direction]
DEPARTMENT	PERFORMANCE	PERFORMANCE
	1985-86	1988-89
PSC	96.0%	96.1%IDA	95.8%	96.0%CAE	95.0%	96.0%DND	95.0%	95.0%CSC	95.0%	93.0%SEC	94.0%	94.4%JUS	92.6%	92.0%DVA	92.2%	94.0%LAB	92.2%	92.0%COM	92.1%	90.2%NHW	92.0%	98.0%NCC	91.4%	-DFO	91.0%	93.0%EIC	91.0%	96.0%EXT	91.0%	96.0%DOE	90.4%	92.9%TBS	90.1%	94.4%AGR	89.8%	92.0%EMR	89.0%	88.0%ARC	88.9%	88.8%NLI	88.9%	93.3%CTC	88.9%	RIE	88.0%	CCA	87.3%	97.0%DSS	87.0%	87.9%MOT	86.0%	97.3%IAN	84.8%	93.5%FIN	80.4%	100%STC	79.2%	87.0%RCMP	78.6%	94.0%NMC	78.6%	-TAX	78.0%	92.0%DPW	70.6%	93.0%417 of 3,568 positions	248 of 3,303 positionsTOTAL	incorrectly evaluated	incorrectly evaluated(11%)	(6.4%)
Mr. Young (Acadie-Bathurst): For the classification audits of Departmental Public Service positions prior to 1988, have all the observations made relative to over classification etc. been corrected and, if not, which departmental audits have not been corrected and when will these be corrected?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 5 hours and 32 minutes
Approximate cost: $98.
I am informed by the Treasury Board Secretariat as follows:
See attached.
The results of the 1985-1986 biannual audit showed 417 of a total sample of 3,568 positions had been incorrectly evaluated (11 percent error rate). Based on
available information, the vast majority, if not all, of the proposed corrective measures have been implemented to our satisfaction.
Since the last audit, Treasury Board Secretariat has introduced a number of control measures to ensure that each year the departments undertake classification control and audit activities. Reports are produced quarterly and annually for Treasury Board review and analysis in order to rate the departments on the quality of then-classification control systems. Only departments which have received a "Fully Satisfactory" rating and maintain a rate of incorrect decisions below 10 percent are granted increased classification authority.
This annual report is also one of the elements used in the comprehensive evaluation of the departments.


Mr. Wappel: Is Charles Ng presently enrolled in any inmate pay programs, and,
if so, (a) which program (b) what level of inmate pay is he receiving?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $74.
I am informed by the Department of the Solicitor General as follows:
Charles Ng is on an inmate pay program.
(a), (b);
Specific information pertaining to Mr. Ng's involvement in programming as well as the level of pay he may be receiving is personal information about Mr. Ng and therefore cannot be disclosed as it would contravene the Privacy Act.
Federal inmates may earn anywhere from $5.25 to $6.90 per day in an institution, depending on their performance on the job. Inmates willing to work but who are not working because of job shortages, medical reasons or lack of supervision receive a base rate of $1.60 per day. Inmates who refuse to either work or participate in institutional programs are not paid.


Mr. Manley: What is the total cost that the government will incur for the
complete relocation of (a) the Canadian Space Agency to St.
Hubert, Quebec (b) the National Energy Board to Calgary?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 18 hours and 35 minutes
Approximate cost: $334.
September 17, 1991

I am informed as follows:
a)	Industry, Science and Technology Canada:
The total cost incurred to date by the Canadian Space Agency in relation to its relocation to St. Hubert is $334,488.
Public Works Canada:
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is presently located in leased premises at 500 Rene-Levesque Boulevard West in Montreal, in a building belonging to TRIZEC. The lease commenced January 1, 1991, and will terminate December 31, 1992, with two six-month options available.
The CSA occupies 2, 744.6 m2u (3,012.6 m2r) of office space spread out over several floors with nine interior parking spaces, at an annual cost of $1,054,259.37. The Agency also occupies 50.2 m2u (55.2 m2r) of storage space in the basement of the same building at an annual cost of $7,672.14.
The total to Public Works Canada for the interior fit-up of the Agency was $411,688.64.
b)	National Energy Board:
The NEB estimates that the relocation of the Board's operations to Calgary will cost $20.5 million. In addition, it is estimated that the department of Public Works will incur incremental cost of $6 million to lease and fit-up office accommodations for the Board. Eighty-five percent of these costs, or $22.5 million, will be recovered through cost recovery charges.
The cost related to the relocation of that portion of the Board which was transferred from the Canada Oil and Gas Lands Administration (approximately 15 percent) will be excluded from cost recovery.
The actual costs incurred by the government will be some $4 million.


Mr. Hovdebo: 1. With respect to the CIDA funding cuts to contracts for (a) CUSO (b) OCSD (c) Canadian Teachers' Federation (d) Canada World Youth (e) Canadian Crossroads International (f) CECI (i) what specific criteria were used to select each organization for cuts (ii) were the organizations consulted concerning these cuts and, if not, why not, (iii) why were these contracts not honoured (iv) will the anticipated savings of the CIDA funds as a result of these cuts be placed in the ODA program reserve?
Routine Proceedings
2. Does CIDA anticipate any further cuts to (a) the above noted
organizations (b) other organizations?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 6 hours and 20 minutes
Approximate cost: $115.
I am informed by the Canadian International Development Agency as follows:
1.	i) CIDA has used the following criteria for each of the organizations mentioned:
-to make funds available to meet urgent new requests for official development assistance received or anticipated by the Government;
-to maintain support for the activities and programs identified as the main responsibilities of these organizations:
-not to jeopardize the viability of these organizations.
(ii)	No, because decisions resulting from the tabling of the February budget and the March estimates could not be finalized until just before the 1991-92 fiscal year began. CIDA hastened to make them available to partner organizations as quickly as possible, that is, before the fiscal year was well under way.
(iii)	CIDA does not have contracts with the NGOs mentioned, but rather contribution agreements. Multiyear contribution agreements between CIDA and Canada World Youth, Canadian Crossroads International, OCSD and the Canadian Teachers' Federation had to be amended owing to limited budgetary resources and the large number of new demands on official development assistance budget. Contribution agreements with CUSO and CECI had not yet been signed when the budgets for these organizations were announced. Furthermore, payments for multi-year contribution agreements are also subject to an appropriation by the Parliament of Canada for the fiscal year in which the payment is to be made.
(iv)	The funds saved will be used to meet the new demands on the official development assistance budget.
2.	a) No further reduction in CIDA's contributions to the organizations mentioned is planned in 1991-92.

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings
b) No further reductions are planned for CIDA's repayment of the principal at maturity. The maturity contributions to other organizations whose funding lev- date for all outstanding loans is twenty years from the els were reduced in 1991-92.	issue date.


Mr. Laporte: Has money from the Canada Pension Plan been loaned to the federal government or to a provincial government and, if so, (a) which governments owe money to the Canada Pension Plan (b) how much does each government owe (c) what are the repayment arrangements (d) what rate of interest is being charged on outstanding loans?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 3 hours and 45 minutes
Approximate cost: $69
I am informed by the Department of Finance as follows:
Money from the Canada Pension Plan has been loaned to the federal and provincial governments.
(a), (b)
The governments owing money to the Canada Pension Plan as at March 31,1991, and the amounts owing are as follows:
Newfoundland	781,175,000.00
Prince Edward Island	168,166,000.00
Nova Scotia	1,428,780,000.00
New Brunswick	1,058,357,000.00
Quebec	136,076,000.00
Ontario	17,042,716,000.00
Manitoba	2,031,122,000.00
Saskatchewan	1,686,077,000.00
Alberta	4,534,771,000.00
British Columbia	5,298,482,000.00
Yukon	3,726,000.00
Norhtwest Territories	0.00
Canada	3,492,216,000.00
Total	37,661,664,000.00
(c) The repayment arrangements consist of semi-annual interest payments on the principal amount and full
(d)	The rate of interest being charged on outstanding loans varies as outlined in the Canada Pension Plan- Part III, Section III, Paragraph (2)(a). The Act states that the rate is calculated as follows:
"in the case of an obligation having a term to maturity of twenty years, on the basis of the average yield to maturity as determined by the Minister of Finance of all outstanding obligations of the Goverment of Canada that are not limited or restricted as to the negotiability or the transfer or assignment thereof and that have terms to maturity of twenty years or more, weighted according to the amounts of those obligations then outstanding,
__yy


Mr. Laporte: What steps has the CRTC taken towards implementing
recommendations of PSAC 2000?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 5 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $92.
I am informed by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission as follows:
The Commission, in the spirit of PS2000 had, in the Fall of 1990, initiated an internal consultative process with employees. Known as the Employee Consultative Committee (ECC), its objective was to allow employees the opportunity to identify issues and concerns in their work environment.
The process was structured around focus groups animated by a professional in the management communication field, and supported by questionnaires completed by staff. 'The process resulted in a report identifying close to 70 recommendations for change dealing with every aspect of the work environment from air quality to improving management styles.
Senior management of the Commission gave the ECC report its approval and support, and established, in the spring of 1991, the "Task Force for Revitalization", a committee of six employees with a six month mandate to act as a catalyst for change within the Commission. The Task Force's role is to implement, as soon as possible, all recommendations of the ECC report that prove feasible.
September 17, 1991

Two months into the Task Force's mandate, several initiatives have begun to address employees' immediate concerns, such as overcrowding of office space and an orientation program and kit for new and existing employees. The Task Force is also addressing the broader questions of career development by, among other things, examining the possibility of establishing an assignment program. The question of how the operational budget concept and management accountability will be introduced is being addressed by a pilot project in three branches. A complete review of the performance appraisal system is being undertaken, including the introduction of an incentive and awards system.
In terms of the PS2000 focus on service to the public, the Commission had, prior to the tabling of the PS2000 White Paper, undertaken internal reviews on streamlining its operations in both broadcasting (Ross 'Iask Force) and telecommunications (Sherman Task Force). Each of these studies had a specific goal of improving turnaround time of decisions and public notices and reducing the associated costs to the Commission's clients.
In addition, because of the nature of its regulatory system (primarily through the public hearing process), the Commission has always undertaken extensive consultation with its clients as part of its policy formulation and decision-making process.


Mr. Karpoff: 1.	Has the government been supplied with a list of tobacco (a) additives (b) constituents as required by sections 17 and 19 of the Tobacco Products Control Regulations?
2.	Is the government aware of the presence of such additives and constituents as (a) propanediol (b) glycerol (c) diethylene glycol (d) triethylene glycol (e) D-sorbitol contained in (i) tobacco (ii) wrappers (iii) filters (iv) main or sidestream smoke and, if so, is the government aware that such substances can cause cancer?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 9 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $169.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
1. Yes.
Routine Proceedings
2. (a), (b), (c), (d), (e) and (i), (ii), (iii), (iv)
The information provided under sections 17 and 19 are considered to be trade secrets by the tobacco industry whose members have requested confidentiality. This request to confidentiality legally prohibits the Department of National Health and Welfare from answering whether these chemicals actually are being used by the Canadian tobacco industry.
The chemicals referred to by the hon. member can be used as humectants by the tobacco industry to promote retention of moisture. Of the five chemicals, for only one, diethylene glycol, is there limited evidence of carcinogenicity in animals. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has yet to establish whether this compound is a potential carcinogen. The other four chemicals have not been shown to be carcinogenic in studies conducted to date.


Mr. Karpoff: Has the Department of National Health and Welfare audited all accounts connected with the National AIDS Research Program in respect to the establishment of a National AIDS Registry and, if so, (a) what were the findings (b) were usual standards of accounting and project management adhered to (c) has the advice of the Auditor General or other outside source of professional advice been sought to ensure that such standards will apply to federally-sponsored research projects?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 8 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $145.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
The Department of National Health and Welfare requested the Audit Services Bureau of the Department of Supply and Services to carry out an audit of the University of Toronto's accounts with respect to a Contribution Agreement between the University and the Department for the design phase of a Treatment Information System for AIDS/HIV (TISAH). This audit was for the period June 15, 1990 to December 31, 1991.
(a)	The audit found that expenditures of $386,870 were appropriately incurred against this project, subject to the

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings
acceptance by the Department of one non-arms length transaction in the amount of $27,000.
(b)	The audit included a general review of the accounting procedures and such tests of accounting records and other supporting evidence as the auditors considered necessary to conduct their audit.
(c)	The Auditor General periodically reviews the Department's contribution programs; the Department implements recommendations made as a result of these audits. All contribution agreements of the Department contain a clause which requires the recipient of Contributions funding to maintain appropriate financial accounts and records. The right of audit by the Federal Government is a standard clause in all such contribution agreements.


Mr. Karpoff: Has the Department of National Health and Welfare taken a public position against the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission Public Notice 1990-86 entitled "Proposed Amendments to the Television Broadcasting Regulations, 1987, Radio Regulations, 1986 and Specialty Services Regulations, 1990" regarding the advertising of hard liquor beverages and, if so, what is the budget of the department for anti-alcohol abuse advertising on broadcast media for the fiscal years (a) 1989-90 (b) 1990-91 (c) 1991-92?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 6 hours and 55 minutes
Approximate cost: $125.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
The Department of National Health and Welfare has taken a public position against the CRTC Public Notice
1990-86. The Public Notice specified that public comments should relate to specific evidence (or the lack thereof) in support of or against the distinction made by the existing regulations in the broadcast advertising of beer, wine, coolers and spirits.
The Minister's response to the CRTC indicated that this was not a useful approach because the question posed cannot be given either an affirmative or a negative answer.
The Minister emphasized his belief that it does not serve the public interest to make a decision on the proposed amendments on the basis of comments for which no adequate scientific answer is available. At the
same time, basing a decision on responses to this question alone ignores broader and more relevant issues raised by the proposed regulatory amendments.
The Minister's submission to the CRTC also indicated that, while the Association of Canadian Distillers might initially restrict itself to its stated intentions of airing only moderation messages, the Association might decide at a later date to exercise its right to advertise its products. The Minister emphasized his concerns that this could lead to a significant increase in the total volume of broadcast ads promoting alcohol products, thus increasing the exposure of children and adolescents to such product promotions. In addition, the visibility of cautionary messages concerning the negative consequences of unwise alcohol use would be further obscured by the resultant increases in promotional messages about drinking.
The Department implements two public awareness and information campaigns which address issues related to alcohol abuse: the "Really Me/Drogues, pas besoinV campaign of Canada's Drug Strategy; and the "Play it Smart/Afoi, j'ai toute ma tetel" campaign of the National Program on Impaired Driving.
(a)	1989-90
Radio:
Television:
Total:
(b)	1990-91
Radio:
Television:
Total:
(a) 1991-92 (Projected)
Radio:
Television:
Total:


Mr. Karpoff: Does the federal government support the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes developed by UNICEF and the World Health Organization for adoption into legally enforceable legislation for all countries and (a) if so, what efforts are being made to have the Code adopted in Canada and when will the Code take effect (b) if not, why not?


[Stage Direction]
September 17, 1991
Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours and 55 minutes
Approximate cost: $89.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
Although the federal government supports in principle the World Health Organization (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes, it does not support the adoption of the WHO International Code into legally enforceable legislation for all countries. Because of the universal scope of the WHO International Code, some of its provisions are neither applicable nor appropriate for implementation in Canada.
The Department has for almost a decade supported breastfeeding as the preferred form of infant feeding. Canada also played a key role in developing and promoting the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes.
In 1981, after the adoption of the Code by the World Health Assembly, the Department obtained unanimous support for the aim and principles of the Code from all Canadian provinces.
The provinces felt that the Code should be implemented in Canada through education and health promotion rather than through legislation or regulations.
The Department has consistently taken a strong position with the Canadian infant formula industry and urged them to assume their responsabilities under the International Code. In 1987, departmental negotiations with the formula industry, through the Canadian Infant Formula Association (CIFA), led to the industry's agreement to respect the aim and principles of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes.
On October 28, 1987, CIFA members voluntarily adopted the CIFA Code of Practice.
The CIFA Code represents the industry position on the WHO International Code as adapted to the Canadian situation.
In addition, Canada recently signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, again
Routine Proceedings
affirming our support for breastfeeding as a contribution to children's health. The Convention is now being reviewed for ratification.


Mr. Holtmann: Has the Long Plains Indian Reserve ever filed a land claim related to property currently being used by Canadian Forces Base Portage la Prairie and, if so, when and under what conditions was it filed?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $73.
I am informed by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as follows:
No, the Long Plain Indian Band has not filed a claim to land being used by the Canadian Forces Base near Portage La Prairie. However, the band does have a general claim under treaty for additional land. On May 10, 1991, the band submitted a band council resolution stating its interest in acquiring the land Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie as part of a settlement of the claim because the base is in its treaty area.


Mr. Whittaker: With respect to the Prime Minister's diplomatic trip to Japan in May 1991, was a private jet used because of possible delays in the originally scheduled flight and, if so, (a) what was the gross additional cost of the private charter (b) what was the difference in net cost between the original scheduled flight and the subsequent private charter (c) who was scheduled to travel on the original flight (d) who travelled with the Prime Minister on the private charter (e) was there a difference in the passenger lists between the original scheduled flight and the private charter?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 2 hours and 25 minutes
Approximate cost: $44.
I am informed by the Offices of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council as follows:
No.


Ms. Campbell (South West Nova): With respect to the Goods and Services Thx, how many individuals have qualified for the maximum GST credit and had the rebate fully withheld and applied to outstanding tax arrears?

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 4 hours
Approximate cost: $72.
I am informed by the Department of National Revenue as follows:
Goods and Services Tax (GST) Credits are determined each year based on family status and income. Individuals may apply for GST Credit benefits on behalf of themselves, their spouses and their children. As a result, there is a maximum GST Credit which differs for each possible family make-up. For example, the maximum GST Credit based on 1990 GST Credit application forms for a single person with no children is $290, for a single person with one child is $480, for a spouse claiming on behalf of a family with two children is $580 and so on, adding $100 for each additional eligible child.
Revenue Canada, Taxation does not maintain statistics on the number of individuals who received the maximum GST Credits for their particular family make-ups nor does the Department track the number of individuals who had their full GST Credit applied against outstanding tax arrears. To date, approximately 4 per cent of the total value of GST Credit benefits have been applied to outstanding tax liabilities or whitheld pursuant to court orders under the Family Orders and Agreements Enforcement Assistance Act.


Miss Campbell (South West Nova): With respect to the recent three year joint marketing accord signed between Tourism Canada and the Saga Group Ltd., (a) how many similar joint agreements were signed during the fiscal year 1990-91 (b) how much money has been devoted to the distribution of promotional material?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 21 hours and 50 minutes
Approximate cost: $394.
I am informed by the Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism) as follows:
a)	Nil
b)	A total of $412,000 was devoted to the distribution of promotional material in 1990/91.


Mr. MacAulay: With respect to the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Package (AFAP), will the government provide assistance to fishermen in need of assistance to remain in the groundfish fishing industry and, if so, (a) what is the total dollar amount allocated and/or spent for (i) each Atlantic province (ii) Quebec (b) how many people in (i) each Atlantic province (ii) Quebec have received or will receive assistance?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 7 hours
Approximate cost: $126.
I am informed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as follows:
There are components of the Atlantic Fisheries Adjustment Program (AFAP) which will assist fishermen to diversify their operations and/or improve the economic viability of their fishing enterprise.
(a)	(i) & (ii) Allocations of funds are not made on a provincial basis. Fishermen can submit proposals for funding to Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to undertake a particular project which will benefit their fishing operations. However, the Program is not meant to subsidize their fishing activity but rather to complement their present activity for greater viability.
(b)	(i) & (ii) To date about forty (40) fishermen and fishermen groups have received funding. Indirectly, funds provided to processors have also benefitted fishermen by opening new markets for underutilized species. The number of fishermen receiving funds under AFAP depends on the number of proposals received and the amount of funding available over the five year program to fund those proposals.


Mr. Milliken: 1.	With respect to commissions paid to private real estate agents by the Department of National Defence, (a) is there an established commission rate and, if so, what is it (b) are there any regional variations and, if so, what are they (c) during 1990, what was the rate amount paid per base, for the sale or purchase of residences belonging to military personnel in Canada?
2.	With respect to Canadian Forces Base Kingston, what are the names of the real estate agents who received commissions and how much did each agent receive?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 18 hours and 10 minutes.

September 17, 1991

Approximate cost: $328.
I am informed by the Department of National Defence as follows:
1.	The Department of National Defence has no pecuniary relationship with any private real estate agents. All payments for real estate fees are made to military members as reimbursement for commissions paid to agents contracted by the individual members to sell their private residences.
a)	The Department normally will not reimburse fees that are based on a rate of commission higher than the multiple listing rate recommended by the area real estate board;
b)	rates vary between provinces and municipalities and because the Department does not deal directly with agents, no record of actual rates paid is maintained;
c)	as rates are set by local area real estate boards for the general public, the Department does not keep track of the rates paid by base.
2.	Because the Department does not deal directly with real estate agents, and Departmental information systems have not yet perfected the cost capturing of relocation expenses such as real estate fees to this level of detail, payments to individual agents are not tracked separately. As such, there is no practical way to determine an accurate dollar value of real estate fees reimbursed to members at CFB Kingston.


Ms. Clancy: In 1989, did the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada deny a request to have St. Mary's Cathedral in Halifax, N.S., declared a national historic building or a building of architectural significance and, if so, (a) what were the reasons for the refusal (b) how many other applications were made and refused?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 8 hours and 35 minutes
Approximate cost: $154.
I am informed by the Department of the Environment as follows:
a) At its February 1989 meeting the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC) considered the possible national significance of St. Mary's Basilica in Halifax, N.S. It was the Board's recommendation that:
Routine Proceedings
While St. Mary's Basilica was undoubtedly of considerable regional importance given its place in the history of Catholicism in Nova Scotia, it was not prepared to recommend that the Cathedral was of national historic or architectural significance.
Further, the Board stated that it would be pleased to give further consideration to the possibility of erecting a plaque at the Basilica, should studies be presented to it in the future, on religious leaders in Canada or examining themes such as the emancipation of Nova Scotia Catholics, which indicated that such action was indeed warranted.
b) Other applications made and refused in 1989 include:
1)	Naval and Military Establishments, Penetangui-shene, Ont.
2)	Old Brewery Bay (Leacock Residence), Orillia, Ont.
3)	Kingston General Hospital, Kingston, Ont.
4)	Pearse House, Scarborough, Ont.
5)	Chalmers Wesley United Church, Quebec, Que.
6)	Former Public Market, Sainte-Scholastique, Que.
7)	Peake Buildings, Charlottetown, P.E.I.


Mr. Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing): Has the government taken any steps to stop clearcut logging in
Wood Buffalo National Park and, if so, what are they?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 9 hours and 5 minutes
Approximate cost: $164.
I am informed by the Department of the Environment as follows:
The Canadian Parks Service has been negotiating with Canadian Forest Products Ltd. since January 1991 to seek an end to the legal logging operations in Wood Buffalo National Park. Progress continues to be made through these negotiations.
Commencing in January 1991, the Canadian Parks Service and Canadian Forest Products Ltd. agreed to new harvesting standards for the logging operations which better protect the natural ability of the forest to grow back after logging. These standards will apply to any future logging operations, if they should occur.

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Taylor: For the fiscal year 1991-92, has the government allocated any (a) financial (b) personnel resources to the enforcement of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and, if so, what are they?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this
answer:	6 hours and 50 minutes
Approximate cost:	$124
I am informed by the Department of the Environment as follows:
Environment Canada (a) $3.8 million
(b) 45 Enforcement Officers Justice Canada	(a) $904 K


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if questions Nos. 1, 9,19 and 38 could be made Orders for Returns, these returns would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Questions Nos. 1, 9, 19, 38 be deemed to have been made Orders for Returns?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mrs. Maheu: Since 1990, for the Race Relations and Cross Cultural Under-standing Program, (a) which groups and individuals have received grants or contributions (b) how much did each receive (c) for what event and/or purpose was the money given?
Return tabled.


Mr. Robinson: Since 1900, has Canada Customs prohibited, subjected to administrative review or classified for restricted circulation any books, magazines, pamphlets and/or flyers intended for import and, if so, (a) what were their titles (b) what were the reasons for prohibition, review or classification for restricted circulation (c) for each title listed, what was the time during which prohibition, review or classification for restricted circulation was in force?
Return tabled.


Mr. Boudria: Has Revenue Canada retained the services of consultants to install and operate any of the hardware or software relating to the administration of the GST and, if so, in each case (a) what is their name (b) what is their usual address of business (c) were they chosen by public tender process and, if not, (d) why not (e) when were their services contracted (f) how long are the contracts (g) what is the cost?
Return tabled.


Mr. Young (Acadie-Bathurst): How many audits on Departmental Contract Administration were made in 1989 and 1990 by Central Agencies (a) of which departments (b) what were the findings by department?
Return tabled.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred questions Nos. 8, 13, 14, 26, 27, 34, 97 and 98.
Because of the number and the length of some of these responses, I would ask that they be printed in Hansard as if read.

*


Mr. Saint-Julien: During the period from October 1,1990 to June 1,1991, has VIA Rail had to cancel passenger trains, due to unexpected circumstances, on the following three return routes: Montreal-Senneterre, Seneterre-La Sarre and Senneterre-Cochrane, and, if trains have been cancelled on these routes (i) on which routes (ii) for what reasons (iii) the dates and times of the cancellations (iv) the number of passengers affected (v) how many taxis did VIA Rail send in each case (vi) for how many passengers (vii) at what cost (viii) how many buses did

VIA Rail rent to transport the passengers (ix) at what cost, and (x) how
much did it cost VIA Rail for meals and rooms for the passengers?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 33 hours and 51 minutes
Approximate cost: $610.
I am informed by the Department of Transport as follows:
VIA Rail Canada Inc. advises as follows:
(i to x)
From October 1, 1990 to December 9, 1990, on Tuesdays and Thursdays the Senneterre-Cochrane trains were turned at Taschereau. Because of the poor condition of the track between Taschereau and Cochrane it was impossible for these trains to complete the round-trip in time to depart Senneterre for Montreal on schedule. VIA did not provide transport during this period beyond Taschereau on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
On March 28, 1991, the Senneterre-Montreal train was terminated at Hervey because of a freight derailment and 58 passengers were transferred by bus to Montreal. Two buses were used, one local and one express, at a cost of $790.50.
On May 29, 1991, as a result fo the same derailment, 60 passengers were bused from Montreal to Hervey where they boarded the train for Senneterre. Two buses were used, one local and one direct, at a cost of $790.50.
On May 26, 1991, the Senneterre-Montreal train was terminated at Duplessis due to a freight derailment. The 100 passengers were transported on three buses to La Tuque. Ninety of the passengers continued on two buses from La Tuque to Montreal. On arrival in Montreal, three passengers were accommodated at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The cost of meals and accommodation was approximately $3,600.00 and $2,800.19 was paid to charter the buses.
On May 27, 1991, as a result of the same derailment, the Montreal-Senneterre train and ten passengers were transported by bus from Montreal to La Tuque at a cost of $1,070.00. Train service was cancelled between La
Routine Proceedings
Tuque and Duplessis. The train operated from Duplessis to Senneterre.
On May 28, 1991, because of the same derailment, the Senneterre-Montreal train was cancelled. Twenty-five passengers were transported by bus between La TUque and Montreal. Two buses were chartered one for local passengers and the other for through passengers at a cost of $2,140.00.
On May 29, 1991, the Montreal-Senneterre train was cancelled, also due to the same derailment. One bus was chartered to transport 24 passengers from Montreal to La Tuque at a cost of $1,070.00.
*


Mr. Saint-Julien: During the period from 1980 to 1991, were Hydro-Quebec tariff structure contracts entered into by the federal government with Native villages in Quebec in order to give these villages preferential rates, and, if so, (a) how many (b) in which villages, and (c) at what rates?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 24 hours and 20 minutes.
Approximate cost: $438.
I am informed by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development as follows:
No. The federal government does not have any arrangement with Hydro-Quebec to provide electricity to native villages.
The department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is only responsible for the supply of electricic-ity in one Cree village (Waskaganish), where power is provided by generators.
*


Mr. Saint-Julien: Has VIA Rail awarded a cleaning contract for passenger trains in the town of Senneterre, for trains running between Montreal and Senneterre, and Amos and La Sarre, and, if so, (a) to whom (b) how much is the contract worth (c) how many bidders were there?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 10 hours and 7 minutes
Approximate cost: $182.
I am informed by the Department of Transport as follows:

September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings
Via Rail Canada Inc. advises as follows:
a)	VIA has awarded a contract to J.R Special Inc. to clean the Senneterre-Taschereau trains in Thschereau. (CN cleans the Senneterre-Cochrane trains in Cochrane and VIA cleans the Montreal-Senneterre trains in Montreal).
b)	The value of the contract is of a proprietary nature and cannot be released for competitive reasons.
c)	Two bidders.
*


Mr. Comuzzi: For the fiscal year 1991-1992, were government funds allocated through the Department of (a) Transport (b) Environment (c) Fisheries and Oceans (d) Agriculture to address the infestation of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes system and, if so, in terms of (i) dollars (ii) person-years (iii) percentage of total for research (iv) percentage of total for prevention of further spread (v) percentage of total for cleanup, what total amounts?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 8 hours.
Approximate cost: $144.
I am informed as follows:
Transport Canada:
a)	(i) For fiscal year 1991-1992, Transport Canada's Marine Group includes a project in its R&D program for the study of 'Ballast Water Organisms in the Great Lakes' with a total cost estimate of $100,000. While not specific to the problem of zebra mussels, they are included in the scope of the project.
(ii)	There are no person-years attached to the project as it is intended for contracting out.
(iii)	The project's cost of $100,000 represents about 2.5 per cent of the total planned research and development expenditure in 1991-1992 for the Marine Group.
(iv)	& (v) Answers to these elements of the question cannot be given at this time.
Environment Canada:
b)	(i) The Department of the Environment is spending a total of $140,000 in fiscal year 1991-1992 on the zebra mussel. Of this amount, $100,000 has been transferred to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to supplement its research and monitoring program. The remaining $40,000 has been awarded to a University of Guelph researcher through the Great Lakes University Research Fund. The total research grant is $60,000 with the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council contributing $20,000.
(ii)	No person-years have been allocated.
(iii)	100 percent of the total is for research.
(iv)	Zero percent is for prevention of further spread.
(v)	Zero percent is for cleanup.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada:
c)	(i) Total dollars $210,000 *
(ii)	Person-years 1.2
(iii)	Percentage of total for research 72 per cent ($151,200)
(iv)	Percentage of total for prevention of further spread 28 per cent ($58,800)
(v)	Percentage of total for cleanup 0 per cent.
* $100,000 transferred from the Department of the Environment.
Agriculture Canada:
d)	No government funds were allocated in the fiscal year 1991-1992 to address the infestation of zebra mussels in the Great Lakes system.


Mr. Comuzzi: 1.	What was the total cost in (a) dollars (b) person-years to produce the June 1990 Report of the Special Advisor to the Minister of National Health and Welfare on child sexual abuse in Canada entitled "Reaching for Solutions"?
2.	From the total cost, what was the allocation in dollars for (a) research (b) salaries (c) travel (d) printing (e) distribution and (f) public meetings?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 7 hours and 20 minutes
Approximate cost: $132.
I am informed by the Department of National Health and Welfare as follows:
1.	(a) $1,076,300 (b) Nil
2.	(a) $671,700 (consultative sessions and a national workshop with child sexual abuse experts)
(b)	Contract fees for Special Advisor: $204,600
(c)	Travel costs of Special Advisor: $100,000 ($80,000 per contract and $20,000 for post-release report travel)
(d)	$85,000
(e)	$15,000

September 17, 1991

(f)	The Special Advisor's travel costs allowed him to meet 1,600 individuals across Canada.
*


Mr. Gauthier: For each of the next ten years, what is the estimated additional cost, if any, that would be incurred by the Public Service Superannuation Account (PSSA) if married PSSA retired pensioners over the age of 60 were permitted to split their PSSA pensions with spouses 60 years of age or older along the lines permitted by the Canada Pension Plan?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 3 hours and 55 minutes
Approximate cost: $71.
I am informed by the Treasury Board Secretariat as follows:
When a pension payable to a contributor under the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is split, a portion of the contributor's monthly pension is simply paid to the contributor's spouse. This portion is treated for all purposes as though it were being paid to the contributor. Thus, if the contributor dies before the spouse, the amount payable to the spouse ceases to be paid. If the spouse dies before the contributor, the amount payable to the spouse reverts back to the contributor. In other words, there are no additional benefits, and therefore no additional costs, when a CPP pension is split.
Similarly, there would be no additional costs for the Public Service Superannuation Account if married pen-


[Stage Direction]
Cabinet Minister	Make / Model	Purchase Price	NVFNBlais, P.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$22,400.00	225106Bouchard, B.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$25,000.00	225086Cadieux, P.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$24,992.00	225114Clark, C.J.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$25,000.00	225087Campbell, K.	1989 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$22,245.30	225112Charest, J.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$22,326.00	225063Collins, M.	1991 Chevrolet Caprice	$24,340.00	225117Corbeil, J. 10/2/89	1989 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$24,421.00	225042Corbeil, J. 18/7/90	1991 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$24,512.00	225125Crosbie, J.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$21,767.74	225054Danis, M.	1991 Chevrolet Caprice	$24,800.00	225142DeCotret, R.	1991 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$24,527.00	225144Dick, P.	1991 Chevrolet Caprice	$22,495.00	225131Hockin, T.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$24,992.00	225089Landry, M.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$24,992.00	225123Lewis, D.	1990 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$24,835.00	225122Loiselle, G.	1991 Chevrolet Caprice	$24,903.32	225116
Routine Proceedings
sioners were permitted to split their pensions along the lines provided under the CPP. It should be noted, however, that proposed amendments to the Income Thx Regulations (which were released in draft form by the Department of Finance in December 1989) prohibit the registration of a pension plan which permits pension splitting other than on marriage breakdown.
*
Ms. Langan (Mission -Coquitlam): Since January 1, 1989, have any Ministers purchased, through their offices, new cars for official use and, if so, (a) which ministers (b) how many cars (c) what make and model of car (d) at what unit cost (e) through what dealerships?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 6 hours and 35 minutes
Approximate cost: $118
I am informed by the Department of Supply and Services as follows:
For more information, please refer to question No. 43 answered on June 19, 1991.


