1991-12-03

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: I rise on a short point of order, Mr. Speaker. Basically I want to seek some direction. In this House I think we all appreciate that certain immunities exist regarding the interventions made by members of Parliament in order to ensure that freedom of speech is a reality in this Chamber.
This is the first chance I have had to raise this. I do want to refer once again to something that happened on Thursday of last week regarding some of the comments made by my friend from Portage-Interlake regarding the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada when he called on two occasions, first suggesting that the president was participating in a despicable act of cowardice and went on to say that he as an individual would rather drown or hang people and so on.
I guess what I am saying is that I really need some ruling or some direction from the Chair. I noticed in reading Hansard of yesterday-unfortunately I was travelling-that an intervention was made by the Chair during Question Period when it was felt that an hon. member from the Liberal Party referred to the comments of a minister as baloney. You felt it was appropriate to intervene at that point and ask the member to retract that statement. He did this. Mr. Speaker, I support this initiative from the Chair.
I saw that one day and on another day a member called someone who is not in this House a coward, despicable and someone who encourages people to drown others and so on. Consequently the person does not have an opportunity to respond to these accusations. It seems to
me that we just cannot let this go on and not have some response by yourself, Mr. Speaker.
When the intervention was first made I asked the member to withdraw the remarks. But in a sense if you looked at his comments he seemed to just add to them. Mr. Speaker, you said that you would review the situation and make the appropriate comment. I appreciate that. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, since I was travelling yesterday and not in the House you were intending to do just that. But I wanted to encourage you particularly in light of the intervention you made yesterday which I thought was appropriate. You said that at the earliest convenience you would give some direction as to how we can maintain the appropriate measure of comment.
We have privileges that encourage free speech. Our comments are not actionable which means we cannot launch a libel suit or defamation suit as a result of comments made here. It is up to us as members of Parliament and particularly, Mr. Speaker, through you to set some sort of measurement of appropriateness. We ask you as the Chair to enforce those measures.
I raise this matter in that most positive way seeking direction from yourself.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make two quick comments on this intervention. The first one is that in principle I very much support what the hon. member is suggesting.
I think the House leader of the New Democratic Party has raised an issue that has been of growing concern to this House. We need to be very careful in our assertions about the reputations of people who are not in this institution and cannot defend themselves. I thought I would want to signal to the Chair my complete support for the Chair being very firm and aggressive when that sort of action takes place. I think we need to do that. I think the Canadian public want us to do that and I am very supportive of the hon. member's assertion on that point.

December 3, 1991
Point of Order
However, Mr. Speaker, I want to deal for a moment with the specific case he raises. I believe this is the statement made by the hon. member for Portage-Interlake at pages 5498 and 5499 of Hansard. I want to read just one paragraph into the record. It is what I think the hon. member is referring to. It says:
Advocating violence against women is unbecoming of all
Canadians. It is a shameful and a despicable act of cowardice.
Intimidation of this nature belongs in the gutter with the filth and the
mire.
My point, Mr. Speaker, is that is an assertion which deals with an advocation of violence against women. I do not think it is an assertion that is aimed at the president of the PSAC although there is the connection made in the statement where the hon. member for Portage-Interlake very much objects to the letter that was sent out by the president of the PSAC. But he does not call the head of the PSAC a coward and he does not accuse him of being despicable. What he says is that if what Mr. Bean has done is advocate violence against women then it is the advocation of violence against women that is shameful and despicable and demonstrates cowardice.
So, Mr. Speaker, I do not think it is a statement directed personally so much at Mr. Bean as it is at the whole issue of violence against women.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary. The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague and friend the House leader of the New Democratic Party has raised a very substantive issue concerning the standards that are to be adhered to on the floor of the House of Commons and thereafter the implementation of that particular standard as it applies to the opposition parties and that of the government.
I am happy to hear that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader subscribes to the principle that my friend and colleague has enunciated here this morning. Yesterday I spoke to you in private about my colleague and where he has used the word "baloney". Then in the midst of Question Period you took it upon yourself to intervene. That ate up some of our time for Question Period by not doing it at the usual time. I would have thought the right time for drawing the attention of the House to the comments that you believed to be
somewhat offensive would have been three o'clock. But at the same time, Mr. Speaker, I seek guidance of the Chair. One has to raise the question how during statements under Standing Order 31 and indeed in other interventions how government members will be policed on the floor of the House of Commons.
We understand, Mr. Speaker, that we are in an opposition party. We understand that certain rules and Standing Orders do indeed apply to us. But we would hope that in the future they would apply to all members of the House. I seek the guidance of the Chair as to how it intends to police some of these aspects. On first appearances, Mr. Speaker, some members have contemplated out loud that maybe the standard that we are all hopefully trying to live by is not in some circumstances being implemented fairly or accordingly to all members of Parliament.
The parliamentary secretary is shaking his head. If he wishes to participate in debate then he should participate in the debate. He should not use body language to try to intimidate those of us who are trying to seek guidance from the Chair on a very important matter. If the parliamentary secretary does not believe that what we are raising is sufficiently important enough let him say so. We seek the guidance of the Chair concerning the standards that the Chair is trying to utilize on the floor of the House of Commons for all members, not just opposition members.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. My concern is that I think the House leader of the Liberal Party is very close to an assertion against the Chair. I am sure he did not intend it.
I think it is very clear that all members of the House would support the Chair in coming down on members for inappropriate behaviour no matter which side of the aisle they sit on.
I want to say very clearly, Mr. Speaker, that I am sure that is not what the hon. member intended in his remarks. I am sure what he said is that he wanted to see it applied fairly. All of us would certainly support that.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a very short comment and refer to the fact that the points raised by my hon. friend are technically correct.
December 3, 1991

I think being fair is something that we would like to always work toward as an appropriate goal. If people had read carefully what the president of PS AC was doing we would know full well that he was not personally advocating violence against women.
I do not know who determines the government's speaking list but I notice that this issue was raised three times on that day. There were two statements during Question Period where they incorrectly referred to Mr. Bean as being vice-president of the New Democratic Party. Of course he is not.
To take a letter and probably unconsciously and certainly inadvertently distort its intent is incorrect. It is not that this never happens but when we raise issues about one of us in this House it is done knowing full well that that individual will have an opportunity to stand up and defend himself or herself.
I think it is an unfortunate initiative to attack someone in such a vicious way who is outside this House. This is with the knowledge that as long as those comments are made here they are not actionable and if they were made outside the door you would probably end up in a court of law.
I suspect we all share this. I appreciate the comments made by my colleague the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader who says that he even now supports the general thrust of the argument.
It is for that reason that I think we would like to call on you to give us some guidance as to the appropriate way to proceed in the future.


Mr. Speaker:: I appreciate very much the tone of the intervention of the hon. member for Kamloops. I appreciate the other interventions that have been made today.
This matter arose several days ago. To be very frank with the House I am still looking at it.
There is an issue here which is not quite as easy to resolve as might at first seem. First, a particular incident took place outside the Chamber. The Chair is not in any particular position to know what exactly took place outside the Chamber except what I may have heard.
Second, moving away completely from the incident to which we have been referring, we have matters that get
Point of Order
into the public domain outside the Chamber. It is sometimes difficult to find the line between what is inappropriate to mention or comment with respect to them and what is appropriate.
I think that the point that was made in general terms that we ought to constrain ourselves considerably in making comments about someone outside this Chamber which would in fact be defamatory under the laws of our country if made outside the Chamber is something which we should consider.
I will try to find a way of expressing this which will give us some guidance. I have been concerned that the use of highly suggestive language or innuendo sometimes on both sides of the House with respect to people or their associations with people can be very demeaning indeed.
This certainly moves the House to a response of irritation or anger which of course leads us to disorder.
I accept the interventions of hon. members that this is a matter which does require some careful thought. I will try to respond in a way that is helpful.
I hope that yesterday's incident is not taken as any indication that there is one standard for one side of the House and another standard for the other, or even one standard for those members who are close enough to the Chair that I can hear when they say something that is not appropriate, as opposed to those members at the very far end of the Chamber. Quite frankly, I cannot hear these comments most of the time.
I think the hon. member who was corrected by me and withdrew and apologized, was hurling words directly at a minister while the minister was responding. I felt that under the circumstances it was appropriate to stop it.
I just want to make it very clear that if I hear comments thrown by government members at hon. members opposite who are putting questions in the same manner, as long as I can hear them, I will certainly rule them out as far as being proper. I want to assure you the Chair is trying to make sure the law falls equally on both sides of the Chamber.
I am frankly heartened by members' comments this morning on this matter, and I think that it indicates a general sense in the Chamber that we do have to make an extra effort to make sure that the decorum of this

December 3, 1991
Privilege
place is acceptable, not just to each other, but also to the public.
In this regard I want to make it very clear that one can either extol or deplore television, but it is here. One thing it has done is give a lot of Canadians a chance to see what we do in the Chamber. While this may have helped some of them see what we are doing in terms of policy and substance, it has also given a lot of people a chance to see things that we do that they do not appreciate. I think that we are bound to take that into account. Certainly this morning's discussion is helpful to me and I hope that I will be able to respond in a way that is helpful to the Chamber.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, last Thursday I gave notice in regard to what I believe is a point of privilege.
It is probably the most important statement that I have made in my nine years as a parliamentary member for the riding of Timiskaming. I refer to Hansard, page 5508, of November 28 and the comments made by the member from Sudbury.
The question is in regard to my honesty and integrity. I want to stand before the House today as someone who has represented a riding and has been here for three elections.
The allegations have caused damage to myself, my family and the riding of Timiskaming which I have represented for nine years.
I would like to take a moment to review and set the record straight. I believe that when accusations and allegations are made in this House and transmitted back to your ridings, it is very difficult to be able to stand up and defend them, putting matters straight once and for all.
A year ago, tenders were called for a building in Kirkland Lake. The first round of tenders were all too high. The second round of tenders, numbered project 2000 were disqualified. The second tender was from a company named Cohole construction of Kirkland Lake.
I just want to read a couple of paragraphs in a letter that was sent to Mr. Young Hong, President of Cohole Development Corporation on November 27, 1991.
I wish to re-confirm the advice given you by my staff October 16, 1991 and reiterated in my November 15, 1991 letter to you that Public Works Canada has terminated its contract with Cohole Development Corporation to provide the necessary space. It should be clearly understood that our decision to terminate the contract is based on two factors.
First, as a result of a loss of financing for this project by Cohole Development, your contractor stopped work in September, 1991 thereby placing the project at serious risk. You were unable to secure alternative financing, even after several extensions granted by us to October 16, 1991 and therefore we terminated the contract as we had no guarantee that Cohole Development would be able to complete the project.
You may also recall that at a meeting in your office February 21, 1991, officers of this department and a DVA official discussed the requirements of the project with you and you were advised at that time that a $2 million bond would be required as part of the contract.
The purpose of the bond is to protect the Crown in the event you were unable to complete the project, thereby minimizing our risk by providing funds to offset the costs of leasing interim space.
You may also recall that officials on my staff advised you again on June 21, 1991, at the time the contract was awarded to you, of the requirement for a $2 million bond.
Public Works then went to the third tender, a company called Anthony Kemp Architects Inc. A reference on page 5508 of Hansard, states my brother-in-law was called in as being part of the ownership of this.
I place before you today a letter from Anthony Kemp which states that "as a point of information the sole shareholder of 926260 Ontario Limited is Anthony Kemp. Should this company be successful in this endeavour, the ownership of the said company will be widened to include the following individuals: Anthony Kemp, Garry Fairhurst, Warren Beamish, Norman Seymour, Robert Chafee and Peter Balan. Mr. Gary Watkins does not have and will not have any pecuniary or other interests in 926260 Ontario Limited."
December 3, 1991

Privilege
I also lay before you the different bids: Project No. 926260 of $9,630,000 and Cohole Construction of $9,570,000.
It was also accused that my brother-in-law is a shareholder in the land. I would like to quote from a letter from chartered accountants, Cook Hawley Marks:
We have reviewed the shareholder records as presented in the
attached chart, and confirm that Mr. Gary Watkins, through 510177
Ontario Limited and the First Watkins Family Trust, have a minority
interest of 28.69% in Nelson Bros. Construction Limited.
This is the property I have been accused of having an interest in.
I would like to end by saying that the value of the property in question at DVA bid was $500,000. In addition, we would have paid relocation costs for the Nelson Bros, operation which would be deducted from the $500,000.
In December 1988, long before DVA, we had an appraisal done on the property. It was valued at $558,600. We also have the option on the value of the land at $810,000. On that basis it can be concluded that Gary Watkins is not getting any type of benefit from our involvement in the DVA project.
I feel very sorry for the individuals who were involved with Cohole construction. That development was strictly between Cohole and Public Works. The unfortunate part about it is individuals started to do work believing that Cohole had the financing in place.
If you have been in business for 18 years, you check to see whether your creditors have the funds or not. This was not done. I must say, Mr. Speaker, it has been a very difficult time for me and my family to hear allegations like this made against me, my family and the people that I have represented for nine years.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, in fairness, allegations have been made in this House, and we should once and for all be able to clear such allegations and not allow them to happen.


Mrs. Diane Marleau (Sudbury):: Mr. Speaker, the first thing I want to say is that the hon. member said yesterday, I gather, that I had made allegations with regard to him or his involvement in the termination of the contract for the DVA building in Kirkland Lake.
This inference is totally unwarrant. I asked a question of the Minister of Public Works and I will quote it:
"I want to know the real reason behind this nonsense", and it is in Hansard, as you saw, "is it because the owner of the second site and the member for Timiskaming just happen to be brothers-in-law?" It is a true statement. The owner of the site being considered is Nelson Brothers Construction. The hon. member for Timiskam-ing's brother-in-law happens to be a shareholder and the vice-president of that company. I do not for one minute infer any wrongdoings on the part of the hon. member, absolutely none. On the other hand, the brother-in-law is involved. I will tell you that no one believes that one can be responsible or be one's brother-in-law's keeper, especially not me. I have eight brothers-in-law and I will tell you right away that I do not pretend to have any say in what they do with their lives.
The whole question of this contract has very different sides to it. I will tell you the version that I have been told. Yes, there was one tender and it was turned down. I was told that it was turned down because the zoning was not in place when the people put in their bids. There was a second tender and on June 21, Cohole Development received a letter saying: "We have accepted your tender. Please proceed to construct the site."
On July 16 construction began. On July 18 there was a sod-tuming ceremony. Let me remind the hon. members that there was no mention and no amount of a callable bond in the contract. The amount was just specified as an amount deemed to be reasonable in some way, shape or form and that is fine. Construction began on July 16 and continued until some time after September 23 at which time Cohole Development received a letter stating that Public Works Canada wanted a $2 million callable bond.
Now if you come from northern Ontario, you know how difficult it is to deal with bankers. I will tell you that yes, Cohole Development had some difficulty in obtaining the $2 million bond. There was no extension granted and no letters sent. There was a meeting held in October in Toronto at which time another alternative was put forward. The gentleman involved waited for an answer from Public Works and received no answer until November 15 when he was advised that the contract was terminated, period.
Since then, Cohole Development has come up with the $2 million bond. I have made repeated attempts to question the Minister of Public Works to make sure that he treated this whole thing as fairly as possible, because

December 3, 1991
Routine Proceedings
there is a great deal of money invested in that site. A lot of the construction work has been done. There are contractors in all areas of northern municipalities who stand to lose a great deal of money. That is how I became involved in this question, because some of the contractors are in my riding and they contacted me. They said: "What is happening? Why are we being treated this way?"
The government keeps saying that it is going to this new contractor. The tender from the new contractor is no longer active so they have to get new prices from him. The story goes on.
Meanwhile, I am told today that the owner of Cohole Development is delivering a $2 million callable bond to the people in Toronto. I am asking that they continue to look at this matter, to stop the massive losses, not only of those contractors but of the government itself. It has invested many dollars in this project.
When the foundations are in, the site has been cleared, the steel has been done and the architectural work has been done, it is a serious business to suddenly change the site completely. They are going from one end of town to a completely new site owned by Nelson Brothers Construction, there is no doubt in my mind.
I will tell you that I hope the hon. member for Timiskaming will lead the way in making sure that the government treats absolutely everyone as fairly as possible.


Mr. Speaker:: I will hear the hon. member for Timiskaming in a moment, but I may be able to assist the House.
I have listened very carefully to both sides because the issue is complicated, but the issue that I have to resolve is simply this: in the way the question was put, is the hon. member for Sudbury out of order or has there been a breach of privilege with respect to the position of the hon. member for Timiskaming.
I remind hon. members who may want to say something about this that this is the quote: "I want to know the real reason behind this nonsense. Is it because the owner of the second sight and the member for Timiskaming just happen to be brothers-in-law?"
That was then denied by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works. Someone then shouted out: "It sure helped the brother-in-law", and another hon. member said: "all in the family".
I have to take the mood that was created by the question somewhat into account. That is basically where the Speaker has to decide whether those words were appropriate under the circumstances, whether they were something that was a breach of order in the House or whether they go further.


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Mr. Speaker, your words are exactly all that I want to be concerned about.
It is strictly a business agreement between Public Works and the tenderers. My concern is to clear my name and my family name.


Mr. Speaker:: I think in keeping with the other matter which we discussed a little earlier this morning, I am going to look at this carefully and consider it.
I do point out that however I decide, I think hon. members can see how when an imputation is made by way of a question or by a response by a minister, it becomes very personal and can be hurtful. There is difficulty that it creates in the Chamber and with each other.
I am going to look at it and see if I can come down with a procedural response which is appropriate. I thank the hon. member for Sudbury. I know she had some difficulty being here yesterday. I received that message very early in the morning and I appreciate the fact. I hope that the hon. member would pass on to her staff our appreciation. That message was brought.
I appreciate the tone set by the hon. member for Timiskaming in bringing what certainly is to him a painful matter to the House.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Stage Direction]
ANNUAL REPORT: EMPLOYMENT EQUITY ACT, 1991

Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. 
i-'.

December 3, 1991

Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), I have the honour to table in both official languages the report entitled Annual Report: Employment Equity Act, 1991.


PETITIONS
Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition signed by numerous residents of the province of Ontario and various small communities, most of them farming communities.
These petitioners are concerned that the government is about to trade away the opportunity for them to operate marketing boards under the GATT round of negotiations which are currently under way.
The petitioners call upon the government to hold the Canadian system up as an example to all the world, to stiffen its resolve and ensure that article XI and the rights that accrue to Canada thereunder are not traded away by this government which seems bent on such an idea.


Mr. Bill Kempling (Burlington):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present seven petitions, containing approximately 300 signatures.
The citizens are from Burlington, Stoney Creek, Hamilton, Beamsville, Brantford, Ancaster, Kitchener, Grimsby, St. Catharines, Caledonia, Hannon, Dunnville and Binbrook. These citizens are petitioning the Government of Canada in support of the parents of Nina DeVilliers who was murdered on August 9, 1991. The petitioners call upon Parliament to recognize that crimes of violence against persons are serious and abhorrent to society and ask that the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act and the Parole Act be amended accordingly.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of presenting three petitions today. The first I would have liked to have been able to present yesterday, but it was not possible to do so. It is in respect of constituents of mine of Ukrainian heritage who have asked the federal government to recognize the
Routine Proceedings
independence of Ukraine, subject of course to the referendum indicating that desire for independence.
I rejoice with them as do many, many Canadians throughout the land with respect to the referendum and the recognition that the government has given to Ukraine.


Ron J. Duhamel: The second petition is in respect of the goods and services tax on reading materials; magazines, books and newspapers.
The petitioners point out that there has been no such tax since the beginning of Confederation. They also indicate that it is counterproductive, it goes against the whole notion of a democratic society that is supposed to be well informed and a society, of course, that strives for excellence through education. Of course, these vehicles are important ones to the development of our citizenry.


Ron J. Duhamel: My final petition is in respect of education. It is a criticism of a government that talks about competitiveness, productivity, establishing a learning culture, when it has indeed this year cut a half billion dollars in transfer payments to the provinces, as well as placing a 3 per cent administrative fee on student loans.
The petitioners ask that the government rescind these regressive measures so that we can send our young people to college and university in order that they can find the jobs that will contribute fully to Canada.
100TH ANNIVERSARY OF UKRAINIAN CANADIANS


Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: I rise to present a couple of petitions you would be interested in, Mr. Speaker, being that it is the 100th anniversary of the Ukrainian Canadians coming to our country.
These petitions come from the towns of Canora, Rama and the city of Yorkton. They present a petition that I wanted to table yesterday but it is still just as relevant today.
The undersigned petitioners call upon Parliament to urge the Government of Canada to give genuine support to the people of Ukraine by officially recognizing Ukraine's independence in establishing full diplomatic relations with the people of Ukraine immediately following their referendum, which took place on Tuesday.

December 3, 1991
Routine Proceedings
As I said, Mr. Speaker, it has been signed by many people, like Metri Dutchak in Canora, and you can go through the list and find people like Olga Rusnak in Yorkton and many, many others who have made a great contribution to this country who were celebrating the referendum results on Sunday along with a lot of others of us.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me this morning to present a petition on behalf of a number of citizens from Kamloops, British Columbia, who are concerned about the ability of the RCMP to fulfil its mandate.
In conversations they have commented on the increasing numbers of break and enters, minor petty crimes, and so on, just as a result of what they perceive to be the inability of the RCMP to do its job. They are calling upon the Government of Canada to ensure that proper funding for the RCMP exists to enable it to fulfil its mandate.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On another issue, Mr. Speaker, a very important issue, the petitioners are from a variety of communities in British Columbia. They have heard the news that a Vancouver-based firm with contacts in California has announced its intention to proceed with a plan to dam the North Thompson River at Valemount, British Columbia, in an effort to divert water into the San Diego, California area.
Mr. Speaker, you will recall that this is part of the North American Water and Power Alliance Plan to divert Canadian rivers into the United States, either in whole or in part, and they call upon the Government of Canada to announce categorically that Canadian river water is not for sale.


[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, Question No. 161 will be answered today.


Mr. Stupich: For the election of November 21, 1988, in the constituency of Nanaimo-Cowichan, (a) how many voters whose names did not appear on the voter list actually voted under the provisions which allow rural voters to be sworn in on election day (b) is this number included in the total number of eligible voters listed in the report of the Chief Electoral Officer?


Right Hon. Charles Joseph Clark (President to the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: (a) The information sought by the first part of this question is within the purview of subsection 196 (1) of the Canada Elections Act, which instructs the Chief Electoral Officer to retain election documents for at least one year if an election is not contested. As there was no contestation, the election documents requested were not kept. In consequence, it is not possible to reply accurately to the question.
(b) The report prepared by the Chief Electoral Officer pursuant to section 193 of the act contains the total number of electors and total votes cast. The number of electors who voted by being vouched for is included in the column Total votes but not in the column Electors on the list.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Question No. 161 has been answered.
Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 109 could be made an Order for Return, the return would be tabled immediately.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 109 be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
December 3, 1991


Mr. Riis: For each fiscal year since 1985, did the government retain the services of private law firms in Kamloops, British Columbia, and, if so, in each case, what was the name of the firm and the amount received?
Return tabled.


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



GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[Stage Direction]


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, December 2, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26,1991, be read the third time and passed; and on the amendment of Mr. Walker (p. 5662)
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: When we ended debate, the hon. member for Restigouche-Chaleur had five minutes remaining in his debate, plus 10 minutes questions or comments.


Mr. Guy H. Arseneault (Restigouche-Chaleur):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say from the outset that this is probably my longest speech since I started last evening at about 5.45 and here I am a day later still going. I can assure my constituents that I did not speak throughout the entire night. I am not that long-winded.
I must say, as I mentioned last evening, that this is a very complex and technical bill. I want to continue where I left off when I was speaking last evening about transportation in my riding as it applies to the bill and as it may be affected. I mentioned the Charlo airport in my riding and how important it is to the riding and how we have lost the weather station at that airport, although another weather station was located at another airport. I want to say from the outset that I am not against improvements in other areas, other communities, but I do not believe we should rob Peter to pay Paul. I believe when there is a new item to be taken and new programs coming out, everyone should have an equal opportunity,
Government Orders
but where there are existing facilities in place they should remain and not move at the expense of that community.
I mentioned about the ports of Dalhousie and Belle-dune and also about our high unemployment, saying that the federal government has not played a major role in the promotion and development of those two ports. It should because they are federal facilities. There is no on-site manager as such at those two facilities and I think that is a necessity if we are going to promote those two ports and develop some type of strategy for them.
I would like to also mention this morning the changes as they may impact on UIC. I want to go back to the 1989 budget in which the then finance minister pledged that, and I quote: "The government will continue to contribute to the financing of the program in difficult economic times when it is inappropriate to raise premiums and prudent to allow deficits to build up in the unemployment insurance account".
I guess no one has to preach it to the world that that is another one of the broken promises of this government. Bill C-21, the budget, everything has indicated to us that there will be increased premiums. As far as I am concerned and my constituents are telling me, especially those who operate small businesses, this is another form of tax, it is an attack on small business and it is an attack on employees because they have to match those increased premiums as well.
Therefore, it is certainly a negative impact on small business in my area and on employees.

Bill C-20 is a deliberate attack on Canada's rural population and on Canadians in general. It is certainly not acceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. This legislation will actually force provinces like New Brunswick, my own province, to make some very difficult decisions. The people of New Brunswick realize their government must resort to such decisions because Ottawa is cutting back on its fiscal arrangements program.
At this critical time in Canada's history, the federal government should take steps to promote national unity and reduce regional disparity. However, if the federal government keeps reducing cash payments, it will intensify regional disparity. Residents of the poorer provinces will have to accept a lower standard of health care and

December 3, 1991
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post-secondary education than that enjoyed by Canadians in the richer provinces.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment my colleague from New Brunswick. He has always made the views of his constituents well known in this Chamber. This morning he talked to us about the importance of federal presence in his riding. There are many ridings across Canada right now that count on that federal presence to hold us together. In many regions of the country the federal presence is the glue that holds the community together with the national government.
My question to the member must relate specifically to the economy. He represents a rural riding. I represent an urban, downtown riding. I am hearing day in and day out that we as national members of Parliament do not seem to be spending enough time focusing on the economy of the country. We do not seem to be spending enough time figuring out ways to put people back to work.
Yes, they are very concerned that medicare, the health system of this country, is being tampered with as we see in this bill today. They appreciate the fact that we are addressing that issue. Throughout the day I am constantly going to ask other members their views on the dismantling of our health care system.
Right now I would like to hear from the member to see if the views of his constituents in rural Canada square with the views of urban Canada that we as national members are not spending enough time debating the economy of this country. What are they saying to him as to some of the things we should be doing?


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood, my colleague and my friend, for the question and his interest. I would like to say from the outset that the hon. member has followed this debate from the beginning and has made many interventions. Basically he has the best interest of the medicare system at heart and is out to protect it.
In regard to the economy, if I can go back a little and quote the right hon. Prime Minister, he promised Canadians that he would give them jobs, jobs and jobs. I guess that is going to be a major quote for historians.
What we have is unemployment. We have unemployment and we have more unemployment. The unemployment rate in my riding is 18.5 per cent. My constituents are telling me that we have to get moving on the economy. We have to put our people back to work. We have to.
I just attended a conference on the weekend. I must congratulate the people from my riding on their initiative. There are two groups working because we have two distinct areas in my riding. They have just put together an economic conference. They are developing a strategy, an economic strategy for their region. In the other region in my riding we are having a meeting this Saturday to implement or set up the committee that is going to implement an economic conference for that part of the riding. As such they are going to identify sectoral areas where they will put forth priorities. Then they are going to develop strategies and approach governments for that.
To get back to the federal presence, I still feel that is the key. If the federal government does not show confidence in an area, why should the entrepreneur? For instance, in my area we were a major centre for CN over the years. We had roughly 1,500 jobs with CN going back 10 or 15 years. Now we have fewer than 200. What does that tell the entrepreneur if the federal government is removing jobs from that area? What type of confidence does it give?
It was the same thing with VIA Rail. The forestry industry is in a complete disarray. We have layoffs. We have down time in many of our mills. We even had a mill, a major employer of the region, Atholville Pulp Inc., close permanently, supposedly. We are trying to get it reopened. We are looking for a buyer. We are looking to diversify. We are working on that aspect. If we look at the Dalhousie Mill, not 10 or 15 years ago it had somewhere around 1,500 employees in it woodlands operation and mill operations. There are fewer than 1,000 now and going lower.
Obviously there is a problem with the economy. We need help. It is up to the federal government to help. I am not asking for hand-outs. I am not asking to take the wallet out and start giving out money here and there. People want to work. They want their pride and their dignity.

