1991-04-10

Mr. Gabriel Desjardins (Temiscamingue):: Mr. Speaker, on April 5 Environment Canada released a report on the levels of dioxins and furans found in stream and marine deposits in the vicinity of 47 paper mills using chlorine bleaching agents. This report shows very clearly that Canadian paper manufacturing companies that use such an agent discharge these extremely toxic chemicals in the environment, in our rivers in particular Several of these pulp and paper industries are located in Quebec and in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region, including Domtar in Lebel-sur-Quevillon and Tember in Temiscamingue.
So, Mr. Speaker, I urge the Minister of the Environment to put out regulations as soon as possible concerning these industries in order to eliminate dioxins and furans and put an end to this daily contamination of our environment, especially our rivers.


CANADA POST
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, at this opportunity I rise to condemn Canada Post for continuing to turn its back on the needs of Canadians. Under the direction of this government, hundreds of rural communities are losing their post offices and post office boxes
are being removed from outside senior citizens' residences. While the post office spends millions of dollars changing its uniforms and logos so as to remove any mention of Canada, hundreds of community newspapers have been forced out of business by increased postal rates.
Canada Post must have a goal to serve Canadians. The post office helped to build this country and bind it together. It is truly a shame that the words and concepts of service and of bringing Canadians together are no longer important to Canada Post or this government.


FISHERIES
Hon. William Rompkey (Labrador):: Mr. Speaker, Northern Ocean Resources, a consortium of fish companies in Labrador, has asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for a 7,000 tonne allocation of cod and turbot off the Labrador coast. These companies, the largest of which are co-ops, represent all the fishermen and all the plant workers in Labrador. This allocation is urgently needed and absolutely essential to keep in operation the plants on which these people depend.
This is virtually a matter of economic life or death for the Labrador coast. These native people have lived there for centuries and their livelihood depends almost wholly and solely on fishing. They are closest to the resource, they have historic dependence and they have rights.
It would be the height of political immorality for the Government of Canada to grant fishing rights in that area to French ships while denying a quota to Labrador people. They desperately need, they unquestionably deserve, and they unequivocally demand their rightful share of offshore cod and turbot.
I trust the minister of fisheries will act with fairness and justice and say "yes" to the request. And as the season is fast approaching, he should do so immediately.

April 10, 1991


CANADA POST
Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland-St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that Canada Post is thinking of closing the Thorold post office.
It disturbs me that none of this was discussed with the workers or the union officials. The minister responsible has not come forward openly to my constituents to tell them of these plans. Why must this degenerate into a situation where my constituents must try to ascertain the facts from rumours and half truths only hinted at by local management? The hon. minister should be above such cloak and dagger methods.
I come to the point. My party and I are most adamantly opposed to such a move. The Thorold post office has been in operation for 40 years. The level of service has been exemplary. The workers have been able to provide many services that were not available to people in many larger communities. Here we are, faced again with the destruction of small town Canada, the backbone of this nation. We will have more centralization, higher prices, more line-ups and less service. This scenario is just not good enough for my constituents.
This move was attempted four years ago by this government. My constituents are as incensed now as they were then. I say again, do not close the Thorold post office.


REFUGEES
Mr. Harry Chadwick (Bramalea -Gore-Malton):: Mr. Speaker, the region of Peel is breaking under the strain of providing welfare for the largest refugee population in all of Canada, and they are getting no relief from government.
Well over a dozen reports have been developed by the region and have been submitted to all levels of government requesting that a way be found to accelerate the process of refugee determination so that refugees may then have the freedom to seek work and support themselves.
Every year, the region finds the burden of providing welfare services a greater and near impossible responsibility. The region is justifiably confused. What is its
obligation under the general welfare act to provide for an increasing number of refugees who must use overburdened welfare services to survive? More importantly, should the regional government have to pay while the government tries to improve the system?
I urge the government to work closely with the regions and the provinces to find a better solution now before the system becomes irreparable.


LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, an agreement was signed this week, with Premier Bourassa in attendance, by the management of the Korean company Sammi-Atlas and representatives from the CNTV to allow the investment of half a billion in Tracy, Quebec.
This special agreement could have major significance not only for labour relations, but also for the future of the Quebec economy.
Over the past several months, the Quebec Minister of Industry and Commerce, Gerald Tremblay, set out on a mission to convince people of the merits, benefits and necessity of a new social contract in Quebec.
The union approved a six-year collective agreement whereby in three years' time, only salaries will be on the table for negotiation avoiding the possibility of a strike or a lockout, while the company is committed to invest in manpower training and to set up a joint committee on training.
A big cheer for the people of Tracy!


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan -Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is carrying out a scorched earth policy against the CBC. He has finally shown his true disdain for our public broadcaster by appointing John Crispo to the CBC board of directors.
Mr. Crispo, as we know, has repeatedly shown his contempt for the CBC, and by his appointment can only hope to wreak further havoc.
April 10, 1991

All Canadians are threatened by this thoughtless and irresponsible decision which gives obvious preference to a Conservative supporter from central Canada.
Canadian media, officials and citizens have adamantly protested the recent cuts to the CBC. These people are now watching a continuing government vendetta to kill the CBC from the inside.
It is time that someone stops this barrage of hatred against our national institutions. It is time that this government provided the CBC with the money to do the job properly. And it is definitely time to remove John Crispo from the board that he was put on without any consultation.


NATIONAL GALLERY
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage -Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, the meat dress at our National Gallery is placing our artistic community in the slaughterhouse.
Politicians across the country have been barbecued for acting like hot dogs over the dress, and have been the butt of some criticism on the matter. Newspaper columnists have turned critics of the steak apparel into hamburger and many have been roasted for daring to question the appropriateness of meat art.
The issue is not whether or not tainted meat on a hanger is art or simply beef jerky.
The average Canadian who is concerned about bringing home the bacon sees the sausages who run the National Gallery as living too high on the hog. While the gallery openly displays its rib-eyes, some Canadians in soup kitchens remain picking over the bones.
Mr. Speaker, the good book says that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but a Canadian artist has now proved that you can make a dress out of $300 worth of flank steak.


COMMUNICATIONS
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, all Canadians should know that conflict of interest still
exists. This government will just never learn. On March 5, Telesat Canada, a virtual Crown corporation with Canadian taxpayers as 52 per cent shareholders, filed a secret appeal asking cabinet to ride roughshod, by granting higher rates than the CRTC had granted.
So far, we have uncovered at least three cases of conflict; first, senior government officials are party to this appeal, as Telesat board members, while they also act supposedly as unbiased senior advisors to Cabinet. Second, in reviewing this appeal, the government could manipulate the value of Telesat shares to suit its announced privatization plan.
But it gets better. Third, Telesat has coincidentally, just days after filing its appeal, hired prominent Conservatives Bill Jarvis, former PC party president, Bill Fox, the PM's former press attache, among others, to help persuade their former bosses, the cabinet, to up Telesat's rates.
Does the Prime Minister not recognize these glaring cases of conflict of interest? Will the Prime Minister end these conflicts today and have this review sent to a more appropriate forum, the CRTC or the Federal Court? In all decency, will the Prime Minister do just that?


CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS FROM QUEBEC
Mr. Nic Leblanc (Longueuil):: Mr. Speaker, in 1981, the Liberal members from Quebec were called gutless and sheep. That is inaccurate and unfair to them. When you are a member of a Canadian caucus, your only option is to keep quiet. You must avoid shocking and disturbing the members from other provinces. The Conservatives from Quebec are in the same situation. Today I found a name for them: the quiet ones from Quebec in Ottawa. I say that without malice. The Conservatives from Quebec work hard. They are preparing all sorts of constitutional projects. But when the time comes to talk about them, they are very quiet. I admit that the Conservative members from Quebec have the right to say nothing, but I doubt that is an effective way to defend Quebec's interests in Ottawa.

April 10, 1991


NATIONAL UNITY
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, fundamental to Canadian unity are the issues of language and culture.
French speaking Canadians believe that Canada is a sacred contract between two founding peoples, French and English. More and more English speaking Canadians believe that this concept fails to recognize the legitimate place of native Canadians and the growing number of Canadians whose heritage is neither French nor English.
Can we reconcile these dramatically differing points of view? I believe we can if we face reality; the reality of a country in which English speaking Canadians are concentrated outside Quebec but also live in Quebec; in which French speaking Canadians are concentrated in Quebec but also live elsewhere in Canada, and in which native Canadians and Canadians whose heritage is neither English nor French live everywhere in Canada.
This reality defines the fundamental characteristics of our country. The reality makes not one part, not each part, but rather our entire Canadian nation, a distinct society.


FORESTRY
Mr. Reginald Belair (Cochrane -Superior):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Forestry tabled the first annual report to Parliament on the state of forestry in Canada.
I found the report to be somewhat misleading. It leaves the reader with the impression that our forests are in good shape. I believe that the figures in the report understate the problems of reforestation. The report emphasizes the progress and the laudable efforts that have been made in the last 10 years but seems to have forgotten that some 220,000 hectares of harvested forest land has not been sufficiently restocked.
Even though the net growing volume of our forest capital increased by 2.5 per cent between 1976 and 1986, Canada's productive forest land has decreased by 4.7 million hectares an area almost the size of Prince Edward Island.
I recognize the minister's good intentions. Yet, I also sympathize with him for not having the budget to support the initiatives that should be taken today to ensure the sustainability of our forests. The fact remains that we still have a lot of work to do.


BALTIC STATES
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale -High Park):: Mr. Speaker, on our recent visit to the Baltic states and Moscow, our parliamentary delegation was assured by an advisor to President Gorbachev that negotiations with the Baltic states, which had been stalled for five months, would resume.
Five days ago the Soviet and the Lithuanian negotiation teams went back to the negotiation table. Yesterday morning in Lithuania, Soviet troops moved in and began the occupation of a driving school, part of which was being used to house the national defence department of the democratically elected Lithuanian government in Vilnius.
This is not negotiation in good faith. The international community must not sit idly by while intimidation tactics are used and the rights of a democratically elected government are being violated.


MEMBER FOR VERDUN-SAINT-PAUL
Mr. Garth Turner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon in this Chamber we all heard the words of the hon. member from Verdun-Saint-Paul as he informed us he was leaving the Bloc Quebecois to rejoin the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.
As an English speaking Canadian member of this House, I rise to salute the courage of the member in this most difficult decision. I rise to thank him. These kinds of actions by this kind of person will, in the end, help us save Canada.
All of us in this House, outside of the remaining few dwindling members of the separatist Bloc Quebecois, stand for a united, free and strong Canada.

Thank you, my friend Gilbert!
.
*
April 10, 1991



But you cannot have your office back.



ORAL QUESTIONS


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
In 1985, this government said it sold de Havilland of Toronto to Boeing for $90 million. In fact, by the time the deal was completed, Boeing got de Havilland free, plus $60 million in cash. We said then it was a bad deal and we still believe it was a bad deal.
Boeing has now announced it has sold de Havilland to companies controlled by the governments of Italy and France.
Will the Prime Minister tell us what action he is taking to prevent a bad deal for Canada from becoming a disaster for Canada? Can he assure us that these high technology jobs will be kept for the workers of Canada?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, obviously I will not start today by discussing the figures mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition because it would be very easy to contradict what he said. I just want to say that Aerospatiale in France and Alenia from Italy have reached an agreement with Boeing. We will be made aware of any proposal that is submitted to Investment Canada and at that time will apply the appropriate rules governing such a transaction. We will then be in a position to comment on something which is not at the present time a reality.
I would ask the Leader of the Opposition to just follow the rules of Investment Canada and wait for the proposal.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I would tell the minister that we want action immediately, not to wait until all is lost before being able to ask questions. He knows very well that transportation and aviation are important industries for the Canadian economy, especially for the province of Quebec. He should also know that dozens and dozens of companies sell goods and services to de Havilland in Toronto. So
Oral Questions
can the minister seriously tell us that he believes that the governments of France and Italy will give priority to Canadians' jobs instead of taking those jobs back to Europe?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased and eager to follow up the comments of the Leader of the Opposition when he talks about the aerospace industry in Quebec. Canadair is another company privatized by the Conservative government and its president could assure the Leader of the Opposition that it is a wonderful success for Quebec.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Benoît Bouchard: And, Mr. Speaker, can we overlook the announcement of $300 million for the Canadian Space Agency in Saint-Hubert-but the opposition leader must know that, despite his impatience, governments must work within the rules. And the rules say that companies acquiring a Canadian company must make an official application to Investment Canada. I tell him that once the official application is made and the company's business plan is submitted, we will be able to deal with the issue coherently and logically. Until then, you can frighten people as you are in the habit of doing, but that is not how we solve problems.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to answer the hon. minister that when the private sector let de Havilland and Canadair down and I was President of the Treasury Board, we were forced to take those companies back.
Now the same thing is about to happen. The private sector will cream the companies. They will go and the government in Canada will have to take these companies back. I think it is ludicrous for the minister to get up in this House today and tell Canadians that it will be the Government of France and the Government of Italy that keep high technology jobs in Canada.


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, we know the former government took over a lot of Canadian companies, but Canadians know of the disasters as well. They remember. We do not have to explain to Canadians what it means when the Liberal Party leads Canada in terms of the economy. They know the disaster very well.

April 10, 1991
Oral Questions
I will repeat what I said. You can start a fear-monger-ing campaign in Canada. That is not what we say. We say: "Let us have a proposal. We will look at the proposal, and don't worry, we know how to manage Investment Canada."


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, let us look at our record. Canadians have invested over $1 billion in the Dash-8 program and now the governments of Italy and France want to acquire de Havilland in order to enhance their own aerospace programs. What is more, on March 8 of this year the minister for industry said that he was prepared to consider financial assistance to those two governments to help them acquire de Havilland.


Some hon. members:: What?


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, is it not time that this government stood up for Canadian industry and Canadian workers in the same way that the French and Italian governments stand up for theirs?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend makes an interesting point and perhaps a very significant one about the role of these governments with regard to possible employment opportunities in Ontario, very important and very significant. It had not come up, but I can tell him now that the Government of Canada would entertain very seriously an offer from the Government of Ontario to take over the de Havilland operations.


An hon. member:: What a mean spirited answer.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, just look at what will happen when the French and Italian governments are the new owners of de Havilland. They will have to choose between production of the ATR series, their own aircraft, or the Dash-8 of de Havilland. They will have to choose between jobs for French and Italian workers or jobs for the 4,900 de Havilland workers at Downsview. They will have to choose between Italian and French suppliers or the 85 Canadian suppliers of de Havilland.
There is no quicker way to ruin de Havilland than to sell it off to our major international competitor. We ask
the government today to say no to this, the worst of all business deals for Canada.


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I said in my first answer, and I repeat, there is no proposal yet by Alenia or by Aerospatiale.
As soon as it is received, Investment Canada will consider the business plan. Of course, we can do what they do. We can try to get the feeling of people in Ontario to determine the future of de Havilland.
As a minister, I prefer to be coherent. I put the rules of Investment Canada, and I want to respect them. There will be a proposal and we will consider it. Then we will give the answer. Is this not coherent?


OPEN SKIES
Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
Tomorrow, the minister and U.S. Transport Secretary Skinner will begin renegotiating the Canada-U.S. bilateral air agreement. The minister knows that there is strong support for improving that agreement, except for the "c" word cabotage which gives American carriers the right to compete for Canadian traffic within Canada.
Will the minister remove the threat to the Canadian airline industry and take cabotage off the table tomorrow?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as I suggested yesterday to a group of industry and labour representatives, Open Skies is part of a solution and not part of a problem.
I said at that time that there is a great temptation in troubled times to try to hide away from competition. That is not the way we can expand our airline industry.
We are going into these negotiations in an effort to expand our airline industry, and we intend to do that.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, yesterday in his speech, the minister used the unanimous report of the Special Committee on Transport to support his position.
April 10, 1991

In making a decision to include full cabotage on the table, the minister blatantly ignored the same committee's view which said that if the mega-American carriers were given cabotage rights, it would devastate our airline industry. We do not think that American carriers should be given cabotage rights under a new agreement.
I ask the minister again: Will he take cabotage off the table?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of TVansport):: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend would agree that there has been perhaps a slip in the words.
My hon. friend refers to the parliamentary report. I would refer him to the place where he says that the report makes an observation. The status quo is not acceptable.
The report makes another observation. We would encourage our negotiating team to explore the feasibility of obtaining exclusive cabotage rights for our Canadian carriers.
We are in these negotiations to get a better deal for Canadian consumers, a better deal for Canadian communities and more opportunities for our airlines. We intend to do that.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary.
The minister does not seem to understand that there is a difference between cabotage for Canadian carriers and across the board cabotage which would allow the Americans to not only compete head on head, but would eliminate the Canadian industry.
Given this government's record in the transportation sector, whether it is marine, shipbuilding, air or road, it has systematically destroyed our infrastructure. When is the minister going to finally stand up and fight on behalf of the Canadian industry instead of working for a better deal for the Americans and the Europeans?