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Garage Caron et Morin Inc.	Lislet-sur-mer, Que.
Belisle Automobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
Lalonde-Legault Chevrolet Oldsmobile Inc.	Rigaud, Que.
Belisle Automobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
Campbell Ford Sales Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
Brouillard Automobile Ltee.	Sherbrooke, Que.
Belisle Automobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Que.
Fortier Auto Montreal Ltee	Ville d'Anjou, Que.
Fortier Auto Montreal Ltee	Ville d'Anjou, Que.
Myers Chevrolet Oldsmobile Cadillac Inc.	Ottawa, Ont.
Maurice Goyette Pontiac Buick Ltd.	Varennes, Que.
Campbell Ford Sales Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
Carl Elliott Chevrolet Oldsmobile Ltd.	Nepean, Ont.
Belisle Automobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
Carrefour Chevrolet Oldsmobile Inc.	Laval, Que.
Thor Motors Orillia (1978) Ltd.	Orillia, Ont.
P. Barre Chevrolet Oldsmobile Ltee	Quebec, Que.
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September 17, 1991
Routine Proceedings
CURRENT VEHICLE	DELIVERING DEALERSHIP
Cabinet Minister	Make / Model	Purchase Price	NVFN	Mackay, E.	1989 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$24,250.00	225051	Vee Eight Motors Ltd.	New Glasgow, N.S.Masse, M. 19/4/89	1989 Mercury Gr. Marquis	$24,200.00	225062	Success Ford Mercury Inc.	Thedford Mines, Que.Masse, M. 6/12/90	1991 Mercury Gr. Marquis	$27,408.00	225146	Success Ford Mercury Inc.	Thedford Mines, Que.Mayer, C.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$21,264.00	225059	Murray's Garage Ltd.	Neepawa, Man.McDermid, J.	1991 Mercury Gr. Marquis	$23,565.00	225143	Colony Lincoln Mercury Sales Ltd.	Brampton, Ont.McDougall, B.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$20,320.00	225035	Chevrolet Yonge Oldsmobile	Toronto, Ont.McKnight, B.	1989 Ford LTD Crown Vic	$22,400.00	225052	Dan Donnelly's Ottawa Ford Sales	Ottawa, Ont.Merrithew, G.	1990 Mercury Gr. Marquis	$25,000.00	225133	Jim Keay Lincoln Mercury Sales Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.Murray, L. (Senator)	1989 Buick Park Avenue	$24,882.52	225048	Tbrpin Pontiac Buick Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.Oberle, F.	1989 Mercury Gr. Marquis	$24,987.00	225041	Beaver Lincoln Mercury Sales Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.Siddon, T.	1990 Chrysler 5th Ave.	$25,000.00	225107	Richmond Plymouth Chrysler Ltd.	Richmond, B.C.Vezina, M.	1989 Olds Delta 88	$25,000.00	225043	Boulevard Chevrolet Inc.	Rimouski, Que.Weiner, G.	1990 Olds 98 Regency	$25,000.00	225111	Belisle Ausomobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.Wilson, M.	1989 Chevrolet Caprice	$20,000.00	225034	Ross Wemp Motors Ltd.	Rexdale, Ont.Winegard, W.	1990 Chevrolet Caprice	$20,746.00	225103	Belisle Automobile Ltd.	Ottawa, Ont.
As of 12 March, 1991
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*
Ms. Langan (Mission-Coquitlam): Did any Minister of the Crown sign an Order in Council dated
May 7, 1991, proclaiming in force the amendments to the
Parliament of Canada Act and, if so, which ministers?


Albert Glen Cooper: Time required to prepare this answer: 3 hours
Approximate cost: $54.
Order in Council P.C. 1991-813 dated May 7, 1991 brought amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act into force.
Ministers of the Crown must be in agreement in order for an Order in Council to be issued. As in the case of any other decision of the Cabinet, the names of the individual Ministers who participated in a particular decision are not released.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to call starred question No. 35.


Mr. Speaker:: So done.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that this response be made an Order for Return. This return will be tabled immediately.


Mr. Gauthier: 1. (a) For each of the last ten fiscal years, what was the annual rate of interest that the actuarial valuations of the basic pension accounts applying to members of the civilian public service, the Armed Forces, and the RCMP assumed would be earned by these accounts (b) what was the actual annual rate of interest earned by these accounts (c) by what dollar amount did the artificially low interest rate assumptions underestimate actual interest earnings of these accunts (d) what was the annual rate of salary revision increases that the actuarial valuations of these accounts assumed would be gained by contributors to these accounts (e) what was the actual annual rate of salary revision increases gained by contributors to these accounts (f) by what dollar amount did the salary revision increase assumptions exaggerate the actuarial liabilities of these accounts?
September 17, 1991

2. Were representatives of contributor and annulitant organizations consulted on the economic assumptions used in the actuarial valuations of these accounts, and, if not, (i) why not (ii) does the government plan to change its future practice in this regard and if not, why not?
Return tabled.


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


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)) moved: that Bill C-29, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another act in relation thereto be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee F.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the bill that is before the House today has two purposes. In the first instance, it seeks to end strikes in the public services that are seriously disrupting essential services to Canadians and damaging important sectors of the Canadian economy.
More broadly, it implements the terms of the Public Sector Compensation Restraint Program that the Minister of Finance announced in his budget on February 26, 1991.
Mr. Speaker, at the outset let me address an issue that has an important bearing on this bill. The Public Service Staff Relations Board stated yesterday that the government has not made every reasonable effort within the meaning of section 51 of the Public Service Staff Relations Act to negotiate a collective agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
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I am of the view that all our negotiations with the unions have complied with the law. The PSSRB's decision on the PSAC negotiations surprised me, since we have been able to reach settlements with four other unions that are within the government's announced wage policy.
In the case of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, we have had 60 days of negotiating sessions and we have gone through another 30 days of conciliation proceedings. Nevertheless, in order to make absolutely certain that we respect yesterday's PSSRB ruling, I have instructed my officials to indicate to Mr. Bean that they are willing to return to the bargaining table without preconditions.
With respect to the issue of a wage increase, this government remains irrevocably committed to the zero, three formula included in Bill C-29.
Let it be clearly understood that there shall be no wage increase this year, and the wage increase next year will be 3 per cent.
These offers are of course very limited and I understand frustrating, but let me remind the members again of what we saw yesterday in les Ateliers Angus in Montreal where 900 people were laid off. This is the cruel reality we have to live with.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, we must go ahead with this bill. We cannot afford to wait until collective bargaining resumes.
The Public Sector Compensation Act provides that non-monetary proposals may be negotiated this year. Consequently, I have asked my agents to invite Mr. Bean's negotiators back to the bargaining table.
Mr. Speaker, the government must deal with the problems caused by the general strike called by the leaders of PSAC, a strike that jeopardizes the provision of essential services to Canadians and that is disrupting certain key sectors of our economy.
Grain terminals can no longer handle this year's harvest. Businesses say lay-offs are imminent because of delivery delays. On the picket lines, Canadians have seen strikers use violence and try to intimidate employees who want to work and have a right to work, and who in some cases were legally obliged to work.
By use of these tactics, the union has managed to close down federal buildings and deprive Canadians of certain

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services. It has gone beyond the limits of what is reasonable, as will testify the injunctions we obtained. This situation cannot be allowed to go on. The interests of all Canadians are at stake.
The government is not prepared to compromise economic recovery and essential services, nor is it prepared to let employees who want to work or are legally required to work be exposed to violence and intimidation because of their legitimate attempts to cross the picket lines.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, we ask the House to pass this legislation and to do so expeditiously.
[English ]
So we are proceeding with this bill. The measures in Bill C-29 have been brought about by the circumstances of our time. They represent, I admit, a departure for a limited period from the principles and institutions of collective bargaining that govern the relationship between the government and its employees in the Public Service of Canada. They also constitute a reduction in the real compensation of everyone who works in the federal public sector. This includes members of this House and our employees.
These measures will serve to address immediate and pressing concerns in the management of the economy and of the Public Service. For this reason, the government is seeking the most expeditious passage for the bill that is possible under the rules of this House.
I recognize that the provisions of the bill also create an obligation on the government to ensure that the expected benefits for the economy are realized and that long-term effects on labour relations in the Public Service are minimized.
The state of relations between the government and its employees is of particular concern to me as President of Treasury Board and I hinted that I intend to do everything that I can to strengthen that relationship once the legislation is in place.

Mr. Speaker, before outlining the main points of the bill, I would like to recall the events that made it necessary to table this legislation. I would also like to draw the attention of the House to a number of aspects
that are not mentioned in the bill but which contributed to the government's decision.
Hon. members will recall that the February Budget provided that departmental salary budgets would be frozen at the level of the previous year.
The Minister of Finance indicated at the time that any negotiated wage increases for 1991-92 would require a corresponding reduction in the number of jobs, and that in any case, the government would not contemplate wage increases of more than 3 per cent. For the next two fiscal years, annual increases would be capped at 3 per cent.

This was an important signal to other employers in the economy that they should exercise restraint in their own wage settlements if we as a country are to have a robust and enduring economic recovery. Seven provinces have followed the lead of the federal government in this respect, and there is strong evidence that the Canadian public agrees that we are on the right track.
On June 19, after it became evident that the unions would not agree to a reduction in employment levels in return for wage increases, I informed the House that the government was no longer in a position to negotiate wage settlements for the current fiscal year at an increase of more than zero per cent. On the other hand, this decision left the government in the position of being able to protect employment in the balance of this fiscal year. This then is the genesis of the zero and three formula that provides the framework for this bill.
These measures are made necessaiy by the weak state of the economy and the government's deteriorating fiscal situation. The government cannot afford wage increases this fiscal year and no money has been provided for such increases.

It is clear that the Public Sector Wage Restraint Program, also known as 0-3, was necessaiy, considering the financial and economic situation. However, I agree that the program has dealt a heavy blow to the government's wage guidelines and to collective bargaining in the Public Service. I also agree that collective bargaining negotiations have been veiy difficult for Public Service unions this year.
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From the outset, I had hoped to negotiate wage settlements within the 0-3 guidelines by offering some flexibility on non-wage proposals, but throughout the bargaining process it was also clear that we might have to resort to a legislated settlement in the interests of all parties concerned.

Elon. members know that successive governments have taken the approach that the Public Service should be a fair employer and should provide compensation that is sensitive to the larger labour markets.
The unions are perfectly right when they point out that public service settlements in recent years have been lower than those provided by other sectors of the economy and that zero and three therefore are even more difficult to accept for this year and next, but they have been perfectly wrong to suggest that government workers are underpaid in comparison with their private sector counterparts.
The inflation targets announced by the Minister of Finance in the February 26 budget should in fact bring increases in the cost of living below the level of 3 per cent by the third year of the zero, three and three program which is why this bill seeks to implement only the first two years and to permit the resumption of full collective bargaining as soon as possible.
['Translation)
When I reported to the House on June 19 on the status of negotiations, we were seriously considering the possibility of recalling Parliament during the summer recess, for a number reasons. First of all, the collective agreements of 55 bargaining units representing some
165,000	employees were due to expire, with more to follow later on. We were also expecting a series of binding awards that would be a serious threat to the Public Sector Wage Restraint Program. Furthermore, two groups represented by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, Auditing and Computer Administration, had been in a legal strike position for some time.
Finally, since the number of groups that would be in a legal strike position was increasing daily, it became more and more likely that essential services to Canadians would be disrupted.

As it has turned out, Parliament did not have to be recalled. The binding awards that were handed down for 18 bargaining units represented by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada reflected the zero and three framework.
I would like to repeat that again in this House. The binding awards that were handed down for 18 bargaining units represented by PSAC reflected the zero and three framework. For their part, several other groups including ships offices and air traffic controllers have reached settlements with Treasury Board based on zero and three. To that extent our hopes have been realized.
On the other hand, the Public Service Alliance of Canada continues to reject the budget's wage policy. Its leadership categorically refused to negotiate on the basis of zero and three. Most of the 155,000 employees that it represents are in a legal strike position, and hon. members are well aware that many of them are exercising it.
Before the House recessed I served notice that we could well have to consider legislation upon our return. We are now in that position.
The government has now decided that it must proceed for two principal reasons. The first and most important is the one that I gave at the outset. We simply cannot wait any longer to deal with the situation created by the strike.
In addition, the Public Service Alliance of Canada has made it very plain in public and to me in private that it will not now or ever voluntarily accept the terms of the budget. Since the government is not about to abandon the budget, we are at an impasse.

Mr. Speaker, after explaining the reasons that led the government to table these objectives, I would now like to discuss some of the details of the bill itself.
The bill imposes a two-year extension on all collective agreements and all prior compensation plans. This means that all present strike activities will be illegal. As soon as the legislation comes into force, all union members now on strike will have to return to work. The bill provides for stiff fines for union leaders and employees who refuse to go back to work or recommend continuing the strike: up to $100,000 a day for the unions,

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$50,000 a day for union leaders and $1,000 a day for employees.

The fines for unions and union offices are, if they are not paid, to be collected through withholding union dues that the government collects on behalf of unions. There will be no jail sentences for non-payment.
The legislation covers all public servants and not just those who are on strike. The same provision will also apply to managers in the Public Service and to members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers and their staff, members of the Canadian Forces and of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Order in Council appointees will also be covered as will the heads and employees of other government bodies that are non-commercial in nature and not normally self-financing.

As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, the bill will freeze wages for one year, whether they were set through collective bargaining or otherwise, and limit wage increases to 3 per cent the following year.
The wages of two groups whose collective agreements were bargained lenghthily before the budget was tabled-I am refering to the Auditing Group and the Computer System Administration Group-will be adjusted for the period proceeding the current fiscal year, but increases will be limited to zero and three percent for the following years. The legislation also makes an exception where any compensation plan established pursuant to the government wage policy came into effect after the budget was tabled but before this bill was introduced.
The bill does not suspend all aspects of collective bargaining in the Public Service. I want to emphasize that it explicitly excludes benefits and services provided under the terms of policies arrived at through consultation under the auspices of the National Joint Council of the Public Service.
The NJC is a union-management consultative body that brings together the leaders of all the Public Service unions and officials of the Treasury Board to agree upon policies that then become annexes to all collective
agreements. Elements of compensation that are arrived at under NJC auspices include Public Service health insurance, disability insurance and dental care. And there are many other matters, including health and safety issues, that are discussed in the NJC.
We have deliberately left these policies and programs outside the legislation in order to provide scope for continued discussions between the unions and the employer representatives.

I would also want to stress that this bill does not affect pay equity within the public service. Over $80 million in equal pay adjustments will continue to be paid to employees. Moreover, the bill in no way affects the application of the Canadian Human Rights Act. In other words, during the entire restraint period specified in the bill, the Canadian Human Rights Commission will be able to deal with matters that fall within its purview, including those relating to pay equity.

I would like now to close with some comments about issues that the bill does not address. As a general matter,
I have sought to ensure that the legislation covers only those matters that are necessary to restore public services and to implement the essential features of the public sector compensation restraint program announced in the budget.
The agenda that we have been discussing with the unions is considerably wider than that. The Public Service Alliance has included three major issues, job security, contracting out and pay equity in its public demands, and representatives of the other unions have made it clear that they are interested in these issues as well.
I would like to say a word about each of them. In my June 19 statement I outlined the government's position on job security. We are not prepared to entrench no-layoff provisions in collective agreements. That would be irresponsible, but it would also be unnecessary.
I stated then and I repeat now that there is no reason for additional layoffs in the balance of this fiscal year as a result of the budget. In addition, I made a commitment that every current indeterminate employee of the Public Service who is affected by changes in specific jobs or by their elimination as a result of the budget will be offered a position on comparable terms for the period the wage
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freeze applies if he or she is willing to be trained and possibly relocated.

Generally speaking as a fair employer, we recognize that it is in the interest of the government and its employees to ensure continuity as much as possible and to clear up any uncertainties if we are to have a productive and stable workforce.
As regards the relocation of employees affected by the elimination of specific jobs, this government's record is beyond reproach. All but 1,087 employees affected by the government restraint policy since its inception in 1986 were redeployed within the public service. Based on a workforce of 225,000, this would indicate a 99.5 percent job security overall.
We wish to keep this impressive record intact, Mr. Speaker. That is why we have chosen to continue to consult the union on renewing the staff adjustment policy agreed to by the NJC; this policy provides fair protection for employees.
Contracting out is an issue related to the previous one. The government is committed to providing services to Canadians as effectively and efficiently as possible. For this reason, it has sometimes had to turn to the private sector. The idea is not new, nor was it new 30 years ago when the Glassco Commission dealt with the issue of "make or buy". We will not give up contracting out as a responsible way to manage public resources. At the same time, we are sensitive to its impact on our employees and we have discussed it with the union at the National Joint Council.

Finally, I would like to mention equal pay for work of equal value or pay equity, as it is also known. The government remains committed to pursuing the goals of pay equity through its proper forum, which is the Canadian Human Rights Commission. This is why the work of the commission has been exempted from this bill. We have had a long history of working with the unions on these issues and it was they, as a group, who launched the current legal process with the Canadian Human Rights Commission. This is why we consider it
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inappropriate to negotiate the issues separately with individual unions.

Hon. members should also be aware that since 1978, many complaints concerning pay equity were resolved in close cooperation with the unions and the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
In 1990, the government made a retroactive lump-sum payment of about $317 million to 73,400 public servants. That is almost a third of a billion dollars, Mr. Speaker. As part of this move to pay equity, payments of over $81 million a year continue to be made, and other payments may follow when the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled on the pending cases. It is an important issue involving major expenditures.

In conclusion, I want to return to a point that I made at the outset. The Public Sector Compensation Act is based on the premise that all of us working in the public sector have a necessary contribution to make to national economic recovery. For the employees of the Public Service, it is not what they deserve in relation to the contribution that they make daily to this country. Unfortunately, the government and the economy generally do not have the capacity to recognize fully this contribution through the compensation that Public Service employees receive. But, we remain prepared to meet with the unions to discuss non-monetary issues outside the areas of compensation covered by the bills.
Dialogue with the unions will continue to be a central feature of the relationship between the government and its employees and it is my strong desire to remain open to the concerns of the Public Service union wherever I can.

Mr. Speaker, it was not possible to reach agreement under Standing Orders 78(1) and 78(2) concerning allocation of time for second reading of Bill C-29, an Act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another Act in relation thereto. Pursuant to Standing Order 78(3), Mr. Speaker, I give notice of my intention to propose a motion at the next sitting of the House for allotting a certain period of time for the

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consideration and disposal of proceedings at this stage of the bill. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Kamloops on a point of order, knowing that there is no question or comment period.
Mr. Riis Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. I simply want to say at the outset that the discussions regarding Standing Order 72 have not been completed. I just want to make that point clear.
Because of the importance of the presentation of the President of the Treasury Board this morning in terms of laying out where we are in this very critical issue, could I ask him to repeat very briefly his opening statement regarding the return to the bargaining table that he has now instructed his officials to do, particularly the point of no preconditions.
It is such a critical point. It is not a question. I am simply asking him to restate that short part of his presentation.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Gilles Loiselle: I apologize to the hon. member. I am quite prepared to repeat this section, which is a very brief two or three paragraphs.
I said that I wanted at the outset to address an issue that has an important bearing on this bill. The Public Service Staff Relations Board stated yesterday that the government has not made every reasonable effort in the meaning of Section 51 of the Public Service Staff Relations Act to negotiate the collective agreement with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.
I am of the view that all our negotiations with the unions have complied with the law. The PSSRB's decision on the PSAC negotiations surprised me since we have been able to reach settlements with four other unions that are within the government's announced wage policy. In the case of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, we have had 60 days of negotiating sessions and have gone through another 30 days of conciliation proceedings.
Mr. Bean even said he was suspicious that we might have made deals with the other unions. Of course we did and we are prepared to make deals with him also. He refused them. Nevertheless, in order to make absolutely
certain that we respect yesterday's ruling of the PSSRB, I have instructed my officials to indicate to Mr. Bean that they are willing to return to the bargaining table without preconditions. With respect to the issue of a wage increase, this government remains irrevocably committed to the zero and three formula included in Bill C-29.
Let it be clearly understood that there shall be no wage increase this year and the wage increase next year will be 3 per cent.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today at a extremely critical time in Canada's history. Our country is in great difficulty. No one is providing any leadership at all. Today, we are faced with what is probably the greatest strike the Public Service of Canada has ever known. It may not be as big as the Winnipeg strike in 1919 or the construction strike in Quebec in 1976, but it certainly marks a turning point, because there is a big difference: This is the first time we have a strike because the government decided there was going to be one. This is not a matter of collective bargaining. When we look at this government's strategy, it was obvious that it wanted public servants to hit the streets. It is a strategy we cannot condone.
As I said yesterday, our presence here in the House of Commons is useless. Everything that could be done, the government could have done last week. We made a suggestion to the government which was taken up yesterday by the union. If it had wanted a mediator, if it had wanted to observe the laws of this country and negotiate and use every means at its disposal, it could have had everyone back to work at this very moment. It could have had everyone back to work last week.
When I said yesterday that if we put everything on the table with a mediator, and when I spoke directly to
20,000	union members on Parliament Hill, everyone applauded when I said: You don't want a strike because you like the idea. What you want is a fair deal, the same as everybody else. However, this is a government that wants confrontation.

This government does not want to solve the problems. It thrives on confrontation all the time. It is not the problem of looking at the deficit figure that is the preoccupation of this government today. It does not look
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at the figure for the deficit. It looks at the Gallup poll deficit that it is confronted with.
It will again start attacking the weak. We saw that in the spring. Rather than ministers getting up in this House and taking responsibility for their actions, they blame bureaucrats who cannot defend themselves, attacking the weak, rather than taking their responsibilities. What are they doing today? They are attacking the lower level classifications in the Public Service. The government gave an increase of 4.5 per cent to the big shots. Two days after that, it has a new policy. It decided on zero for the people at the lower end. This is what it has done. Now it is trying to cover itself, because it got caught hands down. It says next year it will do that.
It is this year that the people are affected by the problem. It is this year that they are faced with 6 per cent inflation. Of this 6 per cent inflation, half of it has been created by higher taxes imposed on the Canadian people by this government.
The president of the CNR got his increase this year, but the little public servants who make only $16,000, $18,000 or $20,000 will have to wait for one year. They will have zero next year because the government got caught hands down. It tried to sneak it in. When we saw that and informed the public of that, the government decided to change its mind.
Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the minister stood up in this House and said: "Yes, in New Brunswick they have a zero increase". Yes, they have a zero increase, but the minister should have been fair to the Canadian people and told them the truth. What they have done in New Brunswick-it is a Liberal government-yes, they have a zero increase because this government has cut the transfer payments to them.
In New Brunswick, 30 per cent of their employees got the increase, those at the bottom, but not those at the top. Those at the bottom. That is the difference. In New Brunswick the employees who make less than $20,000-and it is one third of the Public Service there or 30 per cent-got an increase of 2.5 per cent this year, not zero. Those making $17,000 got an increase of 3.4 per cent, not zero.
The public servants have zero here. The government did not offer 3 per cent. Good. If government offers 3 per cent today, we will be on the its side. The public
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servants did not refuse the 3 per cent. The government offered zero. The government is legislating zero. If the government offers 3 per cent, we will back it up. There will be no problem. We will all agree. We know that we have to show some restraint. We know that.
We were confronted in the past with the same problems. Yes, we were, but we never offered zero when there was 6 per cent inflation. We never did that.
At this moment what the government wants is a confrontation. Yes, it was six and five for everyone. It was for prices too. It was for everyone. It was not a 4.5 per cent increase for those who make $300,000 and zero for those who make $16,000. It was six and five for everyone.
The question that faces us today is not a question of right and left. It is the question: Is it right or wrong? We could have a solution of this problem very easily because mediation is what is important at this time. In front of a mediator the union would have been able to argue what was done in New Brunswick.
They would have been able to argue that those at the lower end would have received compensation of perhaps 3 per cent. It is not much when inflation is 6 per cent. At least it is something to cope with the misery that they are sometimes faced with.
This government wanted to divide the country again-


Ms. Copps:: It rolled the dice.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: And it rolled the dice. It wants to gamble. It is always "my way or no way". It is always like that.
I travelled in this country all summer. I went into eight of the ten provinces during the summer and I have never seen the country in such a mood. The people are completely discouraged.
You meet farmers, fishermen, consumers. They are not very happy. They take their cars and drive to the United States and shop because the taxes have raised prices so high because of the policies of this government. They are not happy to come back with the back of their cars full of goods that they have bought in the United States. They cannot compete with prices because of the level of taxes that this government has imposed.

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This government will of course impose this legislation eventually. We know that. It will use closure. It always uses closure. I remember when this House was respected a bit by the government. I remember the days when closure was used once or twice every two years. It is every week that it uses closure, or every two weeks in this House. It is always "my way or no way".
I am telling you, Mr. Speaker, the people of Canada are waiting. They want to tell this government that there should be justice in our land. They want the people on the other side to understand that it is not by confrontation that we will win. It is not because it has a majority.
Of course, it got a majority in 1988. It was on one issue. It managed to get a majority because of the so-called debate on free trade. There were other preoccupations, and now it uses that to ram through its right wing agenda. It wants to make sure that the "fats" are getting bigger in Canada. It does not care about the people.
There are a lot of people who are suffering in Canada today. They do not have a cent, and the government has no compassion for them. The people of this country are feeling terrible.
Again, we will have a piece of legislation. The bully attitude, it will win. It will use closure. The workers will go back to work through legislation. These hundreds of thousands of people are serving the people very well.
I read in a column in The Gazette the other day about a person in Montreal who said: "I lost my passport and I had to leave the same day. It was a terrible complication, and I was received by two public servants at the Guy Favreau Place in Montreal. They treated me very well." They had compassion. They made sure that he would not have complications because of this loss of a passport.
I have dealt with the Public Service during my long career. Most of them, 99 per cent of them, have one ambition in life: to do a good job and earn their living properly. This union has never gone on strike, ever. It has always managed to settle the claims.
There were some strikes here and there once in a while, but there was a way to handle that. There was a way. There was a conciliation board report. It does not want anybody to mediate the situation.
In the past when we were confronted with that, we were not saying: "We impose a settlement on our own." We always had a mediator or a conciliator telling us what we should do. If it was rejected by the unions, we would impose what had been recommended to us and to them.
Now, the government started the negotiations by telling them: "We want to talk, but the base is zero."


An hon. member:: Great talk.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Great talk. And zero remains zero.
That is why we are having this problem. We will vote against this bill because this bill is wrong. This government had a choice. It could have followed the law of this land. The Public Service Staff Relations Board ruled yesterday to bargain in good faith, not to start the first day imposing zero.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Next week this government will ask these workers to follow the law of the land. We will be asking them to follow the law of the land because there is no other society where people do not follow the law of the land. But it will be difficult for some of them. They will see the Public Service Staff Relations Board report and they will say: "The Government of Canada has not followed the law of the land and we are obliged to follow the law of the land".
Mr. Speaker, we have no choice. We have to vote against this bill.

This legislation is not necessaiy, there is no need for it. If the minister and the government had really wanted a settlement, they would have acted in good faith and would have negotiated. They would have considered the solution adopted by New Brunswick, for example, which gives to the weak members of the Public Service at least a little so they can face the difficult situation caused by this government, because inflation is now 6 per cent and half this rate is due to the reckless tax increases of this government.
That is why, Mr. Speaker, we must vote against this bill. We must vote against this bill because these people would not have been on strike last week, would not be on strike today and tomorrow. If only the government had done something very easy which it had the power to do, that is to name a mediator mandated to review everything, including wages. And, if the mediator had con-
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eluded that the government was right and that, under the circumstances, the 0-3-3 formula was justified, then we would have had an impartial judgment and we would probably have decided to support the government.
But, right from the beginning, this government had opted for confrontation. There were weak ones that could be attacked and they would be; the big ones at the top would not be disturbed, only the little ones at the bottom. The big ones are their friends. At least, I am proud to say that, in similar circumstances, we would have very likely followed Mr. McKenna's approach where 30 per cent salary increases were given to those at the bottom of the salary scale and 0 per cent to those with salaries above a certain level.
These premiers, Mr. Speaker, I must tell you, found themselves in a situation of mismanagement of this country's business by the government which had cut the transfer payments they needed for wage increases.
Some lion, members: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: But, in spite of the difficulties they experienced because of this government they came up with a much fairer solution than the one the government is offering us now.

I move, seconded by the member for Ottawa West:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the
word "that" and by substituting the following therefor:
This House declines to proceed with Bill C-29, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another act in relation thereto, the principle of which is to remove the longstanding rights of Canadian citizens to participate in free collective bargaining as agreed to by Canada in international conventions and as established by an act of Parliament and which principle is offensive to the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: This amendment is in order. Therefore resuming debate on the main motion and on the amendment. The hon. leader of the New Democratic Party.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, this is a very important debate today because we will in fact be setting a precedent for the future, a precedent about the
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rights of working people in this country, the government's employees, to free collective bargaining. It is also a debate about the government's obligation to respect the laws of the land, to respect the findings of its own bodies. It is also about workers being able simply to put food on the table and to live in dignity.
Today the minister said in his remarks that he is prepared to instruct his officials to begin negotiations again without preconditions. He also made other remarks about the fact that he clearly is not going to change his position on the 0 per cent wage increase. I think this requires clarification from the minister concerning exactly what the position of this government is. Through its actions and the legislation before us, this government is taking away the democratic right of collective bargaining of workers. It is treating its employees with contempt and it is denying its workers the income that they deserve.
That is why my party will not support this legislation. The New Democratic Party will not support the legislation. We cannot support a government that attacks the principles of Canadian democracy and the rights of Canadian workers because today it is these workers and tomorrow it is the rights of ordinary Canadians across the country.
This strike is causing hardship to people in this country and this government knows it. This government could have sat down at the negotiating table last week. This government could have sat down with the unions yesterday. This government could be sitting down with the unions right now. We know that farmers are suffering because of this strike. We know that it is very difficult for those in the west to have the grain shipments moved because of this strike. It is not that the union is working against the people of Canada, it is saying to this government: "We must stand up for our rights now or the rights of all Canadians will be taken away by a government that has no respect for democracy", as evidenced by this motion.
I want to say that we were with the Public Service Alliance right from the beginning and that we will continue to stand with working people in this country and we stand with them now. But I think it is important to put into context what the attack on the Public Service of this country means and exactly what it is that this

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government is saying to the Canadian people by this action.
Since 1984, the Conservative government has been telling Canadians everywhere that government is the problem, that it is a bad thing. When you have a party in power preaching that doctrine is it any wonder that the Canadian public is cynical about politicians and about governmental institutions. According to the Conservatives, while government is the enemy, big business is the saviour. Privatization, deregulation, corporate handouts, all of these reflect that attitude, and though these policies have all been unqualified failures the government continues to blunder on with them. Now it is saying the Public Service is part of that, and make no mistake- I hope the Canadian people make no mistake-this is part of the agenda of this government: to make sure that the union movement does not have its say, that democracy is undermined and that there is a continuation of the corporate policies that this government pursues, not in the interest of working people across this country but in the interests of multinational corporations only. We say bring more balance in. Listen to the working people of this country.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Let me add to that, Mr. Speaker. We hear a lot from large business organizations saying that public service is a non-productive sector of our economy. Let me remind this House that far from being a non-productive burden on society, government absorbs many of the expenses that would otherwise be paid by private corporations, such as education and health care. Even more likely, without government involvement those services would not be left provided to Canadians.
Government has a role to work in the interests of all Canadians and I must say they have failed abysmally everywhere in that role. It has failed the farmers. It has failed the workers and it has failed the ordinary Canadians of this country by imposing measures such as the GST and the trade deal. We in the New Democratic Party and 88 per cent of Canadians are saying we are not going to take it anymore. We are standing up against this government and saying change your policies and work in the interests of Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to look briefly at several issues that are at stake in this legislation: collective bargaining, pay equity, salaries and inflation, and the attempts of this government, in my view, to provoke a strike.
We have seen the reports of independent conciliation boards, of the government's own Public Service Staff Relations Board yesterday. The verdict is that the government has refused to bargain in good faith. This is extremely serious because the Public Service Alliance has attempted to bargain in good faith. Yesterday, in a positive gesture, they offered to remove pickets from airports and border crossings and, if the government were to come through with negotiations, to ensure and reach out to farmers. They sat yesterday with the National Farmers' Union and said: "We are concerned about you. We are concerned about this moving forward, and we want to help. We ask for a little movement from this government".
The government has an opportunity today to send a message to Canadian people. This morning on my way to work I was walking along the street. I stopped at many of the picket lines and there was one consistent message from the people. They said: "You know, we don't want to be out here. We don't want to be disrupting the Canadian people, but we know we have to make a stand now". The most common thing I heard from people was this: "Will they listen to us?" That is a refrain across this country about this government. "Will they listen to us?"
I say in all respect to this government that this is the time to listen as we move into a very difficult constitutional debate, to listen to Canadians, to listen to their own employees.

Mr. Speaker, this bill abolishes the right to collective bargaining for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. It is shameful! But this bill goes much further. It tells employers in the private sector that they no longer need respect the right to collective bargaining. It gives them too the right to treat their employees unfairly. But I wish to remind hon. members and Canadian companies that the right to collective bargaining was hard won by Canadians after tough struggle in a less enlightened period.
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We will not let the government make a decision that takes us back many decades. We will not allow ourselves to go back to those difficult times. The rights of Canadian workers cannot and will not be abolished.