What I am asking is: Why not? When it comes time to look at new centres where there could be employment opportunities, why not put them in a little area like Restigouche-Chaleur, especially in this day and age with the type of telecommunications that we have? We a are forestry based area. Why not have a forestry centre down there that employs 50 people with good paying jobs. That sends a message out there. It sends a message that the government is confident that this area is going to survive.
Turning to the port of Belledune in Dalhousie, what is wrong with having an on-site manager or a strategy developed? I guess when we talk about industrial strategy, we do not have one in Canada let alone for each of the provinces, although I should use this opportunity to congratulate the province of Quebec for releasing the first industrial strategy of any province yesterday. Let us hope it works. That is a model for us and maybe we should be using it more.
The federal government seems intent on cutting and cutting and cutting during hard times. That is when it should be doing the opposite: stimulating and stimulating. It should be investing.
I give another example of the poor village of Dorchester that has a reputation and background for serving the justice system. When new facilities came online for a women's detention centre that should have been the number one spot. Where did it go in Atlantic Canada? I sort of wonder why those decisions are made.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member has two and a half minutes for a question or a comment. If he expects an answer, I expect him to give the hon. member a little time.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands -
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I would also like to compliment my colleague for his remarks on this piece of legislation. Near the end of his remarks he spoke about the increase in the unemployment insurance premiums and the fact that they have been further increased by this government right in the middle of one of the most serious recessions we have had in Canada.
I want to ask a question of my colleague who comes from a riding in which the forestry sector is a very important part of his local economy. As he knows, the forestry sector is going through a very rough time in
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Canada at the moment. Some say it is the worst time it has experienced since or even more serious than the Depression.
I have a company in my constituency, Stora Forest Industries. It is a very good company. It has been a very loyal employer and is the economic heart of Cape Breton Highlands-Canso. It has been experiencing the same downturn that other forestry companies have been experiencing across Canada. One of the last blows it has received has been these increases in unemployment insurance premiums, on top of the increases which are scheduled for this bill. These increases are very inappropriate, particularly because they come at a time when the government should be using the unemployment insurance program to stimulate the economy, not to dampen the economy.
I want to ask my colleague if he has had the same experience in his riding, with the forestry sector that he knows so well, in northern New Brunswick.


Guy H. Arseneault: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question. I can assure him that I have met with the stakeholders in the forestry industry in my riding. Again, they assure me that there are tough times out there. In fact they are comparing the times to the great depression years.
Some of those factors we talk about maybe are the industry's own doing, but there are others they have no control over which we do have control over and the government has control over: for instance, fiscal policy, UIC premiums and tax designs, no doubt.
What the hon. member has asked me is exactly what the problem is. The government is not stimulating during hard times. When hard times are out there in the economy, rather than trying to help out the government is as bad as the next person. It cuts, cuts, cuts.
Where is the end of it? Stop cutting and start stimulating the economy. Why increase UI premiums? It is another form of tax. Small business cannot handle it. Big business cannot handle it. Not only that, the employees have to pay their share as well. They have not kept up with the pace of inflation over the years. They have less money in their pockets when they get home. As such, it is a vicious circle and the government has not broken that vicious circle. It has never even tried to break that vicious circle. It has continued to add to the problem.

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Mr. Benoit Tremblay (Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to adopt certain measures to implement the budget tabled on February 26 this year, measures that clearly reflect part of the government's strategy for reducing the deficit. However, if we are to understand the strategy as a whole, we should also consider the approaches to controlling inflation that were agreed on with the Governor of the Bank of Canada. Briefly, the measures contained in this bill are being taken at a time when we are experiencing the first made-in-Canada recession, a recession deliberately brought about to control inflation.
During the pre-recession period, we had very high interest rates which had a very negative impact on the federal government's deficit. The cost of servicing the debt, already very high, increased by 28 per cent over two years, before the present budget.
But consider what happens during the recession. During the recession, unemployment and unemployment insurance payments go up. There is also an increase in welfare payments, which during the last recession in 1981-82 went up by 32 per cent. We all know that health care costs, which normally increase by 2 or 3 per cent plus inflation, because of our aging population increase even faster during a recession. And we know that post-secondary education costs also increase faster during a recession, because students tend to stay in college and university.
During the recession, we also see a drop in inflation and interest rates. So what is the impact of all these measures on budgets? Apparently, the federal government is transferring all the costs of the recession to employees and employers by incredibly increasing unemployment insurance contributions by 24.5 per cent in the last budget and another 7 per cent not long ago. The remaining costs of the recession are being transferred to the provinces.
The measures before the House today contain all the tools the federal government needs to avoid recession-induced costs in the areas of health care, social assistance and post-secondary education. The provinces will have to shoulder all these costs, which are, and will be, very substantial.
At the same time, interest rates are going down-for instance, the government predicted that interest rates would be around 9 per cent, while they are now down to 7 per cent-and as a result, the federal deficit will become more manageable. Of course, the government kept the benefits of declining rates and transferred to businesses, individuals and the provinces the costs of rising rates in a recession.
If that keeps up, in a few more weeks, the federal government will brag that it can control its deficit, when in fact it passed it on to the provinces and businesses.
Yesterday I heard the Prime Minister say that he was reluctant to call an economic conference, as requested by the provinces, and I understand that very well. He even dared to say that would force the provinces to control their budgets. What will the provinces do to control their budgets? They will raise taxes or do what Quebec did: pass the costs on to the municipalities. Transferring costs to the municipalities will also result in tax increases. Higher university tuition fees have become the main cause of inflation.
We are at a point where we are in danger of not reaching our inflation objectives, precisely because the federal government is passing costs on to the provinces, municipalities and universities.
For the first time, in this morning's Globe & Mail, a group of 17 economists consulted in forecasting institutions told us that Canada's economic growth is likely to be less than predicted, that Canada's current account deficit will increase considerably and that inflation will be higher.
I thought that was impossible after such drastic measures had been taken. Inflation is likely to be higher because the only way that local and provincial governments can get out of the situation in which the federal government has put them is to raise taxes considerably and thus add to inflation.
Therefore, I think that some balance must quickly be restored. You know that in the 1980s, the federal government spent like mad and ran up huge deficits. For a while, I think we were right to believe that the deficit had gone out of control. Of course, our debt is unacceptably high. We must reduce the deficit; we must also try to keep lower inflation rates. But with such drastic measures as we have taken, we risk not only keeping the economy in a deep recession but also fuelling inflation.
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A change of course is in order. For an example of the federal government's past spending habits, refer to the latest report of the Economic Council of Canada. Of course, the federal government's fiscal capacity is mortgaged for several more years, until 1994-95, but we are told that after 1995-96, there may be some room to manoeuvre. Room to do what? It is purely theoretical, because the expenses that are harder to control have been transferred to the provinces and we realize increasingly that they will be unable to assume them fully.
For the first time Ontario's deficit will reach $10 billion. The Minister of Finance of course was prompt to blame the Ontario govemement for everything. It is a fact that it did increase its spending by $800 million, but had they not injected these new funds in an effort to boost the economy, Ontario's deficit would still have been close to $9 billion and would have gone on forever.
With the new distribution put in place as a result of Bill C-20, we can be sure that the provinces, all of them, will have increasing deficits and I would not be surprised that, within a few months, they saw their credit rating drop drastically in terms of their borrowing capacity.
As we know, in general the cost of borrowing is higher for the provinces than for the federal government. Analysts in growing numbers anticipate that the gap will widen even further. So, by transferring its deficit over to the provinces, of course the federal government pressures provinces and municipalities to cut their spending. By so doing, it is also creating inflation and as a result the cost of financing such deficits will skyrocket. The rate of borrowing for provinces and municipalities is always at least 75 percentage points higher than for the federal government and is likely to go up another full point or even to 1.25 points in the next few months, which means additional costs for no reason.
And that is not all. Let us keep in mind that, even if we could find a way out of this one and if somehow the federal government still had room to manoeuvre, there is no guarantee that these spending choices would suit the Canadian people. Let me give you some figures. We are told that provinces are still receiving payments and that is true, to a point, but the amounts are cut drastically and much more so than federal spending is curtailed.
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Provincial transfers amount to 22 percent of the federal budget. Yet, they account for 34 percent of the cuts operated by the federal government. Obviously, we are cutting much more in areas considered essential by the Canadian people-health, post-secondary education-than in the defence budget, the financing of a variety of constitutional initiatives by the federal government, etc.
I think there is cause for alarm, because a system in which the federal government has the power to spend and then to unilaterally decide to transfer its debts to the provinces leaves us with basically no way out. Not only provincial governments, which control their expenditures fairly well, cannot be sure of their budgets because federal transfers are constantly being reduced, but they also know full well- Remember what happened in the 1988 election. This government, which must have been aware of its financial situation, promised $2.5 billion for child care. Well, Mr. Speaker, the day after the election, we had to forget about that promise because the Minister of Finance suddenly discovered that the government was faced with a huge deficit and had to cut everywhere.
Will the 1993 election bring us the same kind of promises? Of course, Mr. Speaker. It would be even worse if those promises were kept, because we would likely see further cuts in transfer payments to provinces. It is absolutely unbearable. In Quebec, though, the situation leads us to believe that we may be able to solve our problem sooner. But in a Canadian perspective, it is imperative that provinces have some control over federal spending. The present situation does not make any sense.
Any initiative taken by a federal government with the slightest amount of leeway could make the situation a lot worse.
The traditional role of the federal government in the economic recovery, is presently limited to issuing, with a lot of publicity, documents as meaningless as the one on Canada's prosperity. No solution is proposed. Citizens are asked to call in and give their opinions, to offer solutions to the government. It is incredible. Of course, nobody talks about it any more; we do not know if many people called in. There must have been just a few since no new solution has been announced. More and more, we feel that action is being taken on a local level and that

December 3, 1991
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this government is unable to obtain the consensus that would be necessary to ensure long-term growth.
Even though we agree that the deficit needs to be controlled, even though we agree that certain measures need to be taken, some elements are acceptable. I am referring particularly to the limited growth of expenditures for richer provinces. Those elements are acceptable, but they are put in a context that makes them virtually impossible to manage, because not only are provinces limited in their spending, but the whole cost of the recession is passed on to them. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, we have to oppose most of the elements contained in this bill.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the hon. member for Rosemont. He gave a very accurate picture of the present economic situation. However, I have a problem with his speech. I think that the confidence of investors in the Canadian economy is very shaky right now. There are many reasons for that of course, but I think that the problems we are having in the constitutional debate is one of them. I think that the things the separatists have said are not helping the economy at this time. Does the hon. member believe that what they said is good for the Canadian economy?


Benoît Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the growth of business investments in Canada was excellent during the 80s, perhaps too optimistic, because the same people have decided to stir up the Constitution crisis. And now we are scowled at as if we were responsible for the crisis. We are not, Mr. Speaker. A process was in place, which was challenged perhaps by short-sighted people. That being said, there is no doubt that the present situation regarding investments has much more to do with uncertainty about the possibility of restoring confidence among heavily indebted consumers and transferring to the provinces a very heavy tax burden. We know that they have very little room to boost the economy and that consumers' borrowing capacity is limited. As for the American economic recovery, we must realize that, for the first time, we have created a recession made in Canada before the U.S. got into a recession. Historically, Canada had always followed in the footsteps of the U.S. But this time, in order to fight inflation, we have brought about a made-in-Canada recession before the American recession, with the hope
perhaps of getting out of it first. That was not allowing for the fact that the American economic recovery is- That showed a total disregard for the fact that the American economic recovery is essential to our own recovery, given the levels of our exports.
Because the American growth is slow, our exports are growing slowly and Canada has had a trade deficit for the first time in 15 years. I think that we are paying for the lack of responsibility displayed by the federal government since the early 80s. Mind you, I am quite happy with the efforts that were made to control the deficit. The problem is though, basically, not so much the necessity for controlling the deficit as the way it is controlled. Transferring the deficit to the provinces and municipalities leads to much higher taxes. For example, in Quebec, inflation due to the private sector is nearly zero, but the total inflation figure is 7 per cent. Why? Because the Quebec government decided to limit its deficit, to raise taxes considerably, to pass the costs on to municipalities, which in turn increase their taxes, and to double tuition fees.
So in the end, the federal government creates inflation by transferring its responsibilities to the provinces. As for medium-term investment in Quebec, I would tell you that we are very optimistic, especially if Quebec attains sovereignty.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands -
Canso): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member told us that if this bill passes, Quebec would no longer receive money for health and education, for established programs. He also said that he does not agree with the way the government is fighting the deficit, and we agree with him on that. We in the Liberal Party have said many times in the House that we did not agree with the government's strategy of passing its deficit on to the provinces and municipalities. We agree on that point, but he wants to make Quebec a sovereign state, so it would no longer receive federal transfers. Tkxes in Quebec are already among the highest in Canada. Does he think that in a competitive economic situation, Quebec, which already has trouble accepting the reduced transfers that will result from this bill, will not be further disadvantaged if it accepts no more transfers, in addition to having to make up for much of its accumulated share of the federal deficit should it become independent?
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I ask the hon. member how he can reconcile his comments of today with a sovereign Quebec which would have even higher taxes than now and would get even less support from other parts of Canada.


Benoît Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, my dear colleague forgets one thing, namely the taxes collected by the federal government in Quebec. I would have no objection to the transfers provided for in Bill C-20 if at the same time the government transferred the appropriate taxing authority to the provinces. I can see that my colleague has a different point of view, since he comes from the Maritimes, which depend on federal transfers for up to 40 or 50 per cent or their provincial budgets. That is not at all the case in Quebec.
If the government wants to transfer funds, if it wants to transfer the costs of health care, transfer the authority to raise taxes for it. The present government is transferring the accounts payable but keeping the revenue. Of course, federalism is less and less profitable for Quebec under these conditions. We understand the objective of reducing the federal deficit and I repeat that I have no objection to that, but keep things in proportion. The transfers of costs are now such that they may well be counterproductive.
I think of my colleague who is worried about the investment climate. I would advise him and his party, as well as the Prime Minister and others, to read again report by the Economic Council of Canada, which say that if Quebec becomes sovereign, all parties should talk about maintaining the economic union. Of course, speeches such as the one made by the Prime Minister last Sunday are likely to scare a few people, but not serious investors.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-20 which I think is a significant piece of legislation not only in terms of fiscal management but in terms of social policy in Canada.
I had an interesting experience in the last couple of weeks, talking with a number of young people in my riding, people who are the same age as my son and daughter, in their mid-twenties. We got to talking about the present threat to our national health care program. Much to my surprise I found out that people in that age
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group simply took our national health care system for granted.
They assumed that when you went to the hospital you would not have to pay, that you would receive a high level of care and that you would not be required on admittance to prove that you were financially able to afford the care. They took for granted that if you needed to go to a doctor you simply went to a doctor, you did not first of all consider your financial position and determine whether you were financially able to go to seek medical care.
I think it is important when we start talking about this bill that we remember very clearly that that has not always been the case in Canada.
I remember very clearly while growing up that I had an older brother who developed a major illness. At that time we were living in a small prairie town in southern Alberta very near the American border. He spent periods of time in hospital in Lethbridge.
The financial resources of my family were strained to the point that they could no longer afford to provide him with the necessary medical care. It was finally arranged that this youngster who was then in his early teens would have to go to seek medical care at a mission hospital north of Edmonton, hundreds of miles away from his home and his family, simply because the mission hospital was funded by the United Church and was prepared to give the necessary medical treatment without immediate payment by my parents. Canadians of my children's age simply do not believe that. They find it totally incomprehensible that that kind of thing could have taken place in Canada.
I had another experience just before I was elected to this House when I was travelling in New Zealand. My mother who is getting on in years joined us for a period of time. She fell and broke her ankle. We thought nothing of immediately seeking out the best medical care available. Much to our surprise we found out that in New Zealand through an accident insurance scheme much like our Workers' Compensation Board the medical expenses of all accident victims were paid for. This includes even foreign residents.
We got to know a number of other people in the hospital. One of them was a woman from the United States who also had the misfortune of falling and breaking her leg which was compounded in a number of places and had difficult breaks. It resulted in her being in

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hospital in New Zealand for a number of months before she could be transported back to the United States.
I ended up driving her back to the airport and she told me that she and her husband had just retired. He had to go back to the United States because he could not stay in New Zealand. They were not wealthy but they were comfortable and had been planning an active life in retirement. She said that if she had fallen in the United States they would have been financially ruined even with the fact that they had some medical coverage. They would have been absolutely financially decimated to the point that they probably would have had to file for bankruptcy. Certainly they would not have been looking forward to their retirement years with any assets or comforts.
I think Canadians should start remembering that by taking our health care system for granted we are in danger of losing it. This legislation is part of a consistent process of erosion of our national health care system.
Our health care system did not come about easily in this country. It was gained through foresight and struggle after having been introduced by Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan. It is important to remember that is where the initial and decisive fight for the establishment of medicare took place. The people who were opposed to it were very powerful people. They were the Liberal opposition and doctors. Other special interest groups staged a strike and fought desperately to try to preserve their rights and their privileges and prevent a universal health insurance system.
That battle was won and finally the federal government was forced into bringing in national medicare on a federal level.
This program has been successful in ensuring that all Canadians have access to a high standard of health care.
We have now had a series of attacks on this by the present Tory government. I will not go into the history of the initial 50:50 program and how that program was eroded when the block funding came in. It is important for this House and the Canadian public to understand that the present Established Programs Financing which
was put in place in the late 1970s was based on the federal government transferring to the provinces money for post-secondary education and health care. It was not based on the amount of money spent by the provinces but on the growth in population and the growth in GNP.
The federal government tried to make much of the fact that the health care costs of the provinces have gone up dramatically and they have. The federal government has tried to make much of the fact that the provinces have to contain the cost of health care and they do. The formula that has existed for transferring of moneys had nothing to do with those things. It had only to do with the increase in the GNP. If there was no increase in the GNP the federal government did not increase its contribution to the provinces other than for the increase in the population.
This government has decided to unilaterally change that formula. Being from British Columbia I figure that the government must have somehow taken lessons from the previous Socred administration in that province. Maybe it was when the hon. Minister of Justice switched from being a Socred provincially and became a Tory federally. She came down from British Columbia to Ottawa and brought the Socred way of handling their fiscal incompetence. Now it is called offloading.
The government does not bother to control its own expenditures on advertising. It does not even bother to try to control its own expenditures on the growth of government or in areas where it has direct responsibility. It simply offloaded the problems on to municipalities, school boards and hospitals by cutting their funding.
It simply said: "We know we cannot fiscally control our expenditures but what we can do is simply freeze the moneys we will transfer to other levels".
This is what the government has now adopted. The Socred approach to fiscal management is simply: "Let us offload our deficit and debt on somebody else. Let us offload on the provinces. We will simply decide that we are not going to continue with the formula for transferring of payments. We will cut back". When it got away with cutting back to 2 per cent or 3 per cent less GNP it decided to zero it. This bill now extends that zeroing for five years. It simply says: "Let us wash our hands of any
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responsibility and offload all of those problems on to the provinces".
What does that mean in terms of our national health care? It means a number of things. First and foremost it means that the provincial governments have dramatically less money to spend on national health care. The cumulative effect of these cuts on health care have been estimated as being $62.4 billion. I am not talking about post-secondary education. In the final years it will amount to around $10 billion a year in lost revenue. I make it clear again that this is lost revenue based on the increase in GNP. It is not based on costs or anything else. This is money that the provincial governments had anticipated. They thought they were in a fiscal arrangement they could count on to build their health care systems around.
It has been devastating already. Some of the weaker provinces, particularly the Atlantic provinces, have had to make dramatic cutbacks to their health care system. Newfoundland in one fell swoop had to lay off 10 per cent of its nursing staff. That is just year one. Wait till the cumulative effects of year three, four and five take place. Even wealthy provinces are feeling the economic pinch. British Columbia will have lost over $5 billion by the year 2000. This year alone it is losing about $500 million.
This has tremendous impact on local communities' ability to deliver health care. What happens is the province is then forced to offload their loss of revenue on to local communities and local hospitals.
My community of Surrey North is one of the fastest growing communities in Canada. We simply have been unable to get the funds to keep up with the necessary health care services that are needed. We only have 1.1 acute hospital beds per 1,000 population. The provincial average is 3.3. In Surrey 40 per cent of the people have to leave to get basic health care. We are 34 public health nurses short. We are 27 health inspectors short of meeting the needs of that community. I think it is important to note that those last two figures are probably more critical than the loss of acute care beds. We all know that one of the things we have to do is change our health care system from a treatment of chronic or acute illness to a health prevention system. But it is often those soft health prevention programs that suffer when there are arbitrary and unnecessary cuts in payments.
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There is another thing that is happening concerning the loss of transfer payments and that is the federal government's ability to maintain a national health care system with national standards. The federal government will no longer be transferring cash to Ontario and Quebec by 1995, 1996 and 1997 because of the cutbacks under this bill. That means it will have no ability to enforce national standards. It will be transferring no cash to any of the provinces by the year 2004. This means that of course the ability to enforce national standards under the Canada Health Act will be non-existent.
Mr. Speaker, you are signalling that I have one minute. I do not believe-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member started at 11.28 a.m. and he finished at 11.48 a.m.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Thank you very much.
I acknowledge that the Speaker is right. I am just surprised that my time has gone so quickly. I want to make just one or two points then, very quickly.
The federal government thought that it could bring in a new section under Bill C-20 that says that once it is transferring no cash payments under block funding to the provinces, it can then attach other moneys to enforce the Canada Health Act.
That is spurious. It is unworkable, and it is not going to take place. There have already been a number of legal opinions that simply say that it is unconstitutional, that there is no way under the federal spending powers and division of powers between the provinces, if the federal government is not putting money into health care, it can then withhold other moneys in order to enforce its national standards in health care.
Second, what moneys is it going to attach? Is it going to attach moneys from the Canada Assistance Plan? Does this government really think that it is going to take moneys from hungry children in order to insist that the province meet its standards on a national health care program? Is it going to take money from child abuse, because that is what the Canada Assistance Plan does?
It covers moneys to guarantee minimum income to children. It provides moneys for people to investigate child abuse. Does it really think that it is going to do that? In the context of the climate in Canada where we are having to look for a new federalism, does the federal

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government really think that it can bow, financially, out of any obligation for health care, and at the same time insist that it is going to decide what are the national standards and enforce them by withholding other payments?


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the member for Surrey North.
I wish that he were a member in my province this morning because everything that he said he could help me transmit that to the New Democratic premier of Ontario.
I received a letter from a Dr. Philip G. Klotz, as a matter of fact yesterday. He happened to overhear part of the debate. Believe me, the medical profession in this country shares many of the member's views and concerns about where we are going in health care in this country.
Dr. Klotz talked about the control of costs by government attempting to deny funds to hospitals and medical schools. He made some notes here: "Hospitals are forced to close beds, close operating rooms, use antiquated facilities and fire personnel. Medical schools are pinched for funds, cannot hire superior people and must fire personnel. Superior doctors are leaving for the U.S.A. Staff at teaching hospitals cannot be replaced. There is control of cost by limiting fees to doctors and threatening them with lower salaries, global budgets and income ceilings. There are no restraints placed on the public to restrain utilization except by limiting access to facilities".
He went on and on. He talked about the morale of the medical profession being at an all time low. It is full of uncertainty. Doctors are resentful of being blamed for problems in health care. Many of our best professionals now are being accused of being "interested only in money".
There is a serious problem here with our health care system, our medicare system in this country. This is a tough issue. It is tough for the government which is faced with a fiscal dilemma, although I do not share its approach. I think the more it is cut, the more it suppresses morale. The lower your morale, the tougher it is to produce and work together.
That is where I think it has created this sort of vicious circle. I think it really has to go back and re-examine its approach. I have a question for the New Democratic Party member from Surrey North. What can he say to me to help me make sure that the New Democratic premier of Ontario does not give up on the national health care standards that we have worked so hard to maintain in this country over so many years, knowing full well that the national government, through Bill C-20, is cutting back.
I am not trying to put all that on the shoulders of the NDP government in Ontario, but I need to know what we can do or say to make sure, despite the pressure from the national government, that the premier of Ontario does not cause an implosion of the health care system in the province of Ontario.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I think that the New Democratic Party in all three of the areas where it has formed the government in the last year, is facing a fiscal crisis left by the previous governments and compounded by this government.
The cuts in transfer payments to Ontario this year alone will amount to about $2.5 billion. It is facing a rising deficit within its own province, but a particularly large chunk of that deficit is because the federal government has simply offloaded its responsibility on to the province. Ontario has been forced to make up about $2.5 billion which previously it received in transfer payments.
All provinces in Canada are looking at ways of making our health care system more efficient. One member seemed to imply that he favoured the doctors being able to ultimately raise their fees to whatever they wanted, that he did not favour any limits to the medical fees.


An hon. member:: That is right.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: He says that is right, so he thinks doctors should be able to charge anything they want. Is that Liberal policy? Is that the way they are going to solve the health care crisis? Does that also mean that he is in favour of extra billing or user fees?


An hon. member:: No.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: The doctor simply is going to bill whatever he wants and the provincial government is going to pay.
December 3, 1991

One of the things that is happening in this country is that the provinces are looking at a number of ways to rationalize and maximize their health care systems.
There have been reports in nearly every province that set out a number of things that provinces must do. There is the Seaton report in British Columbia. One of the things that we must come to grips with is the whole question of the numbers and distribution of physicians. There is a consensus and every report says we are probably training 500 more doctors a year in this country than we need. In the metropolitan areas there are far too many doctors for the population and in the rural areas we do not have enough. The provinces are going to have to come to grips with this in conjunction with the federal government to determine how we can provide an equal distribution of physician services throughout the country.
That is one of the things the provincial governments are going to have to do. They are certainly going to have to develop more community based programs as an alternative to institutional care. Every report says that.
One of the problems when the federal government cuts back on money, is that it is the very money that could be used by the provinces for new programs, innovative health care, evaluation of health care and it is lost. Therefore, it weakens the provincial government's ability to do those kinds of economic efficiency developments that are going to be necessary if we are going to continue with a health care system. There are areas in our national health care system that we must face and rationalize, but it must be done within the partnership that has been established between the federal and provincial governments. I believe that is what is so terrible about this legislation. It destroys the partnership that now exists between the federal and provincial governments.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I had not intended to speak on this bill this morning but after hearing what has been said since this sitting began, I feel compelled to rise and try to explain to Canadians listening what the purpose of Bill C-20 is, as well as the Canadian reality.
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Unfortunately, my colleagues across the floor of the House do not mention the Canadian reality in their comments. What we are hearing has more to do with past dreams or future dreams, than with reality.
What is the Canadian reality? On the one hand there is the federal government which gives annually certain sums of money to the provinces. It does that in two ways, through two entirely different programs. The first is the Established Programs Financing, which gives all provinces the same per capita amount. Then there is the other program, called equalization, whereby the less well-off provinces receive supplementary sums of money from the federal government. These are the two main transfers of funds from the federal government to the provinces.
This morning we heard about health, hospitals and so on, and we heard that health care and hospital care in the provinces would suffer because of the amount of money given by the federal government. Nothing is further from the truth. No figures were given this morning or, rather, the figures given were not related to what we should be looking at.
In 1984-85, the federal government gave to the provinces $14.5 billion under the Established Programs Financing. In 1990-91, it gave a little over $20 billion, I think it was $20.1 billion. In 1991-92, it will be $20.4 billion and in 1992-93, $20.6 billion, under the Established Programs Financing or EPF only. As I said, this is paid equally throughout Canada on a per capita basis.
I now come to equalization payments. In 1984-85, they amounted to $5.4 billion, in 1990-91, $8.1 billion, in
1991-	92, $8,465 billion, or almost $8.5 billion and in
1992-	93, $9 billion. As I said, equalization payments are for poorer provinces to allow them to continue providing their residents with the things that we want all Canadians to have.
We can see that from 1984-85 to 1991-92, there was a considerable increase in both major programs. If we look, for example, at the Canada Assistance Plan, which applies to all provinces, except Quebec, in 1984-85, equalization payments were $4 billion, in 1990-91, $6 billion, in 1991-92, $6.3 billion and in 1992-93, $6.6 billion.

December 3, 1991
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Again, we see a normal and reasonable growth in the federal government transfers to the provinces. I think we have to explain that, because we hear from the Opposition that there were cuts in the funds given by the federal government to the provinces. There have been no cuts and there will be no cuts. What there has been and will be is a reduction in the growth of federal transfers to the provinces.
In my riding of Trois-Rivieres, people understand that. When you say to someone that his pay raise is reduced, he understands that he has got a raise.