Philip Derek Lewis: To my
friend of the status quo, I would say this.
First of all, if we understand the situation, cabotage is a red herring. The real issue here is improved access: slots, gates and preclearance. The full issue has to be examined.
I said to my friend: We are in these negotiations to get a better deal. Any time I ever got involved in negoti-
Oral Questions
ations, I did not take anything off the table before I got in the room.


DE IIAVILLAND
Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
I would like to recall to him his words when he blessed the fire sale of de Havilland to Boeing more than five years ago. I quote: "What we are doing today is saving de Havilland and securing jobs for de Havilland workers. There will not be fewer jobs, but more jobs."
According to the union officials today, the direct result of this decision to consummate a new sale will be the loss of 1,700 jobs in Toronto alone.
Instead of hiding behind the guise of Investment Canada, which has never taken its responsibilities over the last six years seriously, will the Prime Minister today send a message that this sale will not be sanctioned, that he will have the courage to stop this sale?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I think the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology has laid out for the Leader of the Opposition the requirements that one must follow in seeking to deal with the problem that is raised.
There are rules and regulations that follow from the Investment Canada Act, all of which must be respected in considering this matter, and that is what the minister is in the process of doing.
I point out to my hon. friend, since she refers to a statement made in the House some five years ago, that at the time the company was in financial difficulty. Since Boeing took over it has invested some $1 billion, I believe, of new money in the company. The number of jobs was increased to 4,600,1 believe, from 3,600. So, the experience that was opposed by the Liberals at the time was not unfavourable for the workers of Toronto. Their jobs concern us a great deal.
I do not think that the jobs of workers in Ontario or elsewhere are helped by a xenophobic attack on foreign investment, because Canada needs foreign investment across Canada, from Atlantic Canada to British Columbia. We are going to invite foreign investment and create national investment rather than put up borrowed taxpayers' money across Canada.

April 10, 1991
Oral Questions


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, the difference between the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party is that we have a policy on the Canadian aviation industry. You don't get it. It is certainly not France or Italy that will guarantee jobs for Canadians; it is up to the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada. So I again ask him: Is he prepared to meet his responsibilities and announce today that he will block a sale that, to begin with, will cost 1,700 jobs across Canada and result in even greater losses in Montreal and other Canadian cities? Is he prepared to block the sale?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should not get excited. The Minister of Industry, Science and Technology has just explained that there is a specific procedure to be followed. The hon. member tells me it is a question of philosophy. She may be right. I told one of her colleagues that the government would not be averse to receiving an offer in such a circumstance from the Government of Ontario, for example, or a Canadian consortium. On the contrary, we would like that. For now, proposals have come from international investors. Is the position of the Liberal Party that we must refuse offers because they come from foreign countries?
Oh, that is interesting! Say no offers made by a foreign government! Say no to foreigners and add to the debt!


Sheila Maureen Copps: Say yes to Canada!


Martin Brian Mulroney: She says, "Say yes to Canada." I can tell you that faced with the choice of free competition and international investments that will guarantee jobs in Toronto and elsewhere and charging it all to the national debt, we will chose private international investment.


OPEN SKIES
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport who tomorrow
will begin the Open Skies negotiations with the United States.
The minister knows that our two major airlines are facing severe economic problems and that our fragile Canadian air industry has recently experienced over
4,000	job losses and many other lay-offs are imminent. Will the minister assure this House that in any deal with the Americans the Canadian bottom line will not be to grant the giant American air carriers cabotage so that we can protect our own Canadian jobs, our own Canadian airlines, and protect and advance the sovereignty of our own Canadian industry?
Will he give us this undertaking on the eve of these important negotiations?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: The undertaking that I gave the airlines, which I have reiterated time and time again in public, is that there will be no deal unless it is a good deal for Canadians; for Canadian consumers, for Canadian communities, and for Canadian airlines. I have every confidence in our negotiators. I have every confidence that as the negotiations unfold they will strike that good deal. I have that confidence. You have my assurance.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, this is deja vu. That is what they told us before the free trade agreement and they obtained a deal at any cost, and the cost is now being paid by thousands of displaced Canadians after you, sir, said we were going to have the greatest displacement program the world has known.
Given that Canadian Airlines does not want cabotage, Air Canada is conditional on it, the all-party agreement including Tories had universally rejected it, and our industry fears it, what interest, and whose interest, is the minister pushing by pursuing cabotage? And why is this government so bent on getting any deal at any cost?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend referred to deja vu. It is deja vu all right. The Liberals were afraid to compete under free trade. We are not. The Liberals were afraid to compete under a new bilateral agreement, we are not. Neither are the Canadian airlines.
April 10, 1991


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of health. U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers have found significant amounts of a cancer-causing chemical in the Meme breast implant. The researchers were so surprised at how much of the chemical 2-4 toluene diamine was released by the implant's foam covering when it decomposed that they repeated the testing and found equally large amounts of the chemical.
Will the minister finally give women of Canada a commitment, since one in 10 already faces breast cancer without having the additional risk of dangerous implants on the market, that in light of this research he will take the Meme breast implant off the market?


Hon. Perrin Beatty (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I assume that the hon. member's question comes from the article in today's Montreal Gazette.
The department has not had the opportunity as yet of studying the American report. I do not know whether the hon. member has. If she has not, she is recommending that we take the device off the market before we have had a chance to study the evidence, while it remains on the market in the United States. The FDA has left it on the market.
We do not proceed in that fashion. What we do instead is to ask for the evidence, which we have done, and to ensure that we have the opportunity ourselves to analyse that evidence. If any of the evidence indicates there is a threat to the health of Canadian women, we will take such a device off the market, which has been our policy since the outset.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, it is nice to know that the government is not prepared to any longer be the wagon on the train.
Will the minister give us a time-line on how quickly it will come off the market? Once he has the evidence and has looked at this report, will he give us his commitment that women who have been the victims of the Meme implant will be warned about the dangers of the implant, as well as having it withdrawn, and will he give us a
Oral Questions
commitment that proper testing will be done on all implants?


Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, I will do my best to respond to the hon. member's three questions.
The fundamental issue here is whether she believes as we do that before you pick a date for pulling the implant off the market, you should see the evidence and make a judgment based on the facts.
If the hon. member is so convinced that this evidence has been in place for a long time, why has the FDA left the device on the market? Both in the United States and in Canada a review is being done of all implants that are on the market. The position remains the same. If any evidence comes forward related to any implant on the market that represents a threat to the health of Canadian women, it will be taken off the market.
The difference between the hon. member and members on this side is that we believe we have an obligation to see the evidence first, not simply to act first and then look for the evidence afterward.


REFUGEES
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
The human tragedy of the Kurds is worsening by the hour. Indeed as we speak some will die.
Iraq has already stated unequivocally that it will oppose any UN protected enclaves for the Kurds. Time is running out. The countries of the world must respond now in a humanitarian and compassionate manner.
Will the minister respond to the request of the Turkish government and the pleas of the Kurds that Canada, in concert with other countries, accept as refugees some of our fellow human beings whose lives hang in the balance?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, this House and this country are shocked by events in Iraq and are very much preoccupied with the situation of the Kurds.

April 10, 1991
Oral Questions
We all recognize that the most effective solution to this tragedy would be for the attacks to stop and for there to be some sense of security among Kurds so that they could return to the land that was traditionally theirs and live there in peace and security.
What we have been doing has been first of all to send financial assistance. I am pleased to announce today that we are prepared to increase financial assistance through UNICEF and other international organizations to those areas on the border between Iraq and Iran where there is also a crisis.
The other dimension of our response at the moment upon which we are focusing is to take account of the problems that exist with the proposal put forward by the European Community for an enclave. That may not prove acceptable.
For that reason, Canada beginning last Saturday was putting forward an alternative proposal, the details of which I outlined to the House yesterday and which I discussed yesterday afternoon with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
We hope that proposal by Canada, that alternative Canadian proposal, may contribute to a UN presence that would both co-ordinate the delivery of assistance much more reliably and provide some sense of security as to the fate of the Kurds in the region.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his answer. I am sure everybody in this House wishes that the problem will be solved as quickly as possible. In the meantime, while the government is considering its options, men, women and children particularly are dying.
Long-standing Canadian tradition has been to meet our responsibilities as a global citizen and accept people from around the world who are suffering personal physical torment. Canada's past response to the plight of the Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon offers a good example.
While the minister is considering these various other options, will he assure the House that this request of the President of Turkey that countries around the world accept refugees will be considered on an urgent basis so
that Canada can take a leading role immediately in rescuing people from certain death?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I think the question certainly reflects the urgency the government feels around responding to the situation that exists with the Kurds.
We have certainly actively looked at the possibility of assisting through some refugee program. At the moment I would regard the situation as being volatile for determining what the final outcome may be.
It is certainly our intention to be in touch with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I know that anything that will be done will have to be co-ordinated on an international scale. As I said yesterday I am not ruling anything in, but I am not ruling anything out either. We certainly are actively looking at this matter.
* * =$=


PETRO-CANADA
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of energy. It relates to the matters which led to the resignation of Premier Vander Zalm.
Bill Hopper, chairman of Petro-Canada, told the Hughes commission in B.C. of his dealings with Premier Vander Zalm, and I quote: "a premier of a province demands some attention" and further that the premier's involvement "helped open the door for" the purchasers with respect to the Fantasy Gardens Petro-Canada lot.
Will he tell the House if there are federal guidelines dealing with the sale of public assets by Crown corporations and if they were applied in this case?


Hon. Jake Epp (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member will know, Petro-Canada operates as a commercial interest. That is the manner in which its mandate is fulfilled.
I simply point out to the hon. member that in an article in The Vancouver Sun of April 4 it is indicated that federal Liberal energy critic David Kilgour said Hopper couldn't be blamed for taking the call from Vander Zalm.
April 10, 1991


David Kilgour: The minister should realize, Mr. Speaker, as he has also said to The Vancouver Sun, that he holds the only share in Petro-Canada as a trustee for the Canadian people.
Mr. Hopper has blatantly refused to talk to anybody since the report came down from Mr. Hughes. Will he, as the trustee for the Canadian people, ask the chief executive officer of Petro-Canada to come clean on this statement so that we can all know what, if anything, is the explanation?
While he is answering that question, will he tell us if he thinks this sale was closed for political reasons and not for commercial reasons?


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I take what the hon. member says seriously. In fact on February 27, the NDP member for Port Moody-Coquitlam rose on a point of order and attempted to ask about this issue. He was not able to proceed with it further.
However, immediately upon that point being made in the House, I contacted Mr. Hopper and I asked for the full details. They are also in the Hughes report, as the hon. member will know. I can only refer to the Hughes report on page 49 where Mr. Hughes writes: "Nor would I presume to conclude that if Petro-Canada did provide this first right of refusal to the premier that it was necessarily improper".


DE HAVILLAND
Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology who, in responding to questions about what the government intends to do about the sale of de Havilland to the European consortium, says: "Just wait and we will see Investment Canada does".
In view of the state of deindustrialization of Ontario already with massive job losses and the prospect that 1,700 jobs will almost certainly be lost as a result of this acquisition, and in view of the loss of technology in research and development that will occur as a result of this sale, does the government not think it should now state its clear position that it will not allow any further deindustrialization, any further loss of jobs, any further loss of research and development?
Oral Questions


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I hope the member from Windsor is not going to ask me not to apply the rule. We are all worried about the industrial problems in Ontario and in all parts of the country. However, when there is a proposal, particularly by a foreign company or companies like Alenia and Aerospatiale, it is the rule to make the proposal to Investment Canada. It is what we do. When the proposal is made we have 45 days to analyse the proposal, give an answer and maybe an extension of time if it is necessary.
I believe the member will agree with me that in that kind of proposal which involves one of the most important aerospace industries in Canada we have to apply the law. We have to consider the way in which we can deal the best with that company. I would be surprised if the member does not agree with that.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the minister if the minister would at all indicate what is his intention as a minister of the government to do.
My question to him is rather simple. Does he not agree that it is a responsibility of this government? By the way this is not a sale to companies; it is a sale to governments. Does he not agree that there should be applied conditions that will ensure the preservation of research and development, of engineering and design, of jobs and of the construction of whole airplanes rather than parts for a competing airplane already produced by those two companies?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, the first responsibility of any government is to respect the law it makes. It is the first responsibility.
We put forward Investment Canada to replace the very sick FIRA that we had before, put forward by the Liberal government. Investment Canada, unlike what is said by the member for Hamilton East, works very well and gives the services we expect from that kind of organization.
I say to the member that there is no way that the government will interfere in a process which consists of providing a proposal to Investment Canada. It is the process, and it is the process I will follow as minister responsible for Investment Canada.

April 10, 1991
Oral Questions LAND CLAIMS


Ms. Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
The aboriginal peoples in Canada have had their native communications program squashed, their organizational core funding threatened, their land use planning programs scrapped and their social assistance for off reserve Indians threatened, all due of course to economic restraint and this government's budgetary butcher block.
How then does this government have the audacity to justify and extend the very juicy $152,000 contract with Bernard Roy, a negotiator for the Oka land deal?


Hon. Thomas Siddon (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon. member, I would like to point out that the budget of this government introduced a few weeks ago showed a $200 million increase to the program support for aboriginal people, an increase of over 8 per cent at a time when all government department's are being held to a 3 per cent increase.
Second, that is not to mention the several hundred million dollars of additional new initiatives committed in the native agenda which the Prime Minister unveiled in this House last September 25. Many of those initiatives have already been announced and further are to be announced in the coming days.
Third, there have been dozens and dozens of agreements on land claims and new capital infrastructure in the native communities across Canada that I and my colleague, the minister of state, have signed in recent months. The premise on which the member's question is based is faulty.
In regard to Mr. Roy, the billings to the end of the past fiscal year were $33,000. He concluded the signing of a framework agreement with the Kanesatake community in February and continues veiy important work to secure a lasting settlement of the land issues at Kanesatake.


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, it does not matter how this government throws money at the aboriginal problem, until this Prime Minister meets with the leadership of the aboriginal community. The Prime Minister has met once with Georges Erasmus in six and a half years.
The Ottawa Citizen quotes Mr. Roy's lucrative contract as including $4,000 for hospitality and $15,000 for travel. It is only half an hour from Oka to Montreal, and the average income for an aboriginal female is between $12,000 and $15,000 a year. With administrative costs of $9,000, how can the government allow Mr. Roy to profit so extravagantly over only an eight-month period and this problem has yet to be resolved?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that my friend said in her original question that we were not doing enough financially to assist the aboriginal people, and when the minister responded with indications of what we are doing, my hon. friend said money was not what she was talking about. Now the implication is that there is something improper with Mr. Bernard Roy-


Ethel Dorothy Blondin-Andrew: Well, no. He is your friend.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well indeed-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps members would want the Right Hon. Prime Minister to be able to complete his answer.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, now I understand why my hon. friend raised the question; not because Mr. Roy is unqualified-because he is one of the most distinguished members of the bar of the province of Quebec and one of the leading barristers-but because he is my friend.
Well, fine, that is true. So is the Leader of the Opposition. We have had friendly oppositions, and he has had a lot to do in representing aboriginal people. I have never once questioned the large fees received by the Leader of the Opposition, because I am sure he was worth every nickel of it


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


REVENUE CANADA
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, we are now in the fourth month since the GST came into effect. The government made a pledge that the new tax system would be fairer, especially to small business people, through the removal of the old federal sales tax. However, some of these business people are wondering what went wrong.
April 10, 1991

My question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Why has it taken in some cases more than 90 days for tax rebates for the old FST to be issued on inventory these businesses had when the GST took effect? Can the minister assure this House that in a time of recession and intense competition he is doing all he can to help these cash strapped businesses?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will know that the change to the GST itself is going to bring better cash flow opportunities to the majority of Canadian businesses, plus make them more competitive.
However, in as far as the federal sales tax rebates on inventory are concerned, as I have stated in the past we have experienced some problems in some areas, the automotive industry being one, for the very simple reason that in some instances inadvertently manufacturers, dealers and distributors send in claims for the same vehicles.
Of course we are not going to send out money blindly. We have to take the advice of the Auditor General and check it very carefully. We have streamlined the operations, and now I am happy to report that as of the end of last month some 75,000 claims for over $1.5 billion have been sent out. The majority of businesses now are receiving the claims within the 21-day prescribed period.


DE HAVILLAND
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
The Minister of Industry, Science and Technology, in answering questions on the sale of de Havilland, said that the first responsibility of the government is to follow the law very carefully.
During the course of Question Period the Prime Minister said to members on this side, across the floor, that "we", the government, "have no intention of turning down this sale".
I want to ask the Prime Minister whether the government has already made up its mind that de Havilland is to be sold to ATR, a company controlled by the Governments of France and Italy. Yes or no.
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I see my hon. friend, the Leader of the Opposition, agreeing with the statement. He was not in the House when it was made and neither was the member who has just raised the question, I believe.
The statement I made in response to a very unusual situation that occurred, namely some heckling from the member for Hamilton East-it was so unusual that I was shocked into a response- was that the Government of Canada had no intention of frivolously turning down foreign investment that is coming into Canada.
Mr. Speaker, I went further. I said we are entertaining a possible investment of $100 million that foreigners want to invest in Hamilton, Ontario, and I plan to encourage it.