Mr. Speaker, collective bargaining is one of the few tools in a democracy that workers have which ensures recognition of their rights and, yes, their responsibilities. It is fundamental to justice and equality. Justice and equality cannot be represented by one side having the club and the other side having no tools at all. Justice and equality are what we are trying to preserve here in this House today. That is what the New Democratic Party stands for, to have balance in that process, to have justice and to have equality.
I would remind this House, Mr. Speaker, that just a few years ago we all witnessed with great joy and great support the work of a very important union leader and union, Lech Walesa and Solidarity in Poland. We said how wonderful this was, that they stood up against a government that was autocratic.
The union movement both in Canada and internationally has led the fight for democracy. The public servants in this country are again leading that fight and they are giving expression to the fact that they will not accept being treated with a lack of respect. They will not accept a government that says, simply, take it or leave it, you have no rights, you are not real citizens; we will simply legislate but we will not negotiate.
We are talking about democratic rights. We are also talking about dollars and cents. I want to make one particular point here and that is about pay equity, equal pay for work of equal value. This has been the law of the land for 14 years. The minister mentioned it in his speech today, but the government has done nothing. It has had seven years to implement this law. In that time, it has done virtually nothing.
What it has done instead is to attack pay equity at the Human Rights Commission. It has been trying to get the ability not to implement pay equity.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote a conciliation board report that put it in very simple terms, and I quote:
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Pay equity has been the law since 1977. It was time it was implemented for the federal public service.
I and my party, Mr. Speaker, agree with that sentiment, but let me say that it is long time past it was implemented. Canadian women are tired of second class salaries from a second class government. We deserve equality and fair pay.
This government says it cannot afford to pay women equally. It can just pay women poverty wages. But it can afford bonuses for management, increases for the Bank of Canada president, rewards to the consulting firms because that is the only way you can get access to the government anymore. But it cannot afford to pay more to clerks who make $20,000 a year.
The reality is, if we are to call ourselves a progressive, humane and egalitarian society, then not only can the government pay women what we deserve, it must pay women what we deserve.

Mr. Speaker, not only women are underpaid in the Public Service. The average salary is $27,000 a year.
Do not forget that many of these workers are heads of families, maybe single parents, or their family's sole income-earner.
Let us think about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if any of us could live on such a salary. I ask the President of the Treasury Board, the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister whether their family could survive on such an income. I do not think so, Mr. Speaker.
An increase of 0 per cent when inflation is 6 per cent is not a freeze but a cut in pay. In the past six years, public servants have suffered similar cuts. They have already paid for the government's economic incompetence; they have already done more than their share.

I think most Canadians know and accept that the government's refusal to negotiate wages with the public servants has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with politics.
We know that Public Service salaiy costs make up only a small portion of the entire federal budget and that salary increases would have a minute impact on the over-all budget.

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We know through Statistics Canada that the accumulated debt that this government says it wants to attack is almost entirely due to two things. It is due to the corporate tax loopholes and interest costs stemming from the government's high interest rate policies.
Sadly, I believe that this government sought this strike. It sought this confrontation because it wanted to play one taxpayer off another. It wanted to play farmer off against worker; trucker against worker. It wanted to find a scapegoat for its own economic mismanagement.
I have heard the Treasury Board President refer to Canada's 1.5 million unemployed and suggest that public servants should not ask for an increase when this unemployment situation exists. The one and a half million unemployed, I would add, was created by this government's policies, by this government's made-in-Canada recession.
I have a message for the minister and for the Prime Minister. The 1.5 million people unemployed know it is not public servants that put them out of work. It is the policies of this government that put them out of work.
It is clear that the government's strategy to turn Canadians against public sector workers has failed. It has failed because through this strike I think other Canadians understand better now that federal government employees are just like themselves. They have families. They do a good day's work. They provide services to Canadians that are essential and they face the same challenges. They face mortgage payments and rent payments, buying back-to-school clothing, which most Canadians face.
What the whole issue comes down to is justice and decency. Is the government willing to truly reconsider its position to go the bargaining table without preconditions, as the minister stated today? Is he prepared to go there and talk about pay equity for women, to talk about zero per cent, to talk about the low income earners in the Public Service? Is he prepared to show respect for the people of this country who make the institutions work?
Denying workers their rights, denying the democratic process will not only fail the Public Service workers, it fails the Canadian people.
I want to say in closing that there is a simple question here. How can the government justify major increases for senior managers, increases for the heads of corporations like the Bank of Canada, and at the same time say that the clerk trying to get by on $20,000 does not deserve some pay increase? It is a simple question of right or wrong. It is a question of what kind of Canada we want to live in. It is a question of fairness and justice.
So, Mr. Speaker, my party does not support this legislation because we support the fact that Canadians have a right to express their views and to negotiate with their employer in a free, respectful way.
It is with some sadness that I say that the government continues to bring Canada to the brink of despair. It has a chance today to negotiate. Begin the process now, show respect for the workers, and you will have the support of the New Democratic Party.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into this debate to try, if I can, to bring a little different perspective to the comments that have been made so far by the members of the opposition parties, and to maybe straighten out some of the misconceptions.
The Leader of the New Democratic Party spoke three or four times about pay equity. She obviously did not listen to what the President of the Privy Council said, that pay equity discussions are ongoing, they are not part of this at all. In fact, I attended a meeting of the Treasury Board the other day where this matter was talked over in detail. Pay equity is an ongoing consideration and we are handling it through the Human Rights Commission rather than through discussions under Bill C-29.
I want to talk for a few minutes about the effects of the strike on the people of Canada, because after all they are the ones who are, I believe, suffering the most. I recall just before the deadline for the strike, Thursday as a matter of fact, that there was a meeting of the PSAC union in Hamilton. They decided that they were going to close down Hamilton industry that depended on Hamilton harbour for its livelihood. They made a plan to occupy the lift bridge into Hamilton harbour. They were going to run their cars on to the bridge, turn off the

September 17, 1991

engines and abandon their automobiles. In that way the bridge could not be lifted and ships could not get in and out of the harbour. The reality is that the police moved in on Friday morning and told those people who stopped their vehicles on the bridge that if they did not move their vehicles the police would tow them away and they would have to pay the towing charge, the storage charge, and be fined for obstructing a public throughway.
What was at stake here? What was at stake really was that there were two ships sitting out in the lake ready to come into the harbour, there were 10 ships scheduled to come through the canal over the weekend, and a handful of people were going to bring this economic unit to an absolute standstill. They were going to say: "Your ships cannot go in and out because we cannot get an agreement, or our union is not able to come to an agreement with the Treasury Board".
I object very much to that sort of conduct. Aside from that, I have had people call me, telling me that they are in the produce business and had produce in tractor trailers held up at the bridge. They could not get through the bridge at Niagara Falls and Fort Erie and in Detroit. Therefore, the fruit was rotting in some of the containers. I have had manufacturers call me and say they had materials tied up in containers in the customs warehouses around the Toronto-Hamilton area. They said if those containers were not released, they would have to close down their operations.
General Motors was bringing in automotive parts by air to the Oshawa airport. One manufacturer in Burlington called me and said that if he did not get his materials, Ford Motor Company would have to close down two production lines in Talbotville and one in Michigan that produced a certain model of Ford automobile.
These are just a few in my immediate area. Then, we go across the country and look into the position of the grain farmers in western Canada. What is happening to them is that we begin to see how devastating this is to people in the farming community. They just have no opportunity to do very much about it.
We have pressures on us from manufacturers, farmers and wholesale and retail people who are telling us that they want this matter settled. If we cannot come to an agreement, they say: "Legislate them back to work." If
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they do not go back to work, we are in a very serious condition.
The government has been negotiating with PSAC for 90 days. It was 60 days of straight negotiation and 30 days in conciliation, and it has not been able to come to an agreement with PSAC. It has made an agreement with four bargaining units within the Public Service and there are several more ready to announce within the next few days. We think that we have bargained in good faith and done everything we can to bring this matter to a resolution.
I am here to tell you that if we cannot get an agreement, then the legislation will go forward and they will be legislated back to work under the zero, three and three.
There has been a misconception. I will not call it a lie.
I will call it a misconception. Perhaps it was planned as part of the tactics of those who oppose what we are trying to do. Zero, three and three covers everybody. It covers the Prime Minister, cabinet, members of Parliament and all agencies, governments, Crown corporations, judges, RCMP, the Canadian Armed Forces and everyone who receives a cheque for services from the federal government.
The lie that is being pushed out there is that: "You guys fattened your pocketbook and left us out there. Now, you are going to pay yourselves off our wages."
Anyone who knows anything about the Public Service of Canada and its 390,000 employees knows that there are dozens of bargaining units, each with a closing date. Zero, three and three applies to each one of those units when that agreement expires. That is just plain common sense. Maybe some of them would like to have all those agreements occur on one date. Maybe that is possible. I do not know whether it is desirable or not.
I think we should study it to see if we want it to go that way or not. I do not think we do. I know that we cannot, as a government, continue to allow this strike to go on and allow the services to be denied to the people of Canada. We have to come to an agreement to settle this.
Take the people travelling out of some of our major airports. We settled with the air traffic controllers. They settled on the basis of zero, three and three but the entrance into their place of work is being obstructed by

September 17, 1991
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other people in the Public Service who are out on strike. We cannot allow that to go on.
We cannot allow people who have to travel in this country for a whole variety of reasons to just suddenly be brought to a grinding halt. We think that is wrong.
So it is. We have settled with engineers. We have settled with certain ships' crews in the maritime service. We have settled with a number of unions in the Public Service, and we are continuing to bargain.
I want to say just a word about the decision that was brought down by the Public Service Staff Relations Board. We felt all along that we were bargaining in good faith. We have met, as I say, for 60 days for negotiations and 30 days of conciliation. Any of these negotiations are tough. We are dealing with professional people on both sides. I have judged, looking at the process, that they have been fair all the way through, but our difficulty is that when we get people like Mr. Bean, who has said: "You know, this is not a monetary matter. We are politically opposed to the Government of Canada." That is what it is: "We are politically opposed to them". It is not a monetary matter at all. That is what we get when we talk to them.
We feel that we have bargained in good faith all the way through. The minister has ordered his negotiators back to talk with PS AC, with Mr. Bean, and he has said that we will discuss anything on the table, but the zero, three and three stays because it is part of the economic policy of this government brought down in a budget on February 26 and it stays. It is not going to be changed. Therefore, we are prepared to talk about non-monetary issues in the discussions that are before Treasury Board. We are prepared to talk about them and probably reach some agreements.
None of these things are easy. We look back on when we had other restraint legislation not brought in by our government but previous governments. I remember those debates. I was here and they were rancorous. When we had the six and five they just suspended any negotiations whatever. Any Public Service agreements that were in place were just suspended. That was it, they were just suspended. They went along for a period of time and finally they lifted them because it brought other pressures on the government.
Our main position is that we have to deal with the economy of this country in a realistic, across the board way and everyone has to contribute to that. We have said that everyone in the government will be subject to zero, three and three. When we look at the private sector we see companies laying off people. We see rationalization of industry because of the movement in various types of commerce in the world and in manufacturing in particular. We see manufacturers in Canada who have decided, for economic purposes, that they are going to use just-in-time delivery only to find that the materials they need for that just-in-time delivery are sitting at the border in trucks, containers and what have you. We cannot allow that to go on. If we allow it to go on there is going to be a massive lay-off in many of our industries.
A gentleman called me up and said that if we did not release certain materials that he has coming through the border that he is not going to be able to deliver certain supplies to the steel companies in Hamilton. That is going to have a disastrous effect. Combine that with the closing down of the Hamilton harbour, what would you have? You would have chaos in the city of Hamilton.
I am of the view that we have taken the right course and that we are doing the right thing at this time. It is not pleasant. We do not take any particular joy in it, but it has to be done for the good of the country. The economy is showing some improvement. Interest rates are down, inflation is moving downward and there is a good deal of economic activity. In fact in our area of Hamilton-Oak-ville-Burlington area the-


William James Kempling: You will have your chance to speak so say what you want to say.
In our particular area, The Hamilton Spectator recently carried a story saying that Oakville, Hamilton and Burlington are going to the high employment areas in this next 12 months. You would not know because you are never there.


An hon. member:: You don't know what you are talking about.


William James Kempling: Go back to the sewer. At any rate we have a good thing going in the area and I think we are going to come out of this thing quite well in spite of the yapping I hear across the aisle. We are going to come out


An hon. member:: That is not true.
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of it quite well if we stick to the program we have put in place.
The budget brought in by the Minister of Finance on February 26 was a recovery budget. It was meant to regenerate economic activity in the country. It is doing that. We are beginning to see the signs. Real estate sales are up for six months in a row. We think the economy is beginning to turn around quite nicely and we are going to be the beneficiaries of it down the road.
The thing we have to do is show leadership. We have to show the private sector that we will not allow government expenses to get out of line. We have put a bill in place for that. We cannot allow wage settlements in the government sector to be out of line.
Six of the provinces have followed suit and have taken the lead from the Minister of Finance and indicated that they are either are going to do the same or have done the same thing as the minister suggested in his budget. Therefore, I think we are on the right course and we will come out of this in pretty good shape down the road.
We will, as minister said in his speech, comply with the request of the Public Service Staff Relations Board and are ready to meet with Mr. Bean and his negotiators to see if we can reach some sort of an agreement with them on non-monetary matters and other matters. We hope they will come to the table and do what they can to help the process along and do their part.
It is rather ironic that their own employees have to be represented by unions. I do not think they have bargained in good faith with some of their own employees. From what we read in the news comments, they have had some difficulty in coming to agreements to amounts less than zero, three and three. But we have had good success so far with several bargaining units and we are going to continue to bargain with them. We are confident that as time goes on we will be able to bring this matter to a conclusion this week and we will proceed with other legislation as it comes up.


Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the member a couple of short, sharp questions.
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I listened to him and I really found it a bit offensive. He said that we negotiated and we ended up and we settled with a number of unions at zero, three and three and they are perfectly happy. I would like to ask him if in all good conscience he can tell me that they negotiated with the air traffic controllers, the ships' officers, the engineering people and did not give them monetary compensation in some form or other, whether it was in upgraded classification or through financial compensation. What you did was all through the back door, but you are not forthcoming. You do it in a very conniving and wrong-headed kind of way. It is not open. It is not for the public to understand.
If you can show me one of those groups that did zero, three and three I would be very pleased to say that I was wrong and that you were right. I have a sense that there was certainly compensation of some kind so that you could negotiate. Why do you not do the same thing with the Public Service Alliance? Why do you not negotiate while they are at work? Why do you not appoint a mediator and allow those people to go back to work? They want to work and at the same time do the right thing in terms of their ability to meet the increased inflationary costs across this land. You have not allowed them the dignity of their right to work and at the same time their right to compensation which you have done with the other groups that you say you have negotiated with zero, three and three. You know that you have not done that.
Why do you want to leave those doors closed, rather than open with respect to negotiation? You know veiy well that you have also given yourself a clause in this bill that is totally reprehensible. Again, it is government through Order in Council. That is wrong and you know that.
In many ways I have a lot of respect for the member for Burlington. But when he can stand there and hold the government line in that way, it is totally unacceptable. Just stand up and tell the truth about how you negotiated those other contracts and what the monetary compensation was.
Second, could you tell me why you do not take a leaf from what Judge Gold did with the post office and send them back while you negotiate? Last, are you prepared to take that cut in salary? I am. Are you?

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William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, if those are short, sharp questions, I guess we have a new meaning for short, sharp questions. The member knows that the various agreements we have signed have different closing dates. All those closing dates were prior to the February 26 budget. In many cases they settled for 4.2 per cent for back pay, but from the point of the signing of that contract forward it is zero, three and three. They accepted it without a great deal of difficulty. They realized the position the government is in regarding restraint.
I would be pleased to see if I can get the details of those various contracts.


Sheila Finestone: Thble them.


William James Kempling: I cannot table them. The minister can table them. At any rate, they are private between the Treasury Board and the unions themselves and we would have to get their permission to do it.
I do not see that we have bargained in bad faith. I think we have done a very good job thus far. This legislation is necessary in order that we are able to continue our economic policies.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did not answer the last question regarding the fact that the public is under the impression that MP's, senators, presidents of large corporations, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, and many other people, have already received a salary increase.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I find this rather fascinating. I cannot remember the member for Ottawa-Vanier at any time when parliamentary salaries or allowances were being negotiated standing up in his place and saying: "No, no, we don't want that". But now in a grandstanding way he is able to stand up and make an issue like this.
Our salaries and allowances, as the member knows, are set by statute and by agreement. They are effective January 1.
From January 1992, that period on, members of Parliament will have zero, three and three in effect. That is the way it is. Everybody will have zero, three and three: RCMP, Canadian Armed Forces, everybody who works for an agency or board, or Crown corporation. Anyone who receives a cheque from the Government of Canada will have zero, three and three. That is the way it will be. We are all equal as far as that is concerned.
The Public Service settlement that was made last year was 4.6 per cent. How far back do you want to roll it?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The question is simple. Is the member for Burlington ready to roll back his salary like many of us here on this side are willing to do-it is not grandstanding-so that we can meet with his government's policy, the policy of the Minister of Supply and Services of zero, three and three. It is not grandstanding. It is a simple question. Yes or no?


William James Kempling: On January 1, 1992, members of Parliament will receive zero, three and three. That is it. That rolls back whatever we have had in our statutes. It is grandstanding.

This impression is there, Mr. Speaker, and it is true that in the case of MP's the law says that on the 1st of January there will be an automatic increase in salary amounting to the cost of living minus 1 per cent. Like myself, some hon. members would be willing, Mr. Speaker, to give back the amount involved.
My question to the hon. member for Burlington is very straightforward: Is he, personally, willing to return to the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Government of Canada, money he received since January 1st in order to bring himself to the same level as civil servants, members of the Alliance or other unions, which are subject to this 0-3-3 policy?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Hamilton East for a brief intervention.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Yes, and I would also like to reserve my right to raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to ask the member a very direct question. It has been asked once before. He refuses to answer. Is he willing to show Canadians that he is going to set the example by rolling back his salary as of last January?

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William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times I have to say it. Our wage adjustment was put in place prior to the February 26 budget, and that is the guideline that we have to follow.
When our wage adjustment comes up January 1, 1992, we will be subject to zero, three and three from there on. That is the way it is, and that is the way it is with all the bargaining units within the Public Service. We are no different.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, the member for Burlington talked about the tremendous inconvenience that had been going on in his riding.
Of course, there is not a riding across the country that is not experiencing some form of inconvenience. We all would like the Public Service to get back to work. We know that if you would appoint a mediator, this could happen right away.
There is another group of Canadians here that is being lost in this debate. It is the 2 million people who do not have a job.
The hon. member for Burlington talked about the fact that in his riding, there was very little unemployment. He talked about the fact that it was going to be a growth area for employment. I would like to know what he is doing to pass on whatever ideas or programs he is implementing in his specific riding so that the rest of his government could pass on those ideas to the rest of this country so that the 2 million unemployed could get back to work. I would like the member to address that.
The unemployed are the forgotten people in this debate.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I do not know how much time I have, but I could go on for a couple of hours on that.
We have had a good deal of industrial activity in the area generally. We have added about 53 new manufacturing operations. It is very, very encouraging and very good. There has been a good deal of rationalization of industry as well across the country and across the province.
I can recall one company that moved in. Toledo Scale called me and said it had good news and bad news. I said:
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"What is the bad news?" It said: "We are closing down our manufacturing operation in Windsor. It has been going since 1890." I said: "What is the good news?" "Well, I have more bad news. We are closing down our head office in Mississauga."
I said: "Can there be any good news after that?" He said: "Yes. We are putting a brand new state of the art plant in Burlington where we are combining our manufacturing and head office operations. We will be able to compete on a global scale." That is the sort of thing that is going on all over southern Ontario.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate, on a point of order the hon. member for Hamilton East.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I would like to get up on a point of order and I would like to ask the Speaker to request clarification of the statements made by the member for Burlington. I do not know what planet he is living on, because one-third of the manufacturing jobs across this country have been lost in the last year.
When I challenged his statement that the Hamilton-Burlington area was coming up roses in the employment sector, he said to me, and I quote: "Go back to the sewer". He most certainly did and it was heard by every person sitting on this side of the House. He said to me: "Go back to the sewer". It is not the first time that that member has personally insulted me in a very denigrating way. I refer, Mr. Speaker, to chapter 7 in the Rules of Debate. You cannot use words like "false", "pig", "reflections", "rotten", "spurious", "stinker", "stupid", "subterfuge", "trickery", "truth", "unfair"-
Well, I dare say, Mr. Speaker, that the suggestion "Go back to the sewer" is equally as demeaning to this House. And, when you are talking about the allegation that the employment situation in my community is fantastic, I think I have the right to challenge that, and I don't think I should be told to "go back to the sewer" for challenging it.
I want a retraction here in this House by that hon. member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Has the hon.
member for Burlington any comment?

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William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, I do not know that the comments were made in that context. I stand by the fact that there is a good deal of economic revival in the Hamilton-Burlington area. Steel Company of Canada has a large number of orders. Dofasco's order book is right up to top. There is economic activity all over.
As far as the "sewer" goes-I mean, when you speak in this House and the member for Hamilton East is there, she just chips in all the time. I can remember when the Prime Minister was here and the insulting comments she made to the Prime Minister, day after day after day. But when anyone makes a comment to her she likes to- So, if I have said anything-and I did not say any of those stupid words that she read from the book, I did not say any of those-but if I said something that offended her, I apologize, I take it back.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Then, I consider the matter closed. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Ottawa West.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to start these comments today with a thank you. I want to thank all the people, and there are a quarter of a million plus of them across this country, who every day deliver services to Canadians. I want to thank the people who help my constituents in getting their unemployment insurance cheques, who help them find jobs or training programs when they need it, who help seniors process their old age security cheques, even when there are now backlogs, delays and tie-ups at offices arising from cutbacks in the public service and a cutback in services to Canadians.
I want to thank those people I have met in Atlantic Canada who go out on the ocean and risk their lives to save other Canadians and to provide much needed services to shipping and transportation. I want to thank the people in Cranbrook and the people in Vancouver whom I have met with who are working for the Government of Canada because they want to deliver services to Canadians, who are frustrated and fed up because they are not being provided with the resources to be able to deliver those services, and the managers, who are having to do more with less and know that, in fact, what they are doing less with is less.
I want to thank all those people. I do not want to name any of them because all of them feel under threat from this government. All of them feel that any expression of an open opinion on how badly this government is managing the country can lead to them being the next on the hit list.
The Liberal Party of Canada appreciates the important role the Public Service of Canada has played in the building of this nation and in progress and prosperity for Canada world-wide.
We recognize that politicians may have had the dream of a nation from coast to coast to coast, but the people who put the bricks and mortar together include the public sector, the people who work for the Government of Canada, who carry out the wishes of this Parliament.
We believe that the country only works when there is a co-operative relationship between Parliament and the employees of the Government of Canada, based on respect and a sense of fair play. That is what is being eroded here, Mr. Speaker, far more than simply the question of what happens with somebody's pay cheque next month or next year. It is a question of whether or not this country can keep functioning productively and efficiently if this government continues to insist on using its own employees as the victims, the scapegoats of its own mismanagement of the economy, social programs, international relations and everything that is important to Canada.
In a broader vein, any nation needs a co-operative partnership between government, management and labour if it is to prosper and to make progress. That multisectoral partnership is essential to our competitiveness abroad, to our ability to continue on the road of nationhood.
What we are seeing here is part of a much bigger agenda. It is not simply a question of what is in the pay envelope next week. It is a question of persuading all Canadians that they have to be satisfied with working for less, that our economy, as a result of the policies of this government is going to become an economy of lower paid, unskilled jobs. You persuade people that they have to work for less and under any conditions and yet at the same time you deprive them of the institutions that protect their rights to fair, open bargaining with their employer.
Those rights are under attack, not just for the public servants in this case, but for all Public Service employees and for all private sector employees.
September 17, 1991

I want to talk about a couple of things. First of all, the government is perpetuating the myth that somehow this has to do with the economic situation of this country. We all know who has created that economic situation, and if we ever needed more evidence, we just need to look at the way in which they are using that as an excuse in this particular case. We heard nothing in the February budget and we are hearing nothing in this debate that we have not heard for six consecutive years. In six consecutive budgets this government has said to Canadians that they should pay more taxes, accept fewer services, accept the deterioration of medicare, education, science and research in this country. Pay more but get less. The government will downsize the Public Service; it will pay them less, and they have accepted decreasing wages against inflation for many years now. They have exercised restraint.
The promise was that for all this pain, all those extra taxes, all those cuts in services, what Canadians would get was a lower deficit and a lower debt. What has happened in those six years is that the debt has doubled. Is it not time for the government to admit that it is its fault and that this program is not working, has not worked and will not work.
There are some reasons for that. The entire payroll of the union that is now on strike against this government is only 3 per cent of national spending. That is less than the $5 billion per year this government spends to contract out.
On that note I want to switch and talk about fairness. This bill that the government tabled before us yesterday demonstrates boldly, crudely, that this government has no intention of being fair, that its plans have absolutely nothing to do with fiscal responsibility or the debt or the deficit, but simply breaking the backs of its own Public Service employees.
There is an exception in this bill which says that while Public Service employees will get a zero per cent increase, our friends, all those consultants on whom we have spent billions of dollars to tell us we love the GST and ve love the green plan, and we love the government,
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are not subject to a freeze on their costs now or in the future.
I remind people again that what we spend on those contractors is many times what we spend on these people who are now on strike against zero. Who are these people who are on strike against zero? They are not the president of Petro-Canada with a salary of over $400,000 a year who got a $20,000 raise. They are the people whose entire salary is $20,000 after 15 years with the Government of Canada. An entire salary of $20,000 gets no increase while an appointee of this government earning $400,000 gets a $20,000 increase. That is not fair and Canadians know that is not fair.
There is money for the fat cats from this government, lots of money for the fat cats, and no money for the work horses who keep this country running every day. If we ever needed proof of just how important their work is to keep this country running, we have certainly had it in the last week and a half.
This government has deliberately played politics with the fundamental infrastructure that keeps the economy of Canada running. It has deliberately provoked a strike that has disrupted transportation, disrupted the movement of goods and services, disrupted the movements of Canadians, and disrupted our social programs. The government will keep on doing that instead of accepting, as the Public Service Staff Relations Board decided yesterday, that it is breaking the law. The government can correct that and conform with the law immediately by getting back to the bargaining table, by negotiating as it should have been doing since last February and avoiding everything that is happening to this country as a result of its failure to do that.
All the government needs to do is appoint a mediator, get back to the bargaining table, and show it is looking for a solution instead of the continuation of problems.
I want to speak particularly about those who are hurt by this government's actions. While we, as members of Parliament, get our increases in a year of high inflation, while the high paid appointees of the government get their increases, while the deputy ministers and the senior managers earning over $150,000 get their increases and will even get their bonuses, their pay-offs for lay-offs, people earning $20,000 or less going down to as low as

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$16,000, get nothing. Canadians know that that is not fair. Canadians also know that 80 per cent of the people in those lower income brackets are women.
If this bill were tested against any standard of equity between men and women, this bill would contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have other examples of inequity. We have regional rates of pay where somebody working in the poorest provinces of this country are paid less than people working in other parts of the country for doing exactly the same job. That is not equitable and that is not right.
The ministers and the members opposite keep saying: "Yes, well we will get zero too". Oh, boy, is that not nice. This year, when inflation is over 6 per cent, almost entirely due to tax increases by this government, we get our raise. But somebody earning $20,000 who cannot afford the price of bread does not get an increase. Sure, next year we will take zero when the government is projecting that inflation will be down to 3 per cent. Let us do it to ourselves when it is easy and do it to everybody else when it is tough.
The government has not been fair even among its own employees. The members opposite have said: "Other unions have accepted zero, three and three". I challenge the government to show me one contract that has been accepted at zero, three and three without other compensation to employees. The government has talked about the engineers, the air traffic controllers, the ships' officers and other groups. In every one of the contracts that has been mentioned there has been financial compensation to people for accepting zero, three and three. Either it was a lump sum payment or some shift in how wages are applied. It is upgrading a whole group by a whole classification. The government continues the unfairness because it still holds unto itself the right in this bill to change people's classification so they can say: "We are not giving them a raise. They are just getting a reclassification".
More money in your pocket is more money in your pocket, so I ask why this government is doing it for its best paid employees and not for its poorest paid employees. There is only one answer to that. Its purpose here is not to be fair, not to challenge the deficit and the debt. Canadians understand belt tightening, but they do not understand this kind of injustice and unfairness. Its
job is to persuade the lowest paid workers in the Public Service of Canada that they had better be prepared to work for this government under any conditions at any price. It is a message they are trying to get out to other workers in Canada.
Collective bargaining is a basic right in a democratic society: the right to sit down with your employer and co-operatively decide what your working conditions are going to be and what your compensation is going to be. This government has violated that right and it intends to undermine that right for every other worker in Canada.
I want to make a few other comments before concluding. Collective bargaining is in danger in Canada and when collective bargaining is in danger, then the rights of any employee, any person working for a salary in this country, is in danger.
I want to talk about who is responsible for this situation. It is certainly not the public servant who is responsible for the unemployed in this country. It is not the public servant who is responsible for putting Canadians at each other's throats. I am disgusted by what I have seen in the last week-the actions of this government putting people in a position where the grain harvest is in danger and where all segments of society are suffering simply because the government refused to talk to its employees.
This is a political fight. The difference is, nobody in this House is putting the livelihood of their family on the line. But the people who are out on strike are putting as little or as much as $1,000 in two weeks and sometimes many times that on the line because they believe they are fighting a government and a principle that most Canadians support as well. They believe they are seeing the fulfilment of the Tory agenda to disrupt yet another institution of government.
The Leader of the New Democratic Party has said they have been behind the alliance from the beginning. Well, we have taken a very strong stand against this wage freeze. We knew it would lead to this, even if the government did not. But we do not walk in here a vote the way big business tells us, like the government does. We do not walk in here and vote the way the president of any union tells us. We walk in here and vote based on what we hear from our constituents, from Canadians from the business community, from the farmers and fishermen of Canada and we say: Get a solution here.
September 17, 1991

Appoint a mediator. Stop breaking the law. Get back to the bargaining table and get services back to Canadians.


Mr. Robert D. Nault (Kenora - Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I know I am sitting so high up here that it is hard to see me. Hopefully, they will not put another row behind the curtains here or Pat and I will not be seen at all.
I wanted to ask my colleague a particular question that has been bothering me through this whole episode, and that is the fact that on the one hand we have been told consistently over the last seven years that the Prime Minister is the great negotiator, the individual who has the ability to conciliate with the different groups in the country and put together a package that all Canadians will accept. During that process we have also been told that the Prime Minister understands labour because, as you know, he used to do that for a living before he decided to attempt the most difficult job in the land and that is to run this country and to be the Prime Minister, the top official in the land.
I have in front of me the last 20 years of back to work legislation. I might say that it intrigues me that in the last 20 years there has been back to work legislation-all under previous Liberal governments I might add-but one of the things that interested me the most about looking back in the past and looking back at the records is that every one of these pieces of back to work legislation had the abilities for an arbitrator or a mediator put into it.
One of the things that I wanted my colleague to maybe touch on a little bit for us is why the great conciliator, the great negotiator, the present Prime Minister, did not even attempt to allow the process which we call collective bargaining to have its final conclusion. If things completely do break down there is a system which allows for an arbitrator or mediator.
I just want to quickly run by a few. In 1972 there was the St. Lawrence Ports Operations Act and it allowed for Judge Alan Gold to mediate. Again, in 1972, the West Coast Ports Operation legislation called for a mediator if no resolution was found. In 1973, Maintenance of Railway Operations Act, Judge Alan Gold again. In 1974, West Coast Grain Handling Operations Act, Dr. Neil Perry, University of Victoria, as a conciliator. In 1975,
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West Coast Ports Operation legislation calls for an arbitrator if no resolution found. It goes on and on and on.
During the comments that I will make during my speech I will focus a little bit on these.
I would like to ask the member what her sense is as to why the present government would not attempt to do something as obvious as other governments have done in the past and learn from the institutions that we have put in place which will allow for these mechanisms to work?


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. Before coming directly to an answer, I think he has raised some very important points that I hope people are keeping in mind in this. The first one is that I think the Prime Minister could be capable of negotiating. I think there has been a deliberate plan here since last February not to negotiate and, in fact, to ensure that a strike would happen and that it would be as disruptive as possible to the country. In other words, I think the government deliberately decided there would be an interruption of services to Canadians so not only is it holding its own employees hostage, but it is holding Canadians hostage.
For instance, the government clearly knew when it introduced the budget and when negotiations could have started last February it could have reasonably predicted, I think, that in September the grain elevators would be full and that the shipping of grain and the very harvest itself and the livelihood of farmers across the prairies would be in jeopardy if we were not able to move that grain. Yet the government chose not to use the power it has to designate the people working in the grain industry as essential workers. It could have done that last year. It could have done that at any time and it chose not to. To me that is a sign of a government that wants to create conflict and wants to create disruption of services to try and recoup some of its rapidly disappearing support.
I think we are also seeing a style of government here that we have seen consistently since September 4, 1984. We saw it in the free trade deal where the idea was not to bring Canadians together, but to encourage each segment of society to look only at what is good for them, not what is in the interests of the country. We have seen the promises of jobs, jobs, jobs and yet we have seen a huge

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segment of our industrial base disappearing. When the government promised pink slips and running shoes to public servants in 1984, it did not say it also meant pink slips and running shoes for jobs, for seniors, for the unemployed and for Canadian business, but those have been the results. We are seeing the same approach as we saw in the Meech Lake Accord where it is my way or no way.
I have decided this and so you have to accept this and I think what typifies this whole approach of the government is really that horrible week in June that we all lived through when we saw provincial premiers being bullied, when we saw all kinds of psychological warfare because a few people felt that not every dot on an i, not every cross on a t in the Meech Lake Accord was perfect.
I think Canadians want leadership that is going to bring them together, not divide them, not put them at each other's throats. That is how I explain the situation we are in right now.