Mr. Langlois:: Yes.


Pierre H. Vincent: In Trois-Rivieres and in the riding of Manicouagan-


Charles A. Langlois: They understand that.


Pierre H. Vincent: -they understand that, Mr. Speaker. I am convinced that in your riding too, they understand that.
But here, the Opposition on the other side of the House does not understand that. They do not understand that there has been and there will be, under Bill C-20, a reduction in the growth of federal transfers to the provinces. Yet, I just gave them the figures. If they do not understand the wording of the bill, they could understand the figures. Those figures go up.
In my riding of Trois-Rivieres, when the figures go up, everyone is happy. I think that here too, everyone should be happy when figures go up. But unfortunately, that is not the case.
We could ask: Why is the increase reduced? There is only one answer to that question: There is a national debt, not a federal debt, but an enormous national debt that must be controlled and reduced. Some say that we have been talking about that for a long time and that they have had enough. We are also sick and tired of talking about it but it is a fact we must learn to live with and that will determine the shape of Canada's future. We must reduce the national debt and bring it under control. I underline "national", Mr. Speaker, to show clearly that the debt is not that of the federal government. It's the responsibility of the countiy as a whole. Which is why all levels of government in Canada must do their share in the control and reduction of that debt.
It is not the sole responsibility of the federal government. The provinces, municipalities and each and every Canadian have a share in it. The provinces may argue that they did not create that debt, that it was the doing of the previous federal governments. Rightly so but still, they benefited from the money the federal government borrowed so it could give them funds. That's why they must help us solve our debt crisis.
The present government did what it had to do since coming to power. The average annual increase in federal spending has been around 3.5 per cent since 1984. Looking at the provincial spending increases since 1984, from 1984-85 to 1990-91,1 see that the average increase is 7.6 per 100 in Newfoundland; 8.4 per 100 in Prince Edward Island; 6.1 per 100 in Nova Scotia; 6.9 per 100 in New Brunswick; 5.5 per 100 in Quebec; 10.2 per 100 in Ontario; 6.2 per 100 in Manitoba; 6.1 per 100 in Saskatchewan; 4.7 per 100 in Alberta; 7.6 per 100 in British Columbia; 11.8 per 100 in Yukon and 11.7 per 100 in Northwest Territories, which makes up a general average of 7.4 per 100 for all provinces. Now, federal spending increases average 3.7 per 100 for the period from 1984 to 1991. One has to wonder whether provinces are not increasing their spending thanks to the money they get from Ottawa whereas we here have to tighten our belt in order to control and take in hand our national debt. Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I do the debt figures for each one of the provinces. They are a lot less indebted than the federal government, and I commend them for it.
I think those figures speak for themselves as they reflect the Canadian reality, the problems this government has to deal with so that our country enjoys a good economic situation in an immediate future. An individual or a company or a public administration which owes too much money is no more in control of its decisions. And from the moment an administration or an individual is no more in control of its decisions, the situation can go anywhere. Canada is in control of its decisions, but it has an enormous debt. If we want to continue to be in control of our decisions, we have to take the necessary steps to reduce the debt and, in turn, manage our finances properly.
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December 3, 1991

Looking at the figures I quoted, we realize that what we heard this morning from the other side of the House does not reflect reality. Let us take for example my own province, the beautiful province of Quebec. In 1984-85, the fiscal year in which we were elected, Quebec was getting $8.1 billion from the federal government, that is $1,256 per capita. In 1991-92, this fiscal year, the government of Quebec will receive $10,599,000,000, that is almost $10.6 billion, or $1,541 per capita. The federal government will give Quebec $1,541 per capita, through only two programs, the Established Programs Financing and the equalization program. According to my calculations, between 1984-85 and 1991-92, there was an increase of $300 per capita in Quebec. I heard some of my colleagues say that the federal government was offloading its deficit on the provinces. In Trois-Rivieres, when that happens, there is no increase of $300 after seven years. That is what we have here. That is what we must realize.
It is all a matter of figures. Figures show that, between 1984-85 and 1991-92, every resident of Quebec, through his or her government, will have received from the federal government $300, thanks to two specific programs. So, you see, Mr. Speaker, there was no offloading. There was just good management from Ottawa. Bill C-20 is another example of good management. Of course, Mr. Speaker, as the federal government, we would like to give more to the provinces and to everyone, that is for sure. Being politicians, we like to give because it makes people happy; if we take something from them, that makes them unhappy and they do not have kind words to say about us.
When we were elected, we were also given major responsibilities, and I am not talking only about the government, but also about the Opposition. They are duly elected to administer this country, and that requires decisions that are not necessarily easy and that do not necessarily make people happy. Sometimes, you have to say no in order to secure the well-being of this country. And the well-being of this country, at least in my riding of Trois-Rivieres, is a matter of bread and butter. When people are happy in a buoyant economy, all the rest seems to fall pretty well into place. But when the economy is not in good shape, there is discontent.
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We are saddled with an enormous debt and we have to pay huge interest costs on that debt. We have to make decisions in order to reduce that debt and pay those costs. Bill C-20 should be seen in that context. We are not taking anything away from the provinces. I mentioned figures to show that they will receive each year an increasing amount compared to what they were getting when we came to power, although it is true that they will get less than what they could have expected. That will be part of their effort to help this government and the Canadian Parliament make our economy stronger. One way of making it stronger is to control our national debt as opposed to the federal debt.
I see that my time is up, and I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker. I urge the opposition parties to come to terms with the situation we are in and to remember the mandate they were given by their constituents. And the mandate they got is not strictly to oppose, but to run and manage the country called Canada.


Diane Marleau: Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to what my hon. colleague opposite has just said. As an opposition member, I too would very much like this country to be managed reasonably, in such a way that we could give people the kinds of programs and the kinds of things they want. But, you know, it is very hard for opposition members to do their job, to do the things for which they were elected, when we are continually faced with a government that orders us around and tells us: "We know it all; you know absolutely nothing."
We too sometimes have good ideas that are worth listening to. I would like to see the day when we could sit together and discuss in a positive way instead of being called a bunch of fools, instead of being told that we know absolutely nothing, that the people we represent don't know what they are talking about, that the government knows it all, that it have all the answers.
We ask if you are willing to help us. Some day, gentlemen, if you are lucky enough to be here still, you will be in opposition and you will know how frustrating it is to submit a good idea and to be continually put down for it. This does not help the country. You see where that has gotten us today.

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If you are so lucky as to be here the next time-and I doubt it-will you be willing, I ask you, to help us if we find ourselves in your situation? As far as I am concerned, and I know many of my colleagues are of the same opinion, we will be willing to work with the opposition parties instead of telling them all the time that what they say does not make any sense.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, allow me first to tell my hon. colleague that she has a very nice dress, and the colour of it is fantastic. I just wanted to tell her how nice the colour is. I hope that she will wear that dress regularly.
This being said, I do not agree with my colleague when she argues that we never listen to the opposition members and their suggestions. Take for example Bill C-44, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code. Just last Friday, I conducted the debate in this House on C-44, which deals with a problem that relates specifically to the riding of Trois-Rivieres. I worked in co-operation with her party's critic for labour matters and with her party's leader in the House, and on Friday, we succeded, thanks to the NDPs for their help, in agreeing to this very important legislation both for my region and for Canada.
Cooperation is possible but, again, on one condition, provided that numbers are also understood. I am willing to help my honorable colleague, and she knows it, but she must avoid asking for money whenever she submits an idea. Her ideas must not be always accompanied by a request for money, because then we have a problem: there is no money. But if you want to address ideas, I think that all members on this side of the House are always willing to cooperate, and committees are there to demonstrate it.
In conclusion, allow me Mr. Speaker to encourage my honorable colleague to tell her liberal colleagues of the other place that if they can agree to bill C-44 today, the people in my riding of Trois-Rivieres will be quite pleased with it. If she can carry this message, I will gladly do the same for her on another occasion.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, I have a short question for the parliamentary secretary.
He said during his speech that this is an issue of figures. Well, I do not agree with the parliamentary secretary. This is not just an issue of figures. There is obviously something wrong when in spite of the transfers to the provinces, our health care system has never been in such disarray. That applies to every region of the country.
Either we are putting more stress on the health care system through added usage, or if we are not doing that, then obviously there is a problem with the efficiency of the health care system.
This is where my feelings on the role of the national government may be a little different from his. The national government is the major partner, the leader in universal health care in this country. If the system is breaking down in spite of the tremendous transfers to the provinces, does he not think that maybe it should be investigated to make sure that our portion of the partnership is being managed properly? I think it is fair ball for you to say that we should deal with reality. The reality is that the health care system in this country is not functioning right now. Just cutting it and treating it with numbers alone I do not believe is the only answer. Monique Begin had to intervene in the mid-1980s because the provinces were bringing in user fees. The national government took the lead under Pierre Trudeau and said there will be no user fees. We had a tough time but we took the lead and we said that we were major partners in health care in this country and we did not like what the provinces were doing with it.
As a constructive opposition we have a suggestion for the government and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance. If you are representing to the Canadian taxpayers to the tune of close to $40 billion in transfers and we know it is not working maybe you should get beyond the figures and see how the system is being managed.
I would like to have his response to that. [Translation]


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question. I said it was a question of figures, considering that in most of the debate on this bill, the federal government has been accused of cutting payments, which is not the case. If we are talking about
December 3, 1991

another problem, our national health care program, I think he is right when he says that this program seems to be going nowhere fast. However, I have a problem. I have a problem because it has always been my understanding that health care was strictly a provincial matter. It has always been my understanding that the federal government gave money to the provinces to ensure that Canadians across the country would have the same access to a good health care system. However, if the provinces are responsible for this particular area, I don't see why I, as a federal member, or my government, should come and look at what is going on in the hospitals in the riding of Trois-Rivieres and try to deal with problems that are strictly the business of the provinces.
To my knowledge, our national standard of health care seems a valid one and is the same everywhere in this country. The way health care is administered, and the kind of service patients get, do not appear to be the same everywhere, and I agree with the hon. member on that score. However, it depends on the way each province administers the health care program. I would certainly be the last person to want to interfere in matters that are strictly under provincial jurisdiction. I don't interfere with the hospitals in my riding, and our MNA does not interfere in federal matters. I agree that we do give a lot of money. However, the provincial governments were duly elected, and they were elected by the same people who elected the hon. member and who elected me. I assume they are sufficiently qualified to make good use of the money they are sent annually by the federal government to ensure that Canadians across the country receive quality health care.
I repeat, and the hon. member is shaking his head that health care is a provincial matter, I do not think we should interfere in provincial matters. This is a very sensitive issue, especially today, and there are those who are particularly thin skinned. Mr. Speaker, I see that my time has expired.


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I want to take the opportunity to respond to the parliamentary secretary who has asked this House to face reality.
I will begin by asking him to face one reality which was in the headlines of every newspaper today. His own
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government now stands at 16 per cent in the polls in every region of Canada and no longer enjoys the trust or the confidence of Canadians. They have ceased to have any respect for its ability to govern.
The reason was amply demonstrated in the words we just heard from the parliamentary secretary this morning when he described his reality versus the reality that Canadians face. He lives in another world. He lives in a world that has been concocted by the Department of Finance to describe Canada. He does not describe the reality of my riding where there are now months upon months of waiting for the most basic surgery in the hospitals in my riding.
The University of Manitoba has had to increase its tuition fees by 20 per cent and cut staff by 125 positions because it no longer has enough money to offer a proper educational system even though the enrolment has increased by 7,000 over the last three or four years. The kids cannot get jobs so they go to university. That is the harsh reality of Canada.
The harsh reality is that Canadians believe that their health care system is what makes them Canadians for the large part. It is what makes us different. It is what has demonstrated a sense of values about mutual caring that has been the essence of this country for decades. They see a government that is dismantling it piece by piece with a callous indifference that the parliamentary secretary has already shown.
The irrationality of it is that here is a government with another $25 million for another consultation about how we become more competitive and more productive while at the very same time it is responsible for cutting back the very investments in health and education that will make us more competitive and productive. Talk about putting logic on its head.
I am going to stop right now. I hear a member of the Conservative Party saying: "What about the deficit?". I am glad he asked the question.
[Translation\
Careful, my friend! Just wait a minute.

Statistics Canada is the government's own agency. It is not a Liberal research tank or some kind of left wing think tank. The government's own statistical agency produced a report in The Economic Observer this spring.

December 3, 1991
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What did it say? What is the cause of the present deficit? The cause is not an increase in social spending which has maintained a stable level of percentage of the Gross National Product for the last 15 years.
The responsibility for the deficit according to Statistics Canada is from two things. The first is that this federal government has given up revenue and handed over large amounts of revenue to corporations and others. The second is the high interest rates which this government defends as being the basis for economic health and stability. That, sir, is the cause of the deficit. Yet by attempting to create a mythology or a false argument it keeps saying: "The only way to solve the economic problems of Canada is to deal with cutting back social programs and health care and education". It is a great act and a verbal trapeze. It is a double backward somersault in logic.
One thing we can be thankful for is that Canadians do not buy it and they do not accept it. That is one reason why this government is totally bankrupt in support, authority and confidence. That is the harsh reality.
We will only solve the problems of this country when this government goes. It no longer has the ability or the confidence or the integrity to govern any longer. I wish that every Canadian could tune in to this debate over the next couple of days because Bill C-20 epitomizes just how strange and perverse the Conservatives have become.
The parliamentary secretary tried his utmost to manipulate the figures to say they have been increasing a certain amount per year. He did not say that inflation increases a certain amount per year as well. And if you actually get down to the per capita figures in 1994-1995 there will be less per capita going for health care in this country than there was in 1977-1978 when the EPF came in.
If you subtract, which I think you have to do to be fair, and use constant dollars instead of inflated dollars then this federal government would be giving less in 1994-1995 than was given in 1977-1978, almost 20 years later.
That is the contribution to our health and educational system which we are going to substantially slice. We cannot even say after 20 years of growth that we are going to be giving less. He says that is a great example of government management and administration. What kind
of Tory logic, Conservative mathematics or Mulroney mathematics is it, Mr. Speaker, that tries to say that it is good management?

And for the province of Quebec, that great province represented by the parliamentary secretary, there will be no money left by 1996-97, because in 1996-97, there will be no more cash transfers to the province of Quebec for health care.

So even in their own province unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Please. There will be an opportunity for questions and comments after the hon. member finishes his speech. The hon. member has the floor.


Lloyd Axworthy: I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, I will welcome those questions.
I want to point out one thing very clearly. What Bill C-20 does is eliminate year by year the federal government's cash transfers to the provinces. It begins with the province of Quebec in the mid-1990s and will end in Newfoundland around the year 2003. At that point there will be no federal cash involvement in the support of our health or our higher education. As a result we will lose the ability as a national government to have any role in the management of those affairs.
Even the present minister for trade when he was Minister of Finance and just before he escaped that sinking ship admitted that it was true that that would happen. But he said he would bring in another piece of legislation to make sure that the provinces live up to the requirements of the health care system. Except, Mr. Speaker, there is one problem with that. It will not stand up in the courts. It is not even constitutional according to legal opinion.
Here we have a situation in which the Minister of Finance in his last budget froze the total entitlements for the next three years. The cash transfers for health and education will disappear. He admits it. He says that will pose a problem for medicare. So he says: "I have a solution. I will bring in a new bill". Except, Mr. Speaker, the bill will be illegal, unconstitutional and it will not work.
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December 3, 1991

What will happen? What will be the consequence? We will then have the fragmentation of our health care system. There will be a two-tier system, one for the rich and one for the poor. The medicare system which has been one of the great hallmarks, one of the great achievements of this country will cease to exist in its present form. That will be the end result of Bill C-20.
This will be a defining moment for this country in the sense of losing one of the things that has given a sense of common purpose. It gave a sense of unity in its own way. Members opposite say we must defend unity but in the meantime they dismantle and tear apart those things that have made this country unified. They have taken apart those things that have brought Canadians together. They have turned it into a country that has region against region. Why? Because there is nothing left held in common.
We sell off this Crown corporation. We destroy the post office. We rip apart medicare. There is not much of a nation left. After eight years of Tory rule they are destroying this country and Bill C-20 is the prime example of it. Exhibit A, Mr. Speaker.


An hon. member:: Remember the deficit.


Lloyd Axworthy: Here we go about the deficit again.
Their problem is that they do not listen very well. I say, let us deal with the deficit, but let us ask the President of the Treasury Board to deal with the problem identified by his own research and by his own government agency. It is: You had better recapture some revenue and you better get your interest rates down, because it has nothing to do with social spending.
I know they have trouble reading. I know the former minister of trade and industry, Mr. Crosbie, never read the free trade act. That is why we got into that horrible mess. Now we have the President of the Treasury Board saying that he does not read his own economic analysis from his own agency called Statistics Canada, which described for him what the problem in the deficit was.
I suggest, in all charity and kindness, that the best solution for Canada in the few months remaining for this government would be to give its members a remedial
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reading course so they can begin to read their own documents and understand what is going on here.
Most of all, it might enable them to read Bill C-20. It sets out in black and white that beginning in the middle part of this decade and ending in the year 2003, the federal government will no longer be directly involved in the support of health care and higher education.
As a result, our ability to maintain the five principles of accessibility, portability, comprehensibility and public administration will disappear because we will no longer have any leverage to exercise on the provinces.
If a province wants to introduce user fees, it can introduce user fees. In fact, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, my co-parliamentarian from Manitoba, the member for Provencher says maybe we should have user fees. His other colleague, the Minister of National Health and Welfare, at the health meeting in Winnipeg in September agreed. He is prepared to accept asymmetrical programming in health care. That is, if some province wants user fees and another one does not, he will buy that. He does not care about that.
I would submit to you that as soon as we begin to surrender on that front, as soon as we begin to say that there will be a health care system graduated for your ability to pay and those with the most money get the best care, that will be really the end of this country as we have known it.
It will be the end not just in terms of health care itself in what we provide, not just in terms of money, but also in terms of values, of what we believe in, one to the other. That is why this bill is so important and that is why members opposite should understand why people here feel strongly about it.
We have heard from our constituents. We understand their reality. The reality is that they see their country being destroyed. They see their country being taken apart piece by piece. They see programs that were essential to their identification and to their security as Canadians being undermined. That is the hard reality.
The reason why people are discontented, why there is such anxiety and insecurity is because the props are being taken out. The kind of social contract that we have spent decades trying to build in this country, upon which the market system and the private enterprise system of Canada has been based; the idea that there can be a fundamental framework of security and the government

December 3, 1991
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will act as the anchor weight to that is being thrown away. It is being put on the scrap heap by this government.
As soon as you begin to unravel that social contract, as soon as you begin to take that apart, everything else begins to dissolve with it. That is labour fighting management, in hard, conflictual terms. That is when you have region against region and community against community.


An hon. member:: -put people back to work.


Lloyd Axworthy: That is the difference.
It strikes me as exceedingly strange. It is almost immoral that a member of this cabinet can sit in his seat and take great pride in an economy where 1.5 million people are out of work. That really is a great economic accomplishment.
That is something to really take great pride in, is it not? Is that not an example of a government that cares? Is that not an example of a government that really knows how to organize an economy, that it will tolerate 1.5 million Canadians unemployed? That is 1.5 million Canadians who no longer make wages, who no longer contribute taxes, who no longer can provide for their families and who must go to food banks. Rather than saying that in regret and sorrow, rather than saying that as a matter of public concern, the minister opposite takes pride in that. He thinks that is an accomplishment.
I say to you that is one reason why the headlines in every newspaper today report that the Conservative government stands at the lowest level in the polls of any government in the last half century and has lost the confidence of all Canadians.


Mr. Corbeil:: That's why we have taken reasonable steps to correct the situation.


Lloyd Axworthy: Oh. Now we
are taking steps to correct the situation. Is it not interesting. Let us look at the steps they have taken. They signed a free trade agreement, so what do we have? The first trade imbalance in 15 years. There is a great important step forward. This was going to be the open
sesame to great trade bounty and we have the first trade deficit in 15 years.
We have the dollar at a level which is exterminating our export industries. We have a situation where 600,000 Canadians go to food banks. When you translate that into hard economic terms, those are human beings who no longer can produce for themselves or their community. As a result they cannot buy things. They cannot buy a fridge, or clothing for their kids at Christmas time. As a result, the retail stores are shutting down. They are firing their employees who will go on reduced unemployment insurance and eventually come off.
What is happening is that the economy is shrinking. Confidence is waning. Demand no longer is there. This government has no answers other than to say that the right steps are being taken. Remarkable. The right steps are being taken.
Around them, the foundations are crumbling, but this brave minister and this brave government march on to their own tune. Unfortunately, nobody in this country is following any longer. Sooner or later their parade is going to come to an end and we are going to get this country back on the tracks again.
The first thing we are going to do is rip up this Bill C-20. That is one of the first things that goes because we are going to have to get back into the business in Canada of investing in proper health care and education. We will never be a strong, productive, competitive nation with a higher education system that is deteriorating and becoming mediocre; that cannot do research or train its students; that is firing professors and cannot buy new books for the library. We will never be a competitive, productive nation if our country begins to destroy its health care system, which gives its own people security.
It is fascinating that the United States, the great paragon of free enterprise, is now debating whether to have a Canadian style medicare system. Why? So that it can become more competitive and productive and have a nation-wide program to bring its own costs into some kind of stability. It is finding that it is paying an awful lot more through its private health insurance plans and therefore reducing its own competitive ability.
December 3, 1991

Government Orders
While they are beginning to look at our plan, we have a government that is destroying it. Once again, this is one of the greatest acts of illogical perversity that has ever been put upon the people of this country.
I do not suppose that anything we say is going to change their minds. I will tell you one thing it is going to do. It is going to hasten the change of a government in this country. It is going to hasten the change back to doing things in a real Canadian way on behalf of all Canadians.
It is going to mean that we are going to get back to deciding what is the priority and I will tell you what the priority is. It is not the illusion that the parliamentary secretary talked about. If this government really wanted to deal with the deficit, then we might have a finance minister brave enough to start recapturing those revenues that they gave away to their big business friends in the last eight years, because that is what Stats Canada said.
Capital gains, write-offs, grants; you name it, you got it. I will tell you the day will come-the day will not come for them because they will not be here any longer- when we will be able to restore some sense of reality to governing in this country. It will be a day to decide who are the winners and the losers. It really is going to come down to a basic battle between a kind of elitist corporate view of the world which is contained in the cabinet rooms of this government, and a democratic view of this world which means that you represent all people and you try to provide the programming, the finances and the economics that represent their concerns.
That is why Bill C-20 is of crucial concern to all of us. It really represents, perhaps as no other piece of legislation has, that difference of view. It represents, perhaps as no other legislation that this government has brought in, the clear demarcation of philosophy and approach as to how to govern this country. It basically points out whose side you are on, and where your interests really lie.
That is why this party is opposed to it and clearly committed to restoring proper federal participation in the support of good education and good health care for this country. That is how we believe we will build a good Canada.


Charles A. Langlois: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, instead of speaking to the bill before the House today, has decided to make a very political speech that is full of inaccuracies, false truths and false statements, and I feel it is time to set the record straight.
There are two particular points I wish to address. [English]
The member for Winnipeg South Centre mentioned in his speech that transfer payments to the provinces in the health care program have been reduced. I would like to point out that this is not true. The reality is quite different. The reality is that the increase in transfer payments has grown more slowly in recent years than in the past. This is due to the fact that when this government took power in 1984, the government of which the member for Winnipeg South Centre was a member and a cabinet minister, left it with a deficit of $200 billion. This deficit today is in the area of $400 billion, but the increase is the result of compounded interest of close to $200 billion that has grown on the debt itself. This government has not contributed a black penny to the deficit.
To reimburse the interest on $400 billion you have to pay in the area of $40 billion in interest a year. That is why we had to reduce the growth of the transfer payments. These are the hard facts.

He also said that in 1995-96, the province of Quebec would no longer receive or benefit from federal transfer payments. There again he distorted the facts, because my hon. colleague knows very well that the Government of Quebec decided to take tax points instead of transfer payments. By taking more tax points, as Quebec negotiated with the federal government, it receives less in cash transfer payments. I would like to ask my hon. colleague: When Quebec was asking for more tax points instead of transfer payments and he was a cabinet minister in the government of the day, if he is opposed to that principle today, why did he not express his opposition then and make the case against it that he has in the House today?

December 3, 1991
Government Orders
I say that he should have done so then. It is too late today. Quebec made that choice and the federal government respects it. The federal government will also try to respect it in future, of course, because that is what the province wants.
My hon. colleague from Winnipeg South Centre should tell the House and Quebecers where he was when those discussions were going on.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has taken the occasion to challenge some of the facts. The fact is that Quebec did not opt out of only taking tax transfer points, it still receives cash outlays.
I stand by my record, which is included in the government's own figures, that by the year 1996-97, no longer will there be cash transfers.
I would refer the hon. member to the statements made by his own ministers of health at the meeting in Winnipeg in September where all the health ministers began to say that is the problem.
What he avoids is this question. Perhaps to him it is not an important question, but to many of us it is certainly important. Once the cash transfers disappear, as they will in Quebec in 1996-97, how will the federal government exercise it's responsibility to ensure universality and accessibility of the Canada medicare system? How will it do it? Its answer is: "We will bring in legislation that will give us the right to do it legally". We now know that legally and constitutionally it will be thrown out by the courts. It has been challenged.
Therefore, the federal government's withdrawal from that system will mean that we will end up in a system of different health programs, province by province, region to region. The ones who will pay the most will be the poor provinces which do not have the cash base.
It was not my interpretation. I regret deeply that members opposite are so illiterate. If they had bothered to read the legal opinion that was tabled in front of the committee studying Bill C-20, they would know where the opinion came from. Unfortunately, they have not bothered to do it.
Let us go back to this "deficit issue". This an interesting little debate because Tories love to talk about it. Once again, I will repeat myself because apparently the first or second time they do not quite understand.
Statistics Canada, your agency, run by the Government of Canada, produced a report this spring that said: "What caused the deficit?" It said it was not spending on programs. They have remained the same. What caused it was a loss of revenue because a government reduced and gave away all kinds of revenue it otherwise had by about 20 per cent and high interest rates. What has been the dominant economic policy of the Mulroney government since it has come into power? High interest rates. High dollar, high interest rates, and he said: "We inherited this deficit and it jumped from $125 billion to $400 billion, but we are not responsible. Mea culpa, not me. It could not be us. It went from $125 to $400, but the fact that we have been government for close to eight years is totally irrelevant".
The first four years we had a growth economy. We were averaging 5 per cent, 6 per cent growth a year. It went to 32 separate tax increases at that time. Where did the revenue go? Who did it give the money to? Did it use that revenue of high growth and 32 tax increases to reduce the deficit? Hardly. It is still at $31 billion a year.
What it did in terms of its own brilliant economic analysis, it forced the interest rates up so that what happened is that of course the deficit quadrupled and multiplied in geometric terms. It was a direct consequence of a policy decision taken by this government over the past eight years. That is the reason why that deficit has increased. Therefore-


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


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I notice it is four minutes to one. Shall I call it one o'clock?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: 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 p.m.
December 3, 1991



COMMONS DEBATES AFTER RECESS

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to lay upon the table the report of the Auditor General of Canada to the House of Commons for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1991.

I remind hon. members that pursuant to Standmg Order 108(3)(e), this document is deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, this week marks the first annual white ribbon campaign, a campaign to help end violence against women through heightening of men's awareness to a problem which takes many forms.
Let the facts speak for themselves. Men make up only 48 per cent of our population, yet are responsible for 90 per cent of the violence. Over 90 per cent of sexual assaults involve female victims. One in four young women under the age of 18 will be abused.
These facts are very real. Women live in fear that the majority of them can expect some form of harassment or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Violence against women is a symptom of deep problems in our society which relate to underlying sexism and stereotyping. Violence against women is not a social problem, it's a crime, as we saw so clearly at Humber College in Etobicoke this last weekend. Only through education can we hope to end such violence. It is time to confront the issue and for all Canadians, female and male, to sjteak out. As we approach the anniversary of the Ecole
Polytechnique, let us remember all victims of violence and their families.