Brian Vincent Tobin: supplementary, Mr. Speaker. To be perfectly clear, is the Prime Minister of Canada telling the workers at de Havilland, the people in the aerospace industry in Canada that it is the intention of the Government of Canada to transfer that industry, in particular de Havilland, into the hands of de Havilland's major competitor, thereby losing high-tech jobs in Canada. Is that what he is telling the House today?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows that I said no such thing. I said no such thing, directly or indirectly. He knows that.
What the minister has pointed out is that when this government came in we abolished FIRA, which we thought was sending out anti-investment signals around the world. We believed that foreign capital was needed in Atlantic Canada, in Newfoundland, for example, to help us develop Hibernia. A vast amount of foreign capital is needed.
I want to tell my hon. friend that in Ontario and in Newfoundland, when a foreigner wants to come in and invest capital in Newfoundland to create jobs in Newfoundland, if he follows the rules, we are going to give him the benefit of the doubt. The rules of Investment Canada are there, and we believe those rules are going to benefit the workers in Ontario. We care very much about the impact on the workers in the aerospace industry in Toronto and in Montreal, and we plan to work very hard to make sure they are protected.

April 10, 1991
Routine Proceedings


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, ray question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology.
The Canada-Quebec Mineral Development Agreement expired in 1990. This agreement met effectively the objectives that were set by the Mulroney and Bourassa governments, but much more needs to be done in mining research and development in Quebec.
Mr. Speaker, my question is this: Will the minister confirm today that discussions are ongoing with the Quebec government to renew this Canada-Quebec agreement to support the Quebec mining industry?


Benoît Bouchard: Well, this is an excellent question, Mr. Speaker.
I can confirm to the hon. member for Abitibi that the sectorial agreements with Quebec have indeed expired in March 1991. We are now exploring an agreement with the Quebec government, but resources are extremely scarce.
We have already explore the ground regarding the forest industry, as I mentioned earlier. We are looking at the possibilities, Mr. Speaker, and, depending on the outcome of our discussions with the Quebec government, we may eventually come to some form of agreement regarding the mining industry as well.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have a growing concern with respect to the lack of decorum shown by members in the House of Commons, particularly members who have some previous federal experience.
I happened to view quite by chance Monday evening, while some 2,000 miles away, a speech given by the Liberal House leader, the member from Cape Breton-East Richmond. During his discourse I viewed a most
obscene gesture made by him, a gesture no doubt that he felt would help make his point. I believe, Mr. Speaker, this occurred at about 5.34 p.m. on Monday. I found his gesture to be demeaning. It was an anti-feminist gesture. As a result, I find it repugnant, insensitive and cruel. As a Canadian and member of Parliament, Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to review the video of Monday's proceedings and see if you agree.
I have witnessed as well another member yelling profanities in this Chamber. The Speaker at that time ignored these off-microphone comments. In this particular circumstance, the member returned to apologize. Prior to this, another member refused to take his place when called on by the Speaker. Again off-microphone the member berated the Speaker as well as members in the House.
Mr. Speaker, it is my respectful opinion that if members continue to resort to sensationalism to make headlines, this Chamber may soon become uncontrollable. I sincerely urge your intervention in this matter. Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder that the public is withdrawing its respect for politicians when politicians themselves have no respect for one another.


Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member, as well as other hon. members, knows there was no intention with that particular gesture to in any way make reference to any sexism whatsoever. If it offends hon. members, including the one who has spoken, I wish to withdraw.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)):: Mr. Speaker, in my capacity as Acting Minister of State for Housing, pursuant to Standing Order 32(1), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, copies of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's 1990 annual report.
April 10, 1991


CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS
Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2), on behalf of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, copies of a report entitled Report to Parliamentary Committee on the Exclusions to the Workplace Hazardous Materials and a report entitled Report of the Senior Advisory Committee.


PETITIONS
Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions I would like to table today.
The first petition is from a large number of my constituents and calls on the government to further strengthen, rather than continue to cut, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, noting that the CBC provides a very important service to unity in Canada.


John Paul Manley: Second, while I am on my feet, I would like to present a petition in which the signatories, again from Ottawa South, call upon the Government of Canada to develop policies which would ensure that Canadian funds not flow into the destruction of rain forests in Brazil and other countries which have tropical rain forests.


John Paul Manley: Mr. Speaker, my final petition is signed by a number of my constituents and calls on the House of Commons to express its lack of confidence in the government; a sentiment which I share wholeheartedly.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches-Woodbine):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by several hundred of my constituents who claim that the government has cut CBC funding by $140 million over the next four years, resulting in 1,200 job losses and the closing of 10 regional stations.
Routine Proceedings
My constituents urge the government to restore proper funding to the CBC so it can fulfil its mandate and role as the heartbeat of Canada.


Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to present a petition calling upon the Parliament of Canada to review the downsizing of Ridgeway post office in Coquitlam, British Columbia.
It is truly extraordinary. There are 1,800 or so signatures on this petition. It was gathered by Eileen Cassidy, who put a great deal of work into getting this petition.
The petition outlines the decline in service because of privatization and so on. I just want to read one clause, then I will finish with this. "Whereas having the postal service as a department of the federal government provides a link between the various areas of Canada and a needed boost to Canadian unity".
That is only one small post office, but a symbol of what this government is doing to Canadian unity and to services in Canada.


Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to present two petitions signed by hundreds of people from my riding and adjacent ridings, protesting the discriminatory practices of Immigration as it pertains to people coming from India, particularly from the Punjab.
This petition points out that 85 per cent of the people seeking service in New Delhi are from the Punjab. It is difficult to travel from the Punjab to New Delhi and in some cases, it is dangerous.
The petitioners are requesting that the Canadian government establish a new Canadian consulate and immigration office in the Punjab to provide service.
The second petition points out that it now takes three to six years for a person from the Punjab to bring his or her spouse to Canada. The petitioners are calling on the government to establish a system where in a bona fide marriage a person may bring his or her spouse immediately, pending the processing of landed immigration applications.

April 10, 1991
Government Orders CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of a number of farmers from Saskatchewan who are very concerned with what this government is doing with the orderly marketing system in this country, namely the Canadian Wheat Board.
The petitioners are very concerned that oats have been removed from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Wheat Board. They call upon this government to place oats under the jurisdiction of the Wheat Board and to give oats and barley the same protection under the Canadian Wheat Board that wheat now has.
That would mean that neither oats, barley nor wheat could be removed without Parliament deciding they should be removed and without proper consultation with the producers in western Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Could I have unanimous consent to revert back to Presenting Reports from Committees?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



FINANCE


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the revised 11th report of the Standing Committee on Finance in relation to Bill C-83, an act to revise and amend the law governing federal loan and trust companies and to provide for related and consequential matters.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, April 9, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre (p. 19027) and amendment of Mr. Dingwall (p. 19156).
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, as I rise to speak on the Conservative government's proposals to change the rules of the House, I cannot help but reflect on the tremendous contrast between the spirit and tenor of these proposals and the spirit and tenor of the McGrath report on parliamentary reform which was tabled in this House in 1985.
Let us, for a moment, cast our minds back to 1984-85. We had a newly-elected government, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed may I say, trying to figure out what it could do to enhance the role of Parliament and private members of Parliament. The government struck a committee chaired by the member from Newfoundland, Jim McGrath, which came up with a series of proposals.
The committee was concerned about a lack of confidence in the House of Commons which it referred to as our central democratic institution. In its report tabled in 1985, it said: "We must strengthen the role of the House of Commons, and the key to restoring confidence in our central democratic institution is to enhance the involvement of the private member of Parliament in a number of areas."
April 10, 1991

That was the spirit which prevailed in 1985. Today, in 1991, some six years later, the government is in its second mandate. It has reached historic lows in the public esteem. I get the distinct impression from the Conservative government's proposals that its principal concern today is not to enhance Parliament, not to enhance the role of the private member of Parliament, but to diminish Parliament, to reduce the role of Parliament in our system of government. The Conservative government's proposal would reduce by 40 the number of sitting days in a year, from 175 to 135. This would reduce the number of Question Periods by 40 during the year. The number of opposition days, the days on which the opposition can choose the subject of debate in this House, would be reduced by five. The budget debate and the throne speech debate would be reduced by two days.
As I see it, these changes will strike at the very foundations of parliamentary democracy. I would like to explain what I mean. From an early age most Canadians learn that we live in a parliamentary democracy modelled after the British system. The distinguishing feature of a parliamentary democracy is that government is accountable to Parliament. One of the principal means by which this is done is through Question Period. It is the occasion par excellence for members of the opposition to question the government about its policies and administration. It is through Question Period that an opposition can uncover weaknesses in government policy, or contradictions between cabinet ministers, and where cabinet ministers must respond for their administration of their departments.
We can all remember occasions where governments have been defeated after having their failings exposed during Question Period. That is how important Question Period is to our system.
What often makes Question Period so effective is its unforgiving nature. Day after day the Prime Minister and the members of the cabinet are required to be in the House of Commons and answer questions. When a government is on the ropes, when a minister is under attack, there is no avoiding Question Period.
Yet the Conservative proposal to change the rules of this House will do precisely that. It will allow the government to avoid Question Period by providing for
Government Orders
one week off in every four. It is not difficult to imagine circumstances where this week off will allow a government to regroup or will allow a minister to regain his or her composure, to better prepare his or her responses, if the government and if the minister have been coming under heavy fire. It will allow the government or a minister to save his or her skin. That is what having one week off in every four will do.
I can remember in my few years in this House a number of occasions, whether one wants to refer to some of the unfortunate episodes where cabinet ministers of this Conservative government were forced to resign; or to episodes prior to the 1984 election where the Minister of National Revenue in our government, the Liberal government, came under fire for certain practices of Revenue Canada at that time. Cabinet ministers would have loved to have been able to get out of this House and to get away from the lights and the questioning during Question Period. That is exactly what these rule changes will allow a minister to do.
I do not think it is overstating the effect of this change to say that the Conservatives will be undermining one of the principal foundations of parliamentary democracy, namely the accountability of government to Parliament.
The Conservatives also propose to reduce the number of days on which the opposition can choose the subject of debate.

To explain the importance of so-called opposition days, I would like to go over some features of our parliamentary system.
In a parliamentary system, it is the government's responsibility to present a legislative agenda. This distinguishes our system from the American one, where bills are sponsored by members of Congress themselves.
Those who follow the sittings of this House on television often see the words "Government Orders" followed by the name of the bill in question at the bottom of the screen. That means that the House is debating a government bill. That is the general rule. The government determines what is debated by this House. Only exceptionally does the opposition set the agenda for the House.

April 10, 1991
Government Orders
At present, the Standing Orders of the House allow the opposition about 25 days a year, but the government proposes reducing this to 20. Opposition days enable a member in co-operation with his party to choose a subject of interest to the riding he represents, a particular region of the countiy or specific groups. For example, these opposition days have given us the opportunity to deal with issues concerning people in the Atlantic, the West, fishermen, farmers or education, to give only a few examples.
Mr. Speaker, you well know my interest in issues related to science and technology. You also know that science and technology hardly receive the attention they deserve. Many experts attribute this lack to the fact that we have been unable to develop a scientific culture in Canada; that is a culture that favours science, education, knowledge and the development of our human resources.
The reason is clear. Because we are very rich in natural resources, we were never forced to develop this scientific culture. In short, education and research are not priorities if we can always cut another tree or dig or export more oil to solve our balance of payments.
Several times in recent years, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Party has used opposition days to raise issues of science and technology. These opposition days have made it possible for us in the opposition to ensure that the House deals with these important questions. On March 14, 1991, I presented a motion to remind Canadians of the Prime Minister's promise to double Canadian spending for research and development.
Mr. Speaker, we had a good debate that day. Many members told me that they appreciated the opportunity to deal with these issues. Also, I received many calls and letters from Canadians who share my interest for these matters. They told me that they also appreciated the debate.
Nevertheless, the government wants to reduce the number of opposition days, Mr. Speaker. This means that the opposition will have less opportunity to choose the questions to debate and these issues would not be raised if we had to depend on the government.

Similarly, the Conservative government's proposal will reduce the throne speech debate by two days and the
budget debate for two days. Canadians who are not members of Parliament may not know that it is not always easy to participate in a budget debate. There is always a long list of members who wish to speak and there is often not enough time for all members to do so.
Reducing the length of the budget debate by two days will of course mean that far fewer members of Parliament will be able to participate in the debate. And what is more important to our constituents than the budget?
I cannot figure it out. I thought that my primary role as a member of Parliament was to come here to Ottawa to this House of Commons and try to articulate the views and needs of my constituents in debate. I was to question the government and hold it accountable in debates. Yet, with the Conservative government's proposal, fewer members of Parliement will have the opportunity to ask questions or to intervene in debates.
The Minister of Finance, who is sitting opposite, just asked me how I will find out what is on the minds of my constituents if we do not have more time away from this House. Well, I can answer the Minister of Finance that I do not need more time off to find out the views of my constituents on the various subjects on which I speak in this House. I have plenty of time under the current arrangements to be in my constituency, to meet with constituents in my constituency office, to organize public meetings, to send out questionnaires. There are many resources at our disposal.
I do know that it is often difficult to participate in debate in this House because the occasion is not provided under the rules of the House or because there is a shortage of time. What the government proposes to do is shorten further the time available for members of Parliament to participate in various debates such as that on the budget as I have just explained.
I want to end where I began my comments by referring to the recommendations of the McGrath report of 1985. The authors, all members of Parliament who were elected to this House in the 1984 general election, some new members and some experienced members, were all concerned with restoring confidence in the House of Commons. The key to it, they said, was to enhance the involvement of the private member of Parliament.
April 10, 1991

The Conservative government has come a long way since 1985 and is now in stark contrast to the recommendations of the McGrath report which indeed sought to enhance the involvement of the private member of Parliament and did so in a number of ways such as increased powers for committees, and rules which permitted private members' bills to come forward for debate in this House in a much more expeditious fashion. That was the spirit that prevailed in 1985, enhancing the role of the private member of Parliament.
Today, a scant six years later, the Conservative government is proposing changes to the rules of this House which will diminish the role of the private member of Parliament, and will indeed reduce and minimize the role of Parliament in our parliamentary system.
I must say that I find it obscene that we are even dealing with this subject this week. There are 1.5 million unemployed Canadians. Unemployment has reached levels which we have not seen since 1985. Canada is losing its ability to compete in the global economy. Last week the chairman of the Science Council of Canada wrote in an article published in The Ottawa Citizen that Canada does not have a science policy and that in the global economy in which we live, Canada is falling further and further behind.
I need hardly remind members that we are embroiled once again in a national unity crisis and that the opposition has been asking the government to include the House of Commons and all members of Parliement in the process of finding a solution.
Rather than debating these questions, we are debating a proposal by the Conservative government to diminish Parliament and to diminish the role of Parliament in our parliamentary system.
I would hope that government members, the Government House leader in particular, who is responsible for these proposals, will listen to the debate, listen to the carefully thought-out comments of members and that they will go back to the drawing board, withdraw these rules and come up with proposals which again will enhance the role of members of Parliament, as was recommended by the McGrath report six years ago, rather than seeking to diminish the role of members of Parliament and to diminish the role of Parliament together in our parliamentary system.
Government Orders


Mr. George S. Rideout (Moncton):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on an excellent address. Perhaps he could explain for us, as we listened to what he had to say, about the McGrath commission and the fact that that was only a few years ago.
What really has taken place to cause us to have to revisit these rule changes. We just really started to work with them, and we were making some progress so that some parliamentarians had an opportunity to try to represent their constituencies. We see again the heavy hand of the government with the abuse of closure, and the abuse of process here in the House over the last number of years, and now these rule changes moving in the same direction.
Can he identify anything that causes us to really look at changes over and above what McGrath had suggested to us?


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, it is hard for me to read the mind of the government and to try and conclude, or try to figure out why these changes are being presented to us here today. All I can say to the hon. member is that it did not take a long time after 1985 for the enthusiasm for parliamentary reform to wane. I remember that in 1985 one of the changes was the establishment of much smaller committees where committees of six or seven members were struck. That was supposed to enable greater specialization by members, and it was supposed to permit the development of certain teamwork among members of Parliament from all sides.
Again, to give the specific example of a committee I am familiar with, the House established a committee on research, science and technology, because it was perceived, and indeed the Prime Minister had promised in the Speech from the Throne, I think in 1984 or 1985, to establish a specialized committee of this House to deal with questions of research, science and technology because they were considered to be so important for the country's future.
About two years later, a number of these small committees were put together in much larger committees. Research, science and technology disappeared and it was grouped together with Industry, Small Business, Northern and Regional Development. The specialization which just a year or two before had been regarded to be so important was thrown out the window.