Mr. Denis Pronovost (Saint-Maurice):: So, Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons is placed in the rather undesirable situation of having to debate a special back-to-work legislation reguarding the members of the Public Services Alliance of Canada.
Certainly such an outcome to lenghty and unsuccessful negotiations cannot be seen as satisfactory, and should not be for that matter, by anyone in Canada. Some accuse government of inflexibility, while others blame the union leaders, their irresponsibility and their attempts to score political points on the back of the Canadian public and their own membership.
Those who support these two conflicting philosophies will come up with all kinds of arguments to defend their position. Heaven knows that there is no shortage of them. The main problem facing us today, Mr. Speaker, is not to determine who is right and who is wrong in this conflict, and whether the government could have done more for his employees or whether union leaders have gone too far once again; neither is it to decide whether the right to strike has been trampled on, respected or abused. The main problem we are confronted with today, Mr. Speaker, is sadly our collective-and I stress "collective"-inability to restore some sanity in Canada, to set our country a logical and serene course instead of that windy and unsure road of confrontation that is destroying it.
This conflict within the public service of Canada is simply the product of excessive selfishness and individualism as well as a blatant lack of respect for authority and the law of the land. This conflict also reflects an intensive downgrading of all the values that were a source of pride for us in the past, particularly the traditional tolerance of Canadians which is increasingly giving way to intolerance.
It is altogether amusing and sad, Mr. Speaker, to see for instance how in the opinion of Quebecers Ottawa is wasting all its money in an effort to support farmers in Western Canada, how for the people of Ontario Canadians from the Atlantic provinces who fish for a living are insatiable leeches feeding on the taxes paid by the wealthier provinces, and how the people of Manitoba to this day still seem to bitterly resent Quebecers for getting these now famous contracts.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, under this public service conflict lies another Canadian reality, namely that for a majority of Canadians from wherever they live, the federal system is no longer benefitting them but only benefits their neighbours, at their expense of course.
Our nation has become-and I am very sad to have to say that-an extremely egotistical nation which fails to face reality. Our problems are rich kids problems and, more often than not, spoiled brats problems. We all demand more and more from the federal government, from our boss, from our community, from our municipality and our school board but, at the same time, we want to give less and less.
We Canadians are after short term gains, as if under the threat of an imminent world-wide nuclear war. Every budget cut made by this government or other governments in this country is met with a general outcry, thousands of dissatified voices from all parts of the country claiming that the cuts should have been made elsewhere. But if the government had the unfortunate idea of doing just that, other voices, contradictory voices would rise immediately to protest vehemently such action.

September 17, 1991

Yet the crybabies and spoiled brats that we have become want to see our $400 billion national debt eliminated or at least reduced. However, when the federal government or a provincial government bravely engages in that undertaking, no one is willing to make the necessary sacrifices.
On that subject, Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, the public service of Canada employees are no better and no worse than the vast majority of Canadians. I am disappointed, Mr. Speaker, because Canadians seem to have forgotten to take a good look in the mirror in the morning and ask themselves: "What can I do today for my country and help resolve this crisis?" Instead, Mr. Speaker, we Canadians prefer to acknowledge that a problem does exist of course but we choose to blame it on our neighbour, our boss and ultimately on the politicians, whatever their political stripe, and on any and all governments.
When it tabled the budget in February, the government had the courage to put down in black and white its strategy for economic recovery and deficit reduction. The federal government never concealed its hand from the unions or the Canadian people. Quite the contrary, it clearly stated its priorities. I find it very surprising today, Mr. Speaker, that members of the House of Commons of Canada would want to delay the passing of this back to work legislation. Each new striking day will only do more harm to all Canadians, including the strikers and their families.
It is time we as Canadians stopped playing this useless game of national self-destruction. We should stop wondering who is responsible for this strike and consider all the implications of a labour dispute that is being forced on thousands of Canadians. First of all-and this point was not brought up so far in this House, by government or opposition members, but it is a very important one-in addition to having their salaries frozen by the government in 1991, which is not very palatable to employees in the public sector, in addition to having their salaries frozen, Public Service union members are about to lose 4 per cent of their salary because their union is keeping them on strike for another week. Mr. Speaker, every week on strike means a 2 per cent drop in the annual pay of Public Service union members. This is not a cut imposed by the government but by the Public Service
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Alliance of Canada which forced its members to go on strike.
Granted, the federal government is doing nothing this year to improve the salaries of union members, but it seems to me that today, public servants are suffering even more at the hands of their union leaders, whose strike strategy will cause them to lose even more money.
Second, the present dispute is doing serious harm to our fledgling economic recovery. Can Canada afford this useless confrontation? Third, thousands of Canadians are no longer receiving the essential services to which they are entitled. In some cases, the strike is causing very serious harm to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
Fourth, the unions must realize that when they work for the government, they are in a monopoly situation. When Canadians need a passport or an unemployment insurance cheque, they have to go through the federal government. Government employees should realize that the unique job security they enjoy is a benefit that does not exist anywhere else in our society.
Fifth, our fragile economy can no longer afford the kind of disruption this causes for our airlines, airports, meat inspection and grain shipping. Some unions, some union leaders and some members of the opposition have said the federal government was glad to see public servants on strike because this meant it would save several million dollars a day in salaries. That is extremely shortsighted. Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government knows perfectly well that every day of this strike costs the Canadian economy a lot more than the number of dollars saved as a result of the work stoppage.
Mr. Speaker, it is in Canada's national interest to put a speedy end to this labour dispute. This back-to-work legislation has become imperative because the strike has interrupted essential services, in addition to causing very serious harm to innocent Canadians. Our airlines, already in financial difficulty, are losing millions of dollars daily because of problems at the airport.
Canadian auto manufacturers are having all kinds of problems because the parts they need are held up at customs. Fruit and vegetables are held up at the Canadian border, and meanwhile their quality deteriorates. Our grain is not delivered on time. Canadians cannot get their passports in time for the trips they have planned. Businesses no longer receive payments owed by the federal government which annually purchases $20 billion

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worth of goods from our businesses. This shortfall is a threat to jobs in many small businesses in Canada.
Considering these and many other reasons, I find it hard to understand why members of the New Democratic Party consider the right to strike as a supreme right in this country and refuse to entertain any negative consequences of the present situation. Instead of helping to settle this dispute, the NDP is doing its best to delay passage of special legislation and aggravate the situation.
Mr. Speaker, Opposition members are fond of making patriotic speeches about Canada and about how much they love this country. Today, Opposition members have a unique opportunity to put those grand ideas into practice and help Canada out of this crisis, instead of fanning the flames of controversy.
For all of these reasons, I think this labour dispute should be terminated today. I therefore urge all members to ask that the debate be concluded and adopt forthwith this back-to-work legislation for Public Service employees.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a very brief comment and then pose a couple of questions to the hon. member.
As I was listening to his presentation, I was wondering whether he had heard the eloquent presentation by my colleague, the member for Ottawa West, when she reminded Parliament about the role of the public servants.
I think it is clear to all Canadians that public servants are there to serve Canadians, to serve our seniors, our new immigrants, our new citizens and to serve us in Parliament as well. I would like to remind the member to keep in mind that workers would like to go back to work.
The issue before us is the process by which we would like workers to go back to work. Is it a process without honour and dignity or is it a process with honour, dignity, and with a heart on the part of this government? That is the question Canadians would like to have answered.
I suggest that if we force the workers back to work with a precondition it is almost like putting a bitter pill into a sick child, tying his hands, and gagging his mouth. That is not the way to have a child swallow the needed medicine. We have to do it with honour and respect. Likewise, we have to tell our workers that we are coming to them with a heart, that we really understand their needs. We will remove all preconditions, follow the decision of the Public Service Staff Relations Board, sit down and negotiate and appoint a mediator so that the workers can come back to work with dignity and will understand that they are valued in the Public Service.
My questions to the hon. member are these: Does he believe that the right to strike is a legal right of all Canadian citizens involved in work? What advice would he give the government so it bargains in good faith? Does he really believe in the rule of law, a law that has to be followed both by citizens and by government, particularly this government?


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for these few remarks.
In particular, he asked me whether I recognized the legal right to strike in Canada. I was the president of my union as a journalist in Trois-Rivieres, Mr. Speaker, and we had to live with an employees' strike that hurt not only the workers but also the company.
But coming back to the public sector, there is an important difference. Yes, I recognize the employees' legal right to strike. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, what concerns me about the hon. member for Winnipeg North, since he frequents the New Democratic Party members more and more, is that I think he tends unfortunately to consider the Public Service's right to strike as the supreme right that will overrule and override all other rights in Canada. That is the big problem in our society.
I did not mention it in my speech earlier, but we, especially in the Parliament of Canada, have this passion of talking about the rights of Canadian citizens, the right to strike or to do almost anything, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that I do want to respect, but I think that all of these rights tend to make parliamentarians and Canadians forget, Mr. Speaker, that we also have re-
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sponsibilities. Wherever we go, when we receive people lobbying MPs, in the two years since I was elected, Mr. Speaker, I do not remember having received a single group that came to tell me about the responsibilities that had to be faced and the difficult periods we had to go through. I do not remember seeing many like that.
On the other hand, groups have come to meet me to claim all kinds of rights, an endless list that you cannot imagine. All members of this House, be they on this side or the other, have received pressure groups telling us about their rights, regardless of the consequences for other citizens.
Mr. Speaker, I would call this the Canadian situation, this tendency we have here in Parliament only to see the rights of specific groups. I do not want to deal only with the Public Service today, but with all of them. When national organizations come to do their lobbying, they only care about their own problems, small or large. The problems of others are unimportant! They would impose on their neighbours to have their own rights recognized.
Our country is sick, Mr. Speaker, and I consider this legal right to strike in the Public Service to be one that can be exercised, but within proper limits, without imposing on other Canadians who also have rights. We all have responsibilities as well.


Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I have a short comment with two very brief questions.
I note that the member discussed the saving that the government is making as a result of this strike. I believe he said something in the neighbourhood of 2 per cent per week.
Since the workers will be off for something just over two weeks, this will provide a bit of a sizeable saving, or extra funds. Was he inferring that this would mean that there would be some funds that could be available for negotiations, or does he view the government's policy as being zero increase for each and every individual? Does that zero increase only apply to the total budget?
If it does apply to the total budget, I am wondering whether we can still see some optimism for a settlement here.
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My second question is a very brief one. I know he alluded to problems with grain movement. Was he aware of any grain movements through the seaway prior to the declaration of the strike? My information was that there was virtually nothing moving in that avenue from the prairies. It was pretty much plugged up, and because of the lack of sales it was not very likely to be unplugged.


Denis Pronovost: Mr. Speaker, on the issue of grain movements, I think the hon. member from Saskatchewan could talk to farmers in his own area who are getting increasingly worried about what is going on with this strike. He is probably in a better position than I am to confirm this information. Every night, on the news, even on the French networks, we see Saskatchewan farmers greatly concerned about the attitude of the New Democratic members in this House who work in the higher interest of their Public Service union, instead of worrying about the state of the economy in Saskatchewan and all other provinces.
On the second issue, I would like to make myself clear, since I am not sure my colleague got my point. I clearly indicated that some members in this House wrongly claim this strike is making us happy, because we are saving some money. It is quite the opposite. The Government of Canada recognizes that the very small amount we can save with this strike is nothing compared to the enormous losses the Canadian economy is suffering.
Also, it is true the government is freezing wage increases at 0 per cent, even though I would have preferred to avoid any such freeze, but the government is imposing a freeze. According to the government's plan, there is zero increase. But the unions- Maybe you could talk to your friends in the civil service. These people are imposing a salary reduction of about 2 per cent of their member's annual pay for every week they strike. When this conflict is over, the federal government will have given 0 per cent to its employees and the Public Service Alliance will have imposed a salary reduction of around 4 per cent on its members, who it says are in dire financial straits.
Canadian men and women have to be told about that reality, Mr. Speaker. In my riding of Saint-Maurice, I know personally dozens of public servants who do not agree with the government's strategy because it hurts them, and I understand that, but they are even more angiy with their union leaders who dragged them into a strike that hurts them even more, although they knew

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full well that they could not win against a government that had stated its policy veiy clearly in the February Budget. After this strike, Public Service unions will have to deal with their members who are suffering needlessly.
Instead of sitting down with the government, Mr. Speaker, and trying to negotiate non-monetary clauses and perhaps gaining something in that respect, Public Service unions impose a salary reduction on their members and prevent them from getting anything at the moment, which I think is most unfortunate.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Before resuming debate, I would like to suggest that members who wish to converse do so discreetly-I say this as a friendly suggestion-so that the Chair and our listeners can hear the speeches.
Resuming debate.


Robert Daniel Nault: Mr. Speaker, it gives me extreme pleasure today to rise and talk about a topic that is veiy close and dear and near to me, an issue and an area that I dealt with on a regular basis in my work life before I became a member of Parliament. That is the area of collective bargaining and the area of collective rights for workers in Canada. I speak specifically about the union that I worked for in the railway industry before I became a member of Parliament, and that is the United Transportation Union.
I want to touch a little bit on that as I go along today and talk about this particular piece of legislation that is before us, and also about the need to understand what we are talking about here.
First of all, I would like to deal with the individual rights of workers and Canadians and to deal with it in two areas. One is the public sector versus the private sector, and the myth that seems to be being perpetuated on the other side that Public Service employees and those workers who work for the Public Service are different from the private sector employees who are out there, and who go on strike on a regular basis.
First of all, I want to talk about the fact that I believe, simply, that all workers in Canada should have rights. The problem that we are having here today is to define what those rights should be. On the one hand we have a government on this side which feels that because in the particular budget put forward by the then Minister of Finance in February, which outlined a particular program, therefore, the collective bargaining rights that Canadians have by law no longer are necessary or are no longer important because its agenda as a government should supersede that.
That, Mr. Speaker, is a big mistake to make. First of all, the collective bargaining right, the institution of organized labour, the institution of rights of Canadians will be there a lot longer than this particular government will, a lot longer than we as members of Parliament will be here, if we guard it very carefully and very sincerely.
The fear I have is that we are setting a very nasty precedent with this particular piece of legislation. Yes, strikes hurt. There is no doubt about that. That is what they are intended to do. If anybody on the other side can say to me: "You are allowed to go on strike only in good times; you are allowed to go on strike only when it does not hurt anybody else", then we have difficulty with understanding what the labour institution is all about and what the progress and process of collective bargaining and the need for that particular right of the individual worker is.
I get the sense, by listening to the members opposite, that they feel the only time an individual should have a right to strike is if it is not going to hurt anybody else. Well, if they sincerely believe that, then they should be straightforward and tell us as Canadians and workers that no one should be allowed to strike in this country because someone will be hurt.
One of the areas that has really interested me, as I mentioned in my question to the member for Ottawa West, is that the government has changed the rules of the game somewhat as it relates to back-to-work legislation. The great conciliator, the Prime Minister we have today, is well aware of the labour movement and collective bargaining. Unless he was the worst labour lawyer in the country, he should know that there is a particular
September 17, 1991

system in place that we have to follow in order to maintain the rule of law.
I want to again mention some of the different pieces of back-to-work legislation that came forward in the last 20 years. The reason I keep emphasizing these is because they also were a Draconian measure to a certain extent. I as a member believe that if you are going to say to Canadians and to workers that you have the right to strike, then tell them so. If you do not have the right to strike or there are certain areas of the economy that you cannot, as a government, accept allowing people to strike, then say so. That is what we call the services that are essential to all Canadians and we put those on the books to make sure those services will be maintained during these work stoppages.
The government, in a sneaky way, is saying to the Public Service that it, the Public Service, has no collective rights. It is also saying that the Public Service has no right to strike, because during the whole process of collective bargaining there is the ultimate. When you come to the end of the whole collective bargaining process, what is left? That is an arbitrator or a mediator. If they are suggesting with the back-to-work legislation that we have come to the end of the process of negotiation with no agreement, then we have to take a look at what the alternatives are.
The alternatives should always be maintained based on what we have done in the past. In the past, Mr. Speaker, based on the Maintenance of Railway Operations Act in 1966 it was back to work with an arbitrator, which meant that both sides would make their presentation to the arbitrator, and the arbitrator, an independent body, was a third party.
Can you imagine what it would be like if I was your employee, and I had to believe that you as a person, as a member of Parliament and as our Speaker, would be judge and jury every time I had a dispute. What we did to be fair to workers in this country and what governments put in the past was the ability to have an independent third party who does not have the ideology or the government's agenda at heart, but has the equal rights of everyone involved at heart. That is what arbitrators and mediators are for. That was in order the maintain the credibility of the system.
Mr. Speaker, what we have seen in the legislation before you today, is the complete erosion of the credibility of the system. Now, basically, this governments says:
Government Orders
"It does not matter what you say or what you want, I am going to tell you what you are going to get".
In 1966 they understood there was a big problem in the country. A lot of people were being hurt because, as you know, in those days when railroads were in their prime, when they shut down the whole country shut down. Therefore, what took place was was back-to-work legislation but the government gave both sides the legitimate right to go in front of an independent third party to make their cases and let that person rule on it.
In 1972, under the St. Lawrence Ports Operations Act, the same situation took place. In 1973, again it was the same situation with a railway strike, with Judge Alan Gold being asked to arbitrate the dispute. With the West Coast Grain Handling Operations Act in 1974, Dr. Neil Perry of the University of Victoria was the conciliator. In 1975 the legislation called for an arbitrator if no resolution was found. In 1975, again under the St. Lawrence Ports Operations Act, Judge Alan Gold was asked. In 1976, under the Port of Halifax Operations Act, again there was a court magistrate who was appointed as mediator if no resolution was found. In 1977, the Air Traffic Control Service Continuation Act, there again was the ability for an arbitrator to look at whether this dispute could be resolved. In 1978 with the Postal Services Continuation Act the mediator was the then minister. In 1978, the Shipping Continuation Act, it was William Kelly, as every one knows, as in 1982, the West Coast Ports Operation Act, with William Kelly again.
I bring forward this issue because what we have seen with the present government is a change of how we deal with disputes in the Public Service. Basically that is what the government has done, and it really interests me that it has done it. In 1966 when the government of the day, the Liberal Party, gave the Public Service the right to strike, the Progressive Conservative Party, which now governs this country, voted in favour of that. It meant at that time in 1966, when Mr. Diefenbaker was still the leader, they felt very strongly that yes, there was a right for workers in the public sector to pull their services if they felt they were being treated unjustly.
To go further with that theme, we now have something that is even worse and that is the belief by not only the workers but the decision and the belief by the Public Service Staff Relations Board that indeed this particular government has not been negotiating in good faith. I do not know if members on the other side realize how worrisome it can be to believe that even before you start the other side has no intention of coming to an agree-

September 17, 1991
Government Orders
merit. Then again we look at the complete dismantling of the institution of collective bargaining. When we look at that very seriously, we have in essence what we have seen in other countries in the world: complete chaos where we cannot maintain the rule of law because workers have lost complete faith in their governments. We may sit here and say that it would never happen in Canada because we are too democratic and we do things that are just and fair. We know the difference between right and wrong. My leader spoke very eloquently about the difference between right and wrong. When we get the Public Service Staff Relations Board telling us that what the government is doing in dealing with its own civil servants, its own employees, is wrong, then we all have fears and we should all be very fearful of what is to take place next.
It does not surprise me one little bit that the president of the alliance would come out publicly and say: "We may just ignore the law." The reason for that is simply: "If you can ignore the law, as the Parliament of Canada has done under section 51, then why should I honour the law?" That is a very serious situation to be taking place in our country. Once we let ourselves, as members of Parliament, agree that breaking the law is acceptable, whether it be under section 51 or whether it be a president of a union saying: "Well, it doesn't matter because we may just continue this anyway", we are really leading toward what we have seen in other countries and that is a complete dismantling of the institutions that we have put in place to have what is aptly put, good government.
I think I should read into the record what the Public Service Staff Relations Board ruling states. First of all, the Public Service Staff Relations Board ruled in line with decisions, and this is not new. They ruled in line with the decisions by the Ontario Labour Relations Board and the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which held that to insist on preconditions before bargaining for a collective agreement is contrary to the requirement to bargain in good faith. Here is exactly what they said in that ruling:
The insistence on conditions precedent to negotiating terms and conditions of employment at the bargaining table is incompatible with the requirement to make every reasonable effort to negotiate a collective agreement. Accordingly, the board declares that the employer has acted contrary to Section 51 of the act and orders the employer to comply with Section 51 of the act.
Well, that is pretty obvious and pretty clear. Other institutions, other provincial jurisdictions, other governments and other areas that we deal with on a regular basis, have already ruled that you cannot put preconditions. Therefore, what this is telling us is that the budget is basically a plan. The Minister of Finance puts down a budget and it is a road map to where the government is going to go. It does not mean that it is etched in stone. As one knows, the government very rarely meets its objective. It is an attempt to try and get where it wants to go-
For the minister of the Treasury Board to stand up in this place and tell us: "We told you in February that this is what we were going to do, so we have no choice but to do it" is nonsense. The fact remains, in this system we have set up, you have go to the table with the sense that we are here to look at the issues and we are here to negotiate.
Let me remind the Prime Minister, since he has probably forgotten this. I am aware that he has shut a few towns down in his day. The Prime Minister has to understand that negotiation is the art of compromise. It means that you do not get exactly what you want and I do not get exactly what I want when I go to the table. But we get what is best for both sides.
It is not right to sit here and tell anyone who has ever been involved in the labour movement: "You are going to get this whether you like it or not. Do not bother to tell me how you feel, inflation is running at 6 per cent. I do not really care. That is what you are going to get". What one is looking to find are some severe problems in the labour movement.
I was talking to my colleague about an hour ago about this particular issue. One of the things that is well known in public life is the moment you lose the faith of the civil servants, one is really in for big trouble, simply because those are the unelected people who put in place the policies of a particular government.
Simply, what it has said to the Public Service is: "You have no rights. You have no voice." Under collective bargaining, that is the only voice it has to show its employer that it disapproves of certain issues. If that is taken away, then it has to expect to get it from a different arena.
September 17, 1991

I really pity the government for what is going to take place in the next year and a half once this legislation goes through. I also must say that I expect on this side that people will be very excited to see all of these brown envelopes show up at their door on a regular basis, because now the credibility of the government has been completely undermined. I am sure the Public Service will start to undermine every move the cabinet and this government makes because they have done the same to
them.
And as we know, all is fair in love and war. Therefore, what the government has declared on the labour movement and the Public Service is war. Now it will be seen in a lot of different forms. I believe the government should be put on notice that that is exactly what it has done with this kind of legislation that does not follow the rule of law.
I want to talk briefly about the back-to-work legislation. One of the things we cannot fool ourselves about is that this is a complete suspension of collective rights. Let us not kid ourselves that this is a plan of the Tory government just to allow wage restrictions for a certain period of time. Looking at the legislation, it also has the ability to reclassify the Public Service. It claims it is just following out its mandate under PS 2000 and will continue to do that. It uses the equity that we have been working on for many, many years now, as it relates to women, as the argument in order to reclassify if it wishes. I think that is a pretty scary indication of just where this government is prepared to go.
The other issue is the back-to-work legislation. It does not deal with the contracting out situation that we are now facing in the government. If we follow what is being told to us by many, that contracting out is now at the level of $5 billion, it seems quite unfair and wrong to think that on the one hand it is okay to allow the contracting out to continue unrestricted.
Regarding the minister, who is the only minister from Ottawa, I can understand why he would be here squirming in his seat considering what this may do to his career. I would think that he may look at the minister who was
then,	in 1966, pushing forward the legislation in the belief that public employees have the right to strike. It was the member from Ottawa or the member from
Government Orders
Carleton, if I am not mistaken, and before they were thrown out of office, he was the minister responsible for the Treasury Board in the Diefenbaker government. I can understand why the minister across the way would be a little nervous.
I want to wrap up by saying this. The labour relations in this country are a very, very sensitive thing. In order for a government to be successful, two things have to happen. One is that you need to have understanding of what workers are looking for and they have to understand what you want. Second, you need to have what is most appropriate, the faith in your government that it will do the right thing.
I think that the partnership between government, labour and business has been broken and therefore we will see the complete dismantling of the rule of law under this particular piece of legislation. I think anyone of sound mind and body would have no choice but to vote against this.


Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I regret the complexify of the name of the constituency, but it has a local significance.
I appreciate the opportunity to ask my hon. colleague a question, but first of all to make a comment or two. Initially I sat and listened this morning to the amendment that was made and, while I have had some previous experience in another jurisdiction consisting of some nine years and therefore it gives me some degree of expertise in parliamentary procedure, I know of no other jurisdiction that will allow an amendment that completely contravenes the intent of the original motion. I look across the way at a former municipal colleague who I know would agree with me that it makes absolutely no sense that if you disagree with a motion all you have to do is vote against it, but there seems to be some purpose in restating, re-inventing the wheel. I sit there and I listen with amusement and I hope that some day it takes us somewhere.
The hon. member opposite alluded to several issues that give a particular bent to the matter before us that I do not happen to agree with. I agree fully that this is a situation that no one takes any great deal of pride in. It is not a situation in which government members sit here with glee and delight in knowing that they are going to

September 17, 1991
have to interfere with a process that we would like not to interfere in.
The hon. member makes reference to the elimination of collective bargaining. I would suggest to him that there is not a political party in Canada that has not found itself in the same position and regretfully caused itself to legislate people back to work. I can say that having lived in Saskatchewan and having seen the NDP government of 1982 having to do exactly the same thing, not with the Public Service, but I believe it was, at that time, with the nurses.
I sit here and I listen to that knowing that everyone here, without exception, has had experience in the unpleasant task that we have at hand and I wonder where there could be such a defence against having developed the need to become involved in this insatiable requirement that is placed before us.
I would like to ask the hon. member a couple of questions. Ele indicated that he felt there was no difference between the government and the private sector. I suggest to him, for a minute, that perhaps there is some difference in that the government sector provides a service that the public demands on an ongoing basis 52 weeks a year. I would suggest that in the private sector that is not the case.
From time to time, there were certain members of the private sector losing their jobs for periods of time through lay-offs and so on, not to the same-


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. David D. Stupich (Nanaimo -Cowichan):: Mr. Speaker, thousands of Newfoundland fishermen and plant workers are facing the worst crisis they have faced for decades. For months they were unable to fish because of severe ice conditions. When many of them did get out they found there were no fish to catch. Fishermen were losing more with every trip they took.
With the fishing season for many coming to a close one simple and tragic fact is clear: thousands of Newfoundlanders are facing a very bleak winter.
I am calling on the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to put in place a disaster relief program which will ensure that the close to 8,000 inshore fishermen who will not qualify for UI are not forced out of the fishery or on to the welfare roles of the poorest province in Canada.
The government cannot claim to have been unaware of this problem. In an internal DFO memo dated June 28, 1990, the minister was advised that the current fisheries failure may appear unprecedented, but it is probable that failures of similar magnitude could occur in the future in this or other fisheries.
There is no excuse for delay. It is time to act.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but, inevitably, time marches on.

It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
The House took recess at 1.01 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mrs. Dorothy Dobbie (Winnipeg South):: Mr. Speaker, in Winnipeg on September 5, the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State announced a $158 million program, a strategy to help people with disabilities integrate into the mainstream of Canadian life. As the Prime Minister commented, what every disabled persons wants most is simply to be recognized as an individual.
It was with this understanding that the National Strategy for the Integration of Persons with Disability has been designed. The program stresses partnership between disabled persons and the community, partnerships that can overcome barriers of attitudes and of space and access that prevent disabled people from achieving their full potential.
September 17, 1991

The key word is "access" to places, to employment, to opportunity. Canadians must tear down the barriers both mental and physical and make this integration program the success that it can be.


YUGOSLAVIA
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, this morning in The Hague Lord Carrington announced that a new Yugoslavian ceasefire had been successfully brokered. At the same time the armed conflict is escalating. All parties are on the offensive. Warships are on the move. Ports are being shelled. There is even a danger that neighbouring countries may get involved.
While lives are being lost and successive ceasefires fail, my colleagues and I are being petitioned from all sides to work toward an end to the conflict. There is much to be discussed if all the people of Yugoslavia are to settle their differences and live in peace, but it is critical that the temperature of the conflict be lowered first.
While the EC and CSCE as vehicles for settling this dispute appear to be having little success, third party intervention by UN peacekeeping forces has proven successful in the past. Canada has an opportunity to show leadership on the international stage.
When will the government realize that Canada must work on a most urgent basis to support the ceasefire? We must support the request by the presidents of both Yugoslavia and Croatia for UN peacekeepers. Lives are being lost while we wait.


NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR THE INTEGRATION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
Mr. Vincent Della Noce (Laval-Est):: Mr. Speaker, persons with a disability see every day as another challenge. They are constantly up against obstacles that put them at a disadvantage when seeking employment and advancement, education and training and equal access and participation. In other words, they cannot lead normal lives. Active co-operation by federal departments with Canadian communities is helping to eliminate these obstacles.
The National Strategy for the Integration of Persons with a Disability, announced by the Prime Minister on September 6 in Winnipeg and by the Secretary of State on September 9 in Montreal, would not succeed without the partnership that exists between provincial, territorial and municipal governments.
Of course, we must not forget volunteer groups, the business community, the media, unions and disabled persons and the organizations they represent. These partnerships already exist and are growing daily.
Mr. Speaker, it is up to each and eveyiyone of us to support these partnerships and to urge all Canadians to help implement this admirable strategy.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, the tactics this unpopular government is using against its own employees are unconscienable. It brings in devious pay increases for the upper echelon of the Public Service and Crown corporations. It introduces wage controls on lower level public servants. It ignores the collective bargaining process. Promises have been broken with respect to pay equity. Untruths have been told about contracting out. All this is done in the hope that Canadians will become hostile to the strikers.
The government is in effect saying to all employers in Canada that it is okay to throw away the right to bargain and to hold over the heads of workers the threats of job losses and contracting out.
We have a government that is politically opportunistic, with no respect for the citizens of this country. It is not too late for this government to negotiate a fair solution that will put the Public Service back on its feet while generating a spirit of good will for the future.


IMMIGRATION
Barbara Greene: Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament I am constantly confronted by mothers, fathers and children whose basic human rights are being violated. They are deprived of security of person, of physical and mental health and are subject to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment because their

families are separated, frequently for as much as six years.
I urge the minister of immigration to issue minister's permits for spouses and dependent children of persons who have been determined to be convention refugees and allow families to be reunited in Canada for inland processing as is done in the United States.
Let us cut bureaucratic processing time and cost, reduce health and welfare costs, and help families who will be Canadian citizens.
* sfc *


PARLIAMENT
Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in this House the hon. government House leader, in making reference to a letter which he received, asked: "Why do we have this archaic practice of having first reading, second reading, third reading, for pieces of legislation?"
This government has proven itself capable of, in just a few years, dismantling a parliamentary system which took centuries to develop. It has steamrolled over our institutions of democracy to enact a Draconian legislative agenda which Canadians do not support, and now the minister says: "Why do we need to have all of these stages of debate in the House of Commons?" Perhaps next he will ask: "Why do we need to have the House of Commons at all?"
It seems that the government has realized that at 14 per cent in the polls the only way that it can hold on to its power is to do away with democracy and rule Canada by a dictatorship. At least one good thing might come out of it: We would not need the government House leader any more, now would we?


YUGOSLAVIA
Mr. Bob Horner (Mississauga West):: Mr. Speaker, self-determination is being increasingly established as the right of people in every comer of our changing world. We have seen citizens of east European countries and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia being granted a voice in the determination of their
political futures. Unfortunately, this is not the case for the people of Croatia and Slovenia who voted 95 per cent in favour of independence.
Today, His Excellency Yves Fortier, Canada's Ambassador to the United States, has stated that on the instructions of the Prime Minister of Canada he will explore with the United Nations Security Council the possibility of establishing a UN peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia.
I know that every member of this House will join with me in supporting a role for Canada as an integral part of any effort to help put an end to the bloodshed in Yugoslavia.


MONTREAL'S ECONOMY
Mr. Marcel Prud'homme (Saint-Denis):: Mr. Speaker, on March 15 this year, I rose in the House to discuss the economy in the Montreal area, and I recalled the passionate words spoken by Jean Marchand who always pointed to Montreal as the economic heartland of Quebec.
On Tuesday, June 4, 1991, the caucus I represent launched a one-day debate in this House on the economy in the Montreal area.
Since that time, not a single government initiative. The responsible minister prefers to ignore a situation that has become catastrophic.
On behalf of all Quebecers and the people of Montreal, I ask and beg the Prime Minister of Canada not to listen to me or to us, but to read this morning's impressive article in the Journal de Montreal by Jean-Phi-lippe Decarie, and a number of reports by that excellent journalist, Michel C. Auger. If he does, I am sure he will get rid of the minister responsible for Montreal and let him take on lesser responsibilities. I am sure he has a number of members who would be able to do the job, and I am thinking of Hogue, Tetreault, Della Noce, Gibeau and others. They will have no trouble doing a better job than the minister because, Mr. Speaker, the situation in Montreal has reached catastrophic proportions. I hope the minister is replaced by one of the members I just mentioned.
September 17, 1991

[English\


DEBRIS CONTROL PROGRAM
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, we are all concerned about our environment.
For 10 years there has been a very successful program for controlling debris on the Fraser River, the port of Vancouver and Flowe Sound. It is the Fraser River debris program. It has been jointly funded by the federal and provincial government as well as the forest industry.
In spite of the large expenditures made for the clean-up of the Fraser River in the green plan, the debris control program appears about to be discontinued. This would be contrary to any common sense as the debris control program resolves one of the major causes of pollution in the Fraser Basin and on the south coast.
The expenditure on debris control is minimal compared to damage to the marine, fishing, tourism and recreational activities. I would plead with all the departments involved to continue their full support for this essential program.


BRYAN ADAMS
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, Canada's biggest rock star, Vancouver's very own Bryan Adams has been told by Canada's federal broadcast regulator that his newly released songs are un-Canadian.
All songs on Adams' new album Waking Up the Neighbours have been denied Canadian content status and are subject to restriction on all FM radio stations.
At the same time songs by British rocker Tonight's the Night Rod Stewart and U.S. blues singer Bonnie Raitt are considered Canadian and allowed unlimited play.
This ruling is an insult to a quintessentially Canadian performer who has received both the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for his work.
Something is clearly wrong with the CRTC grading system on Canadian content when artists like Adams are denied Canadian status.
I call upon the CRTC to revise its evaluation procedures and amend this outrageous ruling. It is an insult to Adams and to all other Canadian performing artists.
Come on, CRTC. Get with it, eh?


CANADA POST
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents are concerned about the actions of Canada Post, especially when it comes to meaning the closure of a rural post office such as in Halton, Ontario.
Some people think the member of Parliament should directly interfere in the business operations of Canada Post, but there has to be a better way.
I call on the government to accept the advice of the House of Commons consumer and corporate affairs committee and privatize Canada Post; then set up an independent regulatory agency with decision-making powers something along the lines of the CRTC.
That way, clients of Canada Post and communities affected by it would have a way of appealing decisions made by the corporation. We would have something that is lacking today. We would have accountability.