QUEBEC INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, Quebec's new industrial strategy was announced in Montreal yesterday by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Technology, Mr. Gerald Tremblay, in the presence of Premier Robert Bourassa, the leaders of the Conseil du Patronat du Quebec and the Manufacturers' Association, Ghislain Dufour and Richard Le Hir, as well as the presidents of the FTQ and the CNTU, Fernand Daoust and Gerald Larose.
The purpose of the Quebec industrial strategy is to create 200,000 new jobs by the year 2000, thereby bringing the rate of unemployment down to 8 percent. That is a first in North America. Businesses from a given industry will be called upon to join forces or interact to promote job creation and facilitate the emergence of local subcontracting firms. According to Mr. Tremblay, all Quebecers will be invited to contribute to this concerted effort and the success of all is now dependent upon a rapid transition to a value-added economy. The public must take part in the strategy by questioning the generosity of the system and demanding quality products.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Cid Samson (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, last night people in Ottawa were treated to a great show, the lighting of the Christmas lights on Parliament Hill.
I do not want the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance to be blinded by these lights. I want to shed more light on unemployed Canadians because it seems that the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister do not see what this government's economic policies are doing to Canadians.
The following lay-offs over the last year have resulted in an unemployment rate of 15.2 per cent in my riding of Timmins-Chapleau: Renabie Mines, 190 workers; Dome Mines, 277 workers; Canamax Mines, 99 workers; Pal-mour Mines, 62 workers.

December 3, 1991
Two more lay-offs announced recently will drive the current figures even higher: Abitibi Price, 161 workers; Mike's Supermarkets, 191 workers.
During this holiday season, the only worthy response to this government's handling of the unemployment crisis is: Bah, humbug.]


Mr. Jean-Pierre Hogue (Outremont):: Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago the Montreal daily La Presse published a series of articles about Cyprus. I found Mr. Toupin's work to be truly enlightening.
[Translation
So far, the numerous UN resolutions aimed at putting an end to Turkish occupation have not been implemented. Recent UN efforts to reconcile differences, supported by many U.S. government initiatives, seem to be going nowhere.
Canadians are proud to join their voices with those of all the people who speak up for international justice and order. The Canadian militaiy presence in Cyprus as peacemakers make us even more credible. Our position is not inconsistent with the UN resolutions which incidentally have our support.

Allow me to quote Cyprus' President Vassiliou who says that:

"The solution of the Cypriot problem is of greater importance than the problem itself."


CANADIAN BREWING INDUSTRY
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, our brewing industry was supposed to be protected under the free trade agreement, but what we have witnessed after three years of this agreement is that the United States says one thing and does another.
U.S. trade representative Carla Hills has laid down an ultimatum, even before the full GATT council meeting in February, that all discrimination against U.S. beer must end by December 29 or face U.S. duties on all Canadian beer entering the United States. A lot of
Canadian brewery jobs are at stake at Labatt's, Molson's and Moose Head and over $190 million a year in exports to the United States is at stake.
I ask of the government: Will the Canadian government do what it promised under the FTA and support our Canadian brewing industry? Will the Canadian government fight the discriminatory practices of American states against Canadian beer sales in the United States?
Let us tell Carla Hills to snap a cool one of Canada's finest and take a hike.


GASOLINE ADDITIVES
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in mid-October, the Minister of Agriculture spoke about fuel ethanol opportunities to an audience of western farmers and business people.
He indicated that grain or biomass-derived fuel ethanol can be one of Canada's transportation fuel options in the 1990s.
In a few short weeks it will be 1992. Why is it that the United States can take advantage of these market opportunities quickly while Canadian policy is strangled by bureaucratic red tape? The minister should breathe life into a Canadian policy for ethanol production thereby helping farmers, industry and the environment.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Rex Crawford (Kent):: Mr. Speaker, the recession is not over in southwestern Ontario.
In Chatham and Kent County, a 400 per cent increase in welfare rates since 1981 and a 30 per cent unemployment rate in the automotive sector alone are signs that the Mulroney-made recession is still here.
Millions of people west of Toronto have been left drowning in a sea of despair, with no regional development program of their own.
I am encouraged by the recent signing of the Canada-Ontario Labour Force Agreement. Chatham, Ontario, and area are prime candidates to receive funding. Skills training is absolutely vital.
The Kent Industrial Training Advisory Committee works with St. Clair College and Wallaceburg's High School was the first in all Ontario to establish a perma-
December 3, 1991

nent training facility, helping students and the unemployed from basic education to high-tech. I urge the government to put its money where its mouth is and expand support for these and other training facilities to help even more people in this time of economic adjustment.


VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Mr. Willie Littlechild (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to join my voice with those of my colleagues who spoke yesterday and today in protest of male violence against women.
Recent events have called on men everywhere to examine their attitudes toward women.

The tragedy at the Ecole Polytechnique took place two years ago. It is a case of terrible violence against women but it is only the most horrible and brutal example. It is time for us to take a more active role and to take on our responsibilities. This white ribbon campaign is an ideal way to make our fellow citizens aware of the need to end violence against women both inside and outside the family.

The white ribbon campaign is rapidly gaining support across Canada. I urge this government to stimulate even greater public awareness by the introduction of education programs.
Through these and other means we will be able to secure a future for Canadian women that is free of violence.
I urge my fellow colleagues to endorse the white ribbon campaign and to take action to decrease the senseless violence against women and I call especially on all aboriginal leaders to do likewise.


ROYAL COMMISSION ON REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY
Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technology is facing serious allegations of irregularity. Four of the nine commissioners are planning to launch a
lawsuit against the commission and the federal government.
The government interfered with the commission last year when it altered the order in council and appointed two new commissioners. It stripped the commissioners of all responsibility and involvement in the decision-making process in order to vest authority exclusively in the chair.
There are deep concerns that the government is going to disband the commission to avoid the embarrassment of a court case.
New reproductive technologies are advancing ahead of our abilities to understand them and they have deep implications for our society. They are commercializing life and creating the notion of designer babies.
Will the Prime Minister give us his assurance that this commission will not be disbanded simply to avoid embarrassing disclosures?


DARYL BEAN
Mr. Garth Ttirner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, union leader Daryl Bean is a vice-president of the New Democratic Party. The NDP leader stood with him during the recent Public Service Alliance strike.
The NDP has been a strident supporter of efforts to eliminate all traces of violence against women. Many NDP members today in the House are wearing white ribbons such as mine as a demonstration of that commitment.
I ask them and their leader this question:
Do you condone the threats of Daryl Bean made against three


some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Some hon. members and perhaps the hon. member for Halton-Peel are not aware that that very matter is presently seized by the Chair and I am going to have to make a ruling on it.

SPRUCE FALLS POWER & PAPER COMPANY


Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane -Superior):: Mr. Speaker, today, December 3, 1991, is of great historical significance to the northern Ontario towns of Opasatika, Val Rita-Harty, Kapuskasing, Moonbeam and Fauquier. The employees and residents of these towns officially

December 3, 1991
become the majority owners of the Spruce Falls Power & Paper Company, along with Tembec as a minority shareholder.
During the last year, residents of the area have demonstrated tremendous strength and willpower as they were determined to retain 5,000 regional jobs. The loss of these jobs would have been disastrous for the entire region.
Today local investors will start to control their own destiny as the profits will be reinvested in the mill in order to remain competitive in global markets. The $15 million investment by the local people indicates a vote of confidence in the workers' expertise and talent.
I am very proud today to express my sincere gratitude to the men and women who were instrumental in achieving this success by ensuring the future viability of the Spruce Falls Power & Paper Company.


RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, supply and services has awarded $400,000 in research contracts to American universities. One is for planning a model for energy technology, another is on atmospheric oxidizers, another on the validity of lie detectors, and another on interactive teaching technology-
No Canadian universities it is said were capable of doing this work, some of which is of obvious strategic importance.
The question here is not whether contracts should be issued to American universities.
The real question is whether we shall see more and more of this as Canadian universities, deprived of labs and researchers, and increasingly deprived of research and operational funding become increasingly incapable of responding to Canada's competitive needs.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, an article in The Gazette last week referred to our constitutional discussions under the heading "All the bickering is among politicians".
It went on to say that relations among the people are surprisingly harmonious. The Gazette does not get much coverage in Alberta, but the theme of its article is just as true there as it is in Montreal.
Thinking Canadians want to keep this country united, but they want other Canadians to understand them and their aspirations. It is no time for us to chase partisan, political points. It is time to listen and to share the opinions expressed by our constituents.
Albertans have shared some very strong feelings with me. They want others to understand us, just as we need to understand them. As MPs, we need to put political considerations aside. Each of us must listen to our constituents in a calm, constructive way. Then we must show them that this House can work, that we can truly represent the views of our constituents and build consensus on it.
The people demand it. The people deserve it. The country is more than worth it.


SUMMERSIDE AEROSPACE CENTRE
Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont):: Mr. Speaker, Thursday, December 5, will mark the official opening of Bendix Avelex Inc. Atlantic Support Division and Atlantic Turbines Inc.
Both facilities are part of the new Summerside Aerospace Centre located in St. Eleanors, P.E.I., the former site of CFB Summerside.
These companies are the major tenants of the new centre, a high-tech operation designed to bring economic development to the Summerside area and off-set some of the job losses causes by the base closure.
Atlantic Turbines is a repair and overhaul facility which has about 30 employees and plans to continue expanding and hiring in the new year.
Bendix Avelex is a world class supplier of aerospace and defence equipment. Its Support Services Division
December 3, 1991

provides support of aircraft equipment and accessories for government, commercial and business aircraft. The company is the largest support contractor of its type in Canada. It employs over 20 people and has tremendous growth potential.
Attracting two companies of this calibre to Summer-side is a major accomplishment. It is a beginning, and it is a tribute to the hard work of the Slemon Park Corporation, the P.E.I. Department of Industry and ACOA. I offer my congratulations to all parties and to the two companies involved.


CHRISTMAS TREE INDUSTRY
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, last week the hon. member for South Shore criticized the House of Commons for displaying fake Christmas trees. I could not agree more.
I do however disagree with the hon. member that the best Christmas trees, that is real trees, come from Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.
The best trees, superior trees come from New Brunswick and more specifically, the riding of Carleton- Charlotte.
This was recognized yesterday, Mr. Speaker, when the mayor of Nackawic, New Brunswick, Stephen Hawkes and myself presented His Excellency the Governor General with a real New Brunswick Christmas tree.
Unlike the House of Commons with its phoney trees, Rideau Hall will have the real thing, courtesy of the citizens of Nackawic, New Brunswick, the forestry capital of Canada for 1991.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Peter L. McCreath (South Shore):: Mr. Speaker, this country, now more than ever, needs men and women to come forward with solutions to today's environmental problems.
Thanks to another element of Canada's green plan, people with innovative ideas will be better able to participate in making our environment healthy.
Oral Questions
The government has unveiled the Environment Innovation Program, designed to fund original research and development proposals on the environment.
The program will tap the tremendous inventive spirit of Canadians. Twenty million dollars is available to universities, environmental groups, industry, native groups and individuals to bring their good ideas to the production and marketing stages.
Environmental innovation is not particularly new to Canadians. Indeed, our green plan supports leaders in the environment. Our green plan supports that through further research and development, and industrial competitiveness in the environment technology sector.
It is my belief that the green plan's support of environmental innovation will help lead Canada into a greener and more prosperous future.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, we received the report of the Auditor General of Canada today.

I would like to put my question to the Minister of Finance, but in his absence, I will put it to whoever on that side answers, I guess the acting minister.
The Auditor General's report states that a substantial portion of the annual budgetary deficit is financed by borrowing from pension accounts. Eighteen per cent of the over-all debt, $71 billion, was borrowed in the last years at interest rates below market rates. The government has failed to examine the long-term implications of this practice. I want to ask the government why a study has not been made of this practice.


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, a great number of factors come into play when one adjusts the management of these funds from the pension funds. The hon. member knows very well that the way it is managed

December 3, 1991
Oral Questions
now stems from legislation that came from this House. He knows also that we are reviewing the Public Service pension legislation, at which time we will look into that.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, the government borrowed $71 billion from federal employee pension accounts to finance its deficit. The rates of return on these loans are lower than rates available on the open market. Some people claim that the pension accounts are at risk. Can the minister give the House the assurance that Public Service pension accounts are not at risk and that the government will review this practice, which is not allowed in the private sector? One cannot be sponsor, administrator and trustee. It is against the law. Will the government review this practice?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will realize that the funds are quite safe, that there is a big difference between a government that cannot go out of business and the private sector, unless of course, that government happens to be the Liberal government which almost did this to Canada. However, in the case of pension fund management, the Auditor General did indicate that there was a difference between the rate of return on those funds and the rate that might have been obtained on the open market. That being said, there are many other factors, including joint management of the funds by the employees and the employer. These are all questions that are being reviewed at this time, as part of our public pension reform.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we do not know the long-term implications of borrowing from pension funds to service the budgetary deficit. There is nothing on the books that we can find to give us some solace at this point.
It is clear from the Auditor General's report that the rate of return of this investment is 1.5 to 2 per cent below market rates, that is the rates the private sector would get in terms of its borrowing. Will the minister assure us that the management of the debt will be improved, that
this government will stop raiding public pension funds to finance its own mismanagement?


Gilles Loiselle: I can assure the House that the government is not raiding the public pension fund. It is managing it as it has according to legislation passed by this House.
As I have said and will say again, this is going to be revisited as all other issues of management of the Public Service pension funds over the coming months.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's old crony, Peter Lesaux, the president of ACOA, said, and I quote: "Illiteracy and rotten weather, that is what is keeping companies out of Cape Breton".
Well, Mr. Speaker, it is not the rotten weather in Cape Breton that is keeping companies out. The Auditor General's report confirms in spades the incompetence of its president and ACOA's mismanagement.
What changes has the minister put in place to adequately monitor and control the action program contribution agreement so that companies like World Communications Network, based in California, will not be able to rip off the Canadian taxpayer?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and Minister for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency):: Mr. Speaker, we all realize that this is just a generality that the hon. gentleman has put forward. There is no specificity, if I might use that word, to it. The totality of his specificities leaves much to be desired.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


John Carnell Crosbie: With respect to ACOA, less than 5 per cent of the projects financed through the action program have been failures. ACOA is there to take risks, to take greater risks let us say than the ordinary commercial banks.
If what the hon. gentleman is proposing is that we apply the same standards and be just as careful as the ordinary commercial banks, we will make no loans in Atlantic Canada whatsoever.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows quite well that the report of the Auditor General seriously indicts ACOA
December 3, 1991

for not adequately evaluating the economic benefit of a project before ACOA makes a financial contribution. That is there very clear for all to see.
What measures will the minister responsible for ACOA put in place to curb abuses like World Communications Network, thereby protecting the Canadian treasury and ensuring that moneys for regional economic development are spent efficiently and used in those areas where they are absolutely needed? What assurances will the minister give the House?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. gentleman wanted to query me about some specific suggestion by the Auditor General, I could deal with it. I am sure there are some occasions mentioned in his audit where proper procedures were not followed or technical procedures were not followed. Of course, in the future we are going to see that they are followed insofar as human abilities permit. There is a slip up occasionally.
With respect to the firm the hon. gentleman is mentioning, I think that firm was located in Cape Breton. We all know that last year we had a study undertaken with reference to the Cape Breton situation and we are following the recommendations of that report of Mr. Braith. In Cape Breton, in particular, we are concentrating more on initiatives put forward by local people and we are much more careful with respect to those who come from outside suggesting that they have some miracle cures to offer for the economic progress of Cape Breton.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. The Auditor General says that the government's plans for cleaning up abandoned toxic waste dumps were doomed to fail. The report says Environment Canada is not up to the task. They have neither the resources nor the staff to identify the sites and clean them up. Why does this important program lack funding? Why is this government putting the health and lives of Canadians at risk?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I think that what the Auditor General of Canada is saying is that the government intended to
Oral Questions
spend approximately $150 million on cleaning up abandoned sites, and the Auditor General challenges the accuracy of the information we have at this time and feels we have underestimated the work involved. I do not think the Auditor General is challenging the federal government's intentions to act on its responsibility in this area, a responsibility which it shares, I may add, with the provinces.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Clearly what the Auditor General was saying was that there may be the will, but there is certainly not enough money. If there is not the personnel, it just cannot be done and the minister must recognize that.
Today the Auditor General also stated that Revenue Canada Customs is not enforcing the Hazardous Products Act which is supposed to regulate the importation of toxic substances into this country, a very serious issue.
When the Auditor General was asked if this was law breaking, he said this morning: "You could draw that conclusion".
Could the minister explain the ongoing violation of the law concerning importation of toxic substances and could he explain why the health of Canadians is being put at risk every day by importing these unknown substances.


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. leader of the New Democratic Party probably knows, there is no evidence whatsoever that one bit of illegal or uncontrolled hazardous material has entered Canada in the last decade or so.
The hon. member also knows that since May 1989, we have enhanced fuel inspection and inspection of other toxic wastes and materials coming into Canada at the borders with random sampling, blitzes, increased inspection tests, fuel contamination examinations and the list goes on, with no evidence whatsoever that any dangerous hazardous material has entered Canada illegally.
On top of that, because of our concern we have gone ahead and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of the Environment where we work hand in hand in making sure that operations improve, not only on a yearly basis, but on a daily basis. We have put in new systems, new technology and new people. I

Oral Questions
am satisfied that we are protecting Canada to the best of our abilities.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, the minister may be satisfied, but the Auditor General is not satisfied.
The Auditor General says that there is no evidence of Customs actions in enforcing the Hazardous Products Act and in fact a memorandum was sent out which instructs Customs inspectors to release shipments found to contain prohibited or restricted commodities subject to advising Consumer and Corporate Affairs, even though the importation of these products is clearly prohibited.
I would ask the minister to address that issue, because clearly the Auditor General does not agree there is no evidence that these substances are being imported, but quite the opposite.


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, I can again confirm to this House and to Canadians that after random samplings, blitzes and some 1,400 tests which have been taken at the border there is absolutely no evidence that a bit of toxic hazardous illegal material has entered Canada.


Mr. Fulton:: You are not checking for it, Otto. No
wonder you are not going to find it.


Otto John Jelinek: The hon. member is saying we are not checking for it. I pointed out that in one element only, toxic fuel and toxic waste, there were 1,400 checks. I would like to know from the New Democratic Party what other steps it would want us to take. We have increased the number of staff at the border. We have brought in new systems. We have brought in new technology.


James Ross Fulton: He says you are breaking the law.


Otto John Jelinek: We have a memorandum of understanding that has increased our opportunities to protect Canadians from dangerous waste coming into Canada. In the meantime we are continuing our efforts to improve wherever we can on this matter.


Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe -Baie Yerte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible
for DRIE. The minister said he wants specifics with respect to the Auditor General's report and I offer him one, a case singled out by the Auditor General from his own constituency.
The Auditor General reported today that just prior to the last election a door and window manufacturer in St. John's, Newfoundland received a $5.2 million non-repayable grant from ACOA just 30 days after its application was filed with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The grant in question was made within a 30-day period, notwithstanding the fact that DRIE had raised serious questions about the company's operations and about the new company's effect on existing window manufacturers in St. John's.
My question to the minister responsible for ACOA is the following: Why were all the normal rules scuttled, during a pre-election period, in the minister's own backyard?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, on the one hand we have the member opposite suggesting ACOA is inefficient. On the other hand, we have another member getting up and suggesting there is tremendous efficiency in ACOA. Which is it?
As a matter of fact I was not the minister responsible for ACOA at the time of the last election.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


John Carnell Crosbie: Apparently it took ACOA 210 days to review and approve this particular application, 210 days. If I had known about it, it would have been done one heck of a lot quicker than that, supposing that it met the criteria.
In addition, it was recommended for approval by the project review committee. There is a project review committee. That company is operating successfully with 50 full-time employees. The hon. member should be congratulating ACOA on the support it gave in this particular instance.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, the minister's attempt at humour will not disguise the fact that during an election campaign after only 30 days a $5.2 million non-repayable gift-grant was given to a company in the minister's own backyard. It was given at a time when the rules provided for a grant of up to $20 million under a so-called fast program when today
December 3, 1991

the rule allows only for a loan of up to $500,000. Why the giveaways during an election and today only loans?
How is the minister of ACOA going to investigate the irregularities pointed out in the Auditor General's report in his own constituency? Where is the conflict of interests here and how can Canadians get an honest accounting for their tax dollars?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, we always very much enjoy the hon. gentleman's performances. I am sure we do on this occasion, but he is dealing with a company that has been successful and where the criticism of the Auditor General is technical in nature.
There was a change of ownership in connection with the application. A considerable period went by between the original application and the later application that was approved. There had been a change of ownership in the meantime which our officials thought strengthened the company. That was not brought to the minister's attention. This is the nature of the criticism of the Auditor General.
As I said earlier, it took ACOA 210 days to review and approve it. There was no rushing of this approval through. It has been a success and 50 persons in Newfoundland are now working who might not otherwise have been working. Why the criticism by the hon. gentleman opposite?


Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment. In his report last year, the Auditor General asked the government to develop ways for reporting to Parliament on how it was meeting its environmental responsibilities. A year later the result, to quote from the Auditor General's report tabled today, is:
(-) No such clarification has yet been made.
In short, the minister has done nothing in a year. My question is: Why this disdain, this contempt for the Parliament of Canada?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the hon. member for LaSalle-Emard likes to get excited about such ques-
Oral Questions
tions. I think that if he took a little time to analyse Canada's green plan, he would see that the government made a commitment in that plan to various environmental measuring and reporting mechanisms. We will indeed report to the Parliament of Canada in 1992. If he took the time to read the whole Auditor General's report, I am not sure, but I think that the Auditor General also admits that we will report to Parliament using that mechanism.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General has specifically condemned this minister as a do-nothing minister. The previous Minister of the Environment promised achievement dates for the green plan. This minister backed off. The previous Minister of the Environment promised environmental assessment policy. This minister backed off.
Under this minister the department has been found guilty of blocking the legitimate requests of Canadians under the Access to Information Act, and now the Auditor General has said that under this minister the government is shirking its responsibility to Parliament.
My question is: Where does this minister get off with blocking the public's right to know?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I think that once Canadians get beyond the rhetoric and all the showmanship of the hon. member from Lasalle-Emard they will find that this government committed itself to a $3 billion green plan over six years. We proceeded to implement that green plan with due diligence.
We announced $100 million, for example, for the Fraser River initiative. We announced $100 million for an Arctic environment strategy under the green plan. We announced $100 million under forestry for development of sustainable forests. We announced $250 million for an initiative for sewage for native people. We announced $25 million for an initiative in drinking water for people. We announced $50 million for more research in the area of-


Some hon. members:: More, more.


Jean J. Charest: We announced $100 million for commercialization.

December 3, 1991
Oral Questions NATIVE HOUSING


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, the government's new native agenda promised to improve socio-economic conditions for aboriginal peoples in this country.
My question is therefore to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Today the Auditor General's report shows that his department knew that it had a backlog of over 10,000 housing units. It knew that 72 per cent of the housing stock did not even come up to code, and yet it still did nothing about it.
When is the minister of Indian affairs going to face up to the crisis in native housing in this country and do something positive about it?

Hun. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)): Mr. Speaker, my colleague should recognize that this government has made a very determined commitment, with a very specific agenda, to improving the condition of native communities.
We are developing a housing policy in consultation with native groups. My hon. colleague should admit that we develop those policies in close cooperation with the communities in order to improve the programs and make them more effective.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
Today's report of the Auditor General shows that reinstatements under Bill C-31 have been 50 per cent higher than the Department of Indian Affairs predicted in 1985. Aboriginal groups are saying: "We told you so".
Despite the assurance that no band would suffer from this sudden influx of native women and children, the department made no plans to house them properly. My question is very simple: Why not? Why have proper plans not been made to house these people?


Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, I think that my hon. colleague should recognize that annual investments of $120 million to $140 million do constitute real and specific commitments to providing housing assistance to native communities.
We are aware of the fact that more is required under Bill C-31. As a matter of fact, the policy is being reviewed. I must say that at present, funds made available to native people allow 3,000 new houses to be built each year, and the renovation of another 3,000 to 4,000 houses every year on top of that. I think those are very concrete and specific commitments.
As regards the problem with sewers and sanitary conditions these communities are faced with, very specific commitments were made on that too. As my colleague the Minister of the Environment mentioned earlier, we will be spending $250 million over the next six years on sewers and another 25 million on drinking water.
Mr. Speaker, these are firm commitments.


HALIFAX INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
The Auditor General today indicates that the Department of Transport, the Minister of Transport and indeed the entire cabinet approved a 42-year lease for the construction of a hotel at Halifax International Airport without any evidence that the rooms were needed or that the developer had the financing in place to complete this project.
I ask the minister: if the money was not in place and the rooms were not needed, what exactly were the criteria used by the minister to advise his cabinet to approve this project?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member and all members of this
December 3, 1991

House that most of the risk has been borne by the lessee. My department did rely on the financial industry's risk assessment because it was this group, not the department, that invested the risk capital in the development.
I think at the time of the examination of this proposal that all matters were in good standing and we approved it because we thought it was a good investment for the region.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
As a result of this government's bungling we now have a half-finished concrete bunker attached to Halifax International Airport.
My question to the minister is this: Is it now the government's intention to fund the completion of this hotel, or will it dip further into taxpayers' pockets to tear down this latest monument to the minister's cabinet's and his colleagues' incompetence?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, the matter is now being examined first of all by the trustee and other financial interests.
We want this hotel to be completed, and as we get through the present proceedings we will make sure that this hotel is completed to the satisfaction of the customers in the area because we think that it is a good addition economically speaking for the region.


GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of industry.
Farmers and fishermen are asking for money and the government always says that it has no money. Can the minister give us an explanation of why his department gave $26 million out of the DIPP fund to companies that did not even ask for the money?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International Tbade):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. minister who has been a minister of industry knows that there is a very vigorous requirement for companies to go through in getting access to those funds.
That program is a good program. It provides very good support for science and technology and for research and development, particularly in high-tech sectors that need this sort of financing. He knows perfectly well that there
Oral Questions
is a very rigorous set of approvals required in order to get access to those moneys.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, my question is this: In his report published today, the Auditor General said that at the end of the year, the minister's department gave $28 million to firms which had not even asked for funding. Why is there money for the government's friends, when there is none for the farmers and fishermen of this country?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me be quite clear to the hon. Leader of the Opposition. There are situations wherein the department discusses with the industry whether or not there should be an access to funds in one year or another in order to meet the requirements that both the industry and the government agree are to be met.
It is under those circumstances that this type of agreement is entered into.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. Yesterday, the U.S. government announced that the preferential rate offered by Hydro-Quebec to Norsk-Hydro constitutes an unfair subsidy. A countervailing duty of 33 per cent will be imposed on magnesium exports to the United States. My question is this: Is this government finally prepared to admit its free trade agreement gives us no protection against the protectionist policies of the United States? And does this government intend to forget about Quebec's interests, as it is now doing at GATT?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear to the hon. member.
Under the free trade agreement either side can challenge the other side if they feel that there is a subsidy, as we have done on a number of occasions with the Americans and as they have done here.

December 3, 1991
Oral Questions
We disagree that there is a subsidy in this. We are working with the province and with the industry to make sure that we put the strongest possible case forward. We also have challenged the American companies as to whether they have standing, whether they have a right to put the case forward as has been done, and we are challenging this under the GATT.
Finally let me say that under the rules of the free trade agreement-and let me remind my hon. friend that this is a preliminary determination-if the ultimate decision is something that we disagree with we have the right under the free trade agreement to take the matter to a bi-national panel dispute settlement mechanism in order to challenge that. That was not the case prior to the free trade agreement.


Philip Edmonston: Mr. Speaker, obviously we are not getting the answer that the government knows is the real answer, that the free trade agreement is not working in Canada's interest. It has not worked in British Columbia with softwood lumber. It has not worked in Quebec. It is not working at all.
I would like the minister to respond exactly and definitely. What is he going to do? What is he going to tell the companies? We are not just talking about one company here but other companies, aluminium companies that can be faced with the same problem. Quebec and its development can be seriously handicapped.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, let me say to my friend that his bluster does not add anything to the understanding of people about that particular issue.
I have indicated very clearly that we are going to take the strongest possible position in working with the province and with the industry to make sure that our interests are upheld in this particular case. We are also challenging the matter under the GATT, whether the company has the legitimacy to put this case forward.
Finally, as I said, we have the right under the free trade agreement which we have not had before and which is not effective under the GATT, to take a matter to a dispute settlement mechanism panel to ensure that our rights are upheld.