April 10, 1991
Government Orders
I can only assume that the government really did not like to have specialized committees. They really did not like to have committees of the House getting to be too knowledgeable about various policy matters so that they could serve as a counterweight to the bureaucracy or to the decrees that come out of the Privy Council Office.
It is also interesting to speculate that the government could no longer find the members required to staff these committees. Indeed, that is the distinct impression that one gets today. With this government at, as I said in my remarks, an historic low in the opinion polls, the Conservative members really feel they have to spend more time back home attending to political organization rather than doing what they were supposed to do, which is to participate in the work of what the McGrath committee referred to as the central democratic institution.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to participate in this debate, but some of the remarks I make may not make everyone on all sides of the House happy.
I had an intervention the other day when the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, who is certainly one of the more active and conscientious members of the House and has certainly done a lot on procedure, started to look around the House and casually mention that there was no one around when the fundamental rule changes of 1969 came down the pike.
I happened to be here when the then House leader from the Liberal side, Mr. Macdonald, made the present government House leader seem like a Sunday School teacher at a Baptist picnic in terms of his very firm and determined approach to force through fundamental rule changes. One that I am going to concentrate on is the one that I wish the opposition had really got together on, instead of running the clock as we are running, although I am not suggesting motives because there have been some very good speeches here. This is the type of thing that should entertain members because it is our fundamental lifeblood and the bread and butter of the rules that make this place work.
I certainly subscribe to the comments from the opposition that on another day, in another way, this government has again done what it could have left undone by
doing properly what it has done improperly by having rule changes vented in a committee and having a debate in a very intense and detailed way within a committee.
I know all the history here about the procedures and the consultations between House Leaders and the different people. They were trying to work out a program. That was fine as far as it went, but whatever they came up with should have been referred to a committee with a broader group of members to vet the proposals of House Leaders and all the staff who work with House leaders and then bring it before the House. If the debate went on and on and on, then the government would be in a better position to do what it is likely it will have to do here. There will be a little howl of protest or a loud howl of protest of using closure to force through rules, but the fact of the matter is, back in 1969, after, as the member for Kingston and the Islands quite correctly pointed out, there was closure. I think it was in the summer, July I think. I remember being around here and having pep rallies in the different corridors and behind the curtains just to keep the thing going.
There was fire in the opposition then against those fundamental rule changes. After 12 days, the government of the day brought in closure and we lived with all the apprehension that the opposition of the day, and I was one of them, said would happen to the state of Parliament. There was the rape of Parliament then and somehow the rape seemed to get over and Parliament stumbled along in its form until we came to the next main cycle of reform which was the McGrath reform, which we all know about and some of us participated in some of those committees. That brought in very fundamental rule changes that I do believe helped this institution. It was pointed out by other members that it certainly changed the whole rule book in terms of committees. Having been a chairman of one of the better committees and I think one of the more active, conscientious and constructive of the committees, the transport committee, I can say that with the new rules changes in the McGrath report there was the power and still is the power for committees to initiate procedures and initiate studies. They do not have to wait to get an order from the House. They were hamstrung and hand tied with every procedure the committees used to have to do before, until the McGrath report.
April 10, 1991

That was very good and the government of the day should be complimented on that. There is no doubt that I share the views of members basically on all sides. Certainly the government House leader in his opening statement, and I think the opposition leader too, talked about the deplorable state of Parliament and/or the politician. Let no one think that because one is wearing a particular party stripe one is going to avoid absolute disfavour in the public mind of that generic term the politician.
I don't care whether you are a Tory. I don't care whether you are a Grit. I don't care whether you are an NDP. I tell you, in terms of the three national parties, never for a variety of reasons has their opprobrium been lower in the public mind and frankly I do not know of any rule changes that are ever going to improve that situation.
My belief has been and still is that you can pervert or prostitute any procedural rule unless there is some good faith and respect between the parties involved. It is unfortunate what has happened in this forum over a period of years. It is not through the advent of any one government. I have been here for 25 years and I can say that I have seen a decline in the respect among members on all sides.
Yes, we have to have our floor fights and debate issues when we differ. There are exceptions-and I can see some right here in the Chamber today-where you can have your floor fights and debate with intensity, vigour and sometimes some logic, and yet you can still respect that member off the floor. Often there was more done off the floor in sort of agreements. They can talk about the old boys' club or name it what you will, but I can tell you that is when things really started to get done and helped the procedures of the House by the respect in a collective way that all members had. That is sorely missing, and rules changes are not going to change it.
Time moves along pretty fast here. In fact one of the rules changes which gives me concern is that we are going to be reduced to 10 minutes after a certain five-hour period, I gather. Ten minutes for me is just an introductory preamble in so many cases, so I don't really know how I am going to be hamstrung once those rules come into effect.
I have listened and everyone has spoken sincerely, but I really have been bothered to hear some of my colleagues talk about the state of Parliament and how this
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potential package of rule changes is going to be a further rape of Parliament. We are going to reduce the time for the Speech from the Throne and the time for the budget debate. Opposition days are not going to be quite as numerous.
Well, I am going to make a confession. I don't expect any member in the opposition or the government to make a similar confession. There were days when we were in opposition-and we had a pretty good opposition that knew what it was doing-and we had to fumble around in the latter stages of supply to get a proper topic to throw before the House, to fill the calendar, to have a debate.
I would venture to say, if members looked in their mirrors and did not have to confess publicly, that every one of them have sometimes wondered: what in the name of salvation are we debating this topic for, or why are we filling the calendar with this issue when in effect we could perhaps be doing more constructive things to help the nation?
I thought supply days would be the greatest thing since sliced bread. There are some good purposes for it. We have to have supply which, as everyone has said, is the whole reason we are here. There is no doubt that the whole element of accountability in supply of a massive government of no matter what stripe is very difficult for average members to get their teeth into. That is why I think committees are going to have to have perhaps a more powerful role so that they can analyse those estimates. Whether it is committee of the whole House which became a charade or even now with the present committee structure, there are many imperfections.
It is because there is not collegiality and the common respect of members prepared to put aside from time to time their partisan stripe that I think this place has been affected more than by any rule changes in the past or in the present.
I want to come to the package. I cannot go through it all because of the time limit, but I really want to stress one point. I know what is going on here. A lot of members want to speak. Perhaps they want to make sure the government invokes closure. I am going to surprise them, because I think I am correct. There is not going to be a big hullabaloo outside if the government invokes closure after so many days of debate on these rules. This is a very internal debate. It is not going to excite the public. It is not that there are not good things that should be said, but if there were ever an internal debate it is on House rules.

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I for one, coming from the east, can certainly empathize and I think support the suggestion, admitting that there are less days of debate, of three weeks on and one week off. It has been kicked around for years and years in all procedure committees I have been exposed to. I think it is a very constructive idea.
I am not going to get involved in a personal way with other members who have made their comments, but it is very easy if you are sitting in the central part of Canada to get back to your ridings. I have a pretty good flight now, but it used to take eight hours and ten minutes, always trans-planing in Montreal, the old Viscount Vanguards, to get back east. Then the worst part was the drive on the old No. 1 Highway. Parts of it are still left, and I wonder how I ever drove on it for first five or six years until the highway was improved. Fortunately the air service has also improved.
We in the east have it relatively easy with direct flights, two in the morning and two at night, direct if you catch the right plane to Halifax and direct return. This has made a tremendous difference in terms of travel.
I still say that it is not just the mechanical paper ways we communicate with our constituents. I still think it is going to be a heck of a lot better if members get back in their ridings and talk to the people there.
I would venture to say that I think it is worth the experiment to try to put it in place. Perhaps members will come back and be a little more realistic and not quite as partisan after they have been with their people and find out that the public are sick and tired of rank partisanship day in and day out, especially on some of the larger issues which affect this country.
I think that is very constructive. Yes, it is going to change some of the time of debate in this House. The problem, I confess in sadness, is that very few people pay any attention to debates in the House anyway. Perhaps to shorten time, where we will have to have a better focus, will perhaps rehabilitate this forum which has to be the conscience of the land with all the problems the land has today.
There is no doubt there has been a deterioration. I don't think it is because I am getting older and was more impressed when I was younger. I think it is there and perhaps there should be some change in the rules. The
rules are not going to do it by themselves, at all, no matter what we do. I have heard all the stories about the rape. This Parliament will survive.
A funny thing happened on the way to the circus. I say this to my friends in the opposition. The polls are bad for the government. They are horrible. They have never been worse. I am not going to get too political, but some leaders in the land say: "We will come out of this because we have been in this valley of travail before". The Tory party has never been at rock bottom. Perhaps this is the time. I give full credit to the government for trying to bring in some rules. If things are so horrible, perhaps some members on the opposition side will be in government benches and have an expedited procedure and process to get government laws through. If these things are as horrible as some members have said, certainly the new government of the day can bring in its own rule changes. These things aren't in stone forever.
I can say to the member for Kingston and the Islands because he was not around then that this is one of the reasons the McGrath report found favour with all sides of the House. At that time when no one party was way down at rock bottom, all parties were of a pretty shaky nature. There were times when each of the three main line parties thought they were going to be in government in the 1980 period.
I say to my friends in the opposition who use the general broad brush of rape of Parliament on everything in the package that they may be in the reins of power themselves and they may want some of these expeditious moves. If they are not working or are not going to work, they are going to be in a position to change them.
I am not going to go through them all because time is moving on, but I want to talk about television. I think that is one of the reasons this place has gone down the pike, although I agree with my friend from Crowfoot that modern television technology is there. I was on the committee that studied it in opposition. We did all our studies then and felt why should our constituents have to pay money to come to Ottawa to see the place in action when they can tune in the TV tube and see it in a certain way in homes. We have to recognize modern technology, but it definitely has affected this place.
April 10, 1991

Again, having had some experience in committees, I am quite apprehensive about the extension of television to committees. I am prepared to make a prediction. Committees are now basically doing pretty good work in a non-partisan way. I am apprehensive that when we get the old camera in the committees it is going to foul up and affect in an adverse way committee work.
Another funny thing happened on the way to the circus and some members have mentioned it, that the ham will monopolize the camera. That is why this place is in disrepute: perhaps there are too many hams here and the hams will be in the committee. Members may not appreciate that there is no doubt the penetrating eye of the television camera cuts through an awful lot of floss and gloss and, if it is not real and relevant, the camera shows it, the spectator sees it or the viewer sees it.
I just point out that perhaps it is a matter of typing me in terms of time. Even good old Carol Burnett and her comedy hour-she has had a rehabilitation and has come back in another way; it is a great half-hour now I think-only lasted for 10 years. Finally the old camera saw enough and people had a change.
I am very concerned about television in the committees. I am not too consistent in saying that I know it has to be here in the House and why not perhaps in the committees. I do think it will adversely affect committees. I think members have to be very careful as they appear before the screen, whether it is before a committee and/or here, because that penetrating eye can leave quite an impression. That is on television.
I am glad the parliamentary secretary to the House leader is here. I know the opposition has used the general broad brush of total Draconian, Fascist, rape of Parliament. Everyone is referring to the generalities of the calendar and all those things, some of which I have mentioned and some have some good points. However, I am very sad that the opposition instead of just forcing the government to use closure, which will be its natural right to do in time, in effect did not focus more on this debate to try to get some changes even at this late date. One element in the rule changes that is going to affect this place more adversely as far as individual members
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are concerned is the clause on unanimous consent and its disposition under this new projected rule.
It is interesting to me. I know there are not too many government members around today and I can understand why.


An hon. member:: They are hanging their heads in shame.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: No, I do not think so, but they are prepared not to fill the docket and they want the debate to conclude.
I have in front of me in my hand the memorandum the government House leader sent to the PC caucus, which did not come to me directly. It is dated March 26 and is a good summary of the rule changes. On the one that I just referred to, if I read this and had not been around here for a little while, I guarantee that nine-tenths of the government members do not appreciate the effect of this change on consent of the House. In the list there are other things mentioned: closure, time allocation, recorded divisions, quorum, and extension of sitting. On the consent of the House, it is written in the explanation, "on matters of House sittings and activities of committees 25 members rising during Routine Proceedings can prevent adoption, not applicable to changing other Standing Orders".
I do not think it was done intentionally, but that is almost one of the most misleading explanations of the potential effect of this change in the unanimous consent that I could ever believe. I am suggesting that I take exception to the Speaker's ruling yesterday when, on the point of order raised by the member for Kamloops on the unanimous consent part, the Speaker mentioned in his explanation that this is very restricted. I do not accept that, Mr. Speaker. This business of unanimous consent is not restricted. The suggested Standing Order says in paragraph 56(l)(b):
For the purposes of this Standing Order, "routine motions" shall be understood to mean any motion, made upon Routine Proceedings, which may be required for the observance of the proprieties of the House, the maintenance of the authority, the management of its business, the arrangement of its proceedings, the establishing of the powers of its committees, the correctness of its records or the fixing of its sitting days or the times of its meeting or adjournment.

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This is broad and powerful and in effect will remove any leverage-I guess that is the word to use-that individual members will have unless they can get 25 members to come up and say no. With this power in the hands of a government, a government is going to be able to get through its business in an unholy fast fashion.
There was a suggestion from the government House leader in his introductory remarks: "Oh, well, don't worry about this, members of the House of Commons. This can only be moved in Routine Proceedings and if someone says no it has to come back to Routine Proceedings".
Mr. Speaker, you and I know how this place works. I see you indicating that I have to conclude, and I will conclude. You can try Routine Proceedings on a Monday morning when not too many people are here, and then someone may say no to the motion. A motion can be broad. It could affect the workings of committees, special committees, the Meech Lake committee, any committee you want, and you may get a no because one member may feel very strongly about it.
I appreciate from a government point of view that there has been an abuse of no, perhaps because there are a lot of Independents in this House and there were a couple of times recently where no was given. You say no once and, when the person who said no leaves the Chamber, the government House leader can quite properly request unanimous consent to revert to Routine Proceedings. Then there will be consent and you get back to Routine Proceedings, as the order says, and you can move the motion to do anything. With this provision and without 25 members on guard all the time, you could put a GST bill through this House in less than two or three days, et cetera.
It is for that reason alone that I wish there was focus from the opposition. I am glad that members are debating this matter. It is the most invidious projected rule in this whole package as far as I am concerned. I think it will have a large adverse affect. Quite frankly it is basically and totally against the McGrath report which was for private members. As other members have said, it totally eliminates any power or authority of individual members. I am horrified that the Liberal amendment did
not include it in its deletion. I really think this and this alone-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I regret the hon. member's time has expired.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, I always like to hear from the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants. He has been a great contributor to the parliamentary system for many years. I am proud to be able to say that he is a fellow Nova Scotian. He has represented the people in his area and the people in the rest of the province of Nova Scotia well over the years.
He certainly knows this place, I guess better than I because I am a newcomer here. I guess I share some of the frustrations that are evident many times when he gets up to speak in this place. There is a great frustration that I feel. I want to share it with him, and perhaps he can comment.
The people back in my riding in the great city of Dartmouth, which is not that far from the riding of the hon. member, are getting pretty fed up as well with the way that this place works. The hon. member made a comment that the television camera does not lie. I think that has been a great change in how people perceive this place.
It is fine for us to be debating here. It is important that we get a chance to debate these rule changes because they are important rule changes. They certainly do impact on the ability of individual members of Parliament to participate and represent their constituents in this place, the highest court of the land.
The hon. member raised one particular instance about the provision for unanimous consent, the change that that will mean in this place, and the potential abuse of that by a majority, by a government. As an individual member of Parliament I feel, as do my constituents many times, that this place is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
I know we are debating rules and changes to the rules and how they will affect the business of this House. I wonder how some of these rule changes will affect the respectability this place has lost, whether or not we can gain it back, and whether or not it really is making us even more irrelevant as individual members of Parliament.
April 10, 1991

The hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants who just spoke so eloquently knows full well that there are more reforms needed than just those that are in this package. One of the problems we have-and I would like the hon. member to comment on it-is that a lot of people watch us on television and the camera does not lie. They see us all going around blindly like sheep with rings through our noses.
If you remember, the government side comes in and says Tuesday is Thursday, and you are supposed to go with the party line. You will remember that on the opposition side, if they say that Tuesday is Tuesday, we will probably get up and say no, it is really Thursday.
One of the problems we have is not just reform of the rules of this place, but a true reform of the political system and how we allow our members to contribute in a positive way so that we can have better legislation for this country.
We work under a system of party discipline. It is not there to make this place work better but to preserve the leadership of the party. Perhaps the time has come to allow Canadians to tell members of Parliament about how we can be more relevant.
I would like the hon. member to comment on whether or not he believes there is a further need for reform of the caucus system and the party system so that members can get up-and I know he has done it many times and maybe that is why he is sitting as an independent Conservative-and speak and contribute in debate in a way that does not threaten the demise of the government if you are a government member, and does not threaten the authority of the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the New Democratic Party or the members of those parties. Does he believe there is a further need for reform in a real way that would allow members to get up and contribute during debate in a spirit of co-operation. Also, it is a combative place here.
I would like him to comment on that because I think all the rule changes we are talking about here are wonderful. It is great that people have different ideas. I do not like most of the rule changes I see but I like some of them.
I would like the hon. member to comment on whether or not he would like to see further reforms so that, as individual members, we are more relevant in this place and we are more responsive and reflect the needs of our constituents.
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John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my hon. friend from Dartmouth. My riding goes right up and actually goes right by the airport. We actually meet, believe it or not in one corner.
Obviously, this is about more than just reform of the rules. The question posed could have a very long answer, so I will try to be brief on this point. I guess I am a living example of the thrust of the question about reform. I have often felt like this and that is why I liked the McGrath report. In part, at least, it did come out with having less confidence votes. I mean, this business of having supply days, and it happened when we were in government and when we were in opposition, so nothing new has happened over on the government side. This is part of the frustration of the public. They have been disappointed because they thought that perhaps a new government was going to change its ways. When we were in the opposition we would say: "Please, government, do not make this a confidence vote." We put it right in our motions, the same as the NDP and sometimes the Liberals put it in the present opposition motions, "not a confidence vote". And yet, the government each time, to make sure members toe the party line, have made it a confidence vote and vote the party line.
I really believe that other than speeches from the throne, budget speeches and perhaps tax bills, every other subject matter bill should be a free line vote and not a confidence vote.
I am quite happy to sit here as an independent, and I do not have to toe the party line.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Another questioner. Another question and comment from the hon. member for Vancouver North.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I just want to conclude.