YUGOSLAVIA
Mr. Alex Kindy (Calgary Northeast):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from a letter I wrote to the Prime Minister on August 27 on the situation in Yugoslavia:
We are witnessing the most intensive fighting yet in Yugoslavia's undeclared civil war.
The Yugoslavian army, controlled by the communist Serbian government, continues to ignore the Yugoslavian presidency under Stepe Mesic and attack the Croatian National Guard under the duly elected Government of Croatia.
At this time of crisis, I urge you to recognize the independent republics of Croatia and Slovenia, and to immediately ask that all Yugoslavian troops be withdrawn from Croatian territory in an effort to help curb the further escalation of the conflict.

September 17, 1991
Oral Questions
Canada's support of the independence of Croatia and Slovenia
would be viewed as our meaningful commitment to freedom and
democracy.


LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Mr. Jean-Luc Joncas (Matapedia-Matane):: Mr. Speaker, last Sunday evening, Mr. Chretien stated, in response to questions from the press on constitutional issues, and I quote: "What the people of the Gaspesian Peninsula want is to get their UI cheques. They do not care whether they come from Quebec or Ottawa."
All the men and women who live in that region were shocked to hear such a thing. They will never tolerate that such a value judgement be made about their community. Contemptuous statements such as this give away the ignorance of their author concerning the history of this wonderful region and its people. The Gaspesian workers are proud, courageous and hardworking people. As a matter of fact, is it not a fact that they are one of the most valued workforce in the whole of Canada? Mr. Speaker, these people want to develop their part of the country to halt the exodus of its citizens. They want to work, not to sit and wait for their UI cheques as Mr. Chretien would like us to believe.
Mr. Speaker, I call upon all Gaspesian men and women to let the Leader of the Opposition know in no uncertain terms that they absolutely find such comments unacceptable. Mr. Chretien, the people of the Gaspesian Peninsula have heard you and they will remember it in due time.


MONTREAL'S ECONOMY
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier- Sainte-Marie):: Mr. Speaker, we learned yesterday of the closure of the Canadian Pacific Angus Shops, in the east end of Montreal. Nine hundred jobs will be lost, on top of the many jobs that have already been lost in the rail and air transportation industry in Montreal. This situation is unacceptable.
What is also inadmissible for Montreal is the inaction of the Minister of Transport the very minister who unfortunately is responsible for the Montreal area. The Chamber of Commerce of Montreal denounced this
minister who refused to meet with them. Mr. Speaker, this government has lost its credibility and this minister proved to be incompetent a long time ago. Montreal deserves better that this bunch of politicians without a vision that make up this government.
My party support the sovereignty option for Quebec. As its mayor stated before the Belanger-Campeau Commission, Montreal needs a national Quebec policy to promote its development. A sovereign Quebec would have the added advantage of not imposing upon the rest of Canada-


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member but his time is up.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Right Hon. Prime Minister a question. A few years ago, as you drove into Montreal, you saw signs with a very appropriate slogan proclaiming Montreal a city with pride. Today, Montreal is a city with unemployment. After Air Canada and Canadian Airlines, now 950 jobs are being lost at the CPR's Angus Shops in Montreal. What a fine way, Mr. Speaker, to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the city. So I ask the Prime Minister what he intends to do to deal with the absolutely disastrous economic situation in Montreal and to find jobs in a city with over 20 per cent unemployment.


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I would tell the Leader of the Opposition that this government has promoted the economy of Montreal as it has promoted the economy of the country by taking very specific action to prepare people to hold high-tech jobs. I would tell the Leader of the Opposition that over the years, we passed Bill C-22 for the pharmaceutical industry, we helped Canadair, we helped Pratt & Whitney, we set up the Space Agency and the headquarters of the international environmental agency in Montreal. We did those things, Mr. Speaker. Since 1984, we created
83,000	net jobs on the island of Montreal, while in the previous four years, the Liberal Party presided over the net loss of 4,000 jobs.
September 17, 1991


THE ECONOMY
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Prime Minister.
When the government said the recession is over, we have to wonder what they are putting in the water cooler in the cabinet room. It seems that everything that the government touches these days turns to a disaster. I am almost afraid to ask it to try to do something about the economy, but there is the reality that there is 1.5 million Canadians who are looking for work today.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister what he intends to do to find jobs for these Canadians who want to work. You do not have to force them to work; they want to work.


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition knows very well that positive growth was recorded in the second quarter of this year, 4.9 per cent at an annualized rate. The domestic demand went up by 6.9 per cent. Exports were up by 22 per cent. The merchandise trade balance is up to $12 billion. Labour income is up 5.7 per cent. Corporate profits are up by 40 per cent, and personal disposable income is up by 6.3 per cent.
The recovery began one-quarter earlier than we had anticipated. It is important to get the fundamentals right. It is important to ensure that we nip the inflationary psychology in the bud, and we have done that. We are on the road to sustainable growth and sustainable recovery with price stability. That is our goal and that should be the goal of the Leader of the Opposition as well.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, when you drop the economy you create a recession yourself, and after that it is trying to improve a little bit. You are far away from where you should be at this time.
Go to Atlantic Canada today and talk to the fishermen who will not even have the right to receive their unemployment insurance. Go to Quebec and Ontario
Oral Questions
where there are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sectors. Go back to your own provinces in the west and ask the farmers what they think of the policies of this government.
It is not statistics that we want. We want concern for the people. When will the Minister of Finance do something to create jobs for Canadians?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I know the Leader of the Opposition would be disappointed if we did not follow Liberal economic policy.
The reason that we do not follow Liberal economic policy is the fact that ten years ago today the unemployment in this country was 12.8 per cent, and today it is 10.6 per cent. Ten years ago today, following Liberal economic policies, the inflation rate was 12.9 per cent. Today, it is 5.8 per cent. Ten years ago today the prime interest rate was 22.75 per cent. Today, it is 9.5 per cent.
No, we will not follow Liberal economic policies.
* sk *


PUBLIC SERVICE
Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, a government that stands in the House and brags about double digit unemployment is a government that has lost touch with the people. Why don't you go to the people and ask them what they think?
My question is for the Prime Minister. In his first speech those many years ago, the Prime Minister said: "Another component of industrial progress has to be a major commitment to civilized labour relations in this nation. You do not learn about this program in the PMO. You learn about it from those who have grown up in the area and understand the problems of living, breathing people, those who have worked out problems and have a track record to deal with, not governments that unilaterally bring in legislation"-


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


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I am getting to the question. I want to ask the Prime Minister why-and I quoted that he did not believe in governments that unilaterally bring

September 17, 1991
Oral Questions
in legislation to abuse collective agreements-does he do today what he found so offensive in 1983?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: But, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to rise to tell my hon. friend indeed that was a fine speech that I gave back in 1983. In fact, if my hon. friend cares to look at it, the statistics will clearly indicate that labour relations in Canada have been civilized in large measure over the last seven or eight years.
The NDP laughs. They should be talking to the NDP government in Ontario. There is a serious strike going on in Toronto. In point of fact, there are 3 million people-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The right hon. Prime Minister.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, we have reduced very considerably the number of days lost in the Public Service and in Canada over the last seven years.
From time to time we all encounter difficult circumstances; the country is encountering a difficult circumstance now. The economic recovery is in train. It appears to be broadly based, but it remains fragile. All elements of the economy including the Public Service and the private sector have been asked and will be asked to do their very best to make a contribution to making sure that this economic recovery remains durable so that all Canadians, including public servants can benefit from a strong economic recovery in Canada.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the government's lowest paid clerks, those people who really need our help, make $16,500. A month before this Draconian legislation was brought in, that minister and that Prime Minister got a deal which will increase their compensation by $11,413 respectively.
If the government's program is so fair, why did the Prime Minister get an increase that is ten times higher than that of the lowest paid civil servants across this land?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member has her numbers wrong.


Some hon. members:: Again.


Gilles Loiselle: She mixes apples and oranges. If you want to look at the Public Service in the same way, in the newspaper last week you could see that the travel budget of public servants for last year was $500 million. Should you put that in their pay? It has nothing to do with it.
The increase to members of Parliament was 3.7 per cent and to PSAC members was 4.8 per cent.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
This morning the government responded to the Public Service Staff Relations Board ruling that this government had been bargaining in bad faith, with the statement that it will go back to the negotiating table.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I suggest that the government read the ruling. The statement of the minister this morning was that the government would go back to the table with no preconditions.
It is interesting that the Minister of Finance said in his response to an earlier question that labour income in this country has gone up 5.7 per cent. He was citing this as an indication that the recession is over. For public servants this government is offering them zero per cent. The recession is not over for them.
The minister said this morning that he will go back to the negotiating table with no preconditions. Can the Prime Minister confirm that that is his government's position, that he will do that, and that his government will bargain in good faith with workers now with no preconditions?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I hope that the hon. leader of the NDP understands that the situation for these employees is difficult enough without making it a charade. It is not true that we have offered to go back without preconditions. We have always been ready to negotiate with the Public Service Alliance, as we have with others.
She will remember that it is Mr. Bean after the budget who said: "This is going to be a political strike. We want to go after this government". We sat with him for 90 days and we tried to make a deal on all of these issues that are of concern to her and to us, and he would not move.
September 17, 1991

Oral Questions
The Public Service Staff Relations Board stated what we should have done according to section 51: not bargained. We have bargained. It is not that we did that in bad faith, not at all.
They said that the board concluded that the preconditions were incompatible with the requirements to make every reasonable effort. I said that I was surprised, because we have made efforts and we are prepared to continue with those efforts. That is what I said this morning. We are prepared to sit with the union and negotiate without preconditions, but I will say that the zero, three and three is still a firm commitment.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, it is clear that there is a double message to the workers of this country. The minister has made a clear statement that he would negotiate without preconditions.

Further to the Minister's comments on negotiations with the Alliance, is the Minister now prepared to withdraw the government's challenge of the Canadian Human Rights Commission's decision on pay equity for Canadian women and for the Alliance?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, the government is going to court only to obtain a formal opinion on the interpretation of a clause.
Parliament passed a pay equity law, we respect it and we are in fact the first government to set aside a sum of money, $317 million, and to set aside $80 million a year to help women achieve equal pay.
Now we disagree with the tribunal on an interpretation which we think goes beyond the law. We are prepared to comply with the court's decision, but we are asking for its opinion. That is all, nothing else. We are ready to act on equal pay; we have shown it more than any other government.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I did not think that in order to implement the law you had to wait for a court decision. If the law is pay equity, implement pay equity. It seems to me that is the simple thing to do.
The government has talked about negotiation but the back-to-work bill remains under discussion today. I want to ask a question of the Secretary of State for External Affairs, who has recently returned from a trip abroad where she spoke in Ukraine about Canada's good international record on democracy and on democratic rights and freedoms.
I would point out to the minister that the legislation put forward by this government, this back-to-work legislation, is once again legislation that is in direct violation of the United Nations Labour Convention No. 87, which guarantees freedom of association and which Canada has signed.
How can the Secretary of State for External Affairs justify making such comments outside the country and yet support her government in such legislation which contravenes the rights of workers within this country?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, in the case of the Liberals I have some hope because they will have a convention, I believe, in November to start knowing what they think.
Six governments in Canada have imposed pay freezes. Liberal governments have legislated them. We have tried to negotiate them. We have sat with the unions to try to improve the package because there are a lot of other things in a collective agreement besides salaries. I may say to the hon. member that indeed we are continuing this. I have instructed my officials to inform Mr. Bean that we are prepared to sit and discuss these things with him. I am happy to inform her that indeed we are presently moving in the right direction.


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
As we speak, another major blockade by Canadian truckers of the Ambassador Bridge is currently under way in Windsor, Ontario, in direct and justified response to this government's complete inaction toward the trucking industry.
I ask the minister: How many more studies, protests and blockades need to occur before the government changes the existing rules and regulations which now place Canadian truckers at a severe disadvantage to their

September 17, 1991
Oral Questions
counterparts in the United States? Do you care about protecting Canadian jobs or not?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member opposite knows very well that a task force on trucking has been at work for many months and has come to some conclusions as a result of a number of meetings.
We have met with the truckers, although the vast majority of the trucking problem rests with the provincial legislatures because they are the ones that are crucifying trucking with their very high cost on fuel. This is where the problems rest mainly.
Nevertheless, we have met with the truckers who want to speak, not with the truckers who are trying to do same thing that some people have tried to do with PSAC and turn this into a fight against the government. We are working with the truckers who want to work toward a proper solution.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, Canadians do not want to fight the government but they want to fight to protect their jobs. There is nothing wrong with doing that when a government is blind and insensitive to their pleas.
I return to the Minister of Transport. After a year and a half of promises, why has the government failed to respond tangibly to this crisis? How can it possibly sit back while Canadian truckers' families are losing their livelihood, their jobs, their savings, their homes and finally their dignity? Doesn't this government care?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is evidently not trying to work to improve the lot of the workers. He is trying to make political gains out of that. He should know by now that the studies that were commended by the task force on trucking issues have determined very precisely that the federal government taxation system has nothing to do with the problems of the truckers.
Their problems are in the provincial legislatures where the taxation on fuels is enormous, whilst at the federal level our excise tax on diesel fuel that is used by the truckers is less than in the U.S. Our excise fuel tax in Canada is 4 cents per litre. In the U.S. it is 6.2 cents per litre.


FISHERIES
Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-THnity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, the 1991 fishing industry along the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador will be recorded as disastrous, potentially the worst in memory.
My question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. When can we expect an implementation of an aid package that will address this depressing and devastating situation?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, as I answered yesterday, the government well knows that we have had a very poor fishery along the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador this year.
The government instituted an aid program last June and paid compensation to fishermen who were prevented from fishing by ice from May 15 to when the last of them received assistance in August. We are now considering and deciding with the provincial government and after a consultation with the industry and the union what further steps may be needed to assist fishermen and plant workers who will not be able to even secure their qualifications for UI this year.
This matter is under very active consideration. If we act as generously as we did with respect to ice compensation, then the hon. gentleman need have no fears about the assistance that will be forthcoming.


Fred J. Mifflin: Mr. Speaker, this aid package that is going to be produced when the government is ready may have been okay for years past when the fishing industry was in trouble, but right now, when we are looking at less than 50 per cent and in some cases in various ridings 10 per cent and 5 per cent of the ordinary catch, I would suggest that these are not ordinary conditions for fishermen and plant workers who are having their incomes wiped out and not enough work to qualify for unemployment insurance. Therefore it requires emergency and extraordinary measures.
Why will the minister not give urgency to this pressing matter and come to the rescue of those in dire need, not next month, not next week, but now?
September 17, 1991


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, we are now in the middle of September and the fishing season is not yet over. Fish are still being caught. We are contacting every community and every fish plant along the northeast coast and Labrador to see exactly what the situation is, what the accurate, factual situation is.
We know of course that in places like Labrador it is an absolute disaster and that in areas like Black Tickle they hardly caught a dozen fish this year where they caught thousands of tonnes last year and the previous year. There are certain areas which will have to be assisted, and they will be.
We are not ready yet to announce any plan. We are talking to the provincial government which also has a heavy responsibility here and there will be an announcement in due course.


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, protests across this country are mounting and spreading against this government. In Windsor and elsewhere in Ontario hundreds of truckers are blocking border crossings. They are blocking highways. They are doing so to support PSAC and to call for the resignation of this Prime Minister.
The Minister of Transport promised short-term help to truckers in July. Why has the Minister of Transport not come through with this help? Why has the Minister of Transport ignored the precarious economic situation, the grave difficulties of many Canadians across this country? Why has he not given these people the shortterm help he promised in July?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that this government has given not only short-term help to the truckers but very long-term help. By introducing the GST we have reduced taxation bill of the trucking industry by $400 million a year.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
Oral Questions


Jean Corbeil: In addition to that, truckers who are not blockading to support PSAC or any other political motive have sat down with us on numerous occasions to try to iron out their temporary problems.
We have worked out some solutions with them. We have indicated to them again that the main focus of their problem is in the provincial legislatures, but we are also working with them on temporary solutions. We are doing that very remarkably, to the satisfaction of the truckers, the shippers, and the owner-operators. However, those who are blockading because they want to achieve some political motives are not serving the trucking business.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Transport.
I want to remind the minister that it was his government that deregulated the trucking industry in this country, thereby setting the scene for the crisis we are in today in that industry.
The minister clearly promised in July some interim assistance separate from the impacts of the GST. What the truckers want to know is when they are going to find out what that assistance is so that they can get on with their lives, move goods on behalf of Canadians and keep the economy rolling.


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the truckers know very well what we are offering. We have sat down with them on numerous occasions. We are working toward a solution and the truckers are very happy, but they have come to realize through the process again that the main thrust of their problems is in the provincial legislatures.


MONTREAL'S ECONOMY
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport, who is responsible for the region of Montreal. The unemployment rate is above 35 per cent in Montreal-East. We lost thousands of jobs in refineries, at Canadian Steel Foundries, Vickers, Air Canada, Angus, Nationair, in textiles, and the list is too long to mention them all here, Mr. Speaker. When will the minister finally convince his

Oral Questions
colleagues of the Conservative Party to find a solution to the economic stagnation in Montreal?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, how can the member for Saint-Leonard speak of the closing of refineries when we all know that it is his party's abominable national energy policy which caused problems to the oil industry and is responsible for the state in which it is today?
Mr. Speaker, this government, since it came to power seven years ago, has created 81,000 jobs. The previous government, in the four prior years, "created" a net loss of 4,000 jobs. I believe we have no lesson to learn from people who devastated Montreal's economy and who caused so much damage to the country's economy that we have no other choice today but to take measures to redress it.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, as minister responsible for the economy of Montreal, this minister ought to know that Montreal used to come first for transport and high technology. Now, all major industries are dying out.
Is the minister planning to make another Schefferville out of Montreal? Will he stop referring to the 50s and start proposing once and for all a recovery policy for Montreal?
Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport): Mr. Speaker, I think that what must be listed here is the number of initiatives that we have taken precisely to ensure that in the years to come, workers in Montreal, men and women, will continue to hold high technology jobs.
I will only mention the $65 million National Defence contract that we have been giving to the Canadian Arsenals since 1988, the contracts for almost $200 million that Spar Aerospace Ltd has received for the Canadian Space Agency, and the $86 million contract that we have given to Bombardier for the maintenance of CF-18s. We have invested $1.5 millions in the Technology Centre and $40 millions in Islands Park. We have contributed $43 millions to Canadair to modernize its regional jet. All those are high technology jobs.


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. The answer from the minister responsible for the City of Montreal clearly shows that their program is one of inaction. The Quebec
Minister of Industry, Mr. Gerald Tremblay, on the contrary, understands the problem and supports a totally different position: We need to intervene in a very forceful way, he said, and I quote: "Either we take the necessary measures to build an economy for the future or we watch powerless our society becoming poorer and poorer."
Here is my question to the Prime Minister: How long is the Prime Minister going to remain a silent witness to the impoverishment of Montreal?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for LaSalle-Emard should, at least, have the decency of not contradicting himself in a speech of a minute and a half. He said, rightfully, that we should do something and he quotes the Quebec Minister of Industry. I just mentioned, Mr. Speaker, a large number of initiatives taken by our government regarding high technology industries that greatly helped the Montreal area. I didn't name them all, Mr. Speaker, because I didn't have the time, but over the last three years, we spent $35 million to help new industries settle in the East of Montreal which resulted in the creation of 2,000 jobs and the investment of at least $100 million by the private sector in this field alone. These are a few concrete examples, Mr. Speaker, of what we are doing to stimulate the economy in the Montreal area.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: What are you talking about? Mr. Speaker, just yesterday 3,000 jobs were lost in Montreal. This is just rhetoric! Let me quote minister Tremblay again: "Choices have to made urgently. We know what the choices are. I for one have decided for Quebec."
This question is also for the Prime Minister. What is he waiting for to make an economic decision about Montreal, about Quebec, about Canada. No further studies are required. Government has the power, but it lacks the will to use it!


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, it is really incredible! Understandably so, considering it is coming from a carpetbagger who in 1988 landed on Montreal Island and suddenly discovered Montreal and the province of Quebec. It takes a lot of gall on the part of a member from a party whose former leader massacred Quebec, Mr. Speaker, and excluded it from the Constitution, to come and tell us that the present leader of the Conservative Party did nothing for Quebec when
September 17, 1991

in fact he has been the only Canadian Prime Minister in the past fifty years to really stand up for Quebec!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


JUSTICE
Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody -Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice and it concerns the David Milgaard case. Mr. Milgaard is one of Canada's longest serving prisoners.
The Prime Minister recently told Mr. Milgaard's mother that he would speak to the minister about the case which, if I may say, was a very decent and humane reaction.
Has the Prime Minister done that? Has the minister decided to act in what appears to be a situation where justice is not only not done, but there appears to be compelling evidence that Mr. Milgaard did not commit the crime?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted that the hon. member has chosen to alight on that particular subject which does not appear to have interested him before.
The Prime Minister did in fact meet-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. minister has the floor. I know that she will be given the courtesy of allowing her to put her answer.


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I suppose I was reflecting my concern that the hon. member who is a lawyer and an officer of the court would stand up in the House of Commons and appear to prejudge a case with which he is completely unfamiliar.
It is quite true that the Prime Minister did have a discussion with Mrs. Milgaard about her concerns about her son's health. The Prime Minister communicated that immediately to me. I communicated it directly to the Director of Corrections, although it is the responsibility of the Solicitor General, and that matter is being looked into by his department.
Oral Questions
I have already dealt with one application by Mr. Milgaard under section 690 of the Criminal Code. I have refused the application. My reasons have been made public. There are 12 pages of reasons, which were given to Mr. Milgaard's counsel who made it public. Therefore I feel free to make the letter public and I am happy to provide those reasons to the hon. member.
Another application has been received which will be dealt with in the same fair, straightforward and impartial way as the first application. If that application meets the threshold, it will be granted. If not, it will not.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, let me tell the minister that all Canadians, not just me, are interested in this case because there is a public perception that there was a miscarriage of justice here. She should do something about it. There is not much point in following the same process again.
Will the minister accept what the Marshall inquiry said, open up the process and make it less prosecutorial-driven by the Crown? Let us open it up so she really has the facts. Will she in fact make the MacIntyre report public, make the justice department file public so we can all see it and, finally, will she refer this case to the Supreme Court so that we can have a public inquiry into this man's guilt or innocence?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, first of all I would like to remind the hon. member that this is a process that did result in a new trial for Donald Marshall, and I have granted applications under section 690 of the Criminal Code.
It is a power that is exercised pursuant to the royal prerogative of mercy. I recognize that there are some concerns about it in the sense that it is not by definition a transparent process. I am discussing with my department ways in which in fact it could be made more straightforward.
I think it is important to emphasize that in reviewing these cases the Department of Justice has no vested interest in the outcome. Our interest is only in doing what is just.
Unlike others who wish to comment on these cases, I am confined to the evidence that could be put before a court. When in the previous application of Mr. Milgaard people were making what I considered to be highly unfair attacks on the credibility of the process, I went outside the Department of Justice to get independent

September 17, 1991
Oral Questions
advice from one of Canada's leading criminal lawyers and retired justices of the Supreme Court of Canada.
I am quite open to suggestions to make the process more-


Mr. Speaker:: I think we should really move on.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who is well aware that the high value of the Canadian dollar is killing our manufacturing exporters.
Has the Minister of Finance told the Governor of the Bank of Canada that by cutting the differential between Canadian and U.S. interest rates to a point where they were during the 1970s we can lower the value of the Canadian dollar and create jobs instead of destroying them? If the minister has not told the governor that as yet, will he undertake to do so without delay?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member that I meet with the Governor of the Bank of Canada on a regular basis. I think he will agree with me that there has been a substantial easing in monetary conditions.
The interest rates in Canada have dropped by five and one-third per cent since its high of last year. The spreads have narrowed considerably from well over 5 per cent to less than 3 per cent, so that spread has narrowed and is continuing to narrow. There are some positive results that are occurring as a result of that lowering of interest rates and the easing of monetary conditions.
The problem is that we have to continue the fight against inflation to ensure that bringing inflation and inflationary pressures down will result in a further reduction in interest rates, and that is the track that we are on.
I think that the hon. member would agree that the economy is in recovery. We expect that recovery to continue into the second half and on into next year. That will produce positive benefits for all as it has in the house building industry, as it has in the automobile industry, and as it has in confidence both within-


Mr. Speaker:: It is time to go on.


POTATO INDUSTRY
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture.
The P.E.I. potato industry has been seriously damaged by a supposed presence of a virus which has prevented it from exporting to the rest of Canada and the United States.
As the minister now knows his department has blundered badly. There is now no evidence that the N strain of the virus has been found in any of the 96 cases identified this year.
Will the minister now admit that this is indeed the
case?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: No, Mr. Speaker.


Joseph Blair (Joe) McGuire: Mr. Speaker, I believe the minister should be briefed, as is the minister from Prince Edward Island, that there has been a meeting of the bi-national committee of Canada and the United States. It has evidence that in the 96 cases which have been identified as having PVY-N presence this year the end strain has not been isolated in any one of them.
I want to know what the minister is going to do about this and what steps he is taking to open the border to the rest of Canada and the United States for P.E.I. potatoes?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I should draw to the attention of the hon. member that yes, there is a bi-national panel meeting experts from around the world who have had experience in the PVY, PVY-N, PVY-O and PVY-X viruses. There is one scientist who has made a statement to that bi-national panel that is accurate as far as the hon. member is concerned. He is not accurate in saying that the bi-national panel has made a decision that there is not PVY-N.
But I say to the hon. member that regardless of the strain of virus it is not accepted in the United States.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, each day the Public Service Alliance strike continues the government is not paying out millions of dollars in salaries to its workers.
September 17, 1991

My question is to the Minister of Finance. Will the minister consider applying these savings directly to reducing the deficit so that some financial good can come out of this regrettable strike for all of us?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, offset against any savings that may occur as a result of the saving in salaries there would also be on the other side a corresponding cost in terms of disruption and delays. A lot of the work will be delayed and, of course, there will be some loss of revenues as well. So I think it would be very difficult to put a figure on that.
Furthermore, as the hon. member knows, the debt servicing and reduction fund does not allow for this kind of funding to go into that fund. As it presently stands, it is the net revenue of the GST, the revenues that are acquired from the sale of Crown corporations and any voluntary contributions that you, Mr. Speaker, or other members of the House or any one of the public may wish to voluntarily contribute to defraying the deficit.


JUSTICE
Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg -St. James):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice and it has to do with the Milgaard case. More evidence has come in over the summer pointing to his innocence. There are calls from all over the country demanding a review of this case.
I would like to know from the minister, given the fact that she has referred to the application before her, how long she is going to take before she gives a decision on the latest application?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, the file has not yet arrived at my desk. My department is dealing with it
Privilege
expeditiously and I will deal with it as expeditiously as possible, according to the evidence and the law.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the same minister.
It will take a while for this second review of the application. I would like to know from the minister whether she would consider working toward Milgaard's release on parole pending the completion of the review of the application. There seems to be no reason for the continued incarceration of Mr. Milgaard. Would she work towards the release of Mr. Milgaard on parole?


A. Kim Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is making some rather extraordinary assumptions. I would remind him that is the prerogative of the National Parole Board. Mr. Milgaard, like anyone else who is incarcerated, has the obligation to apply for parole and to appear before the Parole Board.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, normally I would rise in my place with regard to this point of privilege under the provisions of a point of order. But I believe one can justify a question of privilege on the grounds that a remark was broadcast across the country which elicited angry telephone calls as a result. The remark tended to place, I believe, the whole House in disrepute.
I am referring to the exchange between the hon. member for Hamilton East and the hon. member for Burlington. While the hon. member for Burlington was taking his seat, a comment was made in a veiy uncomplimentary fashion, which I will not repeat on the floor of the House of Commons, but I do have a copy of the tape which I would like to review.
Again, I repeat my remarks that I rise on a point of privilege with regard to the exchange which took place

September 17, 1991
Privilege
between the hon. member for Hamilton East and the hon. member for Burlington. When the hon. member from Burlington was taking his seat, some very uncomplimentary remarks were made which I have on a tape that I would like to review.
In point of fact, I wish to refer to three short, succinct citations which I believe ought to be considered by you as justifying a point of privilege.
I quote from "Breeches and Contempts" by Maingot, Parliamentary Privilege in Canada on page 213:
To constitute a breach of privilege a statement reflecting on the conduct of a member in his capacity as a member need not to be true but it must tend to lower the House in the eyes of the public.
I suggest that the tape will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it does; second, there are actions which, while not directly in a physical way obstructing the House of Commons or the member, nevertheless obstruct the House in the performance of the functions by diminishing the respect to it.
The second citation which I would ask you to review, Mr. Speaker, and which I will table with the clerk, is on page 214 from the same text:
Contemptuous references hold the member in disrespect of his parliamentary conduct and, thus, the House is held in disrespect. The House of Commons is prepared to find contempt in respect of utterances within the category of libel and slander and also in respect of utterances which do not meet that standard.
The final citation is from the sixth edition of Beau-chesne, page 143, citation 486, which reads in part:
It is impossible to lay down any specific rules in regard to injurious reflections uttered in debate against particular members or to declare beforehand what expressions are or are not contrary to order. Much depends upon the tone and manner and intention of the person speaking.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will give careful consideration to what was said and the tone in which it was said.
Further quote:
Sometimes upon the person to whom the words are addressed, as whether that person is a public officer or a private member not in office, or whether the words are meant to be applied to public conduct or to private character, and sometimes upon the degree of provocation which the member speaking had received from the person alluded to. All of these considerations must be attended to at the moment as they are infinitely various and cannot possibly be foreseen in such a manner that precise rules can be adopted with respect to them.
Those are the three citations that I give to you Mr. Speaker and to the Clerk. A copy of the tape I give for you to review, and if you find that there is a prima facie case of privilege, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.
I stand in my place raising this because it has been the government House leader in the last 24 hours who has demonstrated to the House that he is concerned about the conduct of all members of Parliament. I wish to tell this House that after the remark made by the hon. member for Burlington, phones have rung in our offices on Parliament Hill calling to our attention the words which were used by the hon. member. I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will give careful consideration to the evidence that I put before you, and I would ask as a courtesy that you would hear the hon. member for Hamilton East who was the victim of what I believe to be a slanderous remark by the hon. member opposite.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, frankly if it were just a battle between myself and the member for Burlington I would not bother to waste the time of the House in bringing attention to it. This is not the first time that he has used disparaging comments when they relate to women members, and I refer to the time he was forced-


Mr. Speaker:: I have listened very carefully to the House leader of the Official Opposition and I have recognized the hon. member who believes that she was the subject of the comment. I have to remind hon. members that I am now dealing with a question of privilege which arises out of Question Period just past and which has been specifically identified-


Some hon. members:: No, no, this morning.
Mr. Speaker I am sorry, this morning. This is not a place to get into a long debate over what somebody did or did not say over a long period of time in the House of Commons. I want to just let hon. members know that I am taking the matter very seriously. I also am being very serious about confining the issue to that which has been brought in front of me.
The hon. member for Hamilton East.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, I was following the rules of the House. Since the comments this morning, my office has been inundated with calls from people who distinctly heard the member for Burlington call me a slut.
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It is incumbent upon me as a member of this House to point out that that member should stand in his place and unequivocally withdraw and apologize for the insult of all women. It is not just an insult directed toward me.
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, in analysing your rulings you are going to want to consider the fact that this is not just a one time incident and it is not just a one time insult directed toward a member. He has been called to task on this issue numerous times in the past. I hope that this time he will be person enough to stand in his place and apologize.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, after the exchange in the House, including part of the debate, as I resumed my seat I said: "What a pain in the butt". I do not think that is unparliamentary.
If the hon. member believes that is unparliamentary, I would withdraw the remark and apologize.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard from the hon. member for Burlington. I understand that the hon. government House leader has asked me to listen to the tapes. I will do so and report back to the House. There is no need for further argument.


POINT OF ORDER
Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, during oral question period, the Minister of Transport said that I had lived in Montreal since 1988. I have lived in Montreal since 1966. Maybe for him I am not a true Quebecer, but let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I am a Quebecer to the core.

This is not only a question of privilege on my own behalf. I speak on behalf of vast numbers of Quebecers who were not born in the province.
This minister implied that you cannot be a Quebecer unless you were born in Quebec and by extension that you cannot be a Canadian unless you were born in Canada. That is despicable.
Business of the House


Mr. Speaker:: There was an exchange here in which both hon. members were of course expressing their points of view very vigorously. The hon. member for LaSalle-Emard may very well have a complaint but I find it very difficult to find that it is a question of privilege.
The hon. government House leader.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I indicated yesterday by way of notice that it would have been my intention to stand today and move that government Motion No. 4 in the name of the government House leader be not further adjourned.
I have been talking to the President of the Treasury Board and he indicates that certain discussions are going on. There have been some consultative discussions between House leaders and myself. In view of those circumstances, I think it would be appropriate that we carry on with second reading debate on Bill C-29


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder if hon. members would allow me to interrupt just very briefly. In view of what took place immediately after Question Period I felt that it had to take precedent.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the members' attention the presence in the gallery of Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Al-Anessi, Minister of Communications of the Republic of Yemen.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I wish just to confirm what the government House leader has said, that there have been some discussions between myself and representatives of his office, as well as members of the New Democratic Party. We would hope and understand that all are pursuing in

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the line of good faith and clear understandings and perhaps something may result in the very near future.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my hon. friend, the government House leader, that I appreciate his gesture.
It is certainly a gesture of good faith on the government's part. Discussions have been taking place. We are very hopeful and encouraged. I simply want to say thank you to him for taking this very progressive step.



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre that Bill C-29, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another act in relation thereto, be read the second time and referred to Legislative Committee F; and the amendment of Mr. Chretien (p. 2227).
Madam Deputy Speaker:: When the House rose at one o'clock there were five minutes remaining in the period of questions and comments following the intervention from the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River.
The hon. member for Regina-Wascana. I do apologize to the hon. member. There are many people standing around him and I could not be sure whether he was rising or preparing to leave the room.