Mr. J. W. Bud Bird (Fredericton-York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
The original ACOA mandate was for $1 billion, subsequently extended over seven years, to help achieve regional development in Atlantic Canada that would not otherwise occur without federal assistance.
I am led to understand that portions of these annual budgets are subject to lapsing of funds which are not expended by the end of the fiscal year, thus leading in some cases to unused ACOA money or, perhaps more often and more seriously, to excessive efforts at finding ways to spend the money before it lapses. Either way the concept of lapsing funds would seem to distort ACOA's purposes within artificial budget boundaries.
My question is this: Can a mechanism not be found to ensure that ACOA's funds do not lapse at budget year-end but rather are allowed to accumulate in the subsequent year for application to justifiable projects as they are created?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, we are going to have some lapsing members opposite when the next election comes.


Lloyd Axworthy: Call the election right now.


John Carnell Crosbie: Don't tempt me. With reference to the question of lapsing funds, ACOA's track record is actually quite good with respect to that. Every department has the problem of lapsing funds if they do not spend the moneys voted to them during the year. Of course they cannot always tell how much they will be spending. It depends upon the demand in the action program for loans and the like.
Of the $277 million allocated last year for grants and contributions, we cash managed those funds within less than $5 million. Only $5 million lapsed, which was less than 2 per cent. The hon. gentleman does not need to worry about ACOA. If we lapse any funds we will see that they are spent in Atlantic Canada in any event the following year.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
A gross miscarriage of justice has occurred in Brazil and two Canadians are involved. On appeal, Christine Lamont and David Spencer have had their sentences increased to 28 years each for their alleged participation in a highly publicized Brazilian kidnapping, though much of the evidence points to their innocence.
The minister has refused to help these Canadians. This sentence is harsher than a murder sentence in Canada and the sentence is absolutely preposterous. When will the minister recognize the injustice of this case and take immediate steps to request their expulsion from Brazil?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, as I have pointed out before, the department and our consular services have been very active in assisting this couple in any way that they can. They have also monitored the whole legal process that has been used.
In my view the sentence is excessive and I am going to explore the ruling from the Court of Appeal in Brazil. When I have done that I will be happy to review whether there is anything further that can be done.
Having said that, let me remind the member that I have personally reviewed this case on two occasions. We are dealing with two mature adult Canadians. She is 31. He is 29. They have been found guilty of kidnapping, conspiracy and resisting arrest. Both entered Brazil on fraudulent Canadian passports. All the co-defendants received the same sentence, and they have not been tortured as some reports have alleged.
I have asked my officials to review the circumstances surrounding the sentencing, but those are the facts.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the minister.
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The minister has been making a lot of speeches about defending human rights abroad. I want to ask her: Is it not time to start defending the human rights of Canadians, of our own citizens?
Clearly under Brazilian law a foreign national does not have the same right as a Brazilian national to ask for an appeal or to ask for parole. Is that not a denial of the rights of Miss Lamont and Mr. Spencer?
I want to ask the minister: When is she going to take her fundamental responsibility to represent the interests of Canadians abroad and ask the Brazilian government for the right of expulsion, which is what the Brazilian judge said the minister should do?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, it strikes me that the hon. member takes to shouting when he knows he does not have a substantive case.
I have responded to the first question by saying that I think the sentence is a severe one and I intend to review the appeal. Surely that is my responsibility. That is what I plan to do, but that does not alter the fundamental facts of the case which include the fact that the other co-conspirators were given the same sentence.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of State (Employment and Immigration). Mr. Petar Zilic, a resident of Saint-Leonard who is originally from Croatia, was informed that his parents had been tortured and killed in the village of their birth, which has now been destroyed. Fearing for their lives, the rest of his family has fled, leaving behind important documents such as their passports and other identification. Could the minister introduce some exceptional measures to help Mr. Zilic, and others like him, bring their families who are living in terror to this country?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to remind hon. members that our immigration procedures provide for certain

December 3, 1991
Oral Questions
extraordinary measures, and that we respect people on an individual basis, with a constant focus on a humanitarian approach.
As for the specific case that was just described, I will submit your request to the responsible minister, and we will report back at the appropriate time.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, in a telephone call to the office of the minister of immigration and yesterday afternoon to the Minister of State for Immigration, my office was told that without identification there would be little chance for Mr. Zilic to get his family to join him in Canada. This was also echoed to friends of his family by the Canadian embassy in Zagreb.
I ask again: Will the minister intervene and use his ministerial powers in order to help Mr. Zilic and others like him who are willing to sponsor their relatives to come to Canada to save their lives?


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, at the risk of repeating myself, every case is dealt with individually under Canada's Immigration Act and we will do what is necessary to comply with our law.


CROATIA
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Garth Tbrner (Halton

Peel): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the foreign minister told this House that Canada would commit troops to peacekeeping duties in Croatia. My constituents of Croatian descent very much appreciate that, but they also want Canada to recognize Croatian independence, just as we granted it this week to Ukraine.
My question is this: What criteria does Croatia have to meet in order to gain Canada's blessing as a sovereign state?
Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's ongoing interest in this matter. As I said before, there are a great many differences between the situation in Ukraine and the situation in Croatia.
The first thing we are looking for in Croatia and in other parts of Yugoslavia is an end to the violence within the context of a negotiated comprehensive settlement. This is the only way we see that this obscene violence can be brought to an end.
Second is the protection of minorities. Third is agreed borders. We will not recognize borders that are taken by force. Fourth is respect for human rights and other CSCE principles.
I should point out that when the referendums were taken in Croatia and Slovenia under the Brioni agreement, both republics agreed to a three month moratorium before asking for independence.
We are now in a situation where the key to independence is to ending the violence and to have all the parties negotiate in good faith. We have been urging them to do that for some months through every forum that is available to us.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for ACOA.
The Auditor General's report identifies significant instances where ACOA officials failed to inform the minister of changes to proposals, changes to recommendations not to proceed with a project and advanced millions of dollars to companies that did not meet funding guidelines.
This is an incredible situation. I am asking the minister: Will he now admit that the agency is out of control and without direction? Will he indicate to the House what steps he intends to take to fix these obvious problems with ACOA?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not do this House or the country any service by such ridiculous general statements and accusations.
ACOA is not out of control. ACOA is dealing with hundreds and thousands of applications every year. In a few instances certain technical points have been missed by a project officer or whatever, none the cause of any

serious losses to ACOA. So I can only say the hon. gentleman is grossly exaggerating and doing a disservice.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister should read the Auditor General's report to see the extent of these problems.
These examples are cited by the Auditor General and they are the most recent in a long list of similar indications of criminal investigations by the RCMP and so on.
I want to ask the minister: How many more investigations and reports will it take before he acts to ensure that money goes to create jobs in Atlantic Canada other than jobs for the RCMP commercial crime squad or trustees in bankruptcy?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman's party has never created one job in Atlantic Canada. It has never had the opportunity to, thank God, and it never will.
With respect to the question of criminal investigations, there have been criminal investigations in connection with several projects in Cape Breton that the House is familiar with. As a result of these events they had the whole situation in Cape Breton looked into by Anthony Braite.


An hon. member:: Blame it on Cape Bretoners.


John Carnell Crosbie: No, I am not going to blame it on Cape Bretoners because I think those-


David Charles Dingwall: Blame it on the president of ACOA.


John Carnell Crosbie: No, no. I am not going to blame it on the president of ACOA, just because the hon. gentleman has some kind of a vendetta against a loyal enthusiastic and able public servant. I am certainly not.


DARYL BEAN
Douglas Fee: Mr. Speaker, my question through you goes to the Minister responsible for the Status of Women.
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The reported threats and written assaults on government employees by Daryl Bean exceed what I consider to be limits of acceptable decency. No one appears to be doing anything. Even though the reported attacks were against female employees, women's groups have been silent and the New Democratic Party has been silent.
I want to know if the Minister responsible for the Status of Women is also going to be silent and, if not, what is she going to do to protect these employees from the disgusting tactics by the president of PSAC?


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to advise the hon. member that the whole subject of what was or was not said by the person in question was the subject of extensive debate this morning. The Chair is seized with it. I have already said in answer to a question some days ago that this may not even lie in the realm of the administration of government. I think we should leave it until I can deal with it.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
It has been a week now since the hon. minister met the government Quebec caucus and then the government apparently in terms of the public domain changed its mind on the question of a referendum.
In view of some conflicting remarks made by the Minister of National Health and Welfare on Friday in Quebec City and by the Prime Minister over the weekend in a couple of speeches about a referendum, can the minister state clearly and unequivocally today in the House that the question or the issue of a referendum is still one of the options of the federal Government of Canada? If so, when can this House see the introduction of that legislation?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I sometimes think I have fewer disagreements in my caucus than the hon. member has in his.
I can certainly assure him that that option remains one of the means by which the government could carry out its obligation in the throne speech to provide a mechanism of consultation with Canadians. We have decided that no bill will be introduced into the House before Christmas.

Government Orders
We have not yet decided upon a timetable for the introduction of such legislation as we might propose.
What we are looking for is a means that will give Canadians that opportunity in a way that will be entirely constructive in achieving consensus in the country on constitutional change.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 1991, be read the third time and passed; and on the amendment of Mr. Walker (p. 5662).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to stand in the House and address the whole question of Bill C-20.
I will attempt to show that it is a brutal and insensitive piece of legislation. It is divisive.

I would go even further. It is tearing the country apart. It is misleading. It is inadequate legislation. It simply will not work. It will never ever be accepted.

Before I get into those particular details to prove those particular points, I just want to summarize very quickly the contents of the bill to remind viewers and my colleagues that it deals with the capping and the freezing of transfers to provinces in health, education, social assistance in terms of three provinces and increases to the unemployment insurance premiums as well as to the freezing of the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. Those revenues would normally go to the provinces.
I also want to make the next point which I think is very important. We are talking about $36 billion in transfers if one looks at cash and tax points. That is a great deal of money. It is an amount of money that our provinces and
our territories really need in order to carry on everyday life in terms of government and in order to ensure that Canadian citizens, wherever they happen to live, get the kinds of programs to which they are entitled.
They are talking about $24 billion in cash, $12 billion in tax transfer points and we are talking with respect to Established Programs Financing, that is funding for health and education in the neighbourhood of $20 billion. With respect to equalization, it is approximately $8 billion and with regard to Canada Assistance, it is about $6 billion, that is the social assistance programs. Of course, there are other categories that may amount to close to $3 billion. As I indicated previously, it is a lot of money.
I started by saying that this was not appropriate legislation at this particular point in time. One would expect that from a member of the opposition, but let me share with you some statements that have been made by others.
There is a press release from the Government of Canada, the National Council of Welfare, entitled "Cash payments for medicare and higher education in jeopardy". I did not say that. The National Council of Welfare and the Government of Canada said that.
I have another communique. This time, it is from the Canada Council on Social Development. What does it say? "Federal budget may destroy Canada's social system". This was said by the Canada Council on Social Development.
Here is yet another in a Citizen article, a recent one: "Group's fear of breakdown of national programs". There is a journalist who is looking at it after having talked to people, after having studied this situation, and that is the judgment that is rendered.
I will refer, finally, to one more article from The Globe and Mail dated November 28, 1991. It is entitled Plan to preserve medicare risky under law MPs are told. What has happened here? Basically, the government has noticed that it will no longer be transferring dollars, that is cash, to provinces for health and education, particularly for health.
What it has done is within that particular bill it has a section that intends to withhold other kinds of payments in the event that the provinces do not respond to the standards that are expected of the federal government.
December 3, 1991

What kinds of hold-outs could there be? What kinds of demands might there be? The federal government might attack the equalization payments which are in the neighbourhood of $8.4 billion. It might go to territorial financing which is in excess of $1 billion. It might attack grants in lieu of taxes to provincial and municipal governments by the federal government. These amount to $344 million. They could in fact if they chose go to public utilities, income tax, transfer payments, and that represents $260 million, or statutory subsidies to the oldest kind of transfer payment in the neighbourhood of $36 million. The government could in fact attack the Canada Assistance Plan, over $6 billion, or the crop insurance program, $297 million. I think it is $207 million in the current year.
These are the kinds of programs that the government could hold back payments on and here are some others. The government could in fact go to the official languages and education program where there was $243 million that was given to provinces last year, or miscellaneous health and welfare which amounted to $170 million, or the young offenders' services for $158 million, or justice transfers for $77 million, and finally transfers in the domain of transportation for $69 million.
This is what this bill could in fact lead the government to do. That is if the provinces were not to use the funds that they get, the tax transfer points that they get, in the way the federal government wanted them to do so.
Therefore we have students, young offenders, farmers, business people, women, and many many others who could in fact be penalized as a result of a provincial government's inability or unwillingness to respond to the criteria and the standards that are set by the federal government with regard to the utilization of health care funds.
I started off by saying that I considered this particular bill, C-20, to be brutal and insensitive. Why did I say that? I think it ignores the realities of today. I have spoken before as have many of my colleagues about the poor in this nation, over 5 million at this very moment who are living at or below the level of poverty, most of whom are women, and many of whom are senior citizens, and over 1 million of whom are children. I talked about
Government Orders
the people receiving social assistance, 2 million as we speak right now, about the people who would be fed par des banques alimentaires, 1.8 million people this year in Canada, almost 1.5 million people who in fact are receiving unemployment insurance. The list goes on and on and on.
Why brutal and insensitive? Because which of those particular people in those groups will be receiving any particular assistance from this kind of legislation? Not one single one.
What else will happen? The contributing provinces, provinces such as Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, which contribute funds to the rest of Canada in order to even out the unevenness in terms of wealth so that other Canadians can receive basic services and health, education, social assistance, and what have you so that the quality of life is more or less the same, are suffering too. They are suffering too. Yet they have been capped with respect to social assistance expenditures.
How does that make them feel? On the one hand they have paid off huge sums of money. On the other hand they are being capped additionally. The resentment is growing not only in these provinces but it is creating two classes of people, that class which contributes, the class which receives, and there is growing tension and conflict. As well it is leading to the small and those who are weaker economically becoming even weaker, that is they are not able to offer the essentials of the quality of life.
There will be additional suffering.

Unfortunately, this bill does absolutely nothing for these people, whether we are talking about the poor, people who get their food from food banks, the unemployed or people on welfare.

I also said that this particular bill was divisive. Yes, it is. It is increasingly so because some of our wealthier provinces are able to spend more in spite of the fact that they are having difficult times, for example in their hospitals or their post-secondary educational institutions, so we are establishing different classes of colleges and universities. How would you feel, Mr. Speaker, how would we all feel if our particular universities and

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colleges in our provinces could not offer the same kinds of quality programs that are offered elsewhere.
There is province against province, university against university, college against college, region against region, and I have already indicated that Ontario, B.C., and Alberta sometimes feel as if they are against the rest of Canada.

I think it is too bad we are seeing region against region, that some institutions are being neglected by the federal government in terms of funding and are no longer able to provide the services they want to provide, such as health care, education and social assistance. We are creating one class of people who are more or less well off and another class of people who are definitely not well off, and I think the gap between the two is growing at an alarming rate.

I also said initially that this particular bill was misleading. Why did I say it was misleading? There is a very strong suggestion on the part of government that it is being done to control the deficit and the debt. We heard it again today. We know that the deficit is in the neighbourhood of $30 billion. No one is happy about that. We know that the debt is in excess of $400 billion. Certainly we are saddened by that. What is really extremely offensive is that the government suggests that it is at that particular height size, call it what you will, level, because of the deficit and the debt that it inherited from the previous administration.
I am sorry, that is not true. I have a signed letter from the former Minister of Finance, the Minister for International Trade, indicating that the debt in the year in which the government took over power was less than $168 billion. Factor in the interest rates since then and there is no way that it built up to $400 billion. I have done it, I have had others do it. I guess it is a kind of misleading statement, that effort to try to lay the blame on others rather than to say: "Look, we have made some mistakes, here are some of them, here is what we are trying to do in order to correct them".
It is misleading because what will this particular bill do? What have previous cuts done to reduce the deficit and the debt? Canadians see no evidence of it. They
have had well over 30 tax increases, including the hated goods and services tax. They are paying more than ever before. The middle class is being bludgeoned, the poor are even poorer, and those at the top of the salary scale are getting away with more and more. People out there are saying: When is it going to stop?
They would not be nearly as offended if they could see progress being made, if they could see the deficit being lowered, the debt being lowered, if they could see their jobs being secure, their future in terms of pensions being realized-now they worry as to whether or not they will ever be able to get them-see their sons and daughters with opportunities for a good education, for a meaningful job where they will be able to develop their total talent and contribute fully to this country, indeed the whole world. Then they would be less alarmed, then they would be less offended.

Unfortunately, this bill does too little. It gives every indication that it will do something to reduce the deficit and the debt but, unfortunately, that is not the case. There is no evidence to support that claim. If we look at all the increases we have had since 1984-and I believe it was 34-we have not made any headway. We have slipped back. Take, for instance, the debt as a percentage of the Gross National Product. This ratio has changed drastically since 1984. There has been negative growth, which does nothing for us, for Parliament, for government or the country.

My final point when I first introduced the bill in order to address it was it will not work. Why will it not work? Already we know it is being contested, and that is a very poor start for any piece of legislation. We know that it will create further animosity. I pointed out that the provinces are being capped, they are not happy because they are suffering. Look at the province of Ontario, the number of bankruptcies, the number of unemployed, the number of people on social assistance, and somehow this capping suggests to Ontario, to B.C. or to Alberta that they have it good.
They do not have it good. They are having serious difficulties, as is the rest of Canada. What will happen? There will be additional intolerance, animosity and anger that will be generated as a result of this particular
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treatment. What will our young people say when they know full well that there will be no more dollars for health as their parents get older or for themselves as they reach the age when they need more medical care? As they want to go on to college and university, they see that the opportunities are slipping for an education or jobs or for a meaningful future. How will they respond? How could they possibly contribute fully?
Surely we all sense the great disappointment not only in this piece of legislation but in many other decisions that have been taken which limit the quality of life for our citizens throughout Canada whether we speak of health care, education, social assistance or a number of other areas.

As I said when I started my speech, I wish I were wrong. I wish I were wrong about my predictions that this bill will not work, will not produce the results it was intended to produce, at least the ones the government said it was intended to produce, in other words, reduce the deficit and the debt and try and establish a much sounder system than the one we have today, in order to put our economy on a sound footing, so that we can establish those social programs that respond to the needs of Canadians. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I simply wish to repeat that I think it is too bad that this bill does not address the real problems of Canadians today. I find this bill harsh and insensitive, even improper; it will foster more division. It offers too little and it will not work at all. It tries to give the impression that cuts will improve Canadians' economic situation, although that is not so.
I will complete my speech with one remark. We heard it in the House of Commons yesterday, and in the Citizen today, there is an article which says:

"Tighten Belts, MP Tells Premiers". I suppose that one of the more offensive things that the government has done is to suggest that it has been controlling the expenditures of the federal government when we all know that it has been putting them off on the backs of
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the provinces and the territories and every single man and woman who is paying taxes.
I said it before and I want to say it again. It is very easy to control one's expenses when you give them to someone else. I have debts and if I were able to walk around and share them with my colleagues here in the House I would walk out of the House debt free. I expect I would get some resistance by the way. But that is what has happened.
The government says it has controlled the expenditures in the neighbourhood of 3 per cent. That is no wonder. It has given all of its expenses to the provincial governments and then on to the hospitals, the universities, the colleges and then to the students and the patients and what have you.
I see this kind of statement: "Tighten Belts, MP Tells Premiers" as misleading. That is the kindest word that comes to mind and I could think of others that are much less kind. It does not tell the whole truth. I think it is part of the malaise that exists in our country today and that is why the citizen out there is less than confident about political parties and politicians. That is why the citizen out there really wants a fundamental change, a change which will lead to fierce debate about the ideas and the issues. I am sure Canadians throughout the nation welcome that. They also want accurate information so that they can make the judgments as to who is right and who is wrong.
I rest my case. I say that Bill C-20 is regressive. It will not fulfil the objectives that the government stated or left unstated. It will not curb the deficit or the debt. It will disappoint a lot of people: the poor, the unemployed, the people who have to go to food banks, those who are on social assistance, and all of those other Canadians who are dependent or will be dependent upon medical treatment. It will also disappoint those who will want an education, a better job and a retirement with some dignity.

I would be so pleased if the government would consider the points made by my colleagues and me with a view to changing some aspects of the bill and maybe government policy as well.

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Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate my colleague for St. Boniface on an excellent presentation. I would like to build on what my colleague was discussing.
The reason why Bill C-20 was introduced was to allow the government to deal with its budget of February 26, 1991. I would like to talk about one segment of that particular budget. It deals with the transfer payments to the provinces in the area of post-secondary education.
If the government follows its plan there will be no transfer payments to the provinces in both health care and post-secondary education by the year 2004.
This is very alarming. In a way it is in contradiction with what the government is presently talking about in its constitutional proposals, in particular the proposals that deal with learning and our ability to compete internationally.
It is unfair for the federal government on one hand to talk about the importance of education and on the other hand cut transfer payments. The provinces on their own as well as the municipalities and the school boards cannot carry on with the existing workload without some federal government support.
"There has been a cut of $485 million from the 1991 educational budget. When you look at the federal government training and educational contributions it has dropped by 4.6 per cent. Compare that with the amount of increase in government spending which is in the amount of 4.3 per cent. On one hand you have the spending in certain areas having been increased while on the other hand when it comes to education and spending on learning and training, it has decreased.
Between 1984 and 1986 the federal government slashed approximately $9.5 billion in transfer payments to the provinces. As we move forward there seems to be less and less commitment by the federal government toward education and the provinces.
While there has been a decrease in funding for education, we see the student costs have been on the rise. Looking at post-secondary education, Statistic Canada reports that in the province of Ontario alone the tuition fees have increased by approximately 53.5 per cent between 1983-84 and 1990-91. Where there has been an increase in tuition fees and costs of education
there has been a decrease in federal contributions toward post-secondary education.
Consider the cost of student accommodation across Canada. In my riding alone the cost of residence fees has increased between 40.6 and 176 per cent since 1984-85. For example, six years ago a room in residence at one of the two universities used to rent for somewhere between $1,127 and $1,326 a year. Now they are rented at a cost of approximately $1,600 to $3,600. My colleague from Newfoundland says "incredible".
On top of the cost of living increases, the federal government has introduced a 3 per cent tax on student loans and applied the GST to books. This has added at least a few hundred dollars to many students' financial burden and has hit hardest those of middle or low income.
The government has decreased its funding to education, and that is extremely clear in Bill C-20 with its implications. You must look at the area of research and development, for example, and what the government said in 1984 and what has happened since then. In 1984 the government made a commitment to double the percentage of the gross domestic product spent on research and development. But what has happened, in fact, is the amount of money spent on research and development has decreased from 1.42 per cent in 1985 to 1.36 per cent in 1990.
So that tells us as we move into the 20th century that the federal government is investing less and less in the area of research and development and education.
We are going to be faced with an alarming situation over the next few years. By the year 2030, one in every four Canadians will be a senior citizen, compared to one in every ten now. By the end of the century, senior citizens will represent approximately 13 per cent of the population and youth will represent about 9.4 per cent. The reason why I say this is because I want you to know that our tax base is shrinking as a result of the fact that we have a lot less people now who are paying taxes than we used to have in the past and we will have even less in the future than we have right now.
Because of this shrinkage in the tax base, we are going to see more pressure on the infrastructures such as our health care system and our social welfare system. Those seniors will need more care and assistance. As a result of
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that the government will have to look at ways to generate more revenue.
In my view, one way is to invest in the areas of education and research and development, rather than cutting down. I will elaborate on that by mentioning only the question of productivity in Canada.
If we look at the productivity of Canada's work force, we find that it has lagged behind the other economically advanced countries. A high percentage of our work force, as you know, is illiterate to some degree and unable to cope with new technology. The problem is especially serious in light of the current shift in world trade. Resource commodities, which are Canada's economic mainstay, are being replaced by information and knowledge-intensive goods.
Speaking again about productivity in terms of our work force, we compare Canada's productivity growth with that of the G-7 countries. We score very miserably in key sector of international competitiveness. For example, in 1990 Canada ranked well below the middle among 23 countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum. The forum looked at factors such as international orientation, managerial initiative and the quantity of skilled labour.
International comparisons in general have shown that we are investing enough to remain competitive as long as the skills our students learn are relevant. Obviously, that investment is not giving us the return that we are expecting from it.
The reason I say that is because nearly 40 per cent of the Canadian population has difficulty reading, writing and doing basic math tasks. In comparison, Japan's rate of illiteracy has been estimated to be less than 1 per cent, in West Germany it is less than 4 per cent and in the United Kingdom it is less than 6 per cent.
Obviously we have a situation where national attention is required if we are to really deal with the questions of productivity, reducing the deficit and competing internationally.
That supports the fact that the federal government should not be making cuts in the areas of research and development, training and education; it should be investing in them.
A 1990 study released by the Conference Board of Canada has found that illiteracy hinders companies from
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bringing in new technology, such as computer or high-tech equipment. That study found-and my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood is carefully listening to this as the critic for small business-that almost one-third of the 626 companies surveyed said that illiteracy had significantly slowed down work or caused quality control problems because workers could not understand instructions.
Also, the Canadian Business Task Force on Illiteracy estimates that the cost to our Canadian society is approximately $10 billion a year and the cost to business itself is approximately $4 billion a year. The government is really barking up the wrong tree.
We are cutting back in areas which in my view we should be investing in more. We are cutting back in those areas thinking that we will reduce and control the deficit. That is similar to someone who might, as I said many times before, sell the furniture in order to pay the rent. The other way should be true. The government should set up a fairly aggressive strategy in terms of investing and call it investment. Do not call it expenditure because it is not an expenditure. Call it an investment and move on.
There are other areas where the government is not investing. Those areas are adult training and education, as I mentioned before, but also I want to just mention the question of training. The government seems to be talking about it quite a bit lately.
There is an alarming situation where the average Canadian worker participated in 6.7 hours of formal training in 1988. By contrast an Australian worker received 17 hours, a Swede received 170 hours, and a Japanese 200 hours annually in terms of training. We should compare ourselves to other countries around the world in the area of investment in training. This is a shocking figure where the government is not investing in the training of the work force.
That very same work force is going to move us into the next century and help us to be competitive internationally. It is going to provide the taxes and the revenues that our government will need in order to support our needy population.
Also, it is really interesting that only one-third of Canadian companies provide any training to employees at all. Of course they cannot provide enough training to

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employees because there is not enough investment on the part of the government. There are not enough incentives on the part of the government. There is not enough involvement on the part of the government in the area of training. Yes, there are certain programs out there, but those programs are not doing enough. Those programs are not doing the job.
In the Conference Board survey, 75 per cent of companies reported basic problems with literacy. The government will invest some money in the area of literacy over the next five years and some of my colleagues mentioned that the amount of money that is spent literally comes to a few dollars per illiterate. That certainly is not enough investment in the area of illiteracy.
What we have to do is invest more in the area of education and not less. Look for instance at what we spend on adult training or teaching. We spend approximately $5 billion and that is roughly about one-eighth of the amount invested in formal education. But when we are facing other countries, we see that they are increasing their investment on an annual basis, not reducing it.
For example, Germany has increased its expenditures on training by 45 per cent in the last three years. Germany has acknowledged that to move into the 21st century, it has to do something really drastic. It has acknowledged that the international barriers to world trade have been removed. It has acknowledged that the number one country in the world will be the one that deals with the question of education aggressively, that treats education as a priority, and treats training as a priority, so it is investing more.
Japan for example is also increasing its spending on an annual basis at an incredible rate. I do not have the figures, but I presume they are doing more there than we are here in Canada.
Look at this and compare it to what our experts in our government are telling us. I want to look at just the Department of Employment and Immigration that rightly predicts that many of the low-skill jobs in the next century will simply disappear. We will not have any more jobs that an unskilled individual can do. The reasons for that are automation, globalization of trade, and the
growing importance of the service sector, which is just beginning. There is a shift and we are losing a lot of our industry that used to use primitive technology. They are simply disappearing off the map and are replaced with industry that is using high-tech equipment. But when you use high-tech equipment you need more or less high-tech employees to be able to work on that equipment and read the instructions.
Obviously, with the quality of workers that we have now they cannot do it on their own. They need the support of the government. They need investment on the part of the government so they can catch up and move on into the next century, fully equipped with the knowledge that they need.
The reason I brought those figures to your attention is to tell you that Bill C-20 in a way does put a cap on and gives the wrong signal, not to the provinces or the universities or the municipalities, but to society as a whole. We are telling society that we have a difficult situation here. We do not have the money and we are not going to do anything about it.
In my view, that is the wrong approach.
Even if we have to mortgage the House of Commons, the government should do it in order to invest in areas such as education, training and combating illiteracy. That mortgage will be removed fairly soon and we will have not only a House of Commons mortgage-free, but also a society that is fully equipped to move into the 21st century and compete not only in North America but all around the world. We could move Canada from where we are right now into the leading edge.
I want to leave with one single statement, said by Lewis Perleman of the Hudson Institute. He wrote in the December 1990 edition of Business Week, and I quote: "Because knowledge is the steel of the post industrial economy, this-".