Mr. Chuck Cook (North Vancouver):: Mr. Speaker, I admire the member from Annapolis Valley-Hants very much. The only thing is, every once in awhile he is full of it. When he talks about committees not being telecast, he does not know what he is saying. In every legislature where it has been done, it has improved the committee system, not destroyed it. It means, sir, that when a member walks into a committee and does not know what he is talking about, if that committee is being telecast, the world knows it.
The hon. member is also overlooking one other factor. People have a right to know, and not telecasting committees means denying the people the right to know.

April 10, 1991
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I would like to hear the member explain to me why, and on what basis he can possibly deny the people the right to know, really what takes place in this place. Put television in the committees and then we will see who knows their stuff, who has done their homework and who has not. It gets rid of, with the greatest respect, bombastic oafs from sitting on committees.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I hope the hon. member can wind it up in a minute.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I will try to wind it up. I always appreciate the intervention of my hon. friend from the west coast.
I do not believe the hon. member for North Vancouver was in the House when I was speaking about this. I do not know because, as I said, I have conflicting thoughts about this.
I do believe the public has a right to know. As I said in my opening remarks, I was a member of the committee that recommended that we have television in the House. Obviously, it has had some effect in the House, but I have apprehension about the committees. We are each entitled to our view.
The technology is there. I also said that the penetrating eye of the camera would cut through the bombasts and all the blarney. Perhaps it will produce.
Having been on a committee as long as my hon. friend, in fact I have been participating longer, I have found that committees do work pretty productively in a non-partisan way because they have not had the attention of the reporters. They certainly have not had the cameras until today.
I must confess that the Constitution committee in 1982 in Room 200 was televised. Of course, that was a very fundamental subject, but televising that committee was very educational for the public.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Tfanscona):: Mr. Speaker, just when I want to say I am glad to be able to have an opportunity to participate in a debate, I am not really. I wish we were not having this debate.
I wish we had been able to come to some understanding with respect to the changes that are needed in the Standing Orders, because I think that is the way the
Standing Orders of the House of Commons should be changed: by unanimous consent and agreement between the parties. That is what happened in 1983 as a result of the committee chaired by now Senator Tom Lefebvre, and in 1985 as a result of the work done by the Special Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons which was headed by Jim McGrath, now the Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland.
I had the opportunity to work on both those committees. I want to reflect on the changes we have before us here, in light of the parliamentary reform process that I have seen unfold since I arrived here in 1979.
It is always hard to determine just where things began to unravel. Certainly, the Lefebvre committee had its origins in the unravelling which occurred in this Chamber as a result of the debate over, first of all, the constitutional changes, the unilateral patriation package in 1980, the National Energy Program and the behaviour of the opposition at that time. The Official Opposition at that time is the party which is now the government.
It was difficult for some of us the other day to listen to the hon. government House leader speak, presumably sincerely, about his concern about what had happened to Parliament when some of us know only too well, and remember even better, that it was that member who, among others, stormed the Chair and did that sort of thing.


Albert Glen Cooper: He did not. He was not there.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I am told that he was not there. It was certainly the case that members of the Conservative caucus at that time were very instrumental in beginning a process which led us to a sorry state then and which was reformed to some degree by the Lefebvre committee and improved upon by the McGrath committee.
I see what is happening here now as stepping back from some of those reforms. I know that the hon. member for Peace River was also on that committee. There are a number of McGrath alumnae in the House. There are a few of us left. He does not agree with me with respect to how this reform either deviates from or is consistent with the McGrath committee. I am going to give my views on how I see it, because I do think that it does take us back from the McGrath reforms.
April 10, 1991

First of all, with respect to the calendar, as I said the other day, there are good arguments on both sides. One argument is whether or not members should have a week in their ridings when the House is not sitting on a periodic basis, particularly for those who have long distances and for all of us who have had the experience of setting up things in the riding and then having to cancel them or to come back because of some event here. I can certainly see advantages in that. I do not think that should be the main focus of the debate. There are other things going on here which are more important.
The government, by moving to make the process for getting legislation through the House much more efficient, to use their description of what they are doing, has gone overboard. It is common among lawyers to say that hard cases make bad law. I think that the government, out of fear of what might be done by independents or the Bloc Quebecois or the Reform Party or whatever, has moved to change the unanimous consent provisions in a way that all of us will come to regret and which certainly goes against the spirit of the McGrath committee which set out to increase the power of private members. This certainly takes away the power of the private member or members, unless they number 25, to get in the way of the government steamroller, should the government want to use this provision to put legislation through in one heck of a hurry.
At the time we all agreed with the McGrath committee that delay is not necessarily a bad thing. Delay is one of the features and functions of parliamentary democracy. This is something that the public does not always understand. Oppositions, when they try to delay things, are not always just sort of puffing and huffing and blowing off steam. They are providing crucial political time for the public to mobilize against something which they may or may not regard as something they want to oppose. Oppositions provide that time. Sometimes we provide a few days and then we see that people are not interested and we say: "All right, time to move on". Sometimes when we provide a few days' delay, we find out that people are really angry when they hear what is happening, so we provide a few more days. Sometimes we provide weeks. That is how the system works. There is nothing wrong with that. It irritates governments, but that is one of the ways in which parliamentary democracy works.
The role the opposition can play is sometimes underestimated by the public. Sometimes we delay things and people are not interested, so be it. Other times that
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function of delay has been very, very critical. The government, by moving to even further expedite the legislative process, on top of what was done in 1969, 1983 and 1985 and not putting it in the context of a package in which the opposition receives other powers, I think leaves itself open to some of the charges that have been made against it which they find so offensive.
If they want to make this place more efficient, then at the same time they have to introduce more real power and real meaning into what we do here when we are here. That they have not done. If they were to do that, then it might be the case that the killing of time and the use of delay as a primary parliamentary function would not be so absolutely crucial to the role of opposition, if there was more meaningful input. But that they have not provided in this particular reform.
This reform, had we tried to go ahead and make a real package, could have dealt with some of the things that are really frustrating people here. That is the way that Question Period has deteriorated and the way that everything we do here seems to be very, very selectively filtered out to the public.
There was a lot of talk about TV. One member said that TV does not lie and others said that the TV shows up people for what they are. I think that TV does lie. I think that TV, as a medium, does lie in the sense that it does not completely reveal all that goes on here. Maybe TV does not lie if you are one of those people who may be watching now, who has the time to watch the parliamentary channel all the time. But if you only watch those things which make it into the news from Parliament, then the TV does lie about what goes on in Parliament.
The hon. member from Annapolis Valley-Hants said that people are sick to death of the partisan bickering. Well, it is no wonder. That is the only thing that makes it on the news. You could get up here day after day after day and ask substantive, non-partisan, meritorious questions and the only thing you would be guaranteed is a life of absolute obscurity. Nine times out of ten, the cheap shot, the partisan remark, the lowest form of political activity will be what is selected out for that 15 or 30 second sound byte on the news. I think that is part of the problem here and we need to examine that. So I have some of the anxieties that the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants has about TV in committees. Maybe it will have the meritorious effect that the member for Vancouver North spoke about, but maybe it will not not. I guess the only way we are going to find out is to bring it in.

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I want to talk about the way in which these reforms go against what I think was the spirit in the recommendations of the McGrath committee report. Now McGrath is not sacred. There are things that we recommended that did not work out all that well. I do not stand here saying that this snapshot of parliamentary reform that was taken in 1985 should stand for all time and be unquestioned and always used as the benchmark against which we should judge everything else.
But one of the things that the McGrath report did was try, by its own admission and by the instruction given it by the government at that time, was to invest more power in the role of the private member, not just as a private member, but as private members gathered together in committee. I think this reform steps back from that in a number of ways.
It steps back, for instance, with respect to the control that the government wants to exercise on standing committees by having the parliamentary secretary sit on the standing committees.
The parliamentary secretary to the House leader will say: "It is not for control, it is for information, contact and communication, et cetera." Well, if those things were to be achieved that is fine, but the fact of the matter is that the parliamentary secretaries used to act like referees and coaches for the government side. The government wants to argue now that they will also be a source of expertise. Well, heaven help the government, in a caucus of 150 or 160 people, if it is only the parliamentary secretaries who know what they are talking about when it comes to a particular subject area represented by a committee. Surely the government should be able to find other members who are conversant with what is going on in that particular area.
I think that putting five or six committees into various envelopes and giving them only two rooms to meet in will limit the powers of committees on their own to say they are going to meet, they are going to do this and they
are going to study this because there will come to be a brokering of time and of rooms which will enable the people in power to decide which committee is going to be working and which committee is not. That is an inevitable fact of life when you have that kind of allocation of resources with respect to committees.
Giving more power to the government to determine whether things will go to a standing committee or a legislative committee and limiting the rules of legislative committees to hearing only technical witnesses is a step back from the McGrath reform. If we cannot hear non-technical witnesses at second reading, when can we hear them. When can we hear the people who are concerned about a particular bill unless we have, built into the Standing Orders, a guaranteed provision for hearing those kinds of people some other time at some other stage of the process and yet that is not here.
So to simply say that because something is approved in principle it is now longer to be debate except in its technical dimensions, I think it is not just an abrogation of what the McGrath committee had in mind, it is an abrogation of the parliamentary tradition. Even before McGrath, although things had been passed in principle at second reading, when the standing committee had it people were there commenting on the principle and the technical details of the bill.
The member for Annapolis Valley-Hants will remember only too well travelling across the country with the standing committee. The second reading of the Crow bill had been passed, but people were still talking about whether it should have been passed at all. That is an appropriate role for the committee it seems to me, and that is being removed by this particular reform.
Finally, this reform gives more power to the Whips with respect to substituting on the committees. If I understand it correctly, people can still appoint alternates which they can designate as their substitutes, but they may also choose not to appoint alternates, in which case it would be the Whip of the various caucuses who
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would decide, from a vastly increased number of members, who will substitute for those members who are unable to participate in a particular committee at a particular time. I predict that what will happen is you will find that government members will not name alternates. The government Whip can then name his own alternates from this large pool of backbenchers. That will have the effect of diluting rather than building up expertise on the committee. We will, in effect, have gone back to the old system where the Whip would have the power to simply flood the committee with people who did not know what they were talking about to be there for a crucial 15 minutes prior to a vote, vote down what the people are proposing who do know what they are talking about on the committee, and move on again.
I think that is another step away from the McGrath report.
We saw a further erosion a couple of weeks ago of what I thought we had established through the McGrath reform. It is not related to this package. Twice I rose in this House on a point of order complaining that the government was interpreting opposition day motions as matters of confidence. We went to great lengths-because free votes are one of the ways in which you increase the power of the private member-to get the language of confidence out of the Standing Orders with respect to opposition motions. And we took it out. It is not there anymore. Those motions which are votable are no longer described as confidence motions, they are simply described as motions that will come to a vote. That was deliberate.
Two weeks or so ago, just before the Easter break, I heard members getting up and saying: "Well, these are matters of confidence", and repeating the same old argument as if the McGrath committee had never met, never mind recommended it. It was at that point that I finally came to believe, because I resist believing these kinds of things, that the government is intent-I hope not deliberately, but it certainly is having this effect-of completely eroding the spirit of the McGrath committee.
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They had a very simple motion before them to reaffirm medicare. It did not imply any criticism of anybody. We all could have voted for it, Mr. Speaker. The House of Commons could have expressed itself unanimously with respect to an important social program. Instead, we were treated to this very disappointing argumentation on the part of the government that this was, after all, a motion of confidence.
One of the crucial breakthroughs of the McGrath committee was that those opposition day motions procedurally were changed in such a way as to create the freedom for government backbenchers, and for that matter for members of other parties, to vote as they chose on those motions.
We have not seen that. It is not just the government's fault, it is the fault of our whole political culture which focuses on dissent as weakness rather than as a possible sign of strength. So we have not seen the kind of free thinking that we had envisaged at that point.
But to have the government get up and basically kill it by giving that interpretation of opposition day motions, I think was really unfortunate. It had not worked yet, but it might have worked. If the government holds to the position that it held two weeks ago about opposition day motions, it will never work.
With respect to committees once again, the government argues that it wants people to have this week in their ridings so that they can talk to their constituents, while at the same time it is changing the rules with respect to committees so the people will find it harder to talk to their members when they are on committees that are actually dealing with things, for instance, if they are on legislative committees.
There seems to me to be a contradiction here. Do you want members to be able to talk to people who are concerned about things? Then you should not just provide more time for them to meet with them in the coffee shops, the school auditoriums and the church basements. You should at least maintain what time there is for them to talk to members who are concerned about a particular bill and who are sitting on a committee which is looking at a bill that may concern people. They may want to talk to their member or to the members on the committee about it.

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Again with respect to committees, I think part of what is happening here is that the government has had a hard time maintaining its membership on committees, that many times the government side is drastically under-represented on committees. I think one of the reasons for that, and this affects not just government members but everybody, is that the high expectations of the 1985 McGrath committee report that these new committees, founded on these new rules, would be listened to have foundered.
I look at the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants and I remember when he was the chairman of the Standing Committee on Transport. When the Standing Committee on Transport unanimously recommended against the VIA cuts, they might as well have jumped off the Peace Tower because nobody paid any attention to the unanimous recommendation of a long-standing, well respected committee.


An hon. member:: Was it the whole committee?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: The whole committee recommended against the VIA cuts and the government paid no attention.
A committee unanimously recommended certain things with respect to food irradiation and the minister of health at the time, now the minister of energy, ignored them. The list goes on of times when committees felt that they were going to make a difference, and they made no difference.
The government does not pay any attention to what is going on in committees, unless it happens to expect that it is going to agree with it. I sat on the Standing Committee on External Affairs. We went to the Soviet Union and the Germanys, now Germany. We made a report with certain recommendations with respect to Canada's activity in NATO, et cetera. Several months after the report came out I met Canada's Ambassador to NATO. I said: "What did you think of our report"? He said: "What report?" He asked "What report" because there is no will on the part of the government or in any government department to take seriously the work of committees. Yet the very best work that goes on here often goes on in committee, as members have said, and they are not just blowing their own horns. A lot of good work does go on in committee.
That work does not seem to have any effect. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because more and more of the political process is captive to a smaller and smaller group of people
who are advisers to the Prime Minister: the Prime Minister's pollster, the Prime Minister's image maker, the Prime Minister's adviser on this and that. We in effect have what Canadians are coming to realize and what I myself am coming to realize very reluctantly, a kind of four-year elected dictatorship of a very small number of people, and the rest of us here are just froth. We are just sort of icing on the cake. We just keep up the appearance of democracy until the next election.