Larry Schneider: Thank you, Madam Speaker. Being five foot eight inches I quite often experience that phenomenon. However, I find in the evening that equates to the great equalizer and we all acquire the same height.
I was in the midst of concluding my comments and was about to ask my hon. friend a question. I will get to the question right away. He made two points in his remarks that I would like him to comment on.
First, my hon. friend commented about the government and the private sector services not being different. I submit to him that they are significantly different. The second point was, and I believe his words were to this effect, that unless Canadians were hurt by a strike, a strike would not be effective. I would like to ask him if he supported Wayne Easter of the National Farmer's Union and Daiyl Bean of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and its political allies at the time it held its news conference yesterday. Does he support that action that caused the non-delivery, the unavailability of grain inspectors to go to work and as a result caused Saskatchewan farmers to just sit on their grain?


Robert Daniel Nault: Madam Speaker, I would like to deal with those questions very quickly. The first question relates to whether I feel that the labour force, the men and women in this country, be they in the private sector or the public sector, should have collective bargaining rights. The answer to that is yes, certainly. I feel very strongly that if the government of the day decides to allow its civil servants the right to strike, which it should unless it is absolutely essential that they be here to make the government run, then I believe there is no difference and we should not try and discuss it as if they are apples and oranges, the way the President of the Treasury Board has been doing over the last few days. The fact remains they are Canadians who live in a democracy and they are part of a collective bargaining unit and because they are, they should feel they have the same rights as anybody else in this country.
The other question was whether I believe it is necessary for strikes to hurt. I think the member took my remarks out of context. What I did say in my speech was simply that if they feel that a strike will not hurt anyone, then they really are living in a bubble called Ottawa. The fact remains that in the real world, whether it is the private or public sector, if there is a stoppage of work those people will be hurt. Others who are involved with those particular striking employees will also be hurt.
I think it has been interesting to note that the government opposite has been dealing with this in a very personal way, which is the way it does business on a regular basis and that is to try to divide and conquer. What it has been doing is suggesting that Daryl Bean has a political agenda and that most of the public servants do
September 17, 1991

not agree with him. It was interesting to note there were over 10,000 people on the Hill yesterday and the reason for that was because they feel very strongly that they have been wronged and they are looking to the government to right that wrong.
I think it should stop trying to divide and conquer the Canadian people and start working with them to better this country for all of us.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my friend and my colleague a question with respect to the excellent address he just delivered to the House. I was particularly impressed with what he had to say inasmuch as he comes from a perspective of being in the trade union movement all his life and therefore has an understanding of the mechanics and the dynamics that are involved in this type of situation.
My colleague and I and many other people in the House fail to realize sometimes that we come from the majority of small communities within this country and at the end of this-and it will end soon we are told-these people in these small communities who are neighbours and live together must then get along in this terrible spirit of animosity that has been created by the government of the day. I would like this member to express what he anticipates will happen with all of the small communities in this country that are served so well and ably by the Public Service of our country.


Robert Daniel Nault: Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his kind words and I would say very quickly that we are going to see some nasty repercussions to the kind of action being taken by the government.
The government has to understand that these things are not forgotten the day that legislation is passed and Royal assent given. It lingers on for years and years and years. A perfect example of that is Canada Post and what has happened with the labour-management relations there.
You cannot force people to be something they do not agree with. You have to convince them of the necessity to do something and what we are going to see in small-town Canada, and there is a lot of civil servants
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there, is a feeling of being very left out in the process and services will be hindered because of it.
I think we all have to understand and expect to see that because of what the government is doing.


Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Madam Speaker, Canada's largest Public Service union, PSAC, is on strike and innocent citizens are suffering because of it. Thousands of Canadians, whether farmers paralysed by halted grain shipments, or commuters held up by airline delays, have been adversely affected by this unnecessary and regrettable dispute. Surely this strike has run its course.
Public servants who wish to work are fed up with the daily picket-line harassment. Farmers are fed up with feeling the grip of this union's stranglehold on their livelihood. Pensioners are fed up with government telephones left unanswered. Air traffic controllers are fed up with ridiculous airport barricades and the government is fed up with this strike as well.
I agree with some of my constituents who met with me on Saturday and said: "Enough is enough". Now is the time to send these strikers back to work.
Why is the PSAC on strike? Assuming that the numerous picket sign captions are a reflection of their carriers, the primary issue is the government's unpopular wage formula of zero, three and three. That is fair enough.
I, too, am not thrilled about my 1992 wage being frozen at zero either. I, like many Canadians, in the past always expected wage increases on a yearly basis. However, for the sake of our children, it is time to rethink this expectation. Past government cycles of spending and taxing, and taxing and spending, have produced today's overwhelming $400 billion debt, a growing debt that will be passed on to tomorrow's generations if not controlled today.
In the February 1991 budget the Minister of Finance outlined the government's plan for economic recovery. The plan which detailed measures and has successfully led the country out of its recession structured a design for renewed prosperity and competitiveness.
But no one promised when we introduced that budget back in February that it would be easy. Tough decisions had to be made. Habits of the past, which are always difficult to break, were cast aside and the government's

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commitments to deficit reduction and controlled fiscal planning introduced in 1984 were reinforced.
Specifically, the government's wage policy became an integral part of this seven-year strategy, a strategy that will affect not only the PSAC but all public servants, all parliamentarians, all Order in Council appointees, all Crown corporation employees, all military personnel and all RCMP staff. Unquestionably, this is a tough policy, but it is a fair one.
I agree with the President of the Treasury Board who said that the public servants deserve more, but our financial resources do not allow it.
Nothing we are doing in this legislation can be truthfully construed as union-bashing. Over the past seven years, as member of Parliament for the federal riding of Kitchener, I have come in direct working contact with hundreds of public servants at all levels.
The vast majority are excellent public servants. Further, I admire their tolerance and their patience with the many different demands placed upon them by the public and the policies which they must implement, given to them by government. On almost all occasions, my staff and I have received excellent service for our constituents from our Immigration, Canada Pension, Canada Employment or Customs and Excise public servants and many others in government departments I have not mentioned.
I also know that not all PSAC members want this strike. Not all are picketing. Some have tried to go to work and have done so. Some are picketing as a result of peer pressure and intimidation.
Further, I think it is essential that we quickly pass this back-to-work legislation. Just a little over an hour ago, I received the following facsimile message from a company in my riding. Here are some of the points made to me. Two names were mentioned and I will not read them. The message said these two people are not available due to the PSAC strike, so it is impossible to reach them at the local office of Revenue Canada. Customs staff at Toronto airport have just gone out, so we cannot ship anything to Czechoslovakia as part of our regular shipping schedule. The company is denied the possibility to exchange and to sell goods from Canada to Czechoslovakia.
Further, the company says cheques from the Export Development Corporation due from previous shipments to Czechoslovakia are being held up. And therefore, the end: "We are running out of time. The bank will not continue to simply extend their good will to us."
In other words, the bank demands the money and if it does not get it, the bank closes a company. Therefore, both the managers and the workers are unemployed as a result of this strike. That is why we are bringing in this legislation.
The country cannot afford this strike, workers at all levels in my riding want this legislation and they want it now.
The reality is that to govern one must choose. There are at least two alternatives we could follow. The way we proposed in this budget which will apply to everyone including the Prime Minister, the cabinet, members of Parliament, senior managers and all the bargaining units in the Public Service or the road chosen by the NDP government in Ontario. Those are two different alternatives.
It is very interesting and very informative to compare the federal government and six provinces which have followed the federal government's lead on the one hand, and the Government of Ontario on the other.
In the February budget, we proposed the zero, three and three for the next three years with some flexibility in other areas of the agreements with the different bargaining units.
Let us look at six examples of other provinces that have followed the federal government's lead. Nova Scotia has introduced legislation that will provide for a zero per cent increase in the next two years, 1991-92 and 1992-93. That is two years in a row at zero.
Saskatchewan introduced legislation of 2 per cent for this year and 2 per cent next year. Manitoba has introduced zero per cent for 1990-91 and that is backdating it, and also 2 per cent for 1991-92. Quebec has introduced a zero per cent freeze from January 1,1992 to June 30, 1992, followed by 3 per cent. Newfoundland has introduced zero per cent for 1991-92. New Brunswick has introduced zero per cent also for 1991-92.
September 17, 1991

When you look at more detail, say on the example from Newfoundland, on April 16, 1991, the government there passed the Public Sector Restraint Act which provides for no financial improvements to either salaries or benefits. We are looking at just the salary here, but they did it for both for the 1991-92 fiscal year. All salary increases which were due to occur during the financial year of 1991-92 were cancelled, even though they had agreements with those bargaining units. So that is what they have done.
Nova Scotia, in its budget announced on May 14, calls for a two-year freeze on wages of provincial employees and affects collective agreements which expire in the fall of 1991. So that affects some of the agreements as they come to a close and then it is a zero followed by another zero.
These are two examples, plus the other four that I gave of six provinces and the federal government, who are all following one direction of a zero per cent freeze, some for one year, some for six months, some for two years. So that is the one alternative.
Then there is the other route chosen by the NDP Government of Ontario which the federal NDP has endorsed. The NDP government in Ontario increased its program spending this year to the tune of 13.4 per cent. We, of course, brought in legislation to cap it at 3 per cent for the next five years and we have been running at
3.7	per cent for the last six years. The Ontario NDP government's present wage bill is increasing at 14.5 per cent. In its last budget it increased its annual deficit by 300 per cent.
So there is the one route that the Ontario government is following. That route was tried here in Ottawa from
1980	to 1984. In fact, we can compare this month today to 10 years ago and we can compare August going back to 1981. Look at a few figures here. Inflation in August of
1981	was 12.9 per cent and rising, whereas today it is 5.8 per cent and falling. The prime interest rate 10 years ago today was 22.75 per cent and rising, whereas today it is
8.7	per cent and falling. The unemployment rate 10 years ago was 12.8 per cent and rising, now it is 10.5 per cent and falling.
It is important to note that there have been settlements with Treasury Board and the bargaining units with Treasury Board that have respected the wage restraint program of the budget and several bargaining units. Let me give just a few examples. Two groups, the engineering
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and land survey group and also the physical sciences group, have ratified settlements that date back to September 1, 1990 and June 16, 1990 respectively. In those two they agreed to a 4.5 per cent for last year, zero per cent for this year and then 3 per cent following. So they are abiding by the zero and three announced in the budget. The physical science group is the same, 4.5 per cent, then zero, then three.
The translators have just come to an agreement and they are accepting 4.7 per cent for last year and are now in the zero per cent for this year and 3 per cent following.
Since the February budget, the air traffic controllers settled for 4.5 per cent last year, zero now, followed by three and three. The ships' officers settled for the same.
The PSAC, are at 4.2 per cent from last year and we are now asking them to accept the zero and the three program which others have concluded in various agreements with the President of Treasury Board.
Other points have been raised. One of the questions raised or points made by some in the media and even some here in the House, although I am amazed that anyone here in the House would dare to do it because the facts just do not bear it up, comparing MP's salaries and those in the Public Service.
Between 1984 and 1990, salary increases for MPs totalled 17.6 per cent. That is compared to inflation, which rose by 29.6 per cent. Wage increases for public servants, over the same period, rose by 25.5 per cent. In the public sector, salary increases over that period went up 29.6 per cent. So in all cases MPs are at the bottom of that list, not at the top, as some are suggesting.
The wage restraint policy announced in the February budget will further restrain salary increases for MPs. MPs are not asking public servants to accept anything that they are not prepared to endure. The bottom line is that MPs are going to be treated exactly the same as public servants. We will have to go into the zero for our next year which begins on January 1, 1992. For that year our increase will be zero. So we will be in exactly the same program.
Nobody has referred to something that happened historically. In 1985 the Prime Minister demonstrated leadership by accepting and putting into a budget a 15 per cent pay cut for himself, a 10 per cent for all cabinet ministers and then all MPs received a $1,000 pay cut. Nobody is talking about those things. Everybody conveniently ignores all of that. The truth is that the exact

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same program that applies to the public servants applies to us and I think it is time we say so.
Upper management in the Public Service is also being treated exactly the same way. So are the military, the RCMP, every single department that works for government. It is time we start saying that the only difference is when that calendar year begins. Everybody is affected by the zero, three and three. I think that is the key point which has to be put out so that everyone knows we are all being treated equally.
The fact that Canadians are forced to endure yet another postal and now a Public Service strike is deplorable and I think it is unacceptable for the 1990s. Surely it is time to bring in some new attitudes and policies that will make strikes in the public sector obsolete and regard them as a primitive and outmoded means of solving labour-management disputes. Strikes in the private sector have at least some disciplines placed upon them, such as competition with other producers, profit and loss margins and layoffs when a particular business, owners, managers and workers refuse to work together for the competitive success of their products and their labour.
The public sector, however, has few if any such constraints. Public sector employees rarely face competition or seasonal unemployment and they never worry about management going bankrupt. Governments and public sector bargaining units, therefore, either print more money or pass on the costs to their children through higher deficits and deferred taxation or they are forced to raise taxes which, historically, they rarely do.
In a private sector strike those who feel the brunt of the pressure are the workers on the one hand and the management on the other and both could lose everything if the strike is too long. Elowever, in a public sector strike it is the public at large that suffers; innocent pensioners, the disabled, the unemployed, those requiring government services, businesses relying on customs clearances, air travel, and on and on it goes. They all suffer. The list is endless. The cost to Canadians in dollars and in morale and foreign competition is immeasurable. Therefore, I think it is time that we in this House, and I would invite all parties to consider this, and
particularly the government, to correct what I think is a grievous error of the Pearson administration in 1967. The Public Service Alliance and the postal strikes and the bargaining processes, once those are all out of the way and we get this back-to-work legislation passed, and we hopefully bring back peace to our relationship with the PSAC, and once we get the postal thing out of the way through the bargaining process now under way, then I think it would be time to introduce legislation to replace the right to strike in all public services with disputesettling procedures and firm arbitration deadlines. We will then restore Canada's international reputation as a nation where people work together in harmony and with realism and with acceptance of one another rather than the strikes, the confrontation, and the hatred we have witnessed over this past five weeks and unfortunately is repeated every two, three, or four years.
I say with all sincerity: let us get on with that agenda as well and reconsider the error that we once committed here in this House. Let us end that process. I urge everyone to quickly pass this bill so we can have the workers in the Public Service back serving the public as their name implies.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by reminding the hon. member that even though it was Mr. Pearson, as he mentioned, who introduced the right to strike, in subsequent periods of disagreement with the Public Service Alliance over many years of Liberal government, we never hesitated to legislate public servants back from a strike. What we always did was put a mediator in. That is the fundamental difference between our approach to this problem and the government's.
I have listened to the government speakers for most of the day and all of us in this House are well aware of the suffering that is going on in our communities, whether it is international airports that are being slowed down, or problems in the west with shipping our grain, and I am going to repeat this as often as I can this week. There is absolutely no way that we are less sensitive to these issues and the government should not suggest that we are less sensitive.
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In my community of downtown Toronto the unemployment has never, ever, been as high as it is today. People are in pain. They are suffering and you cannot live in Toronto on an unemployment insurance cheque. You cannot live in Toronto on a welfare cheque. You just cannot do it. I cannot wait until we get focused in this House on ways in which we can put people back to work.
I want to ask this member who talks about the government's position so confidently that if he is so confident in his sense of fairness, if his judgment is that the way this is being handled is so fair, then why should he not want to put a mediator in to analyse all of the factors on both sides of this debate?
I do not think you should be putting in a sort of precondition. I have never been in any kind of a negotiation between labour and management where you put a precondition. I would like to ask the hon. member who is from Kitchener whether the just in time delivery mechanism is so important for his auto parts manufacturers. If these plants do not get those trucks just in time the whole factory shuts down. For the sake of pride, it is not the Public Service that is leading this country it is the government. When will the government take the lead?
Put a mediator in there so that those just in time deliveries can get going which will affect the manufacturing in his riding as well as in every other riding across the country.


John Henry Reimer: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the tone in which the member has asked the question. Also, I empathize with his constituents and the problems that they are going through. That is true for Canadians right across Canada which he has mentioned. It is serious, and I think that is what he is saying as well.
He is looking for a means out of this dilemma. It part of the purpose of his question.
I tried to suggest remedies in my comments. Let me just briefly reiterate that the President of the Treasury Board has tried through 60 days of negotiating sessions. He has tried through 30 days of conciliation proceedings. He has also made an offer as a result of the Public Service board which has Mr. Deans as the chairman. He suggested that negotiations should resume.
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With respect to that, the President of the Treasury Board says: "Yes, we are willing to go back to the table without preconditions, except for what we did in the budget." You see there is another problem here, Madam Speaker. It is that Mr. Bean has also said that he does not want to go back, no matter with whom, if this zero and three is there.
What we have to do is bring in this back-to-work legislation and then say to the two parties: You must now talk. It is not as though we are the only ones doing this.
I pointed out how six different governments are doing this. Some of them have done it retroactively on agreements already signed. The reason for that is that we cannot simply keep going on and on piling up more and more deficit and debt because then we will never ever stop the inflation cycle. We will never regain the competitiveness for the workers who are unemployed in his riding or the workers unemployed in mine. That is also behind this.
We are saying: I am sorry. Right now it is going to apply to everybody and we must do this. We are willing to negotiate on all other issues, but on that one we must take a stand. Six other provinces have done the same.


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, I just want to make a comment and ask my colleague from Kitchener a question with regard to the back-to-work legislation.
As everybody has mentioned, it has hurt all of us right across the country. Coming from the west, of course, the shipment of grain out off the west coast is extremely important.
When the strike initiated, there were five ships in the harbour and there are 41 more coming and waiting to enter, which puts us pretty close to 50 ships that cannot be loaded. This means a great deal for our prairie farmers and indeed for all Canadians across the country.
I too have heard from a lot of constituents who feel very strongly that the Public Service should not really have the right to bring the country economically to a standstill. I am learning more. I think this is really a political strike, where things are different, and yes, my colleague from the other side mentioned that there was

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mediation some years ago when the Liberals were in power.
We are under a different set of circumstances and a different philosophy and, indeed, the right philosophy. It is called restraint. It is called deficit reduction and debt reduction. Our main goal is not to saddle our children and our grandchildren with the amount of deficit and debt that this country is now carrying. In order to do that, we have to act on every measure and every department.
As my colleague from Kitchener mentioned as well, every one of us in this House and every one of us working for the government is being subjected to the zero, three, three formula.
He mentioned something that was most interesting with regard to what he thought should come down the road in the future. Perhaps the right to strike that was given to the Public Service in 1967 should be removed and it should have binding arbitration.
I have to agree with him. I just wonder if he would comment on binding arbitration or the dispute settlement mechanism.


John Henry Reimer: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question and the comments made. I think it is time that we look at this question of strikes in the Public Service. In my mind, they should all be gone. We should take them away.
We have to change the legislation of 1967. I wish provinces would also look at it, with regard to teachers- my background was a teacher-and as they have done for other things. With all public servants, whoever they are, none should have the right to strike. That is my view.
The reason I say that is because the disciplines that take place in the private sector do not apply in the public sector. We cannot compare the two. That is the reason why we need a different mechanism. There are constraints in the private sector in a strike. They fall equally on both workers and management. They have to work it out or they both lose.
Who is the constraint in a Public Service strike? No one. There is rarely competition. Who goes bankrupt? No one. It is loaded on the future or if you have some sense of responsibility, you tax them. No one says that in here. I have not heard opposition members against us
say: "We would like them to get more and we are prepared to say yes to higher taxes". No one has said that.
In other words, I think in response to the question, yes I would like us to revoke what we did in 1967. Take away the right to strike in the Public Service at both federal and provincial levels. Provinces would have to do that themselves, but we could take the leadership.
Then we bring in a system in which we know that a contract comes up to a certain date, then immediately an arbitration process kicks in, then immediately a conciliator process kicks in and if necessary, finally then a mediator closes and you must accept. I think we can do that. That is my response to the member.


David Stupich: Madam Speaker, I wish it were as easy and as simple as the hon. member for Kitchener suggests. All we have do is pass this legislation and there shall be harmony between government and its employees. I can think of many instances in which we would like to have that kind of a system. I can suggest places where they have tried to do it that way and those governments are now falling apart all over the world.
It is not that easy to say there shall be harmony. That is one of the things that worries me about the legislation we are considering right now.
It would seem to me that we are rushing toward a precipice. We are going to have a choice mighty soon of going over the edge or backing up. From the remarks I heard earlier today from the hon. House leader for the government, there seems to be some possibility that we will be backing up. I dearly hope that will be the case.
This legislation is doing something different. In spite of the remarks by the hon. member for Kitchener, and other speakers have said this in their own way, this legislation is different. It does not provide for any way of settling the arguments between the representatives of the employees and the employer. It simply says that the arguments shall cease and for a period of three years there shall be no bargaining rights. It wipes out all of those rights for three years.
As I said earlier, that has been tried in other countries and those countries are falling apart. In my father's native land of Croatia, look what is happening there where there was a decree that there shall be harmony
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between the various nations making up the Union of South Slavs, Yugoslavia. It just does not work.
That is what we are getting into, legislation that will wipe out all bargaining rights, legislation which will say what will be the position of the employees for the next three years, and we are going to make them like it.
The President of the Treasury Board said that once this legislation is passed, he is prepared to meet with the representatives of the employees and have a cup of tea, I suppose.
I do not know what else they could do together with that legislation facing the representatives of the public employees. We do not have to jump. As I said earlier, I am hoping that the discussions that are now going on will mean that we will not be jumping, we will be backing up and taking a saner look at what has been going on.
The representatives of the employees, to my knowledge, have always said they are ready to bargain. They have not set any preconditions, they have set certain goals. They wanted some progress toward equal pay for work of equal value, they wanted some progress toward privatizing government services, and they wanted job security. The President of the Treasury Board said: "We have been negotiating for 60 days and we have made no progress". What kind of progress, what kind of negotiations?
First let us look at the pay increase that, to the best of my knowledge, was never talked about by the union, but it is always one of the things that unions would like to bring up. The budget said you can have a 3 per cent pay increase in the first year, as long as you will accept the fact that the total cost of wages must remain the same. It is the ones at the bottom rungs who will be laid off because he also said we are going to have to lay off enough so that there will be no increase in the cost of wages. That would mean to the union that if you want to accept layoffs of perhaps one in twenty of the people working in the Public Service, then the remaining ones working can share a 3 per cent wage increase. In the second year, a 3 per cent increase again and another 3 per cent in the third year.
He said: "You have until June to accept this. No point in talking, we will not talk about it at all, that is the condition; you have to accept it now and know that one in twenty of your comrades is going to be laid off, or
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don't accept it and then you will get a zero per cent wage increase for those who are working for the government".
I have to wonder, was the government being deliberately confrontational? Was the President of the Treasury Board on behalf of the government hoping to push the union into a position where it could not possibly say yes? How could any union leader accept those conditions? A zero per cent wage increase and then 3 and then 3-up to 3. He never said they would get 3 per cent in the second year or 3 per cent in the third year; that was the maximum. It could be anything under that. One knows, too, what can happen to legislation in the second year and the third year.
Those kinds of conditions expect the union to accept that in the first year of a contract it is in effect going to be receiving dollars this year that will be worth 6 per cent less; for every hundred dollars it got it would buy $6 less in value than it would the year before. In other words, it is taking a pay decrease of 6 per cent in the first year, and it is supposed to accept that graciously, and then accept a further decrease in the second year of perhaps one, two, three per cent, we do not know. We do not know that it is going to be a 3 per cent increase, nor do we have any idea at all what inflation will be in the second year. The workers have to sign a contract saying that they are prepared to live within 3 per cent, but the government is signing no contract to say that inflation will not be any more than 6 or 5 or 4 or 3 or 2 or 10 per cent.
There is no agreement on the government side that it is going to control it. It wants to, it has set its targets, but certainly its success in meeting those targets in the last seven years of Tory rule would indicate to me that it is going to be somewhere in the vicinity-maybe half way or something like that-but certainly it has not met with any degree of success in reaching the targets it has established for inflation, for interest rates, for deficit, for debt. None of those targets has been anywhere near met. And yet the workers are supposed to believe that if they accept this sacrifice then the government will meet its targets and they will not be any worse off than the government predicts in making this offer to them.
Is the union leader supposed to accept that and go back to his union members, 150,000 strong, and say: "This is the deal I made, aren't I great?" Can you imagine just how long that union leader would last? Madam Speaker, if you were voting, would you vote for that kind of a leader? Nobody could accept that. The President of the Treasury Board knows that could not be acceptable. He knew that the union would never agree to

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those, could never agree to them, and yet went ahead as though we were marching-not realizing there was a precipice there-safely along and everything was going well, and the union would cave.
Did the President of Treasury Board have in mind that is what would happen? The PSAC would lead its members into a strike, a strike that would not be supported by the membership and that if some of them did go out for the first day or two then they would come back to work because they could see that their fellows were not marching with them on the picket lines.
It did not work that way. I think the government did make a mistake. I hope that is the case. I hope it did not want to have the kind of confrontation we are dealing with today. I am not sure, but I am hoping it thought it could destroy the union. To its credit, the union has proven that it is capable of taking on the government and surviving and growing stronger as the days roll by, rather than weaker. It is tough for it.
The hon. member for Kitchener again talked about the privation and the way people are suffering. Every union leader knows that no trade unionist on the picket line is going to come out of that strike any better off than he went into it. They are the ones who are guaranteed to lose. They cannot possibly get enough of an increase to make up for any length of a strike. It does not work that way. The ones who come behind them do gain. The ones on the picket line are not doing it for themselves, they are doing it for the principles involved and they are doing it for the people who are coming behind them.
In the private sector when there are these kinds of worker management disputes and disruptions, sometimes the employer wins and sometimes he loses. The workers always lose. In the public sector, generally the employer wins because he is paying less wages out, although there are costs associated with a strike.
I have forgotten which cabinet minister pointed out that they cannot allocate the profits from this to the debt reduction because they cannot determine just how much will be gained. There are losses. Everyone loses whenever there is any kind of a worker-management dispute
that ends in a withdrawal of services. There is no question about that.
There are other people who suffer as well. There are people who are suffering because of this. There have also been some excellent examples, to me, of the way in which the trade unionists are trying to co-operate and trying to help. I visited picket lines in three communities in my own riding on Vancouver Island. I saw trade unionists talking with people who were coming to try to get some service from the government. I heard them telling people: "You can phone or write and tell us what your problem is and we will give you the best advice we have as to how you can get the service you need". In the event that going into the office and being serviced by one of the people working there was the best way of getting it, then they were invited to go through the picket line into the office and get what they needed.
There are stories in the newspapers about what is happening in other communities. I can only tell you what is happening in Nanaimo, in Duncan, in my own constituency on four different locations. They were cheering, good natured and looking forward to the end of the strike because they are not getting paid. They were doing everything they could to make it easier on the individuals involved.
If it were up to the union, I think there is no question that the farmers on the prairies would not be suffering. It does not want to take it out on them, but neither does it want to be taken advantage of by a government that could have acted on this much sooner.
If the government really wanted to keep the grain moving, as was pointed out earlier, a year ago it could have designated those people as essential servants and they would have been working.
Alternatively, the government miscalculated and thought there would be no strike. The strike started a week ago Monday. It did not have to wait until Monday of this week to call us together. It could have called us together on the Tuesday and taken action immediately. It chose not to. It wanted people to suffer some first in the hope that public reaction would be so damaging to the
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union movement that the union members themselves would cave.
I walk to these buildings every morning about 7 a.m., and I greet strikers as I walk along. They are getting positive honks from car horns and people are walking by with thumbs up. I know that was happening in my own riding of Nanaimo-Cowichan. To this point, at least, I believe from what I have observed that the strikers have public sympathy and public support. Certainly there are individuals who have criticized them, not because they are getting hurt, but because they just do not like people being on strike.
I had a discussion with one of those individuals and the hon. member from Kitchener reminded me of it when he spoke. He said they should not have the right to strike. That is not the point. They have, for 24 years, had the right to strike. It was given to them by government.
If you are going to take it away from them, be honest about it and say that with respect to public servants, we need a different way of handling things. It does not even have to be forced. These kinds of arrangements have been negotiated with employees previously by other governments and in other circumstances. It can be done by negotiation, by agreement and the procedure for handling disputes can be negotiated, but you do not, in spite of what the hon. member from Kitchener believes, get harmony by saying that from this day on there shall be harmony. It does not work that way.
But you can get it by sitting down with people and being reasonable with them. That does work. It can work. It is not the time to do it now, I would think, with the government having pushed the situation to the point that it has, but it can work. It is the method that I wish this government could have adopted from the beginning.
The minister of Treasury Board says he is happy to sit down with the PSAC, not necessarily himself, but certainly have his representative sit down with the union representative just as soon as we pass this legislation. I get the impression that events are overtaking that and that something else will be happening soon. In the event that it does not, I think it is too late for him to hope for
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some kind of improvement in relations because that is what he is talking about, improving the relations.
Why are relations so bad? Is it because they have not been willing to talk to each other? Why have they not talked? As I said, you cannot talk when one side says: "These shall be the limits on pay increases, the upper limits not the bottom limits." When it comes to the other factors, when it comes to job security, he said in his speech: "We will not accept." When it comes to equal pay for work of equal value: "That is not our business. It is up to the Human Rights Commission." When it comes to contracting out: "We must seek the most effective or efficient way." He did not say: "as we see it", but that is what he meant.
Having said all that, is he going to make friends with the representatives of the PSAC? Why does he not say: "We will not talk, but let us go to the room." That is not the way to establish any kind of rapport between the two groups. The minister has a long way to go if he is going to try to establish any kind of friendly relations with the trade union.
We have been told that we must pass this legislation. We have to have the zero, three and three limits or we will damage our road toward recovery. Is the road to recovery so narrow and so hard to traverse that a 3 per cent increase in salaries to public servants is not feasible? An amount that represents some two and one-half days worth of interest on the public debt, a debt which has been more than tripled by the Tory government in a mere seven years. In spite of that kind of a record, it says that we will damage our reputation internationally, we will damage the road to recovery if we incur expenditures amounting to another two and one-half days worth of interest. Alternatively, this is one-eighth of the amount that we have been spending to keep Canadian forces in Europe looking for Russians who are getting home just as fast as they possibly can. As soon as they can find some place to go to back home, they are going. They are running out of East Germany and running out of eastern Europe. Yet, we have to be spending $1.2 billion a year. I believe that is changing too. I have not heard the announcement, but I understand that is changing as well.


An hon. member:: It is the same as it was.

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David Stupich: It is the same as it was. It is still costing $1.2 billion. A one-eighth reduction in that amount of money would provide enough to give the civil servants that increase. That is a lot of money to you and I as individuals, a lot of money to Canadians as individuals or as groups.
But to say that incurring expenditures of $150 million when the minister himself argues that we should be moving toward pay equity, when the Prime Minister said that the funds are available, have been set aside to achieve pay equity, a solemn promise during the election campaign-


An hon. member:: During the throne speech too.


David Stupich: During the throne speech as well, I am reminded. Is that price too high? Is that the price that is going to destroy Canada economically? If that is the case, then we are in a bad way. It is not because we have been in office. The Tories have been in office and have had complete control for the last seven years. If in that period they have brought us to that sad state of affairs, then they have a lot to answer for.
I do not believe it is that bad. I do not believe even the Tories could have us in that bad a position in seven years, as much as they might try. And that is another point. Why are we fighting this recession? Why are we asking the lowest paid people in the Public Service to contribute? We are not asking others to contribute.
There was a story in The Toronto Star that I used the other day where the recession is the headline: "The recession does not hurt bosses' pay." A survey shows Toronto executive raises averaged 7.7 per cent in 1990. That is the increase in pay. It was less than they expected, but then the bonuses, of course, made up for it to some extent. Bonuses were targeted last year at an average 46 per cent on a base salary of $131,200. The bonus last year for them was only $44,608 each. Why not ask them to contribute to the recession? It is only the ones we can get at so easily, the ones at the bottom.
We have to defeat this legislation if it comes to a vote, but I hope, Madam Speaker, that will not happen. I hope the legislation will be withdrawn, that another way out of this will be found, and all Canadians will be the better off for it.


Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Madam Speaker, it was most interesting to hear the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan reflect on his position and that of his party with respect to the bill and the legislation that is before us today.
I am going to put a very simple question to my colleague in the House. I just received from a little weekly newspaper in my district up in the Interlake of Manitoba over my fax machine a paper article about the effects the strike is having on the grain farmer. The headline says: "Grain plugs elevators". Just a little article in today's paper said:
Elevator managers Frank Fiarchuk in Arborg and Guy Bernier at Fisher Branch said operations were at a standstill with little to do other than field calls from impatient farmers wanting to know when they could bring grain in.
"There is not much sympathy around here for the civil servants," said Bernier, referring to the nation-wide strike by members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, protesting a zero per cent increase in their salaries.
"While farmers have had to take a 30 per cent cut, the civil servants are being asked to have their incomes frozen once in their lifetime. Producers are saying that the government had better legislate them back to work -
One thousand farmers at a meeting in Manitoba suggested this is the same situation.
These are ordinary Canadians who are trying to make a livelihood, trying to just make a living. In the fall they are to deliver their grain. He knows how seriously the markets have gone down in value for grain farmers. The question I ask: are these producers not within their rights to demand that these people return to work in the way we are going to legislate them back? Perhaps at some other given time we could maybe bring back a higher return on their wages. Nobody likes strikes. I do not like this strike. I do not think anybody in this room likes to see this happen.
I can recall, as can members opposite, that I was a farmer when the Liberal administration brought in the six and five per cent. You remember that too. I was absolutely shocked when they broke their own rules. The question then is: Here is some grassroots representation suggesting that the government does, in fact, legislate these people back to work, and do you not accept that they have an important cause to be concerned about as well?