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Your time is over.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-Tbinity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my hon. friend for Ottawa Centre for a very wide ranging speech in the areas of health and education, particularly in education. It was an expose of some of the things that this Bill C-20 will do. I think the essence of his message is that it is very
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short-sighted when we on the one hand are doing this and on the other hand are producing reports that say we are not competitive because we are not educating people properly, particularly when we are dealing with countries like Japan and Germany. If there is any message that has been a resounding, repetitive and reinforced message, and I have listened to the most of the presentations in this House, it is really along those lines.
Not to be lost in the seriousness of what the hon. member for Ottawa Centre brings out, I just want to bring to the attention of the House that there are 14 or 15 payments that are going to be cut out of provinces. It is the payment for medicare as well as post-secondary education that concerns me as a member for Newfoundland. It is horrible to read a report called Funding Health and Higher Education, Danger Looming. I have part of this report here. It says that within a few years, unless new fiscal arrangements are made, the provinces and the territories will run out of money for health and education.
That is frightening. I will give some idea of what is involved here. When this government started to cut the EPF back in 1986 it was fairly modest. It was $100 million for that year. If we follow the trend that is now taking place, it will reach $16 billion by the end of the century. The cumulative loss to the provinces at that time will be almost $100 billion.
Let me tell you what the report says. The figures are startling. I see the minister of health will be listening to this as well.
They project that the federal cash payments to Quebec will be gone by 1996. That is only a few years from now. Cash payments to Ontario will end by fiscal year 2002. The last federal cash payment to any province or territory, having stopped with Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and all the other provinces, will take place to the Yukon territories in fiscal year 2008 and 2009.
I think that is unacceptable. I see a lot of members on both sides of the House shaking their heads. They cannot believe it. People who are watching these presentations go back to when this budget was introduced in February and are saying: "Is this coming back to haunt us?" This is the bill that will make that budget law. I think many of us, if not most of us on this side of the House are going
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to oppose it and we are giving our signals right now to that extent.


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, not only do I agree with my colleague's intervention 100 per cent, but I would just like to bring to the attention of the House that the national health care act is one of the finest initiatives that we have embarked on in the past 20 or 30 years.
When the national health care act was introduced it was well thought out. It is still one of the finest acts to be found anywhere in the world. Even in the United States they are looking at our model for health care and they are trying to adopt it.
It is really amazing when we see that there are people in our society now who are trying to move away from it.


An hon. member:: They are trying to destroy it.


Mac Harb: They are trying to destroy it, thinking that by abandoning the existing health care system we are doing someone a favour. In reality, by abandoning the infrastructure we put into place 20 years ago we are not serving the best interest of Canadians. We have to maintain our health care system. We have to build on the strengths of the health care system and not detract from it and obviously the government budget does just that.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Mr. Speaker, the member for Ottawa Centre has made a very important point today on productivity.
There is absolutely no way we can create a labour force in this country which will ultimately produce the wealth that is going to be required to meet the future deficit and debt challenges that face this country.
I think the hon. member for Ottawa Centre has made the point quite clearly that the government is not reflecting and analysing this issue closely enough. If we create a motivated, productive, skilled labour force then we will have the capacity to face the deficit and debt that face this nation.
Time after time when the hon. member for Ottawa Centre stands in this House he repeats the point on illiteracy that must be challenged in this country and that more money has to be put into education and training. My question to my colleague is: What are we going to do in order to communicate or to rattle the thought process of this government to consider other options or other

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approaches than the one it is currently on which is obviously not working?


Mac Harb: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood for his excellent intervention.
As our leader mentioned at the Aylmer conference, the answer to that is to set up a national education standard. That is one way to deal with the problem, and in my view it is the only way we can deal with the problem.
My colleague mentioned the question of training. Obviously his question was well thought out. I am at a loss. We are at the point where we have a deficiency when it comes to our work force. Why is the federal government in its constitutional proposal talking about passing on the question of training to the provinces without any sort of a standard for training, without entertaining the possibility of a standard for training all across the country. It would remove any kind of a disparity. If somebody is receiving training in Newfoundland or if somebody is receiving training in another part of the country, they will both receive the same type of training without the difficulties they might be faced with in the different parts of the country.
In answer to the question, I too am at a loss in terms of the government's rationale when it comes to dealing with the question of training, with the question of reducing the deficit, and with the question of improving productivity.
I want to thank my colleague from Broadview- Greenwood, the small business critic who always raises the same question over and over again, that we have to set up a strategy. I think I would like to join with him in saying that maybe it is time for the government to start listening.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, Bill C-20 is not the first time that this government has participated in further cutbacks to the provinces for health and post-secondary funding, but in dealing with this bill we see clearly the philosophical gap between this government and most Canadians. We see a gap which most Canadians would urge the government to close. We see a situation that indicates that the
government is clearly not in step with the wishes, desires and aspirations of other Canadians.
In Canada we have something which separates us from many other countries. It particularly separates us from the United States. We have joint federal and provincial fundings and commitments to health care, to post-secondary education, to our social safety net, and to our unemployment insurance program among others.
In other words we have a sort of social contract across Canada. Canadians expect and anticipate that their governments, provincial or federal, will participate in health care, will participate in post-secondary education and will participate in the social safety net. They will not only participate in those programs, but they will work to enhance them and improve them, not work to undermine them.
What we have seen across this country are provincial Liberal and Conservative governments that have undermined those programs, that have cut funding to health care, education and social assistance. We have seen a federal government which has consistently since 1984 undermined those very programs which are so important to most Canadians.
These programs, the federal and provincial support programs for health care, post-secondary education and for our social safety net, are important to Canadians because they make important statements about what sort of country Canada is and about who we are as Canadians.
They say that Canada as a country cares about its citizens when times are tough. It cares about its citizens when they are sick. It encourages and helps its citizens to obtain the highest level of education possible so that they can go on to make a valuable contribution to society.
The programs that Bill C-20 undermines are programs which are very important to Canadians.
In addition to cutting funding to the provinces for health care and education, this bill also increases the costs to employees and employers of the unemployment insurance fund, a fund which is designed to protect Canadians when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own and need some assistance in order to survive through the period before they get their next job, hopefully. It would provide them with the assistance to feed their families and keep their homes together.
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The undermining of the commitment by the federal government to the unemployment insurance fund, cutting back on its funding, making it more difficult for Canadians to obtain unemployment insurance and forcing Canadians to have that protection for a shorter period of time, all those things are as a result of reductions in the federal government's commitment to unemployment insurance and have hurt ordinary Canadians severely.
When Bill C-20 was in committee, all the witnesses who came before the committee told the committee that this was a bill that would hurt ordinary Canadians. It would hurt our health care system. It would hurt our post-secondary education system and it would hurt Canadians who would be in need of unemployment insurance from time to time. Every group pointed out that this could be another nail in the coffin of medicare in this country. The freezing of contributions to the provinces for yet more years, the underfunding which has already taken place, the deterioration of our health care system which is already clear across the country to anyone who wants to go and see it, and the longer line-ups for surgery for health care, all these things will be made worse as a result of Bill C-20. All the witnesses who came before the committee advised the committee of that.
Those groups that came as witnesses were those who were closest to the issues, those who worked in the health care system or those who worked in the education system. They were those who worked on a daily basis with Canadians in sickness and in circumstances of poverty and unemployment. These groups understand those problems and understand how hard it is for so many Canadians to feed their families and to make ends meet. They who knew advised the committee to scrap Bill C-20, advised the government to scrap Bill C-20, and called upon the government to enhance its commitment to these very important social programs which separate Canada from our neighbour to the south.
Why did these groups point out the problems of these further cuts? It is not just because they do not understand the deficit. They clearly do understand the deficit. We all understand the extent to which the financial
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resources of the country are strained. But the critics of Bill C-20, those who want to keep our health care system as good as it possibly can be and to enhance our post-secondary education system, want the system to be as good as it can be because they see it as the only way to have the country go forward.
In these days when the government is continuing to tell us how important it is to be productive and how important it is to be competitive in a world economy, we cannot in the same breath cut funding to post-secondary education. It makes no sense on the one hand to argue for us to be competitive and on the other hand to take away the tools which will enable us to be competitive.
Cutting funding to the provinces for post-secondary education is cutting back on our ability to compete in the future, cutting back on our ability to survive in the future and cutting back on the opportunity for Canadians to participate in the economy in as effective a way as they possibly can. By cutting back on funding to post-secondary education we undermine the very tool which can enable us to pay off the deficit, to pay off the debt, to get the country moving again.
The better educated Canadians are, the more likely they are to be working. By cutting back on post-secondary education we ensure that many more will be unemployed. It is a backward way of trying to deal with this particular problem.
What about health care? It comes back to health care. Canadians know that if they are sick they do not lose everything. They have security. Their health care will be looked after no matter how serious the problem is. They will not suffer some financial catastrophe as a result of becoming sick.
By speeding up the time at which cash from the federal government to the provincial governments will be cut back, will be ended, by speeding up the process of the ending of cash transfers to the provinces, this government takes away from itself an opportunity to ensure that the health care system can be as good as it can be. It takes away the opportunity to punish the provinces if they do not provide a comprehensive, universally available, portable and publicly administered health care system.
It will undermine the ability to maintain the quality and accessibility of our health care system the more the

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government cuts back on funding. Bill C-20 has important implications. Extending the ceiling on contributions from the federal government to the provinces for health care has important implications to the equality and accessibility of our health care system.
In addition, as I mentioned we have in this particular bill added costs to employees and employers as a result of changes to the unemployment insurance program. We have already seen the program being more difficult to enter. Those Canadians who are out of work are finding it more difficult to claim unemployment insurance. They cannot claim it for as long. Now we are seeing in this bill that they are going to have to pay more for the privilege; not only workers but businesses too. The implication for businesses are serious in this time of deep recession. It is not a time to add to the costs of running a small business in Canada by forcing those businesses to pay more for the unemployment insurance program.
We have all these program cuts which will in the end, as we have seen already because the program cuts have been in place for some time and we have seen the implications of those programs, continue to make it more difficult for Canada to pull out of the economic mess it is in. One of the arguments the government uses is that the provincial governments are in a better financial situation than the federal government and so they should share the burden of the federal deficit. In the five years leading up to 1994-95, Saskatchewan will as a result of this bill lose $348 million.
In Saskatchewan, as you know, the change of government took place a month ago and the new NDP government has been investigating the finances of the former Conservative government, a government which followed the same economic policies as this federal government has been pursuing. The debt in Saskatchewan-and of course they are still adding it up because it is not always so easy to find- is now in excess of $13 billion in a province of less than one million people because of the mismanagement and the misguided policies of the previous Conservative government. We have record farm, business and personal bankruptcies; 80,000 people, almost 10 per cent of the population of the province, left Saskatchewan since 1982; and yet on top of all of these problems, on top of all of these record difficulties, the federal government is deciding to cut back further on funding to Saskatchewan, to cut back $348 million over the next five years for health care and
post-secondary education alone. What is the point of attacking Saskatchewan citizens, Saskatchewan people who may become sick, Saskatchewan students? What is the point in attacking them further when already, as I said, they are suffering from record farm, business and personal bankruptcies and people are leaving the province at record rates?
All this will do is make the situation worse, make the situation harder for those Canadians who live in Saskatchewan. Of course, Saskatchewan is merely a reflection of the other provinces. They are all being made to suffer. The residents of the provinces are being made to suffer as a result of this government's commitment to pay off the deficit on the backs of ordinary Canadians.
Of course, we should not let the record before this government go unnoticed. We have heard and we will continue to hear many speeches from the Official Opposition about how severe these cuts are, how they undermine the ability of the country to function and to pull out of this recession. But just a few short years ago, the last decade, Liberal governments did exactly the same thing, from 1975 when a ceiling was put on federal contributions to medicare with the introduction of block funding and the end of the 50/50 cost sharing in 1977, to the removal of the revenue guarantee in 1982. All those things made an important contribution to the reduction in quality and accessibility of our health care system.
In government, the Official Opposition, the Liberal Party, began this process which the new government took on itself with a great deal of vigour. This sequence of events followed one after the other, the Liberal cuts followed by the Conservative cuts. All the time, of course, ordinary Canadians were made to suffer.
The time has come to invest in the future, to invest in Canada, to invest in Canadians. There are other approaches than this ratcheting down of the economy that this government is pursuing. There are other approaches than cutting back on social services, cutting back on health care, at a time when people need them most, cutting back on post-secondary education when that is the one way that we will be able to get out of our economic difficulties.
There are other ways. There are other ways being followed by other countries which have been successful in dealing with the problems we are facing. Look at

either the Japanese example or at a country like Austria, which has followed a full employment policy, which has ensured very low levels of unemployment, which has controlled inflation, which has controlled its currency value to a desirable level, which has dealt with foreign ownership in an effective way, which has addressed the investment problems and research problems and so on of its economy, a country like that took the creation of unemployment as its main goal in economic policy and it built everything else around that.
There was not an ignoring of inflation, an ignoring of the currency, and so on, ignoring of other economic indicators. There was a clear recognition that the way to fix the economy was to make sure that people were working, to follow a full employment policy. Neither the Liberal federal government nor the Conservative government has ever pursued a full employment policy and neither have the provinces. None of them have put unemployment as the first order of business.
We see inflation as a problem. What do we see Liberal and Conservative governments doing across the country? They create unemployment to reduce inflation. Ordinary Canadians pay the price for government policies which have not worked.
The way to deal with all of these issues in those countries which have followed full employment policies is, of course, to deal with these matters in a co-operative way with business, government and labour sitting down together to deal with the critical economic issues of the day. That works in Scandinavian countries and, as I say, in Austria. It provides people with security, it provides people with jobs and it provides people with a participation in the decision-making process.
The last point I want to make is that if we have those full employment policies, if we have Canadians working, they can provide for their families. They can buy the food they need. They can provide the housing they need. They do not need to have them provided by a social safety net.
They will of course at times need the social safety net. They might be unemployed at different times in their lives and they will need the security, the cushion of an unemployment insurance program. By working, they will
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be able to provide for the services, provide for the things they need.
The only way to ensure that Canadians have what they need in terms of food, shelter and so on for their families is to provide them with a job. It is time that this government dispensed with these economic policies that are not working. They are not working anywhere in the world, as we can so clearly see. It is time we dispensed with those policies and took on policies which put people first, not large corporations first, and developed and put forward strongly a full employment policy so that people can work in Canada and people can provide the services they need.
It is not the solution to crank down on social services, to crank down on education, to crank down on health care funding to the provinces. It is quite clear the provinces cannot sustain those programs at the level of quality that is required in Canada.
It is time for this government to put Canadians first, to invest in the future, to invest in Canada and to invest in Canadians.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, I want to say again, as I do on every occasion, how privileged I am to rise in this House on debate, specifically on this important Bill C-20.
Bill C-20 has rung many alarm bells across this country because of its implications for that most venerable of our social policies, medicare. It also has implications of course for post-secondary education and it is tied into the effort the Conservative government has been trying to make toward eradicating illiteracy.
These two areas of responsibility are of course under provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government is able to direct the policies because it pays the bills. We pay the bills. The legislation before us moves the federal government away from its monetary commitments in these areas. The implications for the continuation of these programs remains grim to say the least under this government.
We have to ask ourselves: If there is less money coming from the federal government to the provinces to support these programs of which I speak, is the federal government still able to direct national standards? The message from Canadians, from my constituents in Hamilton West, I believe is that they do not want the

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federal government to abandon its traditional role in supporting these programs and enforcing national standards. The government must continue to support in fiscal and policy areas full national standards.
The main purpose of this bill is to put into effect the provision to extend the freeze on Established Programs Financing or transfers, as we like to call them, to the provinces until the year 1995. It is the former Minister of Finance's legacy to this country.
It is medicare that would be most effective under this scheme because of the way it is treated under the governing statute of medicare, the Canada Health Act.
My concern and that of my constituents to whom I have spoken as recently as today is the impact this bill, Bill C-20, will have on our treasured and highly respected social and health and education programs. Bill C-20 is the government's big-stick approach, a deliberate attack on, among other things, the very future of the medicare system in our country.
Canadians are proud of their social systems, especially medicare. We are familiar with the difference between our health care system and the health care system we witness in the United States. People need to have huge amounts of insurance coverage because health care as we all know is so very expensive there. In Canada we take it for granted.
I do not mean that in a negative way. What I mean is that there is a medicare system there for us to rely on wherever and whenever we need it. Of course this makes it universal in scope.
It is that veiy universality that is under attack in this particular piece of legislation, Bill C-20. Health care is a provincial responsibility, but the federal government calls the shots on how it is to be organized because it has the money. The less money that the federal government has at its disposal to expend, the less clout it is going to have enforcing provisions of the Canada Health Care Act.
Let us imagine for just a moment the worst case scenario in a breakdown of this system we are speaking about. This would be where in one less affluent province health care resources would be extremely strained. In another more affluent province, health care would have greater resources. What is the end result? It would create a system that would no longer be universal from
coast to coast to coast, but a patchwork quilt where good health care depended upon what part of the country you lived in.
The concerns that are coming out of my constituency are very real. The health care act, our public medicare system of course is one of the cornerstones, one of the building blocks of this great nation. As I mentioned earlier, I had a chance to speak with some of the hospital administrators in my riding.
In Hamilton we are proud, we boast, that we have the Hamilton Civic Hospitals, that is Henderson Hospital and the General. We boast that we have St. Joseph's Hospital in the downtown core. We have, of course, the Chedoke McMaster Hospital. Many a member in this Chamber I am sure is familiar with the McMaster University Medical Centre.
What are they are saying? If you want a direct quote from one of them I will give it to you. "Because of the financial situation we are in this year, we are survivable". Survivable. "Next year it is going to be a bitch".
Why? Probably because they foresee in their budgets a deficit that will be created next year and probably stay with us for three years, they say. A deficit of $5 million to $9 million is the possible in 1992. That is on a budget of just over $220 million.
What do they need at these hospitals in Hamilton to sustain the services and the programs they have initiated for next year? They say they need between 6 per cent and 7 per cent. That would maintain the current services and programs where they are today.
Because of cutbacks in transfer payments, reassessments, et cetera, they are guessing that they are going to get an increase, not of 6 and 7 per cent, but of only 2 per cent. What is that going to result in? The answer is obvious. It is going to impact on our programs and our services. It will mean cutbacks.
We heard from other members from the Toronto area where those cutbacks are going to happen. They have already begun. Wards have closed. People are being laid off.
What about Hamilton? In the great city of Hamilton we have cancer research programs, cardiovascular and neuroscience programs. We have the burns unit and the trauma program which are second to none in the world.
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What are they facing next year? Deficits. What are they facing? Two per cent increases.
This government is tampering dangerously with a medicare system that is second to none. If anything else, it is feeling the insecurity. These hospitals in the Hamilton area, in Burlington, in Halton-Peel and in other areas across this country are feeling the insecurity of the pending budget crisis they may face by the end of their fiscal year, March 31 of next year. They are on pins and needles.
They ask themselves if there are going to be savings. The government hopes that with this bill and other parts of its strategy to save X amount of money.
The hospital administrators tell me the government is going to try to save X amount of money and in order to save that money at that particular hospital, it will have to close a service. Let us take maternity service, for example. At this hospital in Hamilton it will have to close the door to the maternity service to save money. It is only going to have half the amount intended. Why is that? The demands by the public for the services of the hospital and for the maternity services of that particular hospital are only going to shift to another hospital. As a result, what is the saving? Now we have an increased demand at another hospital within as little as 10 or 15 miles of the other.
Do Canadians want that kind of a system? I say no. This bill does not create that kind of gap, but I believe this bill and the continued administration of medicare under this government put the system on a slippery slope toward an uncertain future for medicare in this country.
As testimony to the notion that under Bill C-20 medicare is threatened, the former Minister of Finance stated in the House of Commons on February 26 of last year: "I recognize that limiting the growth of transfers under the Established Programs Financing raises concern about the ability of the federal government to continue enforcing national medicare principles under the Canada Health Act", and that "legislation would be introduced to ensure that the federal government continues to have the means to enforce these medicare principles".
In other words, behind the smoke and mirrors this government is saying: "Even though we are paying less and less of the bill, we will still call the shots". The
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government is so sure that it has abandoned its role that it has included a section in this bill which tries to reinforce the federal presence in medicare, but it is only on paper. The problem is, without the financial commitment, without the financial backbone from this government, the provinces will not have to listen to the federal government, without whose support national standards will be extremely difficult to pursue, even unconstitutional, as some have said it would be.
Canadians do not buy this attempt by the government to sweep medicare under the rug. We on this side of the House do not buy the bill of goods this government is trying to sell us. Either you are in or you are out, you cannot have it both ways.
This government is driving Canadians to the unemployment lines and is neglecting the programs that are so fundamental to the lives of Canadians.
We need full employment in this country. We need to save our national programs and their national standards before it is too late.
We ask the government to listen to the people. They are speaking out.
In today's Quorum I could not help but read the results of a most recent survey of 1,505 adults. Angus Reid said:
"This is a government without the legitimacy of public support in any region. It is a beneficiary of an unprecedented level of public anger and anxiety, anxiety that it is not addressing the things that worry Canadians like the economy; anger in the sense that the country is being run by a dictatorship."
There is clear evidence; 1,505 adults who picked up the phone and answered the questions of the pollster said they feel helpless.
Unemployment lines are growing, food banks are running out, more people are going to food banks and more children are in poverty in this country. There are one million children in poverty in Canada. It is outrageous.
Now we have before us Bill C-20. What kind of strategy is this?
I challenge the government to show me, show my constituents and show Canadians how this bill contributes in some kind of a positive way to our health care system, in some kind of a positive way to our post-secon-

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dary education, especially literacy. If it does it will get my unqualified support.
In its present form Bill C-20 illustrates a government on the take, caring very little for those in need, especially in today's economic climate and the tragic fallout of that economic climate. It illustrates this government's economic mismanagement over the duration of its three-year term which stretches back even prior to a three-year term, right back for almost eight years. For eight years we have had a problem in this country and during those eight years we had a time to sock some away.


An hon. member:: Eleven years starting with-


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: If the hon. NDP member wants to get up and speak he will have his opportunity.
We have the opportunity here to do something about it and we have Bill C-20. This bill in its present form is leaving our cherished principles exposed and vulnerable. The party that I am proud to be a member of will have no part of it.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. friend a question about medicare.
With the transfer of payments not going ahead as planned to keep a good system in place in this country, and with the federal government backing away from the provinces and making them pay more money or alternatively reducing the services, what does the hon. member really think is coming eventually down the road, in very short order, as a result of this federal government backing away from its national responsibility to maintain reasonable standards and reasonable taxation levels at lower levels of government in this country with regard to medicare for all the people of Canada?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for the question.
A little earlier I gave the example of Hamilton having many exemplary hospitals. We have the Hamilton Civic Hospital, St. Joseph's Hospital, McMaster University Medical Centre and Chedoke Hospital. We have a system renowned around the world. It is admired to the point where even the United States is attempting to emulate our system.
This government is trying to hackney it down into the ground on economic terms, on strategy completely foreign to Canadian interests. I gave the example of trying to save money by eliminating a maternity program at one hospital and taking the people who were going to use that service and transferring their requests and demands to another hospital. What are you saving?
In answer to my hon. friend, look at it on a national scope. What a great province Ontario is. Ontario is the machine that drives this country. We are a have province but there are other provinces across this country that are not as fortunate as Ontario. They are provinces in which conditions of weather prevent them from being as strong as Ontario.
We have to help out these regions. These regions may not be as fortunate as Hamilton or Toronto with all then-hospitals and all their availabilities. These regions and the people within must travel miles in order to get a vaccination shot for their child so their child does not catch the flu or a cold this winter.
They make their sacrifices in the outlying regions. The very least we can do as a government is ensure that the availability and the services provided for in the have provinces are made equally available in those have not regions of the country. We are, after all, a country called Canada from coast to coast to coast.
We are not the country of Canada, Ontario; or Canada, Ontario, Quebec; or Ontario, Quebec, B.C. How fortunate we are. Those who have must share with those who have not. You just have to travel from coast to coast and examine province by province.
In the current year, for example, the cuts start east in Newfoundland, which loses $71 million in health and $29 million in education. Prince Edward Island loses $16 million in health and $7 million in education. Nova Scotia loses $111 million in health and $45 million in education. New Brunswick loses $90 million in health and $37 million in education.
La belle province, Quebec, loses $843 million in health and $340 million in education. Ontario loses $1.2 billion in health and $489 million in education.
Continuing westward, Manitoba loses $136 million in health and $55 million in education. Saskatchewan loses $125 million in health and $15 million in education. Alberta loses $308 million in health and $124 million in
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education. British Columbia loses $390 million in health and $158 million in education.
Even the Northwest Territories loses: $6 million in health and $3 million in education. The Yukon loses $3 million in health and $1 million in education. The total loss is $4.6 billion that is being taken out of the system. How can that not have any kind of an impact on post-secondary education? How can that have no impact on our medicare system, the very cornerstone of the most admired system in the world?
Yes, we have to pay for it. We must rely on a government that will come forward with the economic and fiscal policies that will drive the engine again of this country. When you put people back to work, when people are earning their daily bread, 40 hours a week and collecting their pay cheque, they are more than happy to share that opportunity in the have provinces with the have not provinces. They are willing to do that.
When you have job creation and when you have people at work, and your economic policies are solid, then you have the ability to pay out to the provinces the money they need to keep this country on solid footing with the policies and the programs that are around the world as Canadian.
They do not say: "They have a great medicare system there, they have a great education system there". They say: "That is a great Canadian system". That is a pride we have and it is being devastated by the combination of economic mismanagement and the stripping of money when in this country we need it most today in this harsh economic climate caused by this government.