An hon. member:: That is right. That is the way it is.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We are all being used in that way to varying degrees whether we like it or not because the real decisions are being made somewhere else. They are not just being made in the Prime Minister's Office. Some of the decisions that affect what goes on in the Prime Minister's Office are being made in the corporate boardrooms of the country.
That is part of the over-all malaise it seems to me. I do not know the answer short of a general rebellion on the part of the people by which they demand authentic political processes, an authentic political debate and an authentic Parliament. I think that is the kind of alienation and anger on which new political phenomena like the Reform Party feed. I do not think that they are the answer, but they certainly feed on a legitimate anger about that.
Mr. Speaker, I see you giving me the high sign or the low sign, I am not sure. I could certainly go on about this. I think I have said why I think this reform goes against what we had in mind in the McGrath committee. I think there are members on the government side who at least must feel ambiguous about these reforms and see the argument I am making, even if they cannot agree with me.
I would hope that very soon we would get around to dealing with some of the really tough questions which the Lefebvre committee ignored, which the McGrath committee ignored and which this reform ignores and that is, how to deal with Question Period to make it more substantive and make it an opportunity for more members rather than fewer and fewer members. That is part of the problem around here. If you can never get on in the only forum that anyone ever pays attention to, then what is the point of being here? If no one is paying attention to debates and Question Period is the only place that anyone pays attention to, and fewer and fewer
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people get to ask questions, then it is no wonder the people want to be in their ridings where they can at least have authentic conversations with people. So there is the problem of Question Period. Finally, and I say this to the hon. member for Peace River, there is the whole question of legislative planning, which is the real alternative to all this machiavellian stuff we have in this reform which enables the government to jam through bills as it pleases.
I will finish in a minute, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member's time is over-expired now by two minutes. I will let him have another 30 seconds to wind up.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: What we need here is a real will to do legislative planning, to have people sit down and say: "This is what we are going to give to this bill and this is what we are going to give to that bill because this is important". That takes give and take on both sides. Then we will know when we are going to deal with them instead of always dealing with things on 15 seconds notice. No wonder people have a hard time paying attention or being substantive, when you never know from one day to the next or sometimes from one hour to the next what you will be dealing with.
I think the government could have done us a great service if it had come forward with a proposal as to how we could all put our heads together and plan our life here in a way that did not subject some of us to the will of others, but instead subjected the whole process to what collectively we thought might serve the interests of the Canadian people.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's discourse with great interest. He and I have had the privilege of working together on a number of parliamentary reform packages. I have always admired his work and his intellect and this time is no exception.
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He began early in his remarks by indicating that he and I have had some discussions and that we do not agree on how we view this particular package. He speaks the truth. That is true.
I do want to comment on a couple of things. I am really pleased to hear him say that it is time for some reform in terms of Question Period. I hope by that he is meaning a real balance to those reforms in that we treat backbenchers on this side with, maybe not total equality, but at least giving us some opportunity to put questions.
For example, in this last week we have tried to have I think a total of eight members rise to ask questions. Out of that we got two in three days. I agree with him that we need some reforms there. I am glad to hear him say that. I want to pursue it.
The second thing he said should have been in this package was legislative planning. He should talk to his House leader. We have tried on several occasions in the two years I have been in this job to encourage just that, but it does not seem to be working. The will is not there and I hope that he would consider that.
I have a quick question for him on legislative committees. It seems to me that the McGrath task force indicated that it should be technical witnesses. I am wondering if he had forgotten that or whether he does not agree with what we had originally designed there, which is in place now.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, first of all, with respect to Question Period. The member should be careful to realize that when we talk about the reform of Question Period we are not only and perhaps not even, but I take the point, talking about providing more opportunities for government backbenchers. I would see more promise in that if I had seen more willingness on the part of the government to entertain real criticism within its own ranks or within its own caucus. But only two weeks ago I had to listen to arguments about why motions which were not procedurally motions of non-confidence were motions of confidence and why everybody had to vote against medicare because the government House leader thought this was a motion of confidence.
It does not give me a lot of confidence that if we had a reform of Question Period which provided government

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members with more opportunities to ask questions that those questions would be real questions.
I think that we do have to reform Question Period. Perhaps we have to make it a little longer, I do not know. We certainly have to shorten up everything that goes on. I remember a time when there were all kinds of different questions asked here and backbenchers could do their job. They could get on and ask about something happening in their riding or their region. It is pointless now, I am sure, for a lot of members. They just do not have a chance. That is true, not just for government backbenchers.
That is true of opposition backbenchers as well. If they cannot go back to their people and say: "I raised this in the House of Commons", what are they to do? I think Question Period should be reformed.
Maybe we should look at more predictable ways of saying: "On this day, these kinds of questions will be asked." We have a ridiculous way in which everybody has to be briefed on every possible combination of questions every day. It must be horrible.
I think we could have some planning in the Question Period, but it has to be a package. It has to be something that corrects what is wrong with Question Period for that side of the House and for this side of the House. It cannot be something that is unilaterally imposed.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a comment.
I was watching the hon. member on television in my office, and he made a comment which I do not take exception to in the sense that I believe he made it in all honesty believing it to be true that I am one of the members who charged the Chair.
Very briefly, I would like to explain that particular incident when the Hon. Lloyd Francis was in the chair talking about the constitution. Indeed, there were members charging the Chair.
I was seated right about over there and came out of my chair to intercept a Liberal member who I thought was menacing my leader. That particular shot came on television and Bill Fox of The Toronto Star wrote up that "Andre was rushing the Chair".
In fact, I did not and some citizen of Toronto who happened to see that scene took exception to that article by Bill Fox in The Toronto Star. He took it to the Ontario Press Council and they said that yes, it was an article that
was improper and inaccurate. Indeed, a correction appeared in The Toronto Star in a small column.
Unfortunately, by then every computer in the country that carries this kind of information had in it that Andre rushed the Chair. I do not know how to get it out of the dam computers.
What I did finally was to go into the Archives and get the videotape of that whole incident. I have it in my office, and to anybody who believes I rushed the Chair that day, I would say: "Come to my office. I will show you the whole videotape and you will see that in fact I did not do that."
I raise that because there is no reason that the hon. member should know anything else. It is in every computer. Any time anybody does a semi-biographical article on Yours Truly, they contain in it "who once rushed the Chair". I will probably go to my grave with that, but I did not want to miss this opportunity to straighten out at least one member, and hopefully any others in the House who may be under that illusion.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: I did say when I was corrected by the hon. member for Peace River that I accepted the correction. I accept in the presence of the hon. member that I was mistaken as to which Liberal he rushed and for what reasons.
When I think of those days and of some of the things that went on, the hon. member will have to ask himself, even given this correction, why he always comes to mind.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: A very short question and a very short answer, please.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, it is really a question that the hon. member for Peace River asked. I had some others, but time is moving on.
I was surprised too about the comment on legislative committee versus standing committee, technical and not witnesses. Certainly, in the McGrath report, the legislative committees were not to have witnesses and/or travel. That was to be done by the standing committee on the issue. That is what I thought and that was the purport.
My real question which will have a short reply is: Having had the experience of the legislative committee and/or the standing committee,-this disappoints me and not that I am that upset with it but let us see how it works-I really cannot see this whole envelope thing. The hon. member pointed out some interesting thoughts of how I think there is going to be a breakdown and how it is going to work.
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I, for one, am totally negative to the legislative committee and the standing committee. I think this is a duplication if ever, that puts more strain on government members. From the hon. member's practical experience, how does he assess the legislative committee and the necessity of it with a viable standing committee?


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I tried to answer that by saying that my understanding of the McGrath committee recommendations was that if legislative committees were to concern themselves only and strictly with technical matters, this was to be part of an over-all package whereby certain policy principles or whatever would find the opportunity to be examined in other ways. That has happened. Standing committees have looked at things and then when a bill has finally appeared it has gone to a legislative committee, but it has also happened without that.
The concern is that the government will simply bring in a bill, the subject matter of which has not been previously studied by a standing committee, put it into the legislative committee and say "I am sorry, according to the rules we can only hear technical comments" and, bingo, the process is incomplete in that way and expedited in a way that we find offensive.
In all honesty I have to say that I do not have a great deal of experience on legislative committees because it just so happens that given my critic areas I have not sat on a lot of legislative committees. I was the external affairs critic for three years. There is not a lot of legislation in external affairs. Prior to that I was the environment critic. Just as the environmental legislation came along in the fall of 1987,1 went to external affairs. I do not profess to have a lot of experience on legislative committees, but my sense from a distance is they have not worked out as well as we thought they would when we conceived them.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: II regret that questions and comments are now terminated.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a government motion which, if it is ever passed, will have a negative impact on future debates in this House.
I would like to begin by saying that the abuse of the Standing Orders of the House of Commons by this government is nothing new. We, opposition members, are used to the government abusing the rules.
The government claims that the proposed changes will make the proceedings more relevant and increase the efficiency of the House. First of all, we must realize that this is being proposed by the very government that applied closure 13 times and time allocation to important bills over eight times since 1988. How can we seriously take a proposal to improve the efficiency of the House made by a government which, in the past, showed contempt for the Standing Orders of this House? The figures regarding the number of times closure was applied clearly illustrate this point.
Of more concern is the fact that the proposed changes are contrary to the fundamental principles of the British parliamentary system that we follow. I would like to quote a short paragraph from the Precis of Procedure, third edition to show how such proposals run counter to the principles of our parliamentary system. The first paragraph of section 13(A) reads as follows:
A fundamental aspect of the principles on which the financial rpocedures of Parliament are based is that Parliament does not grant supply before the Opposition has had the opportunity to show why it should be refused.
Mr. Speaker, to show the Canadian people why supply should be granted or not, the Opposition has at its disposal days called "opposition days" or "allotted days". On these 25 days a year, the Opposition can show the Canadian people how the government is spending their money. But it is now proposed to considerably reduce the number of opposition days. Fewer opposition days would means fewer opportunities for the Opposition to question the government actions and spending.
The role of an opposition party in a parliamentary system is to make the process more democratic by forcing the government of the day to be accountable.

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One reason Parliament exists is to give the people a choice in who will administer public funds.
But reducing the number of days devoted to considering spending or cuts proposed by the government attacks the very principle of our parliamentary system, if I go by the third edition of the Precis of Procedure.
A fundamental aspect of Parliament is to give the opposition an opportunity to show why appropriations should be refused, but this can be done less effectively if there are fewer days to do so, Mr. Speaker.
Unfortunately, opposition days are not the only victims of the government motion to change the procedure of this House.
The parliamentary calendar is also a victim of the government's proposals. The motion proposes reducing the sitting days of the House of Commons from 175, Mr. Speaker. According to the present calendar, we should sit for about 175 days, although the government does not always stick to the calendar. The reform would reduce it by 40 to 135 days. That is a reduction of 23 per cent in the number of sitting days.
In other words, it would increase by 21 per cent the number of days that government members could travel in their ridings. I have the present calendar here with me, according to the present Standing Orders 24(1) and 28 of the House, and for 1991, if we adhered to this calendar, which we have not, Mr. Speaker-we are in April 1991. If we had adhered to the calendar, in January 1991, we would have sat only three weeks; in February, the same, three weeks; in March, three and a half weeks; in April, three weeks. Only in May would we sit four and half weeks, and three and a half weeks in June. In September, we would sit three weeks, and in October, five weeks, in November, three weeks and in December, three weeks.
In most of the months that we sit-and it must be said that we do not sit at all in July and August-we sit on average three weeks a month when we follow the calendar, Mr. Speaker. So why these changes? If we are unable to follow a calendar that already gives members some time to go to their ridings and meet their constituents, if that is the real intention, and I doubt it, but even if it were really the government's intention, we already have the time needed to go to our ridings and hear from our constituents. So as you see, there are definitely other reasons for taking 40 sitting days from a calendar which only provides for 165 sitting days out of the 365 in a year.
There is another important fundamental principle of our system and it involves the role of Parliament. Its role is to make the government face its responsibilities. For the less we sit, the less the government is forced to face its responsibilities to the people.
The forum Canadians have to force their government to answer for its actions is Parliament. Mr. Speaker, this is an essential component of responsible government.
The Conservative Members ask for more time to visit their ridings, because as you know, Mr. Speaker, the popularity of the Conservative Party is at the lowest level since polls were taken in Canada. This government is the most unpopular of any since polls were first taken. We understand that very well. That is why I was just wondering whether the real reason is that they want to hear from their constituents or that they want to go back to their ridings and start campaigning two years before the next election because they have completely lost the confidence of the Canadian people.
So Mr. Speaker, let us call a spade a spade. This proposal is purely political. It does nothing to improve the effectiveness of the House of Commons. The Conservatives want to boost their popularity and are hiding behind the idea of improving how the House operates. It is hypocrisy.
Reducing the number of days the House sits would limit Canadians' power to force the government of the day to answer for its actions to the people. It must be said that the motion proposing changes to the Standing Orders includes several examples of the point I just made: limiting the power of Canadians to force the government to explain itself in Parliament. Reducing the number of sitting days in itself reduces the ability of elected members to question the government of the day.
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Mr. Speaker, the proposed reduction of 40 days includes reductions in the days for debating the budget and the speech from the Throne, two extremely important subjects for all Canadians.
First, the government asks the opposition to give up two of the six days for debating the budget. As we know, the budget is one of the most important means at the government's disposal for revealing its economic and social policies. The budget statement tells the people the general economic policy that the government intends to pursue.
Mr. Speaker, that is how important the budget statement is. It is regrettable that the motion before this House proposes reducing the number of days to debate the government's general economic policy from six, as it is now, to four. We believe that four days of debate on the government's economic and social policy is not enough. The budget shows us not only the economic policy that the government intends to take but it also brings in tax changes that take effect immediately after it is presented. So the budget affects Canadians immediately after it is presented through the many tax changes in it. It deserves more than 3 per cent of the sitting days.
Mr. Speaker, in 1985, when the budget was presented and deindexed old age security pensions, by raising questions in the House and debating the budget we succeeded. That is how important Parliament's role is. It is at a time like this that we are reminded of the importance of Parliament and of being here to debate current issues. It is in this Parliament that we made the public aware of the unfairness of the government action. People came down here and demonstrated in support of the Opposition and the government had to do an about-face. As a result, we still have indexed old age security pensions. That is why it is important to debate the economic and social statement contained in the government budget and to have enough time to do it.
Once again, the government is restricting the capacity of the elected members to make it accountable to the people. A government that restricts the capacity of the Opposition to question its actions is a government incapable to defend itself, a government that has failed and that should step down.
This becomes even more obvious if we look at the effect of the reduction in the number of sitting days on the oral question period. As I said earlier, it is because of question period that the government had to change a social and economic policy, set out in the budget in 1985, which would have adversely affected senior citizens in Canada. So, it is important, because we must remember
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that cutting 40 sitting days takes away 40 question periods. Given the number of questions asked daily, the government may have 300 to 400 fewer questions to answer every year. Let us not forget either the number of ministers who had to resign because of questions asked during question period over the six and a half years this government have been in power.
So, not only does the government want to reduce the number of days when questions can be asked during question period, but it is also trying in a way to cover up its unreliability.
Another important point I would like to make has to do with the restructurating of the House of Commons committees. The motion before us calls for a structure in which the standing committees would be grouped into five envelopes, each of which would include several standings committees and two legislative committees. This new structure would report to and be administered by a new standing committee called Standing Committee on House Management. The proposed structure, Mr. Speaker, will require a high degree of co-operation from all the parties represented in this House. As you know, it will be difficult at times to have an inspiring atmosphere of cooperation and trust, considering the difficulties our country is now going through.
Members of Parliament are aware that, since last September, the normal workings of our committees are impaired. You can ask members of all three parties, and even independent members, how many committes have been sitting since September. There are always excuses and, under the control of the government majority, there are no sittings. For example, the government was forced to designate some chairmen because there had been some resignations, but the government did not want to replace them as this was providing an excuse for not sitting. So, that explains the situation we are now experiencing.
In order to create a climate of trust, I wish all members of Parliament will do their best to ensure that this type of event will not recur. To that end, Mr. Speaker, we will need a lot of co-operation-and that is my worst concern. I personally see two reasons why co-operation will be required for this committee restructuration. First, this new Committee on House Management will apparently have great powers and plenty of work. As a consequence of the government proposal, the Committee on House Management will have many responsibilities and we, the Liberal members, think there is a risk that it won't be efficient, precisely because of that heavy workload. That, does not match our definition of efficiency.