David Stupich: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question as it gives me an opportunity to add a little to what I said. I would just like to say to the member that now he has participated in the debate in this House, now that he knows we are debating a motion that says this will come to a head next Monday-which is five days from now-then the bill will go to the Senate. Who knows how long
September 17, 1991

or how short it will be there. In other words, it could easily be a week at least before anything is done legislatively. But he knows that his government could have a year ago easily made all of those people essential employees, when there would have been no cessation of grain shipping. He knows that this government could have recalled us a week earlier if it really wanted to get on with this, and chose not to do it. Where was his voice then?
I am sure he will go back and tell his constituents all those items so that they will know it was the Tories that held this up, not the opposition.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I have a brief question for the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan. I listened to his remarks and he made a lot of sense. But I would just like to ask him a very specific question.
In Toronto right now we have almost a total shutdown of our economy because of the Toronto Transit Commission strike. The question that I would like to ask him is this. What kind of advice will he be giving to the Premier of Ontario to settle this strike?


David Stupich: Madam Speaker, the first moment that the Premier of Ontario asks me for my advice I will give it to him.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, I have a brief comment with a question to my friend from Nanaimo-Cowichan. First of all, let me congratulate the members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, especially if I can in Victoria, for the tremendous solidarity they have shown through this strike and the tremendous victory they have really won with the public and I think eventually with the government on this. They went out on strike to call on the government to negotiate, not legislate, and that point, I think, is finally getting through. They won widespread public support and understanding for their cause and I think they are to be congratulated.
When I was on the picket line I found that many of them were there for the first time, they had never been
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on strike before. They were terribly angry at this government in the way it was treating them and treating their fellow workers.
So I congratulate those who have been on strike. I think the government is finally getting the message that something has to be done and it is time to get back to the bargaining table.
My question to the member is really this, and goes to the human rights and pay equity issues in this. Many of the people who are on the line spoke to me about pay equity. This is a very, very important issue to those who are on the line. They have said to me that they want a message delivered to this Parliament that pay equity is important for the people in the Public Service of Canada who do such a tremendous job for the people of Canada. Could the member outline to us the recommendations of the Human Rights Commission on this and give us his comments on this aspect of this dispute?


David Stupich: I recall seeing three conciliation board reports dealing with this issue, and one of them recommended an increase of some 6 per cent as being reasonable under the circumstances. It would be my hope that whatever amount of money is available, from whatever source, in the event that we get to that, that the money would be used in a way that would bring up the people at the bottom-and, of course, that is dealing mostly with the ones who are suffering from pay inequity. I would like to see that happen. Now, again, my advice has not been sought on this, but certainly, Madam Speaker, I think all of us would like to see more progress towards equal pay for work of equal value, and I would hope that the money would go primarily towards that.


Mr. Lapierre:: Madam Speaker, point of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Shef-ford on a point of order.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Madam Speaker, I am worried. I wonder if the speeches being made now are for the gallery. Has the government resigned? No minister is present. Could you tell me whether this country still has a government?

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Madam Deputy Speaker:: I see that the hon. member for Shefford has not lost his sense of humour over the summer. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Winnipeg South.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Madam Speaker, it is with a great deal of concern that I rise in the House today to speak on the necessity for this bill.
I do not think that there is anybody in Canada who wishes that we were in this position, certainly not the government. I hear from the members across that they do not wish for this either. I am sure that government employees would rather be at work than out on the picket line and facing this legislation.
The government has been compelled to introduce this legislation simply to put an end to the strike. It is a very undesirable situation that nobody wishes they were in. This activity is threatening the livelihood of Canadians and it is disrupting many of the Canadian activities that we all wish to enjoy in perfect freedom.
The fact of the matter is that Canadians cannot get their wheat to market. The farmers are dumping their crops in the field. Whole shifts of auto workers and food industry workers are unable to go to work. They are being sent home because their products are caught in lines at the border. Air service has been disrupted, and people are having a difficult time getting passports to rejoin loved ones in other parts of the world because passport offices are closed and providing only essential services.
In addition to this, incidents continue to occur on the picket line and these are things that are very intimidating to the average Canadian. For example, government workers who are part of the essential service and who are supposed to go to work are intimidated from crossing the picket lines, and I think this is a matter of great stress to them.
As well, the elderly, the disabled and others who go out to do daily business and happen to have business in a building that may house government workers are intimidated when they see loud picketers carrying two-by-fours and waving signs angrily, forming a human barrier
between the individual and their goal. It is very intimidating for them.
These are things that I think nobody here wants to see continued. This bill will extend the collective agreements of the Public Service workers, and therefore eliminate the legal right to strike.
The bill will also provide fines for unions and those public workers who do not abide by the legislation. As well, this bill will enable the government to implement the wage restraint programs that it must implement since it was not able to negotiate these restraint programs in the collective bargaining process.
Indeed, the leaders of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which is the largest government union, have steadfastly rejected the government's budget decision. It has rejected all attempts to resolve the situation and to avoid a strike. The Alliance negotiators have refused to lower their earlier demands. These demands increase the cost to the taxpayer by about 40 per cent.
They have insisted that there cannot be any agreement on wages. They could not reach agreement on wages without major concessions concerning things that would very much affect the ability of taxpayers to bear the burden. They want full job security, for example, in their collective agreements. They want the elimination of regional rates of pay. They want capitulation to the union's idea of equal pay for work of equal value, for pay equity, and they want a permanent end to the government's ability to contract out and to have the flexibility to hire at peak times when that becomes necessary. In addition to all of this as you have heard, they want economic increases equivalent to the increase in the cost of living.
The additional demands and the costs associated with the demands of the Alliance are clearly right now not affordable to the Canadian taxpayer. I think that most members, if they were being very direct and very honest, would agree. Nevertheless the Alliance called a general strike. It is telling that their leader has vowed that he will disobey the law and that he is prepared to go to jail if this legislation is passed. There are, I believe, many law-abiding civil servants in the Public Service and clearly PS AC's leader does not represent that element.
The reasoning behind the wage restraints is very simple and very well founded. Right now, and recently during the height of the recent recession, the high interest rate period, many informed taxpayers, many economists and many members of the business community and general public have continually demanded that
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government reduce its spending and that it take other measures to restore confidence in the Canadian economy.
We have also been asked to set an example, to get our own house in order in order to improve Canada's position and to help ensure in the future that we will be competitive, which will eventually result in more jobs for everyone in the country of Canada. Our response has been decisive but I believe it has also been balanced. We are determined to achieve maximum over-all improvement and to protect the interest of taxpayers while we reduce the effect on the individual employee.
That is why in the February budget speech the government announced the tough but vital package to cut the cost of its programs, to reduce the deficit, to reduce the rate of inflation, to create jobs and to create and to improve Canada's competitive position. These measures included a freeze on the operating costs of government, plain and simple. As a result salaries of employees, managers and federal services are being frozen this year. Salary increases will be held to 3 per cent this year and 3 per cent the following year. Salaries have also been frozen for the Prime Minister and his ministers, and MPs will shoulder their share of the burden as well with no increase next year.
The government's actions send a very strong signal to other levels of government and to other employees and employers that government will control its own spending and that we together can keep inflation down. In fact, other sectors have accepted this signal. Since the budget, seven provinces have also introduced wage restraint measures.
Taxpayers across the country want to see the country's financial house in order and they can see that the budget measures are beginning to benefit all Canadians.
Though unemployment levels are not yet reduced to acceptable levels, as the recent lay-offs at the airlines will certainly attest, we have made some progress. Interest rates are down, housing starts have showed a healthy increase this spring, business investment is up,
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use of plant facilities is up and trade figures are improving.
I understand that some public servants and their unions find this wage restraint program very difficult to accept. It is not a question of what individuals deserve. It is a question of what we have to do. I believe that the majority of public servants are dedicated individuals with families to support like the rest of us, but they understand these measures are necessary. Unfortunately, zero per cent is all the taxpayers of Canada can afford this year.
I know that federal public employees live in the real world. They pay taxes just like everyone else. I am convinced that many of these, if not their union leaders, realize and can accept why the government has had to take these tough measures. They know that these are temporary but necessary measures to control the government's wage bill and that bill of course is borne by all taxpayers including public servants and they know that it is important to help us reduce the deficit.
Most federal employees know that they already make a relatively good living as well.
I do not want to overstate it, but public employees work in safe environments, they have good pensions, they earn more on the average of $33,000 a year than most Canadians at $27,000 a year, and they enjoy a large measure of job security. There have been only 1,500 involuntary lay-offs in the work force of the Public Service out of about 315,000 employees. Despite the five year downsizing program that this government has been engaged in, I think that is a pretty good record.
I think hon. members would agree that few employees anywhere have better job opportunities than they have in the Public Service. Without fear of exaggeration I dare say that a million and a half out-of-work Canadians, including those who have recently been laid off at the railroads, would gladly trade a zero per cent increase this year for a job.
This is a very desirable place to work. Close to a quarter of a million Canadians, in fact 222,000, applied for jobs in the federal Public Service last year. That is a

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38 per cent increase over the applicants the year before, so clearly this is a desirable place to work.
We cannot hire all of them. Only 11,000 appointments were made to the Public Service and that means about one in every 100 applicants was successful. It is pretty clear, as I said before, that federal government jobs are good jobs in spite of wage restraints and that they are attractive jobs and still in high demand.
The government's approach to wage restraint has been forged as I said before out of economic necessity to protect the interests of the taxpayers and it is balanced by a desire to continue collective bargaining with our unions on other issues. There are not all monetary issues. There are other non-monetary benefits and operational issues that will benefit public employees.
The government has a fight, but the fight is not with employees of the government. The fight is against recession and against inflation and we must all share the burden for economic recovery. We are asking public employees to tighten their belts with the rest of us, with all Canadians, and help us get over this particular tough time we are facing. We are simply asking that they help do their share in keeping the inflation to a minimum and we are asking that they work with the rest of Canadians who have been having a difficult time this past year to find a way, a road map, to economic recovery.
It is not easy sometimes to not accept what one has grown used to accepting, but I do not believe there was any guarantee ever written into any law of this country that says that all Canadians have a right to receive an automatic increase in spite of what is going on with the rest of the sectors.
I am confident that public employees will want to help us get through this recession, go back to work when the legislation is passed, and build a better Canada and fight toward economic recovery.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg South is a good member of Parliament and I have known her for her seriousness and her kindness. I know she has a heart. My question will deal with the question that begs to be answered.
I have heard several speeches today by members of the government saying that other provincial jurisdictions
have imposed a freeze on public service salaries. I want to remind the House that the facts of the matter are that New Brunswick imposed a freeze and I want to read what that freeze also had. I quote from the June 7, 1991, of The Telegraph-Journal: "Wage Freeze becomes Law":
The government will go ahead with its own plan for aiding
low-income workers, Clavette said.
The Minister of Finance.
Under the plan full-time employees receiving less than $17,500 a
year will get a $600 bonus next year, while those earning $17,500 to
$20,000 annually will receive $500.
My question is to the member from Winnipeg South, given that Bill C-29 treats everybody the same way, given that I know that she is sensitive to those who, as workers in the Public Service of Canada, are low paid. She knows, like I do, that most of them are women. In my own riding, 20 per cent of the families are single parent families, women mostly with children, earning less than $25,000. Today I have had calls from people earning less than $20,000.
Does she not believe that it would be the decent thing to do to have a kind of arrangement, a kind of an offer, a return to negotiations, a kind of opening to understanding that some public servants need to be looked after, that they are not all fat cats? Certainly she would approve of negotiations to give those people something more than zero next year with the taxes they have to pay like eveiybody else, with the increased inflation that we have to cope with and with all the problems that she knows exist in this country at this time.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is correct. I would never want to characterize public servants or all public servants as fat cats. Those were never my words and I have never used them.
He used the profile of some of the members of his constituency making less than the average public servant would make as certainly not being fat cats whether they work for the Public Service. I would like to remind the hon. member that many people in the private sector make considerably less overall, based on categories, than people in the public sector.
Generally, if one looks at a clerk working for the government and a clerk working for the private sector, the disparity between the two wages is quite wide. I would remind him that those people pay taxes and their interests are also being protected here.

I might also point out to the hon. member that in addition to that, our public servants enjoy benefits that people in the private sector do not enjoy, including those of dental care, health care, eye glasses and things like that. They do get raises if they are not at the top of their category. If they start and they are within the period of time moving from the beginning wage up to their category, they get an anniversary raise. I would dare say that there are some people right now on the picket line who have or are about to receive their raise when they come back to work.
So it is not quite fair to say that we are dealing with apples and apples. When we look at poor people or people living on less than living wage in the private sector compared to those who are lowly paid in the public sector, I think the public sector have a fair advantage.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, the hon. member may never have referred to people who work for the federal government as fat cats, but I wonder if the hon. member remembers sending me a note in the House last June when Mr. Loiselle announced that if there was no settlement between Treasury Board and the alliance by September that he would impose one. The note said: "Joy, everyone in Canada, including many public servants, agrees with the government on this matter. Your opposition is just helping us. Canadians are sick of seeing their tax dollars go toward protecting well paid employees of government. So you and Daryl keep it up, you are both winning us votes." It was signed Dorothy.
The hon. member on Friday on CBC radio in Winnipeg could not remember that memo and I would be happy to provide a copy of it to the hon. member. I would hope that she would stand in this House and remember it and not try to tell us that a Dorothy from some other place, possibly Oz, wrote this memo.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Madam Speaker, as the member stands in her seat, I recall writing her a facetious note last June when she was in the midst of one of her usual rhetorical speeches characterizing, in her usual exaggerated way, the activities of the government against those of the Public Service. Mr. Bean, at that point had, without even going to the negotiating table, told the public that he would not negotiate and that he would defy the govem-
Govemment Orders
ment and that he would take his members out on strike. He challenged us and I responded.
As far as my comments are concerned, as I said they were facetious and if they offend anybody, I am fully willing to retract anything that would be offensive, but I do think they are quite true. The majority of Canadians are not in favour of this strike. The majority of Canadians would like to see us use a little restraint, as I have just spent the past 20 minutes pointing out. The majority of Canadians want to see a government strong enough and honest enough to do what is right. I cannot retract those words because I think they are just as correct now as they were then.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member if she agrees that in the event of a dispute between two parties that the two parties have an option to either go to arbitration or to go to court. In this particular situation the government, by refusing to go to arbitration, is admitting that it is in the wrong.
I also want to ask her if she would agree with the member for Lanark-Carleton, who on Friday called the public servants fat cats. Would she agree that the hon. member, as a member of the cabinet, should retract that statement?
Would she not agree that pay equity, morale, lack of resources and contracting out are very important subjects for the government to look at in the very near future and that it has failed to do so in the past?
Finally, would the hon. member not agree that it is extremely important before we start cutting the salaries of the public servants, especially those at the lowest end, and before we start cutting jobs all across the board, that the federal government should somehow make an assessment to find out whether we have a surplus of public servants?
Just for the information of members, I would like to add that contracting out in terms of term employees and part-time employees has increased dramatically over the past five years, which leads the public and me to believe that there is no surplus of pubic servants. I would suggest that is very positive for the government to do a proper assessment to see what we have in terms of public servants and what we really need. In my view, it will find out there is a shortage.

September 17, 1991
Government Orders
The hon. member and many of my colleagues on all sides of the Efouse will recognize that in departments such as employment and immigration, foreign affairs, health and welfare and many others, there is a need for more manpower rather than less. Situations like the one we are in certainly is not helping morale at all.


Dorothy I. Dobbie: Madam Speaker, I will just point out to the hon. member that last year, I believe, we spent $314 million in lump sum payments to members of the Public Service for pay equity and that there is another further $76 million per year being spent to try and equalize the wages between males and females. I do not think it is fair to characterize what we are doing as nothing, because we are doing a lot. We may not be doing precisely what the union is asking, but we are doing what we should be doing.
The hon. member made a comment about contracting out. I am very glad he brought that question forward. I think there is a very big misunderstanding out there. The accounting of contracting out, the number that is published, includes all contracting out, whether it is having garbage removed or whatever. I cannot think of any number examples, but it does not just include employment. It does not just include people coming in to perform term contract work. It includes purchases and other things that are characterized as contracting out.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The time for questions and comments has expired.
Pursuant to Standing Order 38, it is my duty to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Nepean (Mrs. Gaffney)-employment; the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Butland)-the steel industry; the hon. member for Moncton (Mr. Rideout)-highways; the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby (Ms. Black)-the Canada Assistance Plan; the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel (Mr. Ouellet)-the garment industry.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Carleton- Gloucester.


Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton -Gloucester):: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the
House today to defend Canada's Public Service, since these are the people who enable Parliament to function.
Through Bill C-29, this government has decided to come down on its own employees. Yesterday, in front of the Parliament Buildings, I saw the RCMP, arms linked, to protect the government against a group of public servants who only wanted to tell the public at the top of their voices that they were setting the short end of the stick and that they wanted to be treated fairly and equitably.
That is how this government treats its employees. [English}
This forcing of employees back to work with threats, not with sticks luckily, not with guns but with threats of $1,000 a day fines, I find absolutely abominable.
The government has decided to fight the recession which it created itself. It is a government created recession. It wants to fight it on the backs of employees.


An hon. member:: On the backs of everybody.


Eugène Bellemare: Of everybody, someone suggested from across. That is what it has been doing. It has been picking on one group. It has been picking on the other group. It has picked on the fisheries. It has picked on the forestry industry. It has picked on the grain farmers in the west. It has picked on about anything that is moving but big business.
The government has brought in the free trade agreement which encouraged people to go to the United States to buy. It encouraged trucking firms to go across the border and register. It has encouraged people to purchase across the border. It has struck the-
[Translation\
-the fisheries, which affected the entire industry on the Atlantic and Pacific coast.

The government has struck hard at the unemployed. It costs more now to be insured in the unemployment insurance, and one gets less benefits.
The lumber industry has been affected. Agriculture in Ontario and Quebec has been affected. The potato growers in P.E.I and New Brunswick, where is the government protecting them? I do not see it protecting
September 17, 1991

potato growers. The government is protecting only one group: its fat friends, big business.
Companies are all going south. Industries are moving south. It is to their advantage. Presently it is south of the border in the United States. With the free trade agreement with Mexico, it could be south of the second border.

The government is giving its public servants short shift. Public employees are there to serve the Canadian community and to look after our security and safety. This year, the RCMP will have 0 per cent. The cost of living has gone up 6.4 per cent. Meat inspectors, food inspectors and drug inspectors are being shafted by this government. Zero per cent is all they will get, while the cost of living has gone up 6.4 per cent. The government decided to increase the cost of living by introducing the Goods and Services Tax.

They want to reduce the deficit so they want to do it on the backs of public servants today. As a member of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, I would like to suggest that they cut some foolishness instead, such as the junk mail they produce constantly. They produced over $25 million worth of junk mail when the budget came down. They produced and distributed it across Canada and they called it communications and education. I say that is waste, waste, waste. Imagine educating and communicating to people in a glossy form that you are going to tax and surtax them and knock them down and kick their teeth in.
I hear from across the way comments about communications and so on. I will communicate one item in particular that I saw at the public accounts committee meetings when this present government dedicated $200 million to the research of oil in eastern Canada. Most of it was wasted. One item in particular that sticks in my mind was building two bridges with no roads leading to or going away from the bridge. That is waste. Stop wasting money. They built a highway in the middle of a forest that belonged to one of their ministers. It led from nowhere to nowhere for no good reason that I could think of, except maybe to raise the value of the property.
Government Orders
That is the type of government we have. It protects its own, but it will bash anything and anybody that is in its way.
I find public servants to be honourable, professional people who work hard. Despite the fact that I am getting negative comments from members on the government side, I will tell them that public servants are there to serve them. They are the motor. They are the ones who protect them.

-who enforce your laws and regulations. These are the people who protect the community against fraudulent business practices. Who is going to protect us against people who want to sell tainted meat? I want to be sure my government protects me, and the people who enforce these laws are public servants. Not so long ago, you took on-

Not so long ago crew members of our Coast Guard ships who were making only $19,000 a year to risk their lives on the high seas saving other people were forced back to work. That is the kind of heart that they have. As a matter of fact, I would say they are heartless. That is called, in case they do not remember, search and rescue operations.
When they see airplanes crashing people out there who are not in the Public Service wonder who is inspecting the maintenance of planes? Who is checking the planes? Who is checking the fabrication of planes? What is being done to these people and their families?
Awhile ago it was mentioned that people are complaining because when they get to the airport they find a strike. Obviously, if there is a strike, it is going to be disruptive and it is going to be an annoyance. It is not the fault of the worker if there is a strike. It is because someone is terrorizing them, and that is called government terrorism. That is what it is.
When members of the public go to the pharmacy and purchase items they want to be assured that public servants are checking these drugs when they are initially produced in our country or when they are produced elsewhere and brought here. They want to know that. They want to make sure that what they are taking is correct and proper and that they do not get into

Private Members' Business
problems like the Thalidomide problem of a few years ago.

Customs officiers are supposed to protect the economy of the countiy. Together with the police, they are also supposed to prevent drugs from being smuggled into Canada. There are any number of criminals who would like to smuggle all kinds of things into the country like arms, rifles, machine guns and especially drugs. We need protection against these people, against these criminals. Public servants are supposed to protect us, so cannot afford to come down on these people. We cannot treat them like machines. We cannot walk all over them just because the economy is in bad shape.
When the economy is in bad shape and the rate of inflation is 6.4 per cent and they get a 0 per cent increase, that is intolerable.
The government is responsible for interest rates. When interest rates are excessively high, the provinces, the country, municipalities, school boards, and so forth, are all forced to borrow at high rates. The provinces, school boards and municipalities then have to raise their taxes to be able to pay these interest rates. About one-third of all taxes raised by municipalities, provinces, and the federal government is used to pay the interest charges on the debt.
Public servants are supposed to serve the community. These are people who work very hard and who do a good job. I know what I am talking about. I have more than
20,000	public servants in my riding, and I have met several. They have a sense of duty, and they are very much aware of the spirit and culture of this country. They want to preserve and promote all the good things in this country. I know they are hard workers. I know they are honest people. I know they are people who co-operate with their employer, with governments. I know them as dedicated people. That is the only way I know them. I don't know them the way this government knows them, and in my opinion, the government has destroyed its relationship with its employees.

Yesterday, the Public Service Alliance of Canada was in court with the Treasury Board. They received a decision from the Public Service Staff Relations Board that said: "The obligation provided under the Public Service Staff Relations Act to bargain in good faith and make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective
agreement is not substantively different for this employer than it is for any other employer in any jurisdiction in Canada. Accordingly the board declares that the employer", meaning the Government of Canada, "has acted contrary to section 51 of the act", its own law, "and orders the employer to comply with section 51 of the act". This is an odd way to operate. Can you imagine the government being the judge and the player all at once?


An hon. member:: Judge, jury and executioner.


Eugène Bellemare: It is the judge, the jury and the
executioner.

Mr. Speaker, in concluding, I want to ask the government to be fair and equitable in the way it treats Canadians across this country.

-that the government not pit one group against the other and that the government be fair and equitable in its dealings especially with its own employees.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 5 p. m., pursuant to Standing Order 30(6), the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Marlene Catterall: moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should require each government department and agency to include in their budget submissions an accounting of the use of resources whose use or disposal has an impact on the environment and annual targets for reduction and to report any associated cost savings.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I want to begin speaking on this motion by quoting from Gro Harlem Bruntland, the chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the landmark report that gave us the concept of sustainable development. To put it in every simple terms, it says that we do not have a paper industry if we do not have any trees left. Our economy depends
September 17, 1991

on preserving our environment just as our environment depends on good economic practices.
With this principle in mind and with Canadians from coast to coast making a conscious effort to turn off lights in empty rooms, not run water, recycle as much as possible, one has to ask what is the federal government doing to keep tabs on its own wasteful or responsible environmental habits.
Last fall government members described as premature my private member's motion to establish the function of an environmental auditor general with responsibility for reporting environmentally unsound practices within federal government operations and recommending obviously positive improvements.
There is another opportunity this evening to show that government is prepared not only to legislate but to lead and that there is a real commitment to greening the government. I am seeking the support of all parliamentarians for a motion now that proposes a much more simple process that can be simply integrated into our existing budget process. What is proposed is progressive action that can save money, deal with the debt and the deficit, and help the environment.
The motion before us is that eveiy federal department or agency should include in its annual budget an accounting of how much it spends on resources where the use or disposal of those resources has an impact on the environment, including setting annual targets for reduction and reporting yearly on how much money is saved.
Private sector companies are already realizing phenomenal savings and phenomenal increases in productivity and efficiency from pollution prevention. The 3M company, for instance, started with a program to reduce waste, reduce costs and improve efficiency called its world-wide 3P program-Pollution Prevention Pays. This program has resulted in savings of $25 million in the first year and a total to date of $500 million in new annual savings. That is counting savings only in the first year in which they occur, not in every year thereafter when they recur.
As the green plan pointed out, the federal government is the largest single business in Canada. It purchases more than $9 billion each year of commercial, consumer and industrial goods. Cutting just 10 per cent from that
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bill would mean a 3 per cent reduction in the annual deficit.
A preliminary inquiry to a sampling of departments revealed some surprising opportunities for reducing the depletion of natural resources and damage to the earth's ecosystem caused by government operations while saving large amounts of money.
Transport Canada, for example, consumes a whopping $41.8 million in energy for buildings and vehicles annually. Environment Canada, one of our smaller departments, adds nearly $14 million to the taxpayers' energy bill every year. Cutting back in energy usage across operations would save money and would cut the impact of operations on global climate change, ozone depletion, and postpone or eliminate the need for new and expensive electricity generation.
Paper use is another frontier for saving both dollars and the environment. We have to remember that every time we use a resource we have multiple impact. We have the impact of drawing the resource from the environment. We have the impact of the cost of that resource. We have the impact on the environment during the course of its use in the case of energy for instance, and we have the impact of disposing of it.
Environment Canada alone spends $2 million for paper every year, representing depletion of forest resources, damage to waterways in the manufacturing process, energy costs to process and then haul it away as garbage and an unnecessary load on landfill sites.
The costs of garbage disposal, water, sewage and virtually all products used in government operations, if we do not use them carefully and wisely, all these products derive from natural resources. Their use can be cut back by a careful look at how much is being used, how much it is costing and how we, too, like private sector companies, can reduce waste and be more productive and more efficient.
We recognize that the federal government is the major business in many communities across Canada. In this particular community of the national capital region it happens to be the largest business. But in many communities across Canada it is a considerable consumer of resources and generator of waste. Yet we do not participate in community blue-box programs across Canada and we are not providing leadership in those communities where we are a major influence in community

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Private Members' Business
reduction of the waste of resources and the damage to the environment.
Private companies are scrambling to do this kind of thing in their own operations, because, as 3M has demonstrated, employees quickly rise to the challenge of finding innovative ways to cut the waste of both dollars and resources. The workplace then becomes another way to answer "what can I do about the environment?" Most importantly companies are hiring consultants at a great pace to say: How can you help us save money by saving on resources and saving the environment? They are becoming responsible for their environmental stewardship and they are finding they are saving a lot of money in the process. Why not the federal government?
The federal government must lead by doing and where better for that leadership to start than by Parliament giving government departments a clear message that they and everyone who works for government must take responsibility for the environment and must take responsibility for the waste of resources.
I am therefore seeking the support of members on all sides of the House in having this motion approved. I would like to conclude by saying that we have to legislate on the environment, and we have to sometimes force people to do the right thing. Here we have an opportunity to provide leadership, not just legislation.


Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the member for her initiative in the House of Commons on this very important environmental matter. The motion and the words we have just heard are certainly foremost in the progressive environmental thinking in Canada. Her initiative is correct, and at the right place at the right time.
Previous governments and this government have created a very large, strong body of environmental legislation, and that legislation is followed of course with regulations and standards. After the regulations and the standards, there is the implementation process.
Following the implementation process, I think we have too large a body of law in all fields because it is not necessarily fully employed and in force.
There will never be the employment or enforcement of new laws if there is not someone who has to provide accountability or some kind of an audit format. The audit format is something that is certainly coming to environmental law.
I remember in 1979 bringing before this House the first bill on compulsory environmental assessment. No one would even second the motion at that time because it was something that was still to come. Of course, I am very pleased that the House of Commons has passed compulsory environmental impact legislation now.
As I look back at that 1979 private members' bill that gave forward direction coming from the hon. member in her call for audit and accountability of legislation once it is passed.
I want the member to know that the government fully supports the concept of federal departments being accountable for their use of resources from the environmental perspective.
The green plan clearly emphasizes that every Canadian, each and eveiy one of us, has a role to play in achieving the goal of sustainable development, that everyone is accountable for the impact of their actions as individuals on the environment. Therefore, it is only logical that in the green plan the federal government specifically acknowledged the need to demonstrate its commitment to sustainable development by making federal operations a model for that kind of development.
That was recognized even in the House of Commons by you, Mr. Speaker, in the fine work that you have done in bringing the House of Commons forward as an example of sustainable development in every way that all of us from the committee to the House of Commons could think of.
The government must lead by example. It can lead by advocating. It can lead by legislation. It can lead by programs, but first and foremost it must show the way by example. That example of course has to be followed with audit, otherwise it becomes relatively meaningless and people's initial enthusiasm soon wanes.
The government is committed to adopting a comprehensive code of environmental stewardship covering all areas of federal operations and activities. This code will integrate environmental concerns into both policy and
September 17, 1991

program planning as well as day-to-day operations of the federal Government of Canada across our land.
It will also ensure that operations and activities of the federal government not only meet but exceed the standards and practices that the government recommends to others. Indeed, this is a tall order but it is a strong objective that we must put and hold forward in front of us all the time, working towards.
Like the green plan itself, the stewardship initiative will be comprehensive, covering a wide range of issues rather than just one or two environmental areas. It is also similar to the green plan by taking a long-term approach, recognizing that there is no overnight solution.
This involved not just the changing of law, but in fact it involves the changing of attitude of legislators, of Canadians and the whole society needs to start thinking in these environmental terms.
It is not going to be easy to change these attitudes, but if we do not start now, it of course is never going to occur. We have to do this in a comprehensive and methodical manner as well.
The code that we will first establish will be complimented by a list of specific targets or objectives covering a number of issues from waste generation to energy efficiency, both the kinds of things that have been talked about by the hon. member. These objectives will be government-wide, applying to all departments and all agencies. This kind of comprehensiveness was not thought of 10 years ago. I am glad to see that it is at least being thought of and I wish the government success and, in fact, being this comprehensive and all inclusive.
Because of the nature of departmental operations, some targets will be implemented to a greater extent in some departments than others. We have to recognize, in the initial years, that some departments have a greater capacity to respond than others but, of course, we have to take it as it comes and we have to be diligent to the over-all comprehensive view.
For example, only about 20 departments are custodial departments, meaning that they own real property. Of course, through that ownership, ownership is equated to control. An objective relating to real property management such as efficient water use, for example, could only
Private Members' Business
be instituted by custodial departments. Therefore, we can move a little faster in these areas.
It might also be possible to realize more significant reduction in water usage in some special purpose buildings such as laboratories than others such as a general public office building where in fact we have public use of a public facility. We, again, have some limitations and that gets to the issue of educating the public generally.
Some other departments are tenants of Public Works Canada or even of the private sector. Tenant behaviour will always have a role in such initiatives, but not nearly to the same extent as facility modifications.
Each department and agency will be required to develop an environmental action plan, indicating how they will implement the code and the targets in their operation. These action plans will be made public and reports on progress will be made regularly. It will be in these plans that the unique aspects of departmental operations will be reflected since the government-wide objectives can only relate to common, environmental issues which apply to a broad scope of departmental operations.
Departmental action plans will be updated every year or, in some cases, more frequently if required. As departments assess their operations in greater depth, they will gain a better understanding of what needs to be done and appropriate time frames and cost estimates established. Some of the initial aspects of the plan will likely be assessing situations and gathering the necessary data and information to implement the targets.
To facilitate the adoption of the code and targets, an office of environmental stewardship will be established. This is a very important announcement and step to take. First of all, have to establish a structure and this will have to be done through this office of environmental stewardship. It will act as a focal point for the initiative providing co-ordination, information and guidance to the departments. It will also establish a series of stewardship directives at federal employees to raise their awareness and encourage their co-operation in implementing the codes and the target. I know we have spoken of this often in the environment committee. You can implement a program, but without an adequate education program to teach people how and why and the importance of it and to gain their commitment, in fact it will never be fully implemented. So I am very pleased that

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Private Members' Business
the government is recognizing the need for educational programs in the implementation of their objectives.
This will be further supported by the development of training courses for managers and officers making environmentally related decisions in the government.
The office of environmental stewardship will also be responsible for monitoring, implementation of code and objectives and reporting on the progress that has been made. Now I want to get that across to the member in particular because in fact the function that she assesses to her bill, what she is asking for the government is agreeing to and it is setting up the environmental stewardship office and committing to a process of reporting, of monitoring, implementation of objectives and reporting on the progress being made. So, undoubtedly, she will take great pleasure in the fact that this is being accomplished.
Common barriers to achieving progress can be identified by the office and resolved. Similarity, where there are opportunities for efficiency from joint action, these can be organized because we want to be concerned about waste, about inefficiencies and we want this co-ordinated role and approach going forward to gamer whatever savings we can.
Mr. Speaker, I see that you are giving me the time signal but this is an important government program that is being announced here today and it is in fact being announced in response to the work of this member and other members in the House of Commons who have recognized the need for auditing and the government is responding accordingly. We appreciate her initiative and look forward to it moving forward.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague from Ottawa West for putting forward this motion. Basically, what my colleague is putting forward is the fact that the Government of Canada put a green filter on every aspect of its operations. In other words, whether this be government purchases, government operations, that ultimately would lead to the relationship that government has in terms of its client list. We have a relationship, for example, in the Department of Supply and Services with people that supply the government. I think that we could
ultimately lead to putting standards forward to the private sector.
What I think is quite significant about this motion is if the government uses all of its resources, as my colleague from Ottawa West said, the Government of Canada is really the largest company in Canada, if we can use that analogy. We are talking here of literally thousands of locations of government offices and buildings across the country: all of our national defence bases, all of our airports across Canada, those that have yet to be privatized.
Can you imagine, Mr. Speaker, if we put a green filter on every one of those units? I believe that not only would this send a signal to the rest of our community in changing their lifestyle but I see the potential here for a mammoth job creation program, a job creation program for turning this country green for our youth, for our seniors. Just think of the number of audit functions that would happen in the process of converting government. Think of the number of manufacturing opportunities just in the area related to water, the amount of water that we waste in government buildings where we have lavatories, where the systems are working on a continual basis in terms of water flow. I mean there is technology today that can change that easily, instantly and at no cost and our savings would be mammoth.
I do not really see how anyone in this House could possibly oppose this motion. We have not been really leading this environmental debate in this House. We have been pushed into moving on this debate mostly by our constituents. I think it would be a tremendous example of getting into the lead again on this issue. By using all of these resources and putting in the audit function, putting forward a program and process of accountability, obviously those people who would not participate in this would be the odd one out. Very few men or women want to be the odd ones out when it comes to the environment today.
We also want to talk about the mammoth amount of conservation. My colleague from Ottawa West talked about deficit and debt. There would be tremendous savings for the deficit if we had a very progressive attitude in terms of converting to a green filter in government institutions and government operations.
September 17, 1991

My friend Patti Carson who just recently wrote a book, Green is Gold went through an entire list of companies across Canada which, after their conversion or after putting the green filter on their company, found that the savings were just absolutely staggering. Not only were the savings staggering but they found that the client support, because of their conversion, was dramatic. I think that when we have such a straightforward motion as this, a motion that will lead, obviously, to all kinds of new job opportunities, this ultimately will lead to an expertise in this country that we could export. All of a sudden the Government of Canada could be converted into a world class model operation, not only in terms of ourselves, but again I repeat, linkage to the private sector and how we put standards on those suppliers to government. Boy, oh boy, could you imagine what we could do with that in terms of our relationship to countries around the world? I think that would lead to a lot of new job opportunities. Jobs that are lasting, not just make work jobs, but jobs that have a long life.
I urge all members of this House to get behind this motion and put it into a state where it is not just rhetoric but real activity.