Mr. Dan Heap (Trinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a chance to speak on Bill C-20, another bill by this government to cut back on the programs that Canadian people worked to pay for, worked to claim from their governments for many decades, cutting back on the equalization programs, the health programs, the education programs, the social assistance programs, the public utilities programs and while I was going to say cutting back on unemployment insurance, it is not quite that way. It is worse. The government of course pays zero now to unemployment insurance.
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There is only one other industrialized country in the world that refuses to contribute to unemployment insurance and that is the United States. That is where this government wants to drag us.
These cutbacks are disastrous for our country. They are a continuation of policies that were begun about 18 years ago under the then Liberal government and continued into the eighties but accelerated veiy seriously by this present Conservative government.
It is the outcome of almost 18 years of tax policies that gave hand-outs to the rich, to the corporations and to the rich owners of corporation shares, and also it is a continuation or an outcome of the free trade agreement which speeded up the hand-over of Canadian industries, particularly Canada's manufacturing industries, to the United States.
It is also the outcome of privatization of some of the services that the Canadian taxpayers built with their tax money and their labour and which have been handed over to the pals of this government for a song, services such as transportation and the post office and an increasing number of government services worth more than $5 billion a year now in contracts, contracts to private profit industries of work that should be done by public servants so that the bill for this contract pork barrel is more than $5 billion and therefore greater than the whole bill for public service and much less accountable than the bill for public service. The irony is that the government is crying poor. It never mentions that $4 million per hour every hour of the day, every day of the year, leaves Canada for the United States in investment income payments-$4 million per hour. That is roughly, at an estimate, $34 billion per year. This has been accelerating because of the government's policy in making it easy for the United States to take over more and more Canadian industries, either diverting the profits to the United States or diverting the the best paid jobs to the United States, or sometimes simply closing the operation, as they did with Inglis washing machine in Trinity Spadina and throwing 700 or 800 people out on the street in order to sell from the United States what used to be produced by Canadian workers.
By ciying poor, after giving all that money to rich Canadians and allowing more and more of the wealth of Canada to flow out to the United States at the rate of

December 3, 1991
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many billions of dollars per year, the government now wants to chop about $4.5 billion out of the programs that serve the basic needs of Canadian people. It wants to limit, through this bill, the annual increase of provinces through the major transfer programs to $1 billion per year until 1995. At the same time it has half a billion dollars more for war, though we have never been in such a peace situation as we are now, it gives $30 million more for secret police, the CSIS, without of course any opportunity for Canadians to find out what is being done with that budget because it is secret, and therefore less for health, less for education, less for social assistance and, as I said, zero from the government for unemployment insurance, except a law that will increase the fees at a time when workers have less to pay with.
I want to speak for a few minutes about our health system. Previous speakers have referred to it. I think it bears not only emphasizing the points they made, but adding to them. In Canada we developed a national health care system that had five important principles. One was comprehensive. It does not cover every imaginable health cost, but it covers nearly all of them, prevents people going into bankruptcy with health problems and enables people to have their health care paid for when they are flat on their back in bed and unable to earn the money, which is the most important of all.
It is universal. Everybody is entitled. The poor are not left out because they are poor.
It is portable. You talk about unity in our country, unity between the provinces. When the government cuts back its central share of the funding for the health programs, provinces will be under pressure to say, as occasionally they say now, but only occasionally: "No, you cannot come into our hospital because you live in another province. You may be a Canadian but you cannot come into our province for health care because we do not want to pay for the health care needs of somebody from another province". The whole principle of portability was meant to ensure that a Canadian could get the health care he or she needs anywhere in Canada regardless of provincial jurisdiction. It should be accessible, and there has been a good expansion of health care systems into even the outlying parts of our country. It has not gone as far as it is needed but it is going that way, and it is administered publicly. Therefore, it was efficient by comparison with the chaotic, that is to say market system
of health in our neighbour to the south. I will be coming back to that later.
The federal government has the responsibility for ensuring these five principles by the original deal of 50/50 funding, matching the provinces dollar for dollar. That was eroded under the Liberals and it is being downgraded further and will eventually disappear or become quite insignificant under the present Tory government.
This is a program that began in Saskatchewan under the CCF and the New Democratic Party and was so evidently a good program that other provinces insisted on having it and the federal government, in the sixties particularly, established it. It is if not the best in the world, certainly one of the very best, and it is recognized that way especially by our neighbour to the south, or at least by the people of our neighbour to the south, not necessarily by the government.
The NDP believes that we must direct more resources toward health rather than less in order to keep pace with the new health threats in our country, such as the threats from environmental degradation. There is a health need now to provide preventive health care and remedying of the poisonous elements that we put into our environment, which would in the long run save a good deal of money in acute health care.
I want to make several points about the Canadian health system. In the United States, they spend about $600 billion a year on health care, but 40 million Americans have no health insurance protection whatsoever. The United States is the only country in the world, other than South Africa, without some form of public health care system.
Second, universal availability is the basis of a system that gives priority to efficiency over competition. The chaotic market competitive system to the south of us spends far more money per person on health care than Canada does and it gets poorer results, less health, less lives saved for more money because they do not have a universal availability and a public administration. For example, in the United States they spend about $2,268 per capita for their health coverage, while Canadians spend $1,580, less than two-thirds of what they spend in the United States. It costs $360 per day on average to
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stay in an American hospital compared to $210 in Canada-that is $360 Canadian.
Further, most western countries have stabilized their medicare budgets, but not the United States-the United States, the land where the market reigns, where if you cannot pay you can be turned away from the hospital no matter how sick and needy you are. In 1987 the U.S. health care costs rose to more than 11 per cent of the Gross National Product, compared to 8.5 per cent of the Gross National Product in Canada. In some European countries they are even lower with roughly the same sort of health care system that Canada has, and they spend an average of 7.5 per cent of their Gross National Product.
The Canadian system is more efficient. Canadians are hospitalized for 11.4 days on average and the Americans for 6.4 days because of the more intensive use of technology. Utilization rates are higher in Canada. In 1989, 37.2 per cent of American doctors were sued for accusations of malpractice. That means that some of them are avoiding certain medical procedures because they are too risky. In other words, our system is working better.
The rate of production of physicians in Canada and the United States has been about equal, but the main difference between Canada and the States is that in the United States, physician fees have been rising far faster than the inflation rate.
In Canada they were dropping in the 1970s. They have now risen slightly but they are still a little bit behind the inflation rate.
The result is that in Canada the average life expectancy at birth is 72.9 years for men, 79.8 years for women, whereas in the United States it is only 71 years for men and 78.3 years for women. So men and women in Canada live longer than in the United States because of our health system.
Canada's infant mortality rate in 1985 was 7.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. In the United States it was 25 per cent more at 10.6 deaths per 100,000. The United States is down at twentieth on the international list for infant mortality. Canada is fifth to the lowest.
Canadians are allowed greater freedom of choice of their doctors. I hear from my son who is presently living
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in San Francisco that there is a debate going on in the media there about the Canadian health system. People say that there is a problem with it. Then somebody writes a letter to the paper saying that there is not and they were there. One person claimed that you could not choose your doctor and another person who was from Canada said you can choose your doctor.
In New York they have a state legislature bill. The New York members of the National Congress have a bill in Congress as well to bring in a health care system modelled on the Canadian one. The American labour movement is pushing strongly to establish a health care system modelled on the Canadian one. In fact, they have invited members of the NDP to go to the United States to tell them about the health system. Yet in this country, the government wants to undermine it and push it into privatization,.
Canadians are fairly well satisfied with their health care system and one of the reasons for the satisfaction is that a doctor has little financial reason to refuse a patient. This happens too often in the United States when a person goes to a hospital or a doctor, is asked to pay in advance and may not be able to and is turned away.
It is disastrous for this government to undermine our health system with the kind of cuts it is making with Bill C-20. It is also disastrous to be cutting the money for post-secondary education. Students are dropping out of their studies for financial reasons. Sometimes it is simply too much to be working at a job and studying as well. They cannot stop eating, so they have to stop studying. Some students are coming out with intolerable debts that they cannot pay while they are unemployed for a year, two and three years or when they are under-employed.
The universities are in effect becoming mortgaged to private industry for funds. That is to say, they have to do the research that private industry thinks will benefit this or that particular segment of industry, instead of doing the basic research that would make our country much stronger, not only technically, but intellectually in the broader sense and worldly, instead of giving a broad education.
It is ironic. There are few other white headed people in this House of Commons who can remember 1945 when we came out of the armed forces and were offered the veterans affairs programs. The Department of Veter-

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ans Affairs said it would help us set up a business, build a home, get into farming or go to university. I got $60 a month and tuition paid. With a very small amount of work, usually in the summertime, I was able to manage on that. It was raised later to $80 and, two or three years later, to $100. They gave us a monthly allowance as long as we were studying and our grades on the exams passed a reasonable level. The attitude surely was that study is work and useful to Canada. Canada paid us to study.
Tens of thousands of Canadians went to university on DVA who would never have gone otherwise. I was not one of those because I was fortunate enough that because of my parents' circumstances, I would have gone anyway. Some of those people became brilliant in science, industry and finance. Some of them are still members of this House. And yet the government wants to cut off that possibility in Canada.
There is also the matter of public assistance in which Canada has a worse record than Britain or West Germany. We have 14 per cent of people in poverty and are cutting back on public assistance. Germany has only 7 per cent, Britain has 9 per cent and Norway and Sweden have 5 per cent living in poverty. And of course, there is the UI cutback.
What we have is not an attempt to balance a budget or pay a deficit, because the deficit was created by gifts to the rich. It is a class attack. It is an attack by the class of owners of industries, by the corporations and their major shareholders, on the people who must earn their living by working. It cuts their pay and humiliates them. It is building up massive anger and a massive demand for a change in the power system in Canada.
I wish this government would ease off because the change may be more chaotic and even more violent, considering what we see in the newspapers, than any of us could wish. We should be negotiating between the government and the people of Canada for a decent opportunity to work, a decent opportunity to live and a sense that people belong to each other rather than just competitive dog-eat-dog philosophy in the service of American-based corporations.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of
adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Algo-ma-Agriculture; the hon. member for Burnaby-Kings-way-Soviet Union; the hon. member for Surrey North-Health; the hon. member for Cochrane-Superior-Trade; the hon. member for Scarborough West-Immigration.
Resuming debate. The hon. member for Renfrew-Ni-pissing-Pembroke). I would remind the hon. member that the five hours of debate have now expired.

The five-hour period is now over. We move on to ten-minute speeches, without questions or comments.
The hon. member has the floor.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, I was concerned when I got up before that I was not recognized. It was my understanding that we had one NDP and then two Liberals. We had only one Liberal and then you reverted to the New Democratic Party.
In view of that, I wonder if I could request 20 minutes instead of 10.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Is there unanimous consent to give 20 minutes to the hon. member?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and members in the House for that courtesy.
This bill before us today gives the government the hope that it will be able to extend the freeze on Established Programs Financing transfers for an additional three years. That means that the freeze will be on federal transfer funds to the provinces. That in itself is a very serious financial move. Every businessman knows, every person who brings home a pay cheque knows that if you do not even get the amount of money extra that inflation is costing you then of course you are getting a lower and lower salary as each year goes by.
The federal government is giving the provinces of Canada less and less each year according to the rate of inflation. That is not being made up for them.
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That places the provinces of Canada in the position of either reducing services or bringing in some high taxes at the provincial level. Someone has to pay the piper. If they do not want to raise the taxes, then services will have to be reduced. The other alternative is that they too go deeper and deeper into debt.
On this bill, we have very serious implications in the field of medicare for Canadians. In post-secondary education, there are very serious moves and of course just last week we had a very serious debate in this House on the Young Offenders Act.
If the provinces are going to have to allocate more money to post-secondary education and medicare, as the federal government backs away from its commitment, then it means that they are not going to have the extra money to go into the services that are needed to look after the administration of the Young Offenders Act that was passed in this House just last week. That is serious business.
What is the sense of any government in Canada passing legislation in this House if it is not going to pay the bill for the administration? That is what is happening to our education-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being five o'clock p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 36, the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS


Mr. Ray Funk (Prince Albert-Churchill River) moved:: That this House calls on the government to support the foundation of consumer-run Community Health Centres, which have preventive health care as a principle of operation, and which engage medical professionals to provide services in salaried or contractual positions, as opposed to the traditional billing arrangements.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to be able to put this motion before the House today because it is something that I consider to be a very important subject.
Private Members' Business
It is somewhat ironic that we are discussing this private member's motion on the very same day that we have heard a number of speeches in this House with respect to Bills C-20 and C-69, which deal with the cutbacks that have been happening in the medicare system and the threat which our medicare system is being put under as a result of these cuts.
It is ironic to me that we are spending all this time discussing the negative aspects of what is happening to our national health care system while at the same time we devote so little time talking about positive alternatives. In that respect I guess I am sorry that this is not a votable motion because I think this would offer members an opportunity to say something positive about health care rather than continuing this endless round of cuts and more cuts.
I think Canadians are acutely aware of the funding crisis in the medicare system. At the same time they still hold the medicare system intensely dear.
They are very much committed to the basic notions of medicare. Medicare has become a fundamental part of the fabric of this country.
The Spicer commission reported that across this country, in every province and in every community, medicare is seen as the primary vehicle or the primary institution that holds this country together.
It is perhaps interesting to note that in the constitutional debate people are finding it somewhat difficult to put a handle on the notion of what a social charter might mean and also what the political implications of a referendum might be. I would suggest that if we put to Canadians the notion that medicare should be entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, we would have virtually unanimous support for that idea from coast to coast.
I think we have seen other evidence that health care is still a resonant issue not only in Canada but in North America. The election of Senator Wofford in the recent Pennsylvania senatorial race is a good example. That senator ran on the slogan of "why should criminals be entitled to a lawyer when you are not entitled to a doctor?"
That sounded a real chord with the people of Pennsylvania and with the American public. They are debating medicare actively, and Canadians are looking for an active and positive debate on the future of medicare as well.

Private Members' Business
I would also, at the beginning of this speech, like to mention that much of my interest in the subject of community health centres comes from my own community of Prince Albert. The people of Prince Albert, when confronted with the crisis of the doctors' strike in 1962, did something about it. They organized a community health centre around the work of a physician by the name of Orville Hjertaas.
It was one of the most dramatic moments in the history of medicare in this country and I think it deserves special attention in the annals of medicare.
In Prince Albert we have demonstrated all the things that I am going to speak about later in the speech. The community health model is cheaper, it is more cost effective, it is better at doing preventive care and it involves people in the community.
Community health centres start from a fundamentally different premise than our regular model of health care. That is because they are based in community experience, and are organized and founded within the community by local people. From development on, they are inherently community based.
They are all run by volunteer boards elected by the community, whether they are organized on a co-operative basis or on some other type of non-profit organization basis.
There have been lots of studies done about the community health centres in this country. I want to mention that there are some very successful models in this country, apart from the one in Prince Albert.
There are community clinics in Winnipeg, in Montreal, in Vancouver, in rural Prince Edward Island and in northern Ontario. All of these provide very positive models not only in their own communities, but to us nationally.
For example, in a paper by Douglas Angus and Pran Manga sponsored by the Canadian Co-operative Association and with help from the co-op secretariat of the federal government entitled Co-op Consumer Sponsored Health Care Delivery Effectiveness, they concluded that the community health centres are efficient and effective.
A 1982 government of Saskatchewan study compared 15,297 community clinic users and 15,297 private practice patients matched for all socioeconomic variables.
It is interesting to note that the former government of Saskatchewan refused to release this report which was commissioned in 1982 and completed in about 1984 or 1985. It did not release it until 1989 because I think it did not like the implications of it, which say that we need a wholesale change in the way we look at health care.
The findings of these studies were that over-all health service costs were 13 per cent to 17 per cent lower for community clinic patients than for private practice patients, 13 per cent to 17 per cent lower.
I would like to quote from the authors: "The principle reason for cost effectiveness is the significantly lower hospital utilization by clinic clientele compared to those of fee for service practitioners". They continue to say that this lower utilization of hospital facilities is the most significant and incontrovertible finding of numerous empirical studies they have reviewed.
Non-fee for service systems generate rates of hospital utilization from 10 to 40 per cent below fee for service physicians.
These findings are corroborated by those in larger population studies in U.S. community clinics.
Twenty per cent savings in hospital costs and patient days lead to a saving in over-all costs of about 5 per cent to 8 per cent in just this one aspect alone, hospitalization. That is the fastest growing component in health care costs.
The clinics have also been found to have a better record in providing childhood immunizations, cancer screening, cancer prevention services, preventive health maintenance for women, for seniors, for expectant mothers. All of these things mean healthier patients, lower drug costs, and lower costs to the community in general.
MDs and community clinics prescribe fewer prescription drugs which have cost and health advantages. Provision of out-patient services and support services
December 3, 1991

like X-rays, labs, and physiotherapy can cost substantially less than the same services in hospitals.
Preventive measures like well-baby clinics, geriatric dietary care and awareness education about violence against women and children can all be incorporated in the community health model which then makes not only for lower costs but for a much healthier population and a much healthier community.
I might also add that we are living in a day and age when people are demanding more say in their over-all lives. They are demanding that they have some control over the institutions that give them services and surely community health services give people an opportunity to get directly involved in providing their own health care. We also have seen that health care is something that people are individually very interested about in this country and it is something they would get involved in.
Another advantage of clinics is to respond to the wide diversity of needs in this country. There are clinics specializing in services to new Canadians, to urban aboriginal Canadians, to rural aboriginal Canadians and to farm communities. The variety is infinite when it comes to the types of models which can be adapted to reflect particular local circumstances.
Community health centres are also cost effective because they are administered by professional health administrators. Very few private practices have that kind of management training.
As well, budgeting and cost control for primary health care are easier for provincial governments to control because budgets are negotiated on a global basis which makes them predictable from year to year and makes it possible to do the kind of evaluations which show whether money is being well spent.
I think what rings the loudest in the context of the debate here in Parliament today is the cost saving of 13 per cent to 17 per cent. Let us put that in some kind of a context. In 1990 total health care expenditures in Canada are estimated to be $60 billion. That is 9 per cent of our Gross National Product or $2,266 per person. These costs are rising at about 12 per cent per year. We know that.
Imagine that with this basic change to how we view the delivery of health here, we could save from 13 per cent to 17 per cent of the $60 billion cost. Even at 10 per cent
Private Members' Business
we are talking about $6 billion worth of savings and that is not something that this country can ignore in its present fiscal situation. The federal government cannot ignore that kind of possible saving, nor can provincial governments.
What is the federal government's role in this? I think that is a legitimate question to ask because the federal government seems to be seeking a smaller and smaller role in the whole health care area. In keeping with its cutback in funding it also seems to be withdrawing from what it formerly saw as a leadership role in the delivery of health care to Canadians and especially the establishment of medicare.
Certainly those two aspects, the establishment of medicare and the establishment of national standards, remain federal government responsibilities.
The government has also talked in the past about more active participation in health care. Certainly this government has. In November 1966 the Hon. Jake Epp, the then minister of health, now the minister of energy, released a blueprint for direction of health care delivery in Canada entitled Achieving Health for All: A Framework for Health Promotion. It outlined a system of health care wholly consistent with that promoted by the co-operative and community based health centre concept.
There are three strategies outlined in that report.
It called for the encouragement of greater public participation; the strengthening of community services and the co-ordination of public policy. All three of those fit exactly into the framework of community health centres and co-operative clinics. What kind of action have we had from of the government?
When researching this speech I saw a pretty dismal picture. In the Department of National Health and Welfare there is exactly one person working full time on community based, consumer oriented health care-one person working on clinics in community based health care. That is in a year in which the Department of National Health and Welfare is listed as having a total of
8.500	people working in it. Having one person out of
8.500	working on this delivery system, which could save us 13 per cent to 17 per cent of our health care costs, is just plain stupid.
We have seen this kind of lip-service from the government, but we have not seen much action. We have also seen supporting evidence from the provincial level. The

December 3, 1991
Private Members' Business
Seaton report, recently released in B.C., strongly endorses the community health care model. In Ontario, a discussion paper called New Beginnings, released by the Ontario Ministry of Health, concluded that community sponsored organizations were better at achieving objectives of broad-based service provisions and cost containment than non-community sponsored forms of care. In Saskatchewan the new government campaigned with preventive community based care as one of its central campaign planks.
Provincial governments across the country are reaching the same conclusion: this is the direction to go in. Somebody has to take some leadership in this. With the cutbacks coming from the federal government, certainly the latitude that it has to be spending money in this area is drastically curtailed. The leadership that was promised from the federal level, first in the Jake Epp report and then later by the ministers of co-operation, is simply not there.
A few years ago we had a federal-provincial co-operatives ministers meeting, I believe in the spring of 1989, which identified as one of its four principal priorities the encouragement and establishment of community health based models across this country-a co-operative health based model. That was identified as one of the four major priorities with the full endorsement of the federal government. There were all kinds of speeches made and press releases about the leadership government was going to take. Where is that leadership? It is not there.
There are other areas in which the government could get involved in promoting the community health concept. There is a lot of work done in the areas of poverty, nutrition and health. These areas could best be addressed through the community clinics. Family violence initiatives could be delivered through community clinics. Community health could become a part of housing initiatives.
Certainly the whole area of native health lends itself very well to the integration of a community health system because it offers a primary way in which the traditional healing methods and the community support structures which are inherent in the native community could be melded with the scientific health model in a way which is appropriate to those communities. We do not see that kind of initiative from the federal government, although it has a clear mandate in the area of native health.
The federal government also has to resolve jurisdictional disputes in many areas. We also have the questions of women's health needs, and support to women and children in crisis, which are also areas in which community clinics can offer a primary support mechanism. We have the unmet health needs of Canada's poor. We have drug abuse problems in many of our communities.
The government could play a key role in being a catalyst in all these areas. It could put together a national co-ordination strategy involving the provinces, involving the co-operative sector, involving existing community health models in establishing this new framework for a Canadian health strategy. Certainly there is a lot of activity under way. In Ontario the government is going full speed ahead with the best resources it has available. Forty-one clinics are already in existence, another 25 to 30 are in process.
These community health centres need money for feasibility studies and planning. They need help to get organized, they need help for a national organization. We are not talking about big sums of money, we are talking about very minute sums of money, seed money, which would result in a saving of 13 per cent to 17 per cent in the system over-all.
I would like to conclude my speech by saying that I think a case has been very well made by many people that community sponsored health centres, health centres where the professionals who are working there are there on salaries and not on a fee for service basis, offer not only the most cost effective but the most community sensitive and the most efficient in terms of preventive health models of any model of health care in the country.
I might say there is another reason why I would like to address this question, because many of us are wondering if our health system is so wonderful and if the Americans are wanting to copy it, how come our health system is in so much trouble? There is a good reason for that. It is because only half of medicare has ever been implemented.
I remember very well in 1962 when medicare was introduced in Saskatchewan. My family was one of only two or three families in our community that supported the establishment of medicare, and it was a very bitter time in those communities. I remember being harassed in the school yard along with the children of other people who supported the establishment of medicare,
December 3, 1991

and many other people in Saskatchewan had similar experiences.
The doctors went on strike, backed by not only the Canadian Medical Association but the American Medical Association. The Conservative Party and the Liberal Party of the day backed the doctors in that strike. It was a tremendous struggle. Therefore the system that Tommy Douglas introduced was based on insuring existing health care. But Tommy Douglas said at the time: "This is only the first step. This step is certainly needed in order that everybody have access to health care, a universal system but a second step is needed". A second step is needed to provide medical care on a cost effective community based system that actually meets the needs of everyone. Tommy Douglas was right from the start about the need to establish a co-operative and community health centre based system of medicare. If we are going to be true to the founders of medicare, if we are going to bail ourselves out of the crisis we are in, this is the route to go.
I would like to urge all members of this House and particularly the members on the government side to take this motion very seriously and to act on it because I think in many ways the future of our country and what it stands for is at stake.


Mr. Gilles Bernier (Beauce):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River knows that the delivery and organization of health services is under provincial jurisdiction.
In spite of that, our government is keenly concerned about the efficient and effective delivery of health services and, together with the provinces, it is exploring new ways to provide for the greater welfare of all Canadians.
We are aware that many provincial studies in the last five or six years show the need to rethink the way services are provided and health professionals are paid for their medical services.
The recently published report of the British Columbia Royal Commission of Inquiry on Health shows as well as anything the serious thinking now going on throughout
Private Members' Business
the country on this subject. The authors recognize that moving from a simple health care system to a health promotion system requires us to explore many different avenues. An approach cannot be considered without taking into account possible repercussions on other areas for any change made to the system.
The British Columbia report contains over 400 recommendations, which shows how complex this issue is. Therefore it would be utopian to claim that one particular approach would solve all the problems of our health care system. That would be too simple. It would also dismiss the considerable efforts made by health professionals and Canadian health care institutions to improve Canadians' health from coast to coast.
It is true that our health systems tended to favour an approach to health based on institutional services and to use payment methods that emphasized treatment itself instead of an integrated approach. After reflection, the provinces moved toward a more balanced system that takes into account a wide range of possible approaches for dealing with various situations. Health centres could be one of those avenues and they could be patterned on the model suggested by the hon. member.
We must not forget that these issues are in provincial jurisdiction, but the government can, and does, help the provinces compile the information needed to consider them in greater depth. The federal-provincial-territorial conference of deputy ministers of health endorsed the recent Barer-Stoddart report on integrated policies for medical staff in Canada. The authors of that report make a number of recommendations concerning the remuneration of doctors. At their meeting in September 1991, the provincial and territorial health ministers agreed that in future discussions based on this report could be undertaken with all interested parties.
The government also helps the provinces to develop their own policy using the national data base on doctors which provides information on payments made to doctors under the fee for service system. Attempts are being made to expand this data base to include other forms of payment. It is impossible to make good decisions without this type of data and thanks to the partnership between the government and the provinces, a picture of the payment situation across the country will emerge.

December 3, 1991
Private Members' Business
I am pleased to see that the hon. member displays such interest in users' involvement in health issues. I believe that he takes "user" to mean anyone who benefits from the health care system in Canada. The government encourages Canadians to take part in improving their own health. In 1986, the Minister of National Health and Welfare published a report entitled: Achieving Health for All: A Framework for Health promotion. The authors of that document proposed three key strategies to reduce inequalities and increase prevention. They especially emphasized the importance of promoting public participation and strengthening community health services.
All federal prevention campaigns, such as the national drug strategy, the national AIDS strategy and the national tobacco strategy emphasize user participation. People want to participate and they bring all their knowledge and experience to bear in supporting these programs in their communities.
Active public participation is beneficial in more than one way. When people care about community problems and work together to solve them, three things happen: first, they become more aware of the various parts of the problem and they learn more about prevention; second, they help raise their community's awareness and they become real agents of change; third, the services and programs developed with the community are usually more responsive to local needs and more effective because they have public support.
The federal government's funding programs directly support public participation in all health-related issues. The Department of National Health and Welfare financially supports more than 70 voluntary national health and social service organizations. Some particular programs also receive financial assistance through various programs like New Horizons, the Seniors Independence Program, the Family Violence Initiative and the Health Promotion Fund. The government is proud to act as a partner and to contribute to the success of projects set up across the country in all communities, large and small. This partnership is very beneficial and helps achieve results that we could not achieve alone.
Some of these results are tangible, others less so. I already said that by working together, we can increase public awareness and make programs more effective. But those who are active in their community gain considerable benefits: they acquire more self-confidence and are better able to make enlightened decisions about their own health and the health of those close to them. Some will say that we gave them the power and the required resources. I think that they simply realized their own strength.
This partnership is also good financially. For every dollar that the government gives national volunteer organizations in the health field, they obtain $80 million which they spend on education, prevention and research.
It is definitely in our interest to encourage the health care recipients to participate. However, this participation will only be beneficial if they have the required skills and resources to examine problem areas or potential solutions, to come up with valid approaches and work out the many details that are often overlooked but nevertheless essential to the success of a project.
The government intends to give users easier access to the planning tools they need to set up good programs. For this purpose, the department has created a community action information kit. It contains usual information as well as tools to promote setting up community action programs. This kit was put together in consultation with the provinces as well as many community groups and organizations across the country.
This goes to show, the government's concern for the problem raised by the hon. member for Prince Albert- Churchill River and that we work closely with the provinces in dealing with this issue. The creation of consumer-run community health centers is strictly a matter of provincial jurisdiction. However, our government intends to continue supporting the efforts of the provinces that are trying to identify areas of priority thus making for a fairer system better suited to promote health in Canada.
December 3, 1991


Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise to speak on this private members' motion put forward by my colleague from Prince Albert-Churchill River.
The motion reads:
That this House calls on the government to support the foundation of consumer run Community Health Centres, which have preventive health care as a principle of operation, and which engage medical professionals to provide services in salaried or contractual positions, as opposed to the traditional billing arrangements.
I am pleased to speak to this motion. I believe the operation of health centres in the Western Arctic may be a model for consumer run health centres. I will give more detail on our system later.
It is appropriate that we are dealing with this motion on the day that the Etouse is debating Bill C-20, a bill that should clearly be scrapped and replaced by a commitment from government to support our vital and universal health care system.
I want to say at the outset that a universal medicare program is essential to Liberal policy and philosophy and basically to Canadian philosophy. The Liberal Party is opposed to the abuse of the medicare system and to extra billing. I do not want to take the time to debate the accepted principles of medicare, those of universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration. Instead, I will focus on delivery of health services and the supply responsibilities and enumeration of health care professionals.
I support the idea that Canadians need to look at alternatives to ensure that health care services meet the needs of women, aboriginal people, the elderly and minorities. I support the concept that the federal government should complement the existing system of universal health care by permitting non-government facilities to provide much-needed services as long as those facilities use approved procedures, comply with government standards and charge rates that do not exceed amounts set by provincial-territorial health insurance plans.
Certainly the standing committee on health, which spent two years in developing its reports, made recommendations that received all-party support, intended to assist local control and more accessibility as well as a more diverse service than the traditional hospital and dispensary system. The first part of this motion deals
Private Members' Business
with consumer-run community house centres. I have to assume that the intent of the motion abides by the philosophy of non-profit and with the principles of the Canada Health Act.
In my riding we call this concept community-based health services. Community health centres traditionally called nursing stations and traditional hospitals are managed by regional health boards. In Western Arctic these regional health boards include one, the Mackenzie Health Services; two, the Fort Smith Health Board; three, Hay River H.W. Williams Memorial; four, Inuvik Health Board; and the fifth one is the Stanton Hospital Board in Yellowknife.
The theory that guides these boards is one of devolving control of health services to the community levels. These boards are representative of communities where they are responsible for health care centres. They also include some efforts by various departments in the government of the Northwest Territories that intervene in a positive way.
Just recently I was visiting Arctic College, in fact yesterday, in the town of Fort Smith where a group of students are now engaging in what is called an aboriginal medical terminology interpreter corps training which is very innovative and which would not have resulted without accessibility by people to the health care system. It is absolutely integral when you have a patient who is unilingual who cannot communicate their illnesses and their concerns to the medical professionals.
The local input and control of resources not only recognizes but acts on these very real concerns that individuals have at the local level. The government of the Northwest Territories took control over health programs from the federal government in 1988, so the establishment of these regional boards has taken place smoothly and successfully. There are always growing pains with such initiatives but it has been getting some fairly positive reviews in the Medical Post dated November 19, 1991. The headlines read that the Northwest Territories is glad to be in control of health care services since 1988.
There are comments that are made by people like the Inuvik Regional Nursing Officer, Sharon Conley, who feels that the Inuvik Health board for instance is working. "Since transfer", she says, "there has been a lot more local interest in health care. We can get things

December 3, 1991
Private Members' Business
done a lot quicker because we do not have decisions made in Ottawa through Yellowknife" she said.
These are the upsides of having local control over health services and having consumer-run health programs.
In the same article it states: "Officials of the Northwest Territories NWT Medical Association feel the transfers to the GNWT government has had positive results. It is stated that people who are in control are closer to the scene and they are more responsive to the needs of the territories. For instance the Inuvik Board consists of 17 members and consists of people from all the communities in the Inuvik region as well as governments and the aboriginal organizations".
It is a healthy, if I might, no pun intended, cross section of people to be sitting on a health board, a regional board that expresses the concerns and recognizes the concerns of the people who live in that particular area. The board's responsibilities include budgets, policies, the hiring of doctors and specialists. The boards ensure local involvement, particularly in the small and aboriginal communities.
The other area that is of particular concern is preventive health. This motion deals with preventive health care. The first cause of poor health in the north is inadequate substandard housing. The second cause is the environment within the house. This is a major reason why the northern territories lead the nation in illness and poor health.
As I stated in this House on November 29, the north experiences higher death and disease rates and higher birth and infant mortality rates than the rest of Canada. Cancer is four times greater and suicide is the highest in Canada. Many of the causes of these statistics are the poor housing situation and the general poor quality of life.
In the north we are starting with these basic requirements for infrastructure, for proper housing, water and sewage facilities. These are the things that are recognized by people that are in local control that feel the effects on their families and the people in our communities, people that they have to deal with on a daily basis, not just names and numbers that have no association to them. I am committed to preventive medicine. I believe
the government should strengthen its commitments to participation, to drug abuse prevention and AIDS education. I believe also that nursing stations and their personnel play a very key role along with the community health representatives who are trained. These facilities and the twinning with these other community health representatives are integral to the health and well-being of all citizens in the communities that do not have hospitals.
These nursing stations act as a centre of comfort for many who have to go there, where ambulances are not available, who rely on medical rescue missions in the middle of the night or in very inclement weather, under very adverse and harsh environmental realities. This is when the personnel who are situated in the communities are there with the approval, the consent and with the support of the regional health boards that put them there. They ensure we get the quality people we need. The training is very specific and is also very much one that is geared to the community. Most of the community health representatives speak the aboriginal languages of the communities they are in and they serve a very key role.
I want to commend my colleague, the member for Prince Albert-Churchill River, for coming forward with this very important private members' bill. I support it wholeheartedly. I believe that in the Northwest Territories we are a testimony to what can be done if we put control and resources into the hands of the people who understand their communities and can represent their people as well as anyone else in this country.
I believe that we have quality care and we have priorities set out that express what people need in terms of preventive medicine as well as other concerns that prevail over the territories.