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The government will have a hard time to convince Canadians that efficiency will be enhanced by overloading a committee with work. In my opinion, that is not logical. One has only to look at the tasks that will be given to this new committee to know that it will be overburdened and, consequently, inefficient. The committee will be responsible, among other things, for the management of committees, consideration of the administration of the House, administration of private members business and checking of all questions of procedure. These three functions alone are too much for one committee, a situation that will completely paralyse the business of the House.
Mr. Speaker, I refer to the old tradition of the House which says that the rules and composition of a committee must be established in an objective way. Presently, all committee dealings are regulated by Standing Orders 100 to 122. I would like to quote the Precis of Procedure, third edition, chapter 14: "The House of Commons establishes, in conformity with Standing Orders or, occasionally, with a special order of the House, a mandate defining expressly the extent of the committees' business."
Now, if there are technical problems with the operation and composition of the committees, the answer can be found in the Standing Orders. In short, the Standing Orders are neutral and are not controlled by any political party in particular.
It would seem that if this government's motion is adopted, the House Management Committee will have precedence over the Standing Orders for matters concerning the operation of the House Committees. There is nothing positive about that.
Standing Orders control the committees, as I have just emphasized, and, as we know, the Standing Orders are neutral and are not controlled by anybody, but are applied by you, Mr. Speaker. According to the government's proposal, the new management committee would control the committees. This Committee will be controlled by its members and, because of the make-up of the House, by the governement who holds a majority, which means that every operation, every structure of this committe will be controlled by the government. So, with our current system, everything is done in cooperation with the Chair who renders its decision-and we know, Mr. Speaker, you are neutral. We will loseout. Therefore once again, instead of helping us to have more civilized debates, we will have to follow party lines and quibbling will prevail over efficiency.
Mr. Speaker, I have the feeling-and it has been the case since September, as I have said earlier-that our standing committees do not work very well and I wonder whether, until the election, the government really intends to make them work. Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on House Management proposal could very well end up clogging the whole system.
That is why Liberals in the Official Opposition object to that proposal.
There is also the whole question of legislative committees. We are told that legislative committees could only hear technical testimonies. What is that supposed to mean, Mr. Speaker? And who is to decide that any given testimony should be considered technical? The government, obviously. Members in the opposition could very well hold a different opinion. Once more, the government majority is going to crush the minority.
You are signalling that my time is over. But I wanted to contribute to this important debate on a parliamentary system that we should strive to preserve. I hope that government backbenchers will remember our parliamentary tradition and vote with the opposition to defeat this motion.


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of State (Youth), Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport) and Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to be able to address this House of Commons on the subject matter of motion number 30, which deals with changes to the rules of this House.
April 10, 1991

Mr. Speaker, we call our rules; Standing Orders. Canadian parliamentary law began, of course, in 1867 and, in the last 124 years,-


Mr. Simmons:: Mr. Speaker, point of order. My colleague and friend from Saint-Leonard has just given a good speech. I understand the haste of the minister for youth to make his maiden speech in the Chamber, but I wonder if he could just relent for a moment because we did not get an opportunity to put some questions to my friend from Saint-Leonard. I understood the minister was rising on questions. Could we revert?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Yes, is there unanimous consent to revert to questions and comments? I did ask whether there was questions and comments. Is there agreement?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions or comments, the hon. member for York South-Weston.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to commend my colleague from Montreal on his excellent submissions to the House. I would hope that his submissions will serve to convince hon. colleagues opposite of the unfortunate nature of the proposals that are before the House today.
I note that the hon. member for Saint-Leonard was elected to this House six and a half years ago in the general election of 1984. I also was first elected in that general election. The House will note that this hon. member has been a very active participant in the debates in this House, and in fact in all the workings of Parliament Hill.
Could the member indicate in his now lengthy experience in this House whether he believes that the present number of sitting days are adequate. Could he also tell me whether this Chamber itself is relevant to the workings of our parliamentary democracy? Could he advise the House whether in his personal view the people of Canada will accept the government's proposal that might suggest to some that members of Parliament are seeking to have one week's holiday for every three weeks worked. That is the concern among some of my constituents, that is the perception out there. Would the hon. member not agree with me that when this Chamber is not sitting, there is a perception out there in the public
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that members of Parliament are on holidays? Does any of his constituents share that particular concern?


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his generous words. My constituents in Saint-Leonard elected me for the second time in 1988. They elected me to come to this place to fight for their rights and to represent them. We see the situation that the country is in today. This country is on the verge of breaking up. We see thousands and thousands of not only Saint-Leonard constituents but Montrealers and Quebecers and Canadians all across the land are losing their jobs every day, businesses are closing, people are fed up the way the system is run.
Here this week, after taking an Easter break of 10 days-and I wonder how many Canadians take 10 days' break because of Easter-what are we debating? We are not debating how we are going to solve the crisis of how we are going to keep this country together. We are not debating how we are going to find jobs for Canadians who are losing jobs, or children that are starving. We are debating that we need 40 days extra to go to our ridings. That is what the government says, but I am wondering whether we will go to our ridings to listen to Canadians or try to take some days off or even try to sell some policy of the government that are not saleable.
That is what my constituents tell me. That is the message I tried to deliver in the 20 minutes I spoke. If we have enough time, I will make the point that the actual calendar, which is about 175 days, the government claims that we need a week a month to go to our ridings. We could have followed the actual calendar. We came back on February 25. What happened to the three weeks we were supposed to sit in January? We came back because of the war. Then we declared war and we went back home. On February 25 we had the budget. We had a couple of weeks of debate. Now we are debating because we want to go home and maybe we are going to come back in the middle of May.
How many Canadian workers have all this time off? We have all sorts of tools to help us in our work, for example, telephone calls, television, householders. We have a budget of over $150,000 to hire people to answer all of the problems that we have in the riding. We are elected to be in this place to present the legislation and solutions to have people working, to have a better place for our children and our grandchildren and keep this country together.

April 10, 1991
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James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I would like the previous speaker to comment on some of the things that I see in this legislation, particularly as it relates to discussions of budgets.
My only other experiences as an elected official prior to being elected to the House of Commons was on Surrey Council. There the council sat several times as a committee of the whole, probably in total six or seven days, looking at the budget.
I am on the health committee. We get to examine the budget for one hour because that is all the time the minister is coming before us. We would debate the budget in Surrey Council maybe over three or four council meetings; here it is now going to be restricted to four days.
What I see happening in these changes is that the government is trying to say that it can spend less time on a national budget, debating, looking and examining the expenditure of the country's money, than the Surrey Council will spend looking at a municipal budget.
So I would like the member's comments as to how he sees these new rules affecting our ability to look at the national budget.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, the budget is not simply a statement of figures. In the budget the government will show where it wants to take the country, where it stands on economic matters and social matters. It is very important that this House has all the time necessary, whether through committees or in the House here, to go item by item through the budget.
The member was telling us of his experience on a municipal council. I had my experience on a school board council. We had a budget of about $80 million and we used to take a week, close ourselves in and study the budget, and take it item by item. We used to prepare the budget. Here, we have a minister who gives us a speech which may be an hour, an hour and a half on national television, announcing that immediately people are affected by that.
We now have six days to debate the budget. The government wants to reduce that number to four, and then that is it.


An hon. member:: That is it. And then they want to cut that back.


Alfonso Gagliano: Yes, I agree with the member. I think we will have to have enough time, all the time necessary, because the budget is very important. That is where the government tells us what decisions it has made.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Questions and comments are now terminated. Debate, the hon. Deputy House Leader.


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker. It is my pleasure to be able to address the House of Commons this afternoon on the subject of motion number 30, which deals with changes to the rules of this House. We call our rules Standing Orders. Canadian Parliamentary Law began, of course, in 1867 and, over the years, we have evolved a set of rules about how to behave, how to enact laws, how to govern and how to ask government to be accountable to the nation.
Mr. Speaker, our rules, our standing orders, were first put together by J.G. Bourinot, who was the clerk of this house for 22 years, from 1880 to 1902. He relied to a large degree, on precedent and practice which came from the British House of Commons.
Once we had a clear idea of our rules, we began, as Canadians, to outline our own way of proceeding in the House and the Senate. Some would now term us well organized, rational, clear in our use of language and procedures and, Mr. Speaker, concise. Others may apply different epithets to their descriptions of the way this House operates. Being a dynamic and ever-changing group of men and women we, as parliamentarians, exhibit dynamism and willingness to change, in the ways in which we make laws.
We have produced, over the last 124 years, a plethora of rules and procedures. These are motivated by politeness, by legal simplicity and by history.
Motion 30, debated now, is one of the occasional attempts to change and modernize how this House operates. We have 159 Standing Orders, many of which are sub-divided into several parts. A lot of words govern our lives in this Chamber. Many of these are more than 120 years old.
April 10, 1991

Let me read, as an example, the very last standing order, number 159, written in 1867.
It is the duty of the officers of this House to complete and finish the
work remaining at the close of the session.
This rule came about because employees of the House were only engaged for the few months when members were in Ottawa, having arrived on horse-back, by boat, or by train.
Life has become far more complicated. People across this nation now have instantaneous information, via television broadcasting, and the staffing requirements in the House in this modem electronic age mean that specialization and dedication are full time requirements.

Some may have the opinion that we would all be better off if we had never heard, say for three months, what actually transpired in the House of Commons. That, of course, is not possible. We cannot go back as we move away from the agrarian age through to today's electronic age of information towards the 21st century in eight and a half years. We see a need to change the rules.

Indeed, this package of rule changes is one which has taken over 18 months to negotiate among all parties. It was outdated before we even adopted it, because we did not cover all the changes to be covered. Standing Order 158 says that, if the sergeant at arms takes someone into custody, that person cannot be released until a fine of $4.00 is paid to the sergeant at arms. Again, a rule from the nineteenth century. We are gradually modernising our rules, and, with or without the cooperation of the members opposite, we will continue to bring this House into the modem age.

Mr. Bourinot began the process of codifying our rales. He was followed by others and today, we use, as our reference, the sixth edition of Beauchesne for our rales, precedents, examples and expectations. I cannot, for instance, call the hon. member opposite an ass or a donkey. These are unparliamentary terms. Members of the equine family, small size, may not get approval either. I cannot even compliment the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on his dress. All these con-
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straints are codified by our Standing Orders and Beauchesne.

Now let me come to the present set of proposals, Mr. Speaker. I would especially like to explain several of these proposed changes in detail.
As a first example, let me quote Standing Order 37(3). This rule relates to the provision of answers to questions by members. If a member is able to get on the priority list to be able to ask a question and the member is not happy with the answer, the member can appeal to the Speaker for an elaboration.
I won't read the entire rule, but the important proposal is the new sentence we want to add to 37(3). I will read this-
Unless previously disposed of, the said notice shall be deemed
withdrawn after the foriy-fifth sitting day from the day of notice.
Mr. Speaker, with the present rule, a member could give notice today about unhappiness with an answer and ask the Speaker for it to be considered for a fuller answer. This process is called the late show and usually 3 requests are chosen, to be dealt with in the 30 minutes after the close of daily business.
Now, that sounds okay. But the reality is that these requests can languish on the list for a day, a week, a month or, Mr. Speaker, up to two years. This is absurd. The honourable member has probably completely forgotten about the request or the topic has become irrelevant. Obviously, the system needs changing.
The new proposal suggest that, if a late show question cannot be dealt with within 45 sitting days, and I emphasize that this is still more than 2 months, then the issue is dropped in favor of a more topical question.

That is quite a reasonable proposal, Mr. Speaker. This is only one of a negotiated 64 proposed changes. They were negotiated with the members of the opposition and our members, negotiated, examined and refined by procedural experts in the House. These have been examined in fine detail by platoons of lawyers, politicians and procedural clerks.

April 10, 1991
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Of course, with those credentials, thousands of Canadians may say: "The devil with it, throw the lot of them out, the politicians and the lawyers." I am sure that no one here wants to discard the rules.

Of course, the opposition wants to discard these changes. The Liberals have proposed throwing out twenty one of these negotiated changes. The socialists over there on the left had many more that they wanted to throw out, and I say wanted, the past tense, Mr. Speaker, all, after negotiating and discussing and nodding and agreeing.

The only reason the NDP were late with their proposed throw-aways was because their House leader, the hon. member for Kamloops, forgot when he was supposed to make the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I really feel sorry for him because it is very embarrassing. Now, if he would agree to this package of changes, perhaps the simplified rules would be easier to understand and remember. We all know, Mr. Speaker, that memory begins to fade as we grow older. I know that the Minister of Justice finds the hon. member for Kamloops very young, but one would not know that, judging by his memory.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, while we are on a roll and while we are moving quickly, I look forward to a resolution of this debate and the adoption of these simple, rational rule changes. Why don't we agree to begin work on the next package of rule changes? The next package could be looked at in the coming weeks and discussed and negotiated and tinkered with and we could adopt them by the end of June.
Perhaps 18 months was too long for discussion and negotiation, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps that was too much like the 19th century. Let us be realistic. We are now eight and a half years away from the 21st century. Maybe we can speed this up a little and modernize even more in the next six weeks.
Mr. Speaker, let me give the House another example of one of the proposed changes. This proposed change, Mr. Speaker, has to do with the use of television. We all know that the majority of Canadians absorb news solely from television and not from newspapers, radio, magazines or even gossip-they rely on television. TV, whether we like it or not, is the major dispenser of news and information in our modern age.

The best way for Canadians to watch and judge then-legislators is to watch the proceedings on television. Not many persons may watch the House of Commons debates.


Mr. Butland:: Not right now. They would be making a mistake now.


Marcel Danis: Perhaps people prefer programs such as Watching a Flower Grow. Some may say that watching the House of Commons is preferable to hot needles placed under finger nails. At least we can give people the opportunity to choose for themselves whether they want to watch the House or not.

One of the proposed changes, Mr. Speaker, Number 56 of this motion, proposes adding a new rule to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. It reads:
56. That the following new Standing Order be added after Standing
Order 119:
119.1(1) Any committee wishing to use the facilities of the House of Commons for the broadcasting of its meetings shall first obtain the consent of the House.
(2) The Standing Committee on House Management shall establish, by report to the House of Commons, experimental guidelines governing the broadcasting of committee meetings. After concurrence by the House in such a report, any committee may permit the presence of the electronic media at its meetings, subject to the said guidelines.
Mr. Speaker, this proposed rule would broaden the reforms of the House begun by the McGrath Committee in 1985. Members of the House of Commons who work hard in committees deserve the chance to be seen and heard by their electors. It is often a criticism of this House that at any one time only 10 to 20 members may be there during a debate on a bill.
At that same time, however, there may be as many as seven Standing committees meeting on Parliament Hill. These committees of from 8 to 15 members hear witnesses-ordinary Canadians with a point of view. They could be analyzing and discussing policies which impact on all Canadians; they could be planning for future legislation; and they could be questioning bureaucrats and senior officials on details of the operation of government. This is a major and vital part of the duties of a member of Parliament.
April 10, 1991

This proposed addition to the rules will allow the broadcasting of committee proceedings. Now, not everyone, Mr. Speaker, likes this proposed rule. It would show who is in attendance at committees. It may show that good questions could get swamped by asinine showmanship.
Like the committee members themselves, all Canadians would have the chance to be involved in the legislative process. We can choose to be responsible and efficient. We are elected to be efficient, Mr. Speaker, and we are equal to that task.
Bring television into the process of the House. Then the television media persons would have the choice of showing clips of the work of members who do not normally qualify for consideration. You can sit at home and watch your member at work.

This is visible democracy, Mr. Speaker. It is accountability. It is seen to be responsible.
Some of the hon. members opposite may be rubbing their hands together in glee with the anticipation of a further chance for a quasi-Question Period. Indeed, some government members may not like this proposed change either. It may show a tie askew, a hair out of place, a look of bewilderment as a bureaucrat drones on about some esoteric point of legislation.

I don't think that will happen. I think that the reality of hard work, of knowledge, of dedication, of sincerity and indeed co-operation among members will show through.
Mr. Speaker, these proposals include various changes to the rules on Private Members' Business. I do not want to go into detail on these specifically, but I do think that some general comments are needed.
As a former Deputy Speaker and now as a minister, I know very well that members can produce relevant and well-thought out pieces of legislation. Some of these proposed laws eventually wind through the lengthy process now in place and become law. I cite as an example Bill C-223, in the name of the New Democratic Party member for Churchill, which concerns a day of mourning for persons killed or injured in the workplace. I cite also Bill C-239, changing the name of the riding of
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the Liberal member for the electoral district of Saint-Laurent. And the third example, Mr. Speaker, is the well-prepared Bill C-258 from the hon. member for Etobicoke, which established the Centennial Flame Research Award to publicize the contributions of persons with disabilities to Canadian public life.
I cite these as three examples of private members' legislation which received royal assent and are now Canadian law. But, and this is a big but, at this moment, more than 150 bills remain on the Order Paper, along with more than 700 motions of private members.
Mr. Speaker, something must be done. It is a lottery, a game of chance. It is what ordinary members know as the dreaded time to choose. Will my motion be chosen? Will my bill ever be debated through all stages, through to becoming law? The answer, sadly, is that there is very little hope of this happening in the limited time available. So we propose sitting longer in the day. We propose smoothing out some aspects of Private Members' Business. What we have before us are proposals that have been discussed and negotiated and talked over and changed and modified.
We must do two things, Mr. Speaker. First, complete this debate and vote on these changes.
Second, begin the next round of negotiations to have a second package of changes to the Standing Orders for June.
Given the statements made in the speeches by the House leaders of the New Democratic Party and the Official Opposition, pursuant to Standing Order 57, I give notice that at the next sitting of the House, immediately before the calling of the Order of the Day for resuming the debate on Government Motion 30 conerning amendments to the Standing Orders of the House and on any amendment thereto, I shall move that the debate not be further adjourned.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the minister's speech. I will reserve my comments on the closure he has given notice of until another time. It may or may not happen.