Felix Holtmann: Mr. Speaker, I, like the distinguished member for Broadview- Greenwood, would like to participate in this motion presented by the opposition colleague from Ottawa West here this afternoon. I would like to not only commend her but also the member for Broadview-Greenwood who just spoke. These can get to be tongue twisters. We should maybe bring in a law that allows just one name for a constituency instead of four or five and we might have less difficulty with them, or call them district number 1 to 295 or something. That would work a little easier.
This is interesting. I think everyone is genuinely interested and concerned about environmental issues. There are now so many rules, regulations and laws that have been drafted. It may be argued by many that we may have too many laws and possibly others may argue that if we just implement the rules and laws we presently have with regard to the concerns that different sectors of our country and our government has with the environment, we may not have to make another one.
I listened with interest to this debate. What I have just heard probably makes a lot more sense in terms of what we could do as a government just on some very simple
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things such as the conservation of water. Possibly there are many other areas.
We talk about buses and ministers' cars running for hours sitting out front in the event that someone may want to jump in and go to their office. Well, they are not exactly helping the environment. We are burning all kinds of fuel, but should we pass a law stating this should not be done? I think we have to use more common sense than legislation around here and show that kind of leadership as opposed to putting it down.
My colleague mentioned the green plan. I just wanted to point out that there are some pretty positive things in that particular piece of legislation that somehow covers, I believe, what was suggested in this motion.
It says: "It is the government policy that new policies and programs coming before cabinet for a decision be subject to an environmental review". That is there. "Each minister is responsible for doing an environmental assessment of the policy and program initiative prior to any final decisions being taken by the government and public statement on the environmental implications of the initiative is to accompany the official announcement of each initiative, especially where the environmental impact is significant".
It may be argued that is not strong enough. It may be argued that it should say "on anything". Who is going to decide what is significant and what is not? I think we get into a form of words.
I can tell you there is the other side which complicates initiatives of the government and initiatives of the private sector and initiatives of business.
In some cases, when you have ordinary citizens objecting to a project, there are so many rules and regulations they can hold up these projects through the courts, through some piece of legislation that exists today. I had this just happen in my riding where a very, very famous, in my view, organization and one very environmentally friendly to Canada by the name of Ducks Unlimited, created a marsh in my district and created a habitat for hundreds upon thousands of geese and ducks and, I think, something like 250 species of wildlife birds. It decided to share that with the public and put an interpretive centre and its head office right in the middle of the marsh, only to find out that there were all kind of organizations saying that they were not friendly with the

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Private Members' Business
environment and they were now, arguably to those people, going to in fact hurt the environment.
I tried to rationalize this. Why would an organization like that want to do it. They had environmental hearings and I participated because I basically support most of their efforts. Undoubtedly they have made some mistakes in some of their conversions of habitat and created some new problems, but I think they have a tremendous track record. Yet, unless the legislation was changed in Manitoba, it was very possible for a few individuals, only two or three sometimes, to stop an entire project that I see as being nothing but of benefit.
We have to question whether we should continue to make those kinds of rules that allow that to happen. In my view there has to be certain limits. I believe the pendulum has swung too far now in terms of all kinds of legislation to stop what I think sometimes is a very common sense approach to projects.
I am not going to take away from what is intended here because I think we all recognize that. We come here to make laws. That is what we were elected for. That is the only thing we really do. We are legislators. We make laws. But I often think we make too darned many laws. It confuses the entire operation of our country sometimes. If I have criticism of this particular piece of proposed legislation I think it is maybe just adding another law. I would hope not, but this is what I am saying. Maybe we have enough rules and regulations if we would only implement them. I think the hon. member opposite would admit that all too often we do not exercise the options available to us. She jumps up and down and says: "Is that right?" In that case, maybe I should amend her resolution.


An hon. member:: It is not a law.


Felix Holtmann: It is not a law, that is correct. The point is that Canada prides itself on being a great nation, but we have a lot of areas where we have probably neglected our environment, there is no doubt about it. We have had so many resources and so many companies in the resource industries that have violated the environment and hurt so many areas with no regard to anything but the almighty dollar. It happened to our rivers and
streams in Manitoba. It happened to our Great Lakes in Ontario.
What is going to happen at Pearson International Airport? You see, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what is happening at Pearson International Airport.
I think the point is that we have to look at this in a veiy sensible and logical way. We are not leaders in a lot of things. We produce more garbage per capita, we are garbage producers. We produce garbage by the megatonne. Maybe we should be charging not $40 a tonne for garbage but $400 a tonne and start making people pay for that garbage.
There is a different way of looking at it because I believe just west of this great city there is a mega mountain of garbage being produced and hopefully maybe there will be a park there. My colleague says this new law will prevent it. Well, there are no assurances of that, but I am not sure that with some common sense we can produce less of this garbage, but if that could be H done it would be the route to go.
I thought 1 would just make a few comments on that subject, Mr. Speaker, and I would not like to see us	B
bringing in more and more rules and regulations without	B
making sure we know what ramifications they might have	B
on projects that are coming onstream.	B


Mr.   Brian@: Mr. Speaker, I would	B
like to congratulate my colleague from Ottawa West. 1	B
served with her on the Commons Standing Committee	B
on the Environment and I have a lot of respect for her	B
motion and her motives.	B
The member's motion requests that the House express B its view as to whether the government should require all B departments and agencies to carry out environmental B assessments of their budget proposals.	B
I have no quarrel with the hon. member's underlying B objective. There is a general consensus within Canada B that the key to solving our environmental problems is B better environmental decision making. This was stressed B throughout the green plan consultations that were held B across Canada last year.	B
We already have in place the measures necessary to B ensure sound environment decision making within the	B
federal government. In the green plan, the federal	B
' * *
September 17, 1991

government announced its commitment to federal environment stewardship.
The federal government's goal is to ensure that all of its operations and procedures meet or exceed national targets and schedules for sustaining our environment.
The green plan provides for a comprehensive review of the environmental implications of existing statutes, policies, programs and regulations. Modifications will be proposed as necessary. While much of the initial work will take place over the period of 1991 to 1996, the review itself will be an ongoing process.
The government believes that the federal operations should be exemplary in meeting and frequently exceeding all national regulations and standards as well as being compatible with provincial and international environmental objectives. As the single largest business in Canada, it is the special responsibility of the federal government to lead by example.
As part of the green plan, the government will adopt a comprehensive code of environmental stewardship covering all areas of federal operations and activities. Federal departments and agencies will develop environmental action plans indicating how they will implement the code, and they will report regularly on implementation.
The code will be complemented by a list of targets or objectives. They will cover a broad range of areas from waste management to hazardous waste cleanup.
Projects involving the federal government will be subjected to the provisions of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Review bill. This bill will ensure that all federal departments and agencies conduct environmental assessments of all project proposals for which they have decision making authority and gives the Minister of the Environment substantial powers to ensure that this process is fair, efficient, transparent and allows for a high level of public input into decisions of projects which have a potentially significant impact on the natural environment.
Together, this bill and the policies of the Government of Canada will ensure that virtually every significant action considered by the government will be reviewed for its environmental implications. Canadians will have the right to either participate directly in the process or to have access to the results.
Private Members' Business
As essential as this process is, however, the government recognizes it is not enough. The federal environmental review process and its reforms will provide an effective mechanism for ensuring that environmental factors are taken into account in future decisions.
It is government policy that new policies and programs coming before cabinet for decision be subject to an environmental review. Each minister is responsible for conducting an environmental assessment of the policy and program initiative prior to any final decision being taken by the government.
Furthermore, a public statement on the expected environmental implications of the initiative is to accompany the official announcement of each initiative where the environmental impact is significant.
It is this process, for example, that will be applied to any free trade agreement with Mexico and the United States. Work is under way within the government and with the help of outside experts to develop the methods and procedures for effectively predicting and assessing the environmental effects of a policy or program initiative. I would note for the members that Canada will be among the first in the world to have such a process. Beyond these important internal measures, the government is committed to improving the ability of individuals to participate in government environmental decisionmaking. Such participation is essential to the environmentally sensitive decision-making. We can no longer rely solely on experts for the solutions to environmental problems. Instead we need input from a wider cross-section of the population.
Throughout the green plan consultation process, it was clear that Canadians wanted to be involved in major decisions that affected their lives and the lives of their children. Canada's green plan provides for ongoing consultations with Canadians as part of its regular review and updating of goals, targets, and programs. In fact, we want to build on the lessons learned during the green plan consultations to make our consultation process even more effective and to ensure even greater involvement of Canadians in the formulation and implementation of national environmental policy.
As well, we know that to be effective, Canadians need readily understandable information on the state of the environment and how it is changing in response to what we are doing. This kind of information provides them

Business of the House
with a sound basis to make judgments about the adequacy of current efforts, whether they be by governments, industry, or individuals.
The routine provision of high quality environmental information is a major component of the green plan. Although there is much work to be done in this complex area, we are committed to providing Canadians with the information they need to make informed decisions about their own activities and about the environmental performance of others.
The government fully supports the concept of federal departments being accountable for their use of resources from an environmental perspective. The green plan clearly emphasizes that every Canadian has a role to play in achieving the goal of sustainable development and that everyone is accountable for the impact of their actions on the environment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Since there are no more members who want to speak, the hour provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), this item is dropped from the Order Paper.


Iain Francis Angus: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. If there is no further private members' business, I am wondering if the House would agree to suspend until six o'clock as other things are evolving outside this House which will require some House time later on.


SITTING SUSPENDED
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order, please. I think that with unanimous consent, we can now proceed to the adjournment debate. Without it, I am going to suspend the sitting until 6 p.m. Is there unanimity? Is there consent that we proceed to the adjournment debate?


An hon. member:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: The sitting of the House is then suspended until 6 p.m.
At 5.44 p.m., the sitting of the House was suspended.


SITTING RESUMED
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 5.56 p.m.

Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the various representatives in the House and I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That notwithstanding any Standing Orders and usual practices of this House, the House withdraw Government Motion No. 4 after the adoption of this order and that;
After the return to work of the employees of the Public Service Alliance of Canada and other related unions, proceeding on Bill C-29, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another act in relation thereto, be halted immediately after second reading and not proceeded further with;
Should the PSAC and Treasury Board fail to reach an agreement with ensuing public inconvenience, then Bill C-29, an act respecting compensation in the public sector of Canada and to amend another act in relation thereto, would be deemed referred to a Committee of the Whole House; and that, immediately at the beginning of Government Orders the House shall begin its study at Committee of the Whole of the said bill and that all questions to dispose of the said bill at that stage and report stage be put without further debate or amendment no later than 10 p.m. that day.
That the following sitting day, the House shall begin consideration at third reading to Bill C-29, and that all questions to dispose of the said bill at that stage be put without further debate or amendment no later than 10 p.m. that day.
Mr. Speaker, I should also indicate that I believe you will find unanimous consent to complete the second reading of Bill C-29 now without further debate. I might add that the vote would be deemed demanded and deferred until tomorrow at three o'clock p.m.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, just in terms of a point of clarification because there has been a fair degree of communication from the government with regards to this particular matter, I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary could confirm for members of the House that in point of fact the workers will be called back by the President of the Treasury Board for eleven o'clock tomorrow morning
September 17, 1991

and that the government and the union representatives will resume bargaining without preconditions.
I am wondering if the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader could give us some reassurance on that.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that the information I have is that the employees will be going back to work and that the government representatives of Treasury Board and the union members will be returning to the bargaining table, I assume very quickly thereafter, to accomplish what they can in terms of their negotiations.


David Charles Dingwall: I have a further clarification, Mr. Speaker. President Daryl Bean to whom I spoke just a few moments ago indicated that the parties were supposed to be going to a news conference to outline these various factors. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary can confirm that both parties will be announcing shortly thereafter this particular order that in fact they will be going to press.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I can again confirm that the information I have received is that both parties will be holding a joint conference in a few minutes, which will outline the conditions and understandings that they have entered into together.


David Charles Dingwall: Finally, Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the parliamentary secretary has given those clarifications and those undertakings to the House, we are happy to be able to give our consent to this particular motion. They have accepted in its entirety the position of the Official Opposition.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to seek clarification. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader indicated that the vote at second reading would be deemed deferred. There is an amendment that we must deal with as well. I assume that the amendment would be included in that and the vote will be deferred until tomorrow.
Business of the House
I simply want to say that this motion is possible today because of a tremendous amount of co-operation on all sides, to say nothing of the tremendous work done by my colleague from Mission-Coquitlam. This is possible today because of a generosity that was shown on both the government side as well as the union side, and this is witness to that co-operation.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, we, members of the Bloc Quebecois, are also happy that both parties went back to the bargaining table. My colleagues, the member for Laurier-Sainte-Marie and the member for Hull-Aylm-er, have asked for two days that both parties go back to the bargaining table. In that sense, we can only agree with the process started today.
However, I know that there has been lots of consultations. In our case, they did not last more than a few minutes. I hope that the government will not use that as a precedent. I know that the situation in which the parties are today is delicate, inside as well as outside the House. I know that. But I hope that there will be more cooperation in this new Parliament and session, that we will have a little more than five minutes for speeches.
So we too are happy to give our unanimous consent.
[English\


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for the indications of co-operation. I want to also advise him that in dealing with him I never consider anything that he does with me a precedent of future behaviour. I also want to indicate that yes, it is our veiy clear understanding that all of the questions necessary to dispose of second reading of Bill C-29 will have deemed to have been put and deferred until tomorrow.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: The House heard the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion.

September 17, 1991
Adjournment Debate
Motion carried.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, I am rising this evening with regard to a question that I put forward on June 10, 1991 to the Minister of State for Youth. Unfortunately the House adjourned prior to my being able to put the question. Briefly the question asked about the difficulties faced by Canadian students, and in particular the students in my riding of Nepean, with regard to obtaining summer employment. Unfortunately this is all happening this evening after the fact. As I said earlier, I was unable to put the question before the House in June.
Rather than addressing the many youth employment problems of today, such as the large high school dropout rate, the closing of university employment centres and the generally dismal state of the economy which this government has created for our youth, I will focus my discussion on the specific problem which existed this past summer for those students who had planned to return this fall to university.
I certainly hope they have been able to do this. It is quite possible that many of those who had those high hopes in June have been unable to do so, because they can no longer afford the increase in tuition fees, the books with the GST, their rent and their groceries for the school year.
A large source of funding provided by the Government of Canada to students is found in the Summer Employment Experience Development program which, in shortened form, is called the SEED program. The SEED program in recent years has been cut back significantly. In 1989, $118 million was allotted to the program. Last summer this figure was reduced to $77 million.
The government seems to take great pride in making it known that this year the program received a boost in
funding. A more detailed examination reveals that this summer an extra $3 million only was supplemented to the fund, bringing the sum of the pool to $80 million.
The first observation to make in analysing these figures is that the funding for SEED this year still amounted to less than 70 per cent of the 1989 level of funding. Also, the $3 million increase amounts to a 2.1 per cent increase above last year's allocation. This is less than one-half the rate of inflation and means the program has actually seen a decline in real dollars that are being put into it.
I would like to give some specific examples. The National Capital Region in 1989 received an allocation of $1.4 million for the student SEED program. In both 1990 and 1991, that $1.4 million became only $424,000, a reduction of 70 per cent in the National Capital Region alone.
If I took the city of Nepean as an example, in 1989 the students received an allocation of $123,000. In 1990 and 1991 they received only $23,000.
We all know that $23,000 does not go very far to supply students in a city the size of mine with a population of
108,000	and I cannot quote the number of students going to university, but $23,000 would probably employ eight students over the summer.
If I could go further with my examples and comparisons, the two provinces I am most familiar with are the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In Canada, the unemployment rate for students 15 to 24 years of age is 16.1 per cent. In Ontario, the average is higher than the Canadian average of 16.3 per cent. In the province of Quebec it is a couple of points higher, at 18.3 per cent.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Your time is over. You know the rules of the late show. You have only four minutes.


Beryl Gaffney: Mr. Speaker, could I just make a last point?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Yes, quickly please.


Beryl Gaffney: The point of the matter is that there are
9.5	million people in Ontario and 7 million in Quebec. The allocation for the province of Quebec was $18 million. The allocation for the province of Ontario is $10 million. I would like the government to seriously look at the disparities between the two provinces, between the
Mr. Speaker, are you interrupting me?
September 17, 1991

National Capital Region and my city of Nepean. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Minister of State (Youth) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of State for Youth, I would like to give a more complete answer to the questions raised on June 10 by the hon. member for Nepean. The hon. member suggested that the Minister of State said one thing in this House while civil servants in several departments said the opposite. Those assertions are groundless. The hon. member mixes up different things and considers that the Summer Carrier-Oriented Employment Program of the Public Service Commission is included in Challenge '91 offered by the Department of Employment and Immigration. This program is not part of Challenge, it is a federal employment program offered by the Public Service Commission of Canada.
Again this year, it is estimated that over 6,000 students across the country have been hired by the Public Service Commission under the Career-Oriented Summer Employment Program. To this day, most of the federal offices cooperating with this program report they are planning to hire about the same number of students this year than last year, and this does not include the Cooperative Work Education Programs within Public Service or other Public Service summer employment programs. There also they hire students.
In June, the Minister of State (Youth) was perfectly right to say that there would be more money available for students in the summer of 1991 than in the summer of last year, and this under the Challenge 91 Program. Challenge 91 has a budget of $143 million, of which $80 million have been spent this summer under the Summer Employment/Experience Development Program. This latter program has two componets, one for high scholl students and the other for postsecondary students. The number of jobs created this summer under Challenge 91 is estimated to 55,000 compared with the 52,000 created last summer. Moreover, it is expected that 16,000 other jobs will be created this summer of 1991 for young
Adjournment Debate
drop-outs through the Work Orientation Workshops Program. I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that 16,000 jobs had been created last year through that program.


STEEL INDUSTRY
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, on June 18, I asked a question of the Minister of Finance with regard to whether the federal government would be participating in an employee buy-out, or at least trying to facilitate an employee buy-out at the Algoma Steel Corporation, once the second largest steel corporation in this country. On that occasion the minister suggested that he was personally in favour but suggested it was the minister of industry who should be responsible. The minister of industry had already said it was the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.
It would appear that everybody on the government side is very supportive of such a concept. We in Sault Ste. Marie and in particular the steelworkers, the whole community in fact, would like the opportunity to facilitate an employee buy-out. The largest employee buyout in this country.
You may say that we are breaking new ground in setting precedent, but in the United States it is an every day occurrence and facilitated by tax credits. This time we are going to give tax credits to the employees rather than the corporations.
What we are asking of the government is: Will it participate along with the Ontario government to offer complementary tax regulations, to enact amendments that could be done without changing the whole income tax act, to give the employees a break? For example, on a $3,500 investment, a $700 tax credit.
Also, employees have told me they do not want to buy the company unless it is economically viable. I think we all agree with that. You do not want to buy something that is a bad investment and a waste of your money. The employees are already giving $3 of their wages to, hopefully, as a down payment on this company, if you want to call it that.
The federal government let us down just a little while ago because it would not participate in a $10 million loan guarantee when the employees, the banks, the unions,

Adjournment Debate
the parent company and the Ontario government did participate. Only the federal government said no.
I met with the finance minister this afternoon to once again appeal to him to look favourably upon tax regulations that would allow us the opportunity, just the opportunity, to involve ourselves in this employee buyout, an initiative that I think, with imminent plant closures or plant closures that have already happened, surely the government could see its way clear to involving itself in.
I am going to ask the government to elaborate: What is it preparing to do? What is it prepared to do to encourage the people in Sault Ste. Marie and the steelworkers in Sault Ste. Marie?


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the tax system already has mechanisms to encourage share ownership by workers, namely special rules for companies that undertake in share purchase option agreements to issue shares to their employees, and a lifetime capital gains exemption structured so as to favour the acquisition of shares by employees. Mr. Speaker, these mechanisms could help facilitate the plan of workers at Algoma to buy back shares.
These mechanisms are already in place in the legislation. Therefore no amendment is required to reflect recent events such as the situation at Algoma. In fact, both mechanisms are in line with the orientation that the government has given the tax system since the reform. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the government brought in the capital gains exemption in 1985. My colleague in the opposition challenged this exemption, Mr. Speaker, but he now sees that it may be worthwhile. Its purpose is to reward success, not to offer systematic tax breaks.
Under a share purchase option agreement, employees are entitled to buy shares from their employer. If the option price is not less than the share price when the option is exercised, the mechanism yields no tax advantage. In the case of a private company which is under Canadian control at the time the option is granted, the tax benefit accruing from the fact that the call premium is lower than the stocks' value at the time of their acquisition would become taxable only when these are sold. Moreover, when an employee sells his or her
stocks, only 75 per cent of the tax benefit arising from the option, that is to say the potential surplus of the value of the stocks over the option premium when they are acquired would be added to the income of the employee when the stocks are sold.
Furthermore, any increase in the value of the stocks acquired, i.e. when the option is exercised, usually represents a capital gain for the employee and, as such, entitles him or her to the lifetime exemption I referred to earlier.
British Columbia and Ontario have a tax credit system which promotes employee stock ownership. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, my time is already up. I would simply add, if I may, that the existing system is complex but one that employees can easily administer.


HIGHWAYS
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and discuss the issue of the Trans-Canada Highway in the House.
I should say that on June 10,1 asked a question of the minister concerning the Trans-Canada Highway and when the federal government would show its commitment to the safety and economic well-being as well as the health of all New Brunswickers by committing funds to the Trans-Canada Highway.
For those who have not had the thrill of driving on our Trans-Canada Highway in New Brunswick, it is probably the most deadly highway in Canada and one that obviously merits federal support and assistance.
There are numerous deaths on the Trans-Canada Highway, and in my question I refer to some of the headlines and to some of the people who have been killed on New Brunswick highways, particularly the Trans-Canada.
The headline of the editorial in The Bugle, the Woodstock newspaper back a few months ago read:"Is the Trans-Canada Highway a Killing Field?" That is about what it has become. The editorial comments further that perhaps a hotline should be set up for federal MPs in each riding so that people who see accidents on the Trans-Canada Highway call them so they would become aware of the problem and the carnage that is caused on that highway.
September 17, 1991

It is admitted by both the federal and provincial governments that it is the worst section of Trans-Canada Highway in the country. It has an adverse effect on the economy. The tourism industry and all those things that relate to highway traffic are adversely affected.
The federal government is talking about building the link to Prince Edward Island, so we will build a new superstructure that will connect Prince Edward Island with New Brunswick and there are not going to be the highways upon which to take the cars that come back and forth from the island. It does not really make a whole lot of sense to me.
The appalling thing about this whole situation is that the minister's response is that this is a provincial responsibility and really, the federal government does not have anything to do with it. Well, that is incorrect. It is the Trans-Canada Highway. It was built by a joint agreement between the federal government and the provincial governments of this country and it was to serve as a link between all parts of the country, from sea to sea to sea, and this minister's response that it is purely a provincial government problem is irresponsible in my view.
The provincial government of New Brunswick is exerting some efforts with respect to correcting the Trans-Canada Highway problem in New Brunswick. It was interesting to note that the premier wrote the minister immediately after seeing what the minister's response was to my question. He pointed out just exactly how much money the province put in. It had committed on the basis of the gasoline tax $32 million a year to help upgrade the Trans-Canada Highway. In addition to that, it has put forward a special fund of $100 million to be used in the construction of the Trans-Canada Highway for the years 1990, 1991, and 1992.
If you lose perspective, that is a major contribution for any province the size of New Brunswick with a population of roughly 700,000 to make to this particular problem.
In conclusion, I quote from the premier's letter: "Your predecessors in the Department of Transport as well as the Prime Minister have conceded that New Brunswick has the worst stretch of Trans-Canada Highway in the country and that is why we asked for federal government
Adjournment Debate
assistance, and it is not just a provincial responsibility. It is time for the federal government to assume its responsibility".
It is true.


Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my hon. friend opposite would want to know, and I am sure that the people of New Brunswick would want to know, that since 1977, Transport Canada has contributed nearly $283 million toward highways in New Brunswick. Indeed, New Brunswick is second only to Newfoundland in the amount of federal funds received. The provinces, which do have responsibilities here, made the decision to spend the bulk of these moneys in the province's northeastern region, on Highways 11 and 8, rather than on the Trans-Canada Highway, for which we sent them the money.
At present, the federal government has a $145 million highway improvement agreement with New Brunswick. Under this agreement approximately $67 million, or 46 per cent, will be expended on the Trans-Canada Highway and connecting links, Highways 1 and 7.
The federal government is now being asked to commit funds to upgrade New Brunswick's Trans-Canada Highway to four lanes which incidentally would require over $2 billion.
Over the past year the federal government has received requests from other provinces and territories for highway contributions totalling $14 billion. Clearly, these requests cannot be handled in an ad hoc manner. Highway transportation problems, whether in New Brunswick or elsewhere in the country, will have to be dealt with in the context of a national highway program.
The federal government, in co-operation with the 12 provincial and territorial governments, is actively examining the magnitude of this problem. No decisions concerning the upgrading of New Brunswick's Trans-Canada Highway, nor any other portion of the national highway system, can be made until this process is complete.
We have a duty, especially in this period of budgetary constraint, to ensure that federal highway funds are spent wisely.

Adjournment Debate


CANADA ASSISTANCE PLAN
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, some time go I asked a question about the government's hypocrisy in announcing a four-year $136 million program to fight family violence while, at the same time, cutting $155 million over two years in transfer payments to the provinces. Only $49 million of that family violence program is to be spent before the next election.
It does not take a mathematician to figure out that the Tories are cutting three times the amount that they are dishing out.
In fact the $155 million figure for losses in transfer payments is actually the government's own figure. The provinces estimate that they are losing some $2 billion in transfer payments.
The Canada Assistance Plan funds child care, shelters for battered women, and funds social assistance.
Why is the government fighting the deficit on the backs of battered women, on the backs of children, and on the backs of the poor in this country?
The former finance minister said the government is making these cuts so our children will not have to pay later. But our children are paying right now, children who are alone at home or in haphazard or dangerous child-care situations because there is no child care. Their families cannot find child care. Children who line up with their single mothers in a food bank line-up are paying right now. These are the people who in fact do pay for this government's policies.
The Conservative philosophy fundamentally seems to misunderstand what social assistance is all about. It is not to throw out scraps of money at people so that they can just scrape by, their self-esteem disintegrating day by day. It is there to help people to get back on their feet and to become self-sufficient. It is there to ensure that children do not go to school hungry and that they have a real chance in life. It is there to train people so that they have the skills and the education necessary to participate in the job market. These are investments for the future and you cannot build a strong economy without them. You cannot build a strong economy by leaving children without care, hungry so that they grow up on the fringes
of society, chronically on social assistance or in conflict with the law. This is not the way to reduce the deficit.
The Tory way will only enlarge the deficit as our society attempts to cope in the future with increasing crime and violence in our society. The government has a choice now to help create high income taxpayers for the future or to create another cycle of poverty. In capping the Canada Assistance Plan, it has opted for the latter.
Let us have a national child care program now. The quality, affordability and accessibility of Canada's child care will ultimately determine what kind of future we have for our children when they become adults, not this maniacal bent that the government is on of ineffective debt reduction schemes.
Many women are turned away from shelters for battered women. Children do not have the child care they need. This government has put a ceiling on the Canada Assistance Plan in three provinces in this country. Those children are just as needy as children in any other part of this country. Those women who are battered and abused are just as much in need of shelter as women who are badly treated in other parts of this country. It is time that this government took those concerns seriously and reversed its wrong-headed policy of cutting back on transfer payments to the provinces.


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member for New Westminster-Burnaby knows, but I really want to tell the House or just perhaps remind them, that on August 15 the government reaffirmed its commitment to put an end to violence against women with the announcement of the establishment of the Canadian panel on violence against women. The member certainly contributed a great deal of time and effort with regard to the establishment of this panel. It is going to represent Canada's best knowledge, experience, sensitivity and leadership on the issue. It is co-chaired by Pat Marshall from Toronto, Ontario and Marthe Asselin Vaillancourt of Jonquiere, Quebec. So we have two very good co-chairwomen.
This panel has a mandate to examine the issues of violence against women through an interactive, responsive and grass-roots type of dialogue. It is going to travel to large and small communities across Canada, making every effort to reach all interested persons, including the victims themselves, the victims of violence, the front-
September 17, 1991

line workers, the social service educators, providers of health care, community members and also we will be looking at the child abuse area with regard to this.
The panel is going to seek three objectives. The first one is to encourage women to identify violence from their own perspective. The second one is to heighten public awareness. A lot of people are aware and then there are those who perhaps do not really know how great this issue is within the country. The third objective, of course, is to find solutions related to the root causes of the violence against women and a particular focus on preventive measures which I think we all realize is the best route to go.
It began its operations this month and it will be reporting back to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women by December 1992, including recommendations for a plan of action along with the timeframes and the federal government's action policy.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: You have only two minutes unless the House agrees to more time. The hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel.


GARMENT INDUSTRY
Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau -Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, following a meeting with the Quebec Joint Committee of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, I put a question to the Minister of Labour, in this House, on May 17. Basically, I asked him to review the regulations of the POWA, that is the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, a program for workers who have been laid off and, because of their age and lack of skills, have little or no chance to find a new job. The Minister told me then he wanted to discuss the issue with his colleague, the Quebec Minister, in order to revise the regulations and find a way to better help laid-off workers, especially in the Montreal area.
Well, I read a press communique released by the Minister of Labour, announcing that assistance would be provided to about 275 older workers laid off in the Province of Quebec. Among them employees of only five businesses which had to close in the Montreal area. I would like to congratulate the Minister. Obviously, helping five people is better than helping no one at all. However, I have to remind him that, with all the various problems in the Montreal area and throughout Quebec,
Adjournment Debate
helping 275 laid-off workers is really not enough. I would invite him to review the regulations as soon as possible.
In the beginning, POWA was an exclusively federal program, entirely financed by the Canadian government which could decide all by itself who would receive assistance and who would not. I do not want the Minister to tell me today that he has to consult Quebec before deciding who to help in that province. It may have been a good thing to ask the Quebec government to pay 30 per cent of the expenses.
If the federal government does not pay the entire bill, that is fine. But if it pays 70 per cent of it, it should be able to make the appropriate decisions in order to ensure that a much greater number of Quebecers and especially Montrealers who are now unemployed benefit from this program. Linally, should I remind the minister of an article signed by Jean-Philippe Decarie in today's edition of the Journal de Montreal, which reads as follows: "Nobody gives a damn about Montreal. The Montreal area, which goes from one disaster to another, found out once again yesterday that it has no political weight in Ottawa to protect its industrial assets and its labour force, even if it is highly qualified."
I hope the minister read that article and I hope he is able to announce measures in order to help those ex-employees, the 2,000 employees from Vickers, from Canadian Steel Loundries, from Chem-Tech. I hope he does something about the 15,000 jobs or so that were lost during the last year in the textile industry, particularly in the northern part of Montreal. We must help not only those 275 persons, but the 20,000 who lost their jobs because the Tory government does not have any progressive policies.


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as a former Labour minister, the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel knows that POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, is a last resort program designed to assist older workers who have been permanently laid off and have no prospects for re-employment.
Lay-offs in private industry and commercial Crown corporations are considered under POWA.
The hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel raised a question concerning the coverage under POWA of workers laid off due to plant closures in the Montreal region. Under POWA we have been able to help many older workers who would otherwise suffer severe financial hardship.

Adjournment Debate
In the first two and half years of the program's operations, a total of $64.4 million of POWA benefits went to beneficiaries in Quebec, with the federal government contributing $45.1 million. Under POWA, the Montreal region has benefitted from $37.2 million in assistance for 808 older workers affected by major lay-offs. This represents 58 per cent of Quebec POWA beneficiaries and one-third of all beneficiaries across Canada.
Eligible older workers from lay-offs designated under POWA will receive assistance under the program till they reach the age of 65. Officials of the Canada-Quebec POWA Committee continue to gather the facts regarding lay-offs at a number of establishments in the Montreal region. As the committee completes the analyses of these lay-offs, I will re-evaluate the findings along with
my counterpart, the hon. Andre Bourbeau, and at that time we will ensure that as many workers as possible will be eligible for POWA, always bearing in mind budgetary restrictions.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may remind the hon. member, who was a very influential minister in the Liberal Cabinet at the beginning of the eighties, that if at the time his government had done more to help industries in the Montreal area, including the petrochemical industry, perhaps we would not be in the kind of situation we are in today.


Mr. Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24 (1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.36 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, September 18, 1991