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Prince Albert-Churchill River for giving us with this opportunity to discuss one of the most interesting areas of development for health systems in Canada. When dealing with health issues, we look at quality of life which concerns every Canadian man and woman.

December 3, 1991	COMMONS
Although the provision of health services is a provincial jurisdiction, the federal government has been looking into innovative ways to enhance the efficiency of our health systems for quite some time now. The work of Health and Welfare Canada is but an illustration of the government's commitment to support prevention and community oriented approaches to health. The department and its staff with training and experience in the areas of health, social services, community and volunteer work, education, research as well as program and policy development, supports programs that are useful to the operation of community health centres and works toward developing new programs in that area.
Our guiding principle in this endeavour is community participation because communities are capable of taking their health in their own hands and should take part in defining their needs and finding means of responding to these needs.
To help the growing number of community health centres across Canada, Health and Welfare Canada has published a health centre directory so that each centre knows what the others are doing in any given area. The department also produced an information package for community groups and workers. That package, which provides useful tools for action, has already been tested with community groups and health centres across the country. This is an excellent example of the co-operation shown by our government with the provinces and the volunteer groups to support their efforts to reinforce the role and the responsibility of individuals and the community in the field pf health and health services.
The notion of consumer involvement in the health sector is relatively new. Numerous possibilities must be explored, including the use of community development approaches.
The department sponsored research initiatives in that field through the National Health Research and Development Program. It has also financed, through a contribution program to health promotion, new community projects that use these approaches. Together we learn that the work undertaken has resulted in an exercise of co-operation between a number of provincial representatives, health centres, managers and of community health researchers.

Private Members' Business
These people made a concerted effort to determine how the community development approaches could be used efficiently in providing health services. This type of conceptual research and development can be very useful to define the role that community health centres managed by consumers can play in a balanced health care system.
We insist on the consumer participation in the hon. member's motion because we believe that the method used to set up health services is vital to their effectiveness. Many of the existing studies on the subject indicate that the most efficient methods are those based on an upward movement as well as community participation in the analysis of their health needs and the development of appropriate means to meet those needs.
Based on that community health development perspective, it seems that the community health centres managed by consumers have played a pioneer role. Indeed, we only have to look at one of the first initiatives, the local community service centres, commonly called CLSC in Quebec. As early as the beginning of the 1970s, the position of community organizer was created in the first few centres.
Another example are the community health centres in Ontario, where teams of workers were under the direction of community action co-ordinators and community development agents. These teams were mainly involved in prevention and community health promotion.
The hon. member for Prince Albert-Churchill River is certainly aware of the fact that community clinics of Saskatchewan set up as co-ops some 30 years ago were the first consumer-run health centres in Canada. As a matter of fact, these clinics were among the first to undergo exhaustive and serious studies which have revealed that a parallel system of community health centers saves a lot of money in health costs.
I am convinced that the hon. member is aware of the community health study the government of Saskatchewan carried out in 1983 which contains these findings. The Hastings report is another milestone document dealing with this issue. This report which was commissioned following a deputy ministers of health conference stressed the need for community health centres as tools

December 3, 1991
Private Members' Business
for managing health costs and supported the creation of many more such organizations.
Of course, this concept was not embraced everywhere overnight. If you look at provincial reports and studies published over the past few years, however, you can see that interest is growing. For instance, the New Brunswick Premier's Council on Health is in the process of evaluating how to apply the community health model in the province, while Quebec has reaffirmed its confidence in local community service centres.
Other provinces are examining the possibility of adopting similar models. Despite this growing interest throughout the country in consumer-run community health centres, we must admit that all provinces do not support this kind of centre in the same way.
Some provinces do not officially recognize these organizations as parallel models for health care delivery, while others have legislation in place and permanent funding mechanisms to give them a solid base.
In June 1991 representatives of co-operative or consumer-run community health centres from various regions met to consider the possibility of creating a national network. They felt that such a national organization would help guide discussion and facilitate information exchange.
The Canadian government will continue to follow with great interest the discussions on consumer-run community health centres. There are no miracle solutions to the problems facing our health care systems today. We believe that with good communication and serious consideration of the issues involved, Canadians will find an apt combination of approaches to meet their health care needs.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, while there is a natural interruption here between speakers, I think you will find consent for the following motion:
That notwithstanding any standing orders and usual practices of this House, all recorded divisions requested on Wednesday, December 3,1991 be deemed deferred until Monday, December 9, 1991 at 6 p.m.;
Second, that in relation to its consideration of credit and charge cards under Standing Order 108(2), eight members, one researcher and the Clerk of the Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs be authorized to travel to Washington, D.C. February 4 and 5, 1992;
Third, that the subcommittee on arms exports of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Hade be authorized to travel to Winnipeg and Victoria from Monday, February 10, to Friday, February 14, 1992; and to Montreal and Halifax from Monday, February 24 to Friday 28, 1992, in order to hold hearings and visit companies and bases in relation to the subcommittee study on arms production and export; and
That the necessary staff accompany the subcommittee.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the hon. parliamentary secretary have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Funk (p. 5741).
Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, there are several aspects to this member's bill which we have been discussing here this evening which go beyond the responsibility of the federal government.
I think most of us know that health care delivery is primarily a provincial responsibility under the Constitution. The Canada Health Act, which came into force April 1, 1984, and embodies the basic principles that form the cornerstones of the Canadian health care system, only requires of a province that there be reasonable compensation to physicians and dentists for all insured health care services rendered.
December 3, 1991

It does not require specific organizational structures and/or particular modes of payment. I should point out that the Canada Health Act did pass this House with unanimous approval by all parties.
However, I would like you all to be aware that while the federal government does not want to tinker with the mechanism of provincial health care systems as perhaps the hon. member is suggesting, we do have an excellent record in providing support and encouragement to prevention in ways that do not interfere with the constitutional prerogatives of the provinces to manage their own health care systems.
The National Health Research and Development Program provides support for research projects, for studies, for demonstrations and evaluation projects and for the delivery of health care. There are other relevant categories of research, including health promotion and illness prevention, risk assessment, health of native peoples, rehabilitation and dissemination of health services research. These are all addressed by this national program.
I would now like to turn to the area of prevention, in which Canada is recognized as one of the world leaders. That is the integration of preventive services into primary care.
Interest in this topic was triggered well over a decade ago with the growing concern about the decreasing marginal benefits of the curative medical technologies in the context of the spiralling health care costs. In order to address this pressing problem in a truly rational manner and to help preserve the health care system of which Canadians are so justifiably proud, the conference of deputy ministers of health in 1976 established the Canadian task force on a periodic health examination. The task force was provided with a mandate to formulate recommendations that would help to integrate preventive activities into the practices of clinicians. The task force had to examine the appropriateness of a wide variety of preventive manoeuvres. This called for a massive review of the appropriate scientific literature that was out in the public domain, which was a very difficult task. If this was to have any meaning, it could not really be done in a haphazard manner.
Accordingly, the task force developed a rigorous evaluation process involving parameters such as the current burden of suffering related to the condition of being
Private Members' Business
prevented; as well as safety, simplicity, cost, and acceptability to the individual of course.
The group developed rules of evidence based upon rigorous criteria on how to rate the scientific literature support for preventive interventions. These rules of evidence led to a related classification of recommendations that advised physicians whether or not there was good, fair or poor evidence to do or not to do a preventive action.
As a result of their pioneering work in 1979, the Canadian task force on periodic health examination released a monograph addressing 78 selected conditions, accompanied by clinical practice recommendations that were tailored to patient age, gender and risk status.
In the field of clinical prevention, this was a report that was heard all around the world. Without any legislative base, the task force's recommendation was that annual check-ups for ostensibly healthy adults be abandoned and that primary care prevention be provided by lifetime programs based on age and sex-specific health protection packages.
This has had a major impact on the norms of preventive practice in several western countries. For example, in 1984 the United States Department of Health and Human Services established a preventive services task force which actually cloned the Canadian model. Interest in the task force methods has been and continues to be expressed by health departments and/or national health organizations in many other countries around the world.
Since its famous 1979 report, the Canadian task force on the periodic health examination has published several updates. These are presented in the Canadian Medical Association Journal for anglophone physicians and in I'Union medicale du Canada for the francophone medical practitioners. The Department of National Health and Welfare purchases reprints and distributes them to interested persons and institutions. In all, the task force methodology has been applied to some 200 different assessments both here and outside our borders.
In addition to supporting the development of world class standards in prevention, the federal government has been proactive in taking steps toward the implementation of prevention services. In 1987 the U.S. and

Adjournment Debate
Canadian health departments, along with some private sector support, funded an international symposium implementing preventive services. It was held at l'Esterel, Quebec. Not only was this a colloquium of exemplary display by national co-operation, it really showed how, as I say, national co-operation was so important. It attracted many experts in prevention, experts from the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.
The symposium at 1'Esterel made several recommendations about implementing prevented services. These included dissemination of recommendations of the Canadian task force on the periodic health examination; continuation of the task force's work; developing an implementation and infrastructure; educating health care professionals in a way that places more emphasis on prevention and working as part of a team; legislation such as immunization laws, helmet and seatbelt laws, and the non-smoking ordinances, an area in which our current federal government has provided superb leadership.
The federal government is moving forward in the field of clinical prevention. It continues to fund the activities of the Canadian task force on this periodic health examination, and also through the task force we are liaisoning-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I apologize for interrupting the hon. member.
The time provided for the the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 96(1), the order is dropped from the Order Paper.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, on September 30 a major rally occurred in Rosetown, Saskatchewan, when over 4,000 farmers rallied to protest the lack
of action by the Government of Canada because of the tremendous financial crisis which is gripping many parts of Canada, including farm areas in Ontario and on the prairies. That was one of many rallies which occurred this fall.
On that day in the House of Commons, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, the former Minister of Agriculture, the following question:
This afternoon in Rosetown, Saskatchewan, thousands of farmers are gathering to protest the lack of action by the government because they face the worst financial crisis in a generation for Canadian farmers.
Last winter, the government committed itself to providing a third line of defence financial assistance to these producers. When is the government going to provide this assistance?
The Minister of Finance and the Deputy Prime Minister responded, saying that in fact the Minister of Agriculture was going to attend that Rosetown rally and he would be putting forward a litany of programs and support the government has provided to the agricultural industry. In fact, what happened is the Minister of Agriculture attended the meeting, he sort of slid in the side door and out the back door. Practically nobody in the audience saw him and nobody heard him speak because he did not utter a word at the meeting. He came forth from the meeting and gave an interview to the media saying that he had no intention of providing further financial assistance to Canada's hard-pressed farmers.
Last week, several weeks after that event, more rallies occurred. There was a major one in Weybum a few weeks after this one with some 3,000 farmers. A little later over 7,000 farmers rallied in Regina. Finally the government announced belatedly that it was going to provide some $700 million worth of assistance to Canadian grain and oilseed producers. It did not say when or how it would pay for that. After several more weeks the government announced that it would pay about half of it some time around the first of next year and the rest of it some time in the new fiscal year after April 1.
The government's response to the financial crisis is simply not adequate. The financial crisis is caused by two factors. One is that the government sharply reduced its support programs last year by some $1.3 billion. That combined with the reduction in world prices for grains
December 3, 1991

and oilseeds has caused a major crisis for Canadian fanners. A year later the government is still nickeling and diming farmers: "Are we going to provide support January 1 and the other half in April?"
As a result we had another delegation last week in Ottawa. The new premier of Saskatchewan, ministers of agriculture from Alberta and Manitoba, leaders of the opposition, Lynda Haverstock from Saskatchewan, former leader from Alberta Nick Taylor and the leader from Manitoba Sharon Carstairs were all here to make further representations. It is time the government stopped fooling around and made these payments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time allotted to the hon. member has expired.


Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I think we are out of order on this agenda. The member for Scarborough West was first off the mark but obviously he did not make it to the House. The Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture is on his way over. I would ask for the indulgence of my friend opposite. Perhaps he would wait a few minutes for the answer. Indeed I could give an answer off the top of my head, but I think I would prefer the minister to do it.


SOVIET UNION
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, some two months ago I asked a question in this House of the Minister of Finance concerning the very dangerous situation economically and socially facing the people of the Soviet Union as they approached the coming winter.
I pointed out that Alexander Yakovlev, former Soviet ambassador to Canada, a very respected citizen and one of the advisers to the new government, had said that empty pans are more dangerous than tanks. I urged the Minister of Finance to recognize that Canada should be showing leadership within the G-7 by supporting the urgent request of leaders of the Soviet Union and the various republics for aid as they approach the winter.
Here we are two months later and the situation is in fact desperate. We know, for example, that when the official in the Russian Federation, Mr. Yuri Luzhkov who is responsible for foreign economic affairs, met with the Minister for International Trade he mentioned the need for grain, fodder, meat, dairy products, sugar,
Adjournment Debate
vegetable oil, tea, cocoa and packing materials. He said that there is a desperate need now for food.
We know as well of the shortage of power, energy, and the fact that the minister of energy, Mr. Evgeny Pe-trayev, said: "We have never been so unprepared for winter". At least 40 cities would suffer serious shortages of power and heat during the winter. We know the shortages of basic medicines and disposable syringes and the looming disaster of AIDS which faces the people of the Soviet Union, of the independent nations, the Baltic nations and the independent nation of Ukraine. I might take this opportunity a couple of days after the people of Ukraine spoke out overwhelmingly in a free and democratic referendum-over 90 per cent spoke out in favour of independence, in favour of freedom, in favour of a free nation of Ukraine-to congratulate the people of Ukraine on that very historic decision.
I know that many of my constituents are of Ukrainian origin. Over a million Canadians celebrated this historic decision. I know as well that on this 100th anniversary of Ukrainian immigration to Canada we want to pay tribute to the tremendous role that Ukrainian Canadians have played in our society.
But much works remains to be done. The disaster of Chernobyl continues to cast a dark cloud over the children of Ukraine and of Byelorussia in particular. In my question I asked for our government to respond to the plea at the United Nations General Assembly for some $646 million in emergency aid to eliminate radioactivity from the food chain and to resettle the homeless victims of the Chernobyl disaster. Well, there still has been no response to that plea.
In the short time that remains I want again to say that the most effective response that we as Canadians can make to celebrate the independence of Ukraine, to celebrate the independence of the Baltic nations and to respond to the desperate plea of the other Soviet republics including particularly Russia, is to recognize that there must be direct aid now for food, medicine, energy, and of course to assist in averting environmental disaster. That is a plea we cannot ignore.


Barbara Jane (Bobbie) Sparrow: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that for its part Canada is responding quickly to Soviet needs by using both the existing grain credit facilities and a newly created $150

December 3, 1991
Adjournment Debate
million facility for a broad range of foodstuffs. All of us recognize, however, that more must be done than simply delivering food.
The U.S.S.R. must upgrade its infrastructure. Therefore in addition to our food assistance we established a $25 million fund for technical assistance. It should also be remembered that we have announced $80 million in credit lines for Ukraine and the three independent Baltic republics.
I am sure that the hon. member will agree that it is in the interest of the Soviet people that we continue our ongoing efforts to ensure that the assistance or the aid that Canada and indeed other western governments give to the U.S.S.R. gets to the areas where it is most needed. To this end we are co-ordinating efforts closely with our G-7 partners.
Concerning Chernobyl, we have pledged a million dollars for relief projects. Of this amount $500,000 has been given to fund the construction and operation of a clinic for children suffering from radiation illnesses, and $500,000 has been dedicated through UNESCO to funding research into the effects of radioactivity on humans.
The Government of Canada will remain committed to supporting the Soviet people along with their difficult path to a fully democratic society. I want to say that while we have done a fair amount it certainly was brought to the attention of the G-7 through the Prime Minister and we will continue to support the U.S.S.R.


Réginald Bélair: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight to discuss in the short time allotted to me a question which I asked the Deputy Prime Minister on October 3, 1991. It concerned Canada's announcement of its intention to terminate the memorandum of understanding on softwood lumber exports to the United States effective October 4, 1991.1 asked what contingency plan the government had to counter the inevitable American retaliatory action.
We all know that the memorandum of understanding on softwood lumber was never meant to be a permanent measure, yet it appears that the Americans do not know.
During the free trade debate this government told Canadians time and time again that we would get secure access to U.S. markets, and this is just one further example of how false this promise has been.
Now that the softwood lumber exports from Canada are under siege again, I can only assume that the Canadian government did not do its homework. Canada should win this decade-long dispute easily. Yet before the U.S. International Trade Commission in late November, Canada managed to take a good case and render it merely mediocre.
It has been reported that our representatives rambled on during the first round of the ITC meetings, getting everyone confused by giving a detailed description of the various species of wood and their uses. It fell on deaf ears.
Canada's case is simple and conclusive. Canada's lumber industry's share of the United States market has declined considerably from 33 per cent in 1985-86 to less than 26 per cent this year, reaching its lowest level in 13 years.
Between 1987, the year the memorandum of understanding came into effect, and 1991 the Canadian dollar has appreciated by 21 per cent, escalating from 72 cents in 1986 to roughly 88 cents today. The cumulative effect of our over-valued dollar and the 15 per cent export surtax have resulted in a total surcharge of about 36 per cent, thus driving down lumber profits and making Canadian lumber much less competitive in the U.S. markets.
The American interim bond posting measure will have the same impact as a self-imposed 15 per cent export surtax, not to say a self-inflicted wound which has yet to heal.
It is the recession, not the price of Canadian timber that is responsible for job losses in the U.S. lumber industry. B.C., Quebec, Ontario and other Canadian lumber producing provinces are not making any money in today's market, even with the allegation that our industry is being subsidized. Some 29,000 Canadian lumber industry workers have been laid off across the country since the inception of this MOU.
Since I was elected I have continuously pressured the government to seek a ruling from GATT. It has waited until November of this year to do so. Why a delay of three years? In the meantime the industry has lost its markets and it will be difficult to recoup them.
December 3, 1991

Therefore to conclude, I call upon this government to polish its presentation to the ITC and to insist that the Americans respect the spirit of the free trade agreement. The viability of this most important industry is at stake.


Mr. Andre Plourde (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, I am answering this question concerning the measures taken by the government following the United States' decision to launch an investigation on the imposition of countervailing duties on softwood lumber and to require an interim bond for softwood lumber imported from Canada. From the beginning, we urged the United States Department of Commerce to exclude the Atlantic provinces from the investigation on countervailing duties. I am glad that it agreed.
We asked it to exclude Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Nortwest Territories and the Yukon as well. Finally, the Commerce Department has restricted its investigation to the procedures for setting provincial stumpage rights, while in 1986, it examined 60 federal, federal-provincial and provincial programs and practices related to lumber.
In this case, our government's priority is to develop the best possible defence, in close co-operation with the provinces and the industry, to prove that U.S. allegations about subsidies are unfounded.
We have retained the services of a lawyer in Washington. The main provinces involved and the industry have retained an American lawyer to defend their interests.
Counsel for the government has maintained constant liaison with counsel for the provinces and the industry, ever since the United States started its investigation with a view to applying countervailing duties. So far, co-operation has been excellent.
We shall of course exercise all the rights we have under the free trade agreement. If necessary, we will appeal all unfavourable decisions to the binational dispute settlement mechanism provided under the agreement, an option that was not available in 1986.
Our government has also asked GATT to protect the interests of Canada. We have asked for the appointment of a special task force to determine whether stumpage rights imposed by a government constitute a subsidy that could be subject to countervail and whether the interim
Adjournment Debate
bond posting demanded by the United States conforms to the obligations the U.S. has under GATT.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, we are determined to defend our case to the very end, and we are confident that normal conditions for the lumber trade between Canada and the United States will be restored.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: On a point of order, the hon. member parliamentary secretary.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, as you will recall after the first interjection the parliamentary secretary for agriculture was not here. He is now here. Perhaps he could read his response.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Is it agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: I give the floor to the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I do apologize for the slight mix-up that we have had. I understood that this question was going to be about number four or five. I do apologize for not being here.
The government recognizes that the commodity prices are at a near record low and that many farmers are experiencing real difficulties. I want to say that our Prime Minister, our Minister of Agriculture, our Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds and our Minister of State for Agriculture are all very concerned, as are this caucus and this party very concerned about the state of agriculture. I think it would be fair to say that all members of this House of Commons equally share the concern that we and our producers are facing across this country.
The government certainly knows the importance of agriculture to our economy. That is why we have listened to farmers' concerns and why we have acted.
On November 21 this government announced details of the distribution of $800 million in special assistance to Canadian farmers. This money is in addition to the $640 million announced in April through the farm support and adjustment measures. The second round of the

December 3, 1991
Adjournment Debate
FSAM program will put some much needed cash into the hands of Canadian farmers before spring seeding.
Together, FSAM I and II will make available $1.4 billion in federal transitional assistance until the GRIP and NISA programs fully kick in.
The bulk of the recently announced money will go to grains and oilseeds producers. They will receive $700 million, paid out in two instalments with the first going out within a month or so. The remaining $100 million will be shared by the horticulture producers, the maple syrup industry, mink and fox fur ranchers and honey producers.
The government continues to support Canadian farmers as it has in the past. Since 1983, and we have said this many times, government spending on agriculture has increased by 650 per cent. In 1986 this government provided farmers with $1 billion under the special grains program. In 1987 another $1.1 billion was made available under the same program and there was another $850 million under the drought assistance program and $500 million under the special income assistance program for
1990.
The Government of Canada has demonstrated by both word and deed that it is prepared to stand by farmers during this difficult time. We understand their situation and we are responding.
We could go on and talk at length about this, but we are committed to the future of agriculture in this country. We have stood by farmers in the most difficult times. We will be there when they need us and we will be there for the future.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, in the minister's response to my oral question of October 31, 1991, he made reference to refugee camps and internment, planting the innuendo that either I or my party advocate what his junior minister, the member for Rimouski-Temiscouata, has characterized as concentration camps.
This innuendo arose out of an article which appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on October 24, 1991. The story later appeared in one form or another in many newspapers in the Southam chain.
The story referred to a proposal for refugee work camps which were stated to be a part of an immigration discussion paper which I had written.
The impression is false, because the minister relied not on the facts but on the article. It has thereby cast aspersions on me and my party. Because others across the country have jumped to false conclusions based on a distorted article, I want to set the record straight.
The leader of my party requested that I prepare a paper on immigration. Its purpose was to generate discussion about all aspects of immigration in order for us in the Liberal Party to work toward a just and compassionate immigration policy for the nineties and beyond.
I did as I was requested. My preliminary paper is 71 pages long and contains over 30 recommendations for discussion. I submitted my paper to the appropriate caucus committee in accordance with established party procedure. Thus out of 81 of my colleagues I gave the paper to only 9. To this date I have not given a copy to any other person in my caucus. Why? Because as immigration critic I am voluntarily bound by the rules and procedures Liberals have adopted for the examination and debate of discussion papers. My paper is still at the preliminary discussion stage at the appropriate committee level.
My paper was leaked by a person or persons as yet unknown to The Ottawa Citizen. It was then again leaked later to both the Toronto Star and Maclean's magazine. The reported stories grossly distort the few recommendations talked about and use inflammatory words not found anywhere in my paper.
However, I have steadfastly refused to discuss publicly the contents of my paper until it passes through the procedures set up by my caucus and until all 72 of my Liberal colleagues who have not yet even seen the paper have the chance to read it. However, the reporters who have possession of my paper are under no such self-imposed restrictions. Even though the media is not prepared to print my own words unedited so that Canadians can draw their own conclusions, surely the journalists are prepared to provide Canadians with a copy of my paper if they call and ask. I will now provide the minister and Canadians with the names and telephone numbers of the journalists who have personally told me that they have a copy of my paper. If they send it to you, you can read it yourself and make up your own minds. While you are

talking to them, ask them the name of the person or persons who gave them the paper.
The names and telephone numbers are: Iain Hunter, The Ottawa Citizen, 613-232-4885; Paul Watson, Toronto Star, 416-869-4424; and Cecily Ross, Maclean's magazine, 416-596-6061.
Please, my fellow Canadians, never assume that what is reported is accurate. Find out the true facts for yourselves. You now know how. It is up to you.


Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend for Scarborough West had asked a question on October 31 and is on the late show because of that question.
He did address something entirely different. I would like to say that I empathize with him. I know how unfortunate it can be when you are misquoted or remarks that you make are taken out of context. They then take on a life of their own.
I have worked in committee with my friend for Scarborough West. I have found him to be the type of individual I would be proud to serve on any committee
Adjournment Debate
with, particularly on the employment and immigration standing committee. I find that he has real empathy for people and a real empathy for the kinds of problems that we face with our immigration policy. He gives very constructive ideas and criticism where is it warranted and praise where that is also warranted.
I just want to say that I am sure with his remarks tonight we now can put that little rumour, the police cap, to bed. I want to assure my hon. friend that we will take this completely as he stated in the House. It is something that all of us understand.
We all at times do get into problems like this. We want him to know we empathize. It will blow over and we certainly will not hold him accountable for what the press has said.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: 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 6.27 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, December 4, 1991