April 10, 1991
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What I wanted to talk about are two of the changes he mentioned in his speech. First, he discussed the question of Private Members' Business and he indicated how the private members' rules changes had been developed through lengthy discussion. I agree with him. That discussion took place in a standing committee of this House where, in my view, all of these rules should have been discussed.
My first question to him is, why is he unwilling to refer this motion to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections where the -matter could be viewed, opinions from interested parties heard and a report made to the House in due course? As he knows, every private members' rule is verbatim from the report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections that was adopted in June 1990.
The second question has to do with televising the standing committees. He talks about the new rule and what a fine thing this is. He must be aware that Motion No. 11, on the government's list of orders on the Order Paper, is a motion moved by me, seconded by one of his own members, the hon. member for Edmonton-Strath-cona, moving concurrence in the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. That report provided detailed rules for the televising of committees of this House. If it had been adopted by the House and if the government had called it for debate, it would have solved the problem he has proposed in the order and, in fact, would have guaranteed the right of committees to have cameras in the committee sessions, which is not guaranteed under the rule changes the government is proposing today.
It is clear that the government will, in fact, control the televising of committees in a very authoritarian way, typical of this authoritarian government.
I wonder if the minister could tell us why it is he has refused to deal with the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections which was an all-party committee, an all-party report, recommending televising of committees in a comprehensive way, instead of doing it in this piecemeal fashion in the Standing Orders.
His speech was sweetness and light. To someone who had just tuned in and watched that, one would think that
the rule changes proposed were going to bring about the annus mirabilis. I can tell him that I think he could benefit from having studied the committee reports and refer these rules to committee in order to assist in their implementation.


Marcel Danis: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments.
He put a number of questions. The first one was: Why was this rules package not referred to committee?
The hon. member, the member for Kamloops and the parliamentary secretary for the House Leader are very well aware, as are the Whips, of the difficulties caused by the opposition parties with regard to the committee structure that we have had in this House for a few months. The hon. member would know that this rules package has been on the table, negotiated, for approximately 18 months. Every single one of those rule changes, all 64 of them, have been negotiated with both opposition parties. There has been plenty of time to deal with those.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: No public input.


Marcel Danis: The member says there has been no public input. The hon. member represents by himself probably over 100,000 people. The hon. member who asked the question is very well versed in House procedure. I know that he was a participant in the negotiations that were held with mainly the parliamentary secretary to the House leader, so he was there-correct me if I am wrong-negotiated and dealt with the 64 points.
That is not the original package. The original package was changed by the government House leader at the request of the the Official Opposition. Some things were taken out at the request of the New Democratic Party. This is the package we believe to be a fair and honest package that we have proposed to the House. The member for Kingston and the Islands, who is an expert in procedure and has been for a number of years, even before he was in this House, if he could vote on a free vote, I am positive that the hon. member would support our package.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I want to put a couple of things on the record.
April 10, 1991

If television coverage of House committees comes, I will welcome that. But I hope that this government will not be authoritarian and will allow the media to decide which committee meeting will be covered. If we give that decision to politicians on the government side or on any side, we are looking for trouble.
Right now, when the newspapers want to cover a particular story in committee, they make the decision. We do not do that. There should be no difference when it comes to television coverage.
I also want to say that I am concerned about these changes because I think their main thrust is to limit debate. One of my concerns is that these changes are going to backfire from this point of view; they will increase public cynicism. Take, for example, the proposal of three weeks on and one week off. There will be a lot of Canadians who will identify the one week off as some kind of a break, some kind of a holiday. You and I know that that is not going to be true. But I am afraid it is going to contribute to cynicism. It is going to contribute to that very jaundiced, negative view that people have of this particular House.
I would like to ask the hon. minister a question. It has to do with these proposed rules changes and with the failure to deal with legislative planning.
As someone who was elected for the first time in 1988, I find it offensive the way the House works when it comes to planning legislation. I know the Liberals did it when they were in power and the Tories do it now that they are in power: Never give the opposition one extra moment to prepare; drop something on their desks 15 minutes before it happens, an hour before it happens, maybe sometimes a day, sometimes two. To me, that is not planning, and that is not a way to run a House. It is not a way to run Parliament.
My question of the hon. minister is this: Does he not recognize that this was a failure and that there has to be a lot more work done to allow for legislative planning?


Marcel Danis: I agree with my hon. friend that there should be more time for planning legislation. I just wish that he could attend some of the weekly meetings we have with the House leaders, the deputy House leaders, and the whips to see how hard the government House
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leader tries to get the co-operation of the opposition to do exactly what the hon. member suggests.
My reply to the hon. member would be to talk to his House leader. We are certainly ready to co-operate. We have tried many times, but we have been unable to do so and certainly not through lack of co-operation on the part of the government House leader. We know how flexible the government House leader is. He has been trying to co-operate.
The hon. member made two other comments. I am glad that he supports our rule changes which will have the effect of more TV coverage in committees. I certainly thank him for that. He has made negative comments with regard to the three weeks and one week. He knows as well as I do that when we consider the total number of hours they will be the same.
However, if I could speak for myself on that issue, I represent a riding in the province of Quebec which was one of the seven ridings that voted yes in the Quebec referendum on separation. There were only seven in the whole province. I also have MNAs who all represent the Parti Quebecois. They are trying to win their election and ensure that Quebec separates. The people in Quebec City sit, at most, six months a year from Tuesday afternoon-


Mr. Prud'homme:: Four months.


Marcel Danis: The hon. member for Saint-Denis mentions four months. It is about that but certainly not more than six months a year. They sit from Tuesday at noon until Thursday at noon. The rest of the time they are in their ridings trying to make sure that Quebec separates. In the meantime under our system I have to be here five days a week all the time, from Labour Day to the end of June. I support the three weeks and one week. It will at least give me one week in the month where I can fight for Canada in my riding.
That is what I want to do, and that is why I support the change.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words to say on this subject we are debating. Just to remind the House and those who may be watching, we are debating some pretty far-reaching changes to the way we do our business here and the extent to which we will be able to do our business once the government rams this through.

April 10, 1991
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There are a few specific points I want to make, but before doing so let me reflect on what my friend, the minister of fitness and amateur sport, has been saying. More to the point, let me reflect on the signal which he sent today. I thought it was, I say to him, a fairly sad day for him. Here is a fellow who has the reputation of being quite a brilliant lawyer, a man who in his former capacity as Deputy Speaker was one of the guardians of this place, one of the guardians of Parliament, of the rights of Parliament, and of the rights of private members. Here today he had really come full circle, with the spectacle of his standing there and saying something that he clearly does not believe. He read it well, but his heart was clearly not in it. The proof of the pudding, I say to my friend from Kamloops, the House leader for the third party here, was the minister's fairly nasty aspersions aimed at the member for Kamloops. That is not the minister of fitness and amateur sport. That is not the former Deputy Speaker whom we have all come to know and to like. We understand. We do not condone, but we understand that the man is not in his element today. He has been shoved a piece of paper and he has been told to stand and read it, or else. He does not believe what he said. Certainly he does not believe that we ought to have less opportunity to hold a government accountable, one of the principles that in his former capacity as Deputy Speaker he not only espoused but defended.
I am particularly disappointed in his performance today. On reflection, I say to him this is one night he should watch the rerun. He should really, before the night is out, sit back and watch when they play back today's proceedings of the House on television. He might want to come in tomorrow and not only apologize to the House, but to himself for that unseemly performance a few minutes ago.
If we were looking for some evidence that maybe the government is not stating up front what its real agenda is, or if we were looking for some proof that maybe there is something here that does not meet the eye or that on first blush does not look to be the case, it seems to me the proof of it is in the minister's final act before he sat down.
Here is what I mean. We hear the government spokesmen, the people on that side of the House, defend this in particular terms. They defend it as an improvement. Hiat is the first argument. This is an improvement
over what are the existing rules of Parliament. That is one of their arguments.
These people defend it in terms of more accountability and more opportunity to do the work that we are sent here to do. They defend it as a good idea that ought to stand up under scrutiny. They do all that, but then we watched what the minister did in his final act just a moment ago before he concluded his speech and sat down.
What did he say after a couple of days of debate? This is just the third day of debate on this issue. We have had a total of five or six hours altogether on an issue which will impact on the rights and abilities of every member of this Parliament, all 295 of us. It is an issue that will infringe on the ability of all 27 million Canadians to petition this place to have their issues raised in this place. An issue that important ought first of all to be debated more than four, five or six hours. That is all we have been debating it.
The minister espouses the importance of accountability in Parliament, says that we must do it right here and that the ideas he promotes on behalf of the government can stand up to scrutiny. He has done in his final act today something which puts the lie to everything he and his colleagues have said. He said that we have to rush this through, that we have to bring in closure and that is what he did in his final act: he gave notice of closure.
He said in unvarnished and unquoted terms to us and to the people of Canada: "Enough is enough. Tomorrow we are going to shut this place down. Tomorrow this debate is going to be over". That is in effect what he said in his last sentence or two.
He is the same man who in all his other mouthfuls in that 20-minute speech had been saying that we ought to be accountable, that we ought to scrutinize this. "This is such a brilliant idea", he is saying, "it will stand the scrutiny and the light of day". Having done that, he rushes in and says: "Enough light of day. Let's ram this through. Let's let the government use its majority as it did on the goods and services tax, on the free trade agreement, and on so many issues that are unpopular across this country". It just moves in its majority and rams it through.
That the minister who did that should be a former Speaker and should be a man who holds Parliament normally in such high regard is a particular disappointment for me, I say to him, and I believe for all members of this Chamber.
April 10, 1991

If there are some ideas here worth debating, let us take the time to debate them. I realize that appeal will probably fall on deaf ears too because the government has set things in motion. According to the minister's notice of motion, come tomorrow we will be punching our last few hours and having our last kick at the cat, as it were, in terms of saying what we believe is wrong with this. In the interest of having my opportunity to say what is wrong with it, let me move on.
By way of background, it was my privilege to have been a part of the committee that preceded the McGrath committee after the 1984 election. I was part of the earlier committee of which His Honour, the now Lieutenant-Governor of Newfoundland, was also a member. The minister of energy, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the gentleman who is now the Governor General were members. The former member and now senator Tom Lefebvre was the chairman. The member for Peace River was a member. The gentleman from Winnipeg Transcona was a member and, as I say, I was a member. I think there were 18 of us altogether who over a two-year period in 1982-1983 did under the chairmanship of Tom Lefebvre, a very thorough job of revamping and reviewing the rules of the House to ensure they would better serve the people who sent us here.
Indeed the committee did its job so well that after the government changed in 1984 and the new administration under the present Prime Minister took over it essentially restruck the committee. Given that the government had changed, it obviously made a government member chairman in the person of Mr. McGrath. It restruck the committee with almost all the same members and the committee in short order, in a matter of several months, brought in under Mr. McGrath's leadership essentially the same package of recommendations that the former committee under the chairmanship of the now Senator Lefebvre had worked on for a couple of years.
What does that tell us? First of all it tells us that the job had been well done. It also tells us that the job had the acquiescence or the support of two different parties which subsequently formed the government: one before 1984 and one after 1984. It goes without saying that it also had the support of the third party, the NDP, that had
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a couple of members on both the committee prior to 1984 and the one after 1984.
Lor the first time in literally decades we had an all-party consensus on a number of far-reaching measures which would not only streamline this place but make it more accountable and give more power to the private members. In general it would streamline the place in a way that would redound to the benefit of the people across this country who sent us here. That is the background.
The sad truth is that today, less than five or six years after those proposals were put through under the sponsorship of the present administration, we now see a wholesale gutting procedure. You can call it nothing else. You can put the best face on it you want to. You can sit there and tell me that you have come up with a good package, but I know the difference.
I know that the member for Peace River, the deputy government House leader, who was on that committee in 1982, 1983 and again in 1985 made a very worth-while contribution. Indeed, if we were to go back and check the minutes we would find a number of places where the very procedures he is now scuttling are ideas that he promoted. I remember particular occasions where he was the mover of motions to bring about some of the changes that he now is party to undoing.
If we are concerned as individual politicians why it is people out there have a certain cynicism about us at times, is it any wonder when they see a gentleman like the gentleman from Peace River do a Jekyll and Hyde on this one and when they see the minister of fitness and amateur sport do what he did just now, he a former guardian of this place as the Deputy Speaker.
I have listened during the last two or three days to the debate. I have heard Tory MPs say with great passion how they want to get back to their electorate. They want to go home. They want to go to their constituencies. They want to go back and actually talk to their electors. They are actually admitting in public that they want to talk to Canadians.
That alone ought to be reason enough for us to embrace this whole thing so fast, before they change their minds, because we now have an army of men and women numbering more than 100 over there who actually had a road to Damascus experience.

April 10, 1991
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They actually want to talk to the people they have been running away from for the last couple of years, to people out there who want to talk to them about the GST, to tell them what they feel about the GST, to people who wanted to tell them what was on their minds about closing rural post offices but could not find them. They were not answering their telephones or then-letters. These people could not have their petitions raised in the House of Commons. People would send petitions over there and not get a response. So they sent them to us and we would raise them on behalf of the people of St. John's East, Peace River, Calgary and all these other places across the country. These were people who were disenfranchised, in effect, people whose members had abandoned them for the last two years. Now, thanks be to goodness, miracles never cease to happen. Those same people over there have had their road to Damascus experience. They have seen the light and now want to go home and talk to the same people who heretofore they kept running away from on GST, on fisheries issues, and on so many other issues.
I see that for now my time is up. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, and will have a little more to say another day.


SPEAKER'S STATEMENT
Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member. At another moment of course he will have the right to continue. However, now I am called upon to report to the House on a matter that was raised on Monday.
On Monday, April 8, 1991, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing rose on a point of order concerning Government Motion No. 30, the motion dealing with the proposed changes to the Standing Orders of the House.
"Hie hon. member argued cogently that this motion contains many distinct propositions. He then went on to ask the Chair "to divide Motion No. 30 into five distinct motions and to permit each to be debated, amended and voted on separately".
The hon. government House leader, the hon. member for Kamloops and the hon. member for Calgary West contributed to the brief discussion that ensued. The Chair took the matter under advisement and undertook to return to the House as soon as possible. I am now prepared to rule on the matter.
Government Motion No. 30 now being debated consists of 64 separate proposals, as well as paragraphs relating to its coming into force. I have carefully considered the motion and the arguments put forward by hon. members. I have equally carefully reviewed the weight of precedent and practice with regard to the Chair's discretionary power in such a situation.
Although it is clear that the Speaker has the authority to divide complicated questions, it is equally true that this power has only very rarely been exercised. In this situation, I have been guided by the cautionary note sounded by Speaker Lamoureux in his ruling of March 23, 1966:
It is only in exceptional circumstances and when there is little doubt
about it that the Speaker can intervene and, of his own initiative,
amend the resolution proposed by an hon. member.
Therefore, after serious reflection, I undertook discussions with the leadership of the three parties. Following those consultations, I wish to inform the House that the Chair proposes to deal with Government Motion No. 30 in this manner. All proposals will be debated together but they will be voted upon in three groupings, those groupings being: proposals relating to private members' business, namely those numbered 38 through 45 and 60 through 64; proposals relating to committees, namely those numbered 46 through 59; and all other proposals, namely those numbered 1 through 37, as well as those separate un-numbered paragraphs relating to the terms and conditions of the coming into force of the motion.
With regard to the amendment of the hon. House leader of the Official Opposition, a division on that question will precede the divisions on the groupings I have just outlined.
In summary, then, there will be a single debate on Motion No. 30 and the House will vote on the motion in the following manner: (1) a vote on the amendment of Mr. Dingwall, (2) a vote on the proposals relating to Private Members' Business, (3) a vote on the proposals relating to committees, (4) a vote on all other proposals including the paragraphs relating to the coming into force of the motion.
I wish to express my sincere appreciation to all hon. members for their contribution to the Chair's consideration of this question. Your co-operation does great credit to this place and obviously obviates the necessity of the Chair to make unilateral interventions that might be of some difficulty in terms of precedents to both sides at some later date. I thank hon. members.
April 10, 1991

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands on a point of order.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to clarify the situation. If the vote on the amendment that is now before the House were to take place early tomorrow, is it then possible to move other amendments to the motion that has been proposed? If so, I presume that Your Honour is allowing that to take place and the amendments would not necessarily have to follow the groupings that Your Honour has divided for the purposes of the vote. In other words, any amendment would be disposed of first.


Mr. Speaker:: If I understand the hon. member's question correctly, I think that the answer is in accord
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with the hon. member's suggestion. I would however ask the hon. member to discuss the matter with me, perhaps just after adjournment, or with one of our table officers just to be sure that we completely understand the issue.
I think that I do understand it and I do not think that there is a problem, if I can put it that way.
It being six o'clock p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24 (1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.01 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Thursday, April 11,1991