1991-12-09

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, November 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Gardiner (p. 4875).
Mr. Jim Karpoff (Surrey North):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to rise and speak on this motion brought forward by my colleague from Prince George- Bulkley Valley. I would like to compliment him on bringing it forth at this point in time in Canadian history. It is important that he has seen the wisdom of reminding Canadians that we have much to be proud of. We must at this point in our discussion of the Constitution and our constitutional problems take time out to be proud that we are Canadians and that we have a heritage that is rich and quite frankly worth bragging about.
Next year will be Canada's 125th anniversary. I think it is very appropriate that this motion is before the House so that it can be passed and that the first Canadian heritage day can be celebrated during our 125th anniversary.
One of the things I think makes Canada unique is the fact that most Canadians have roots in many parts of Canada. Although there are times when we have regional differences and different points of view, most Canadians' when they look back at their family backgrounds have roots in all regions in Canada.
In my own family my grandfather, grandmother and my mother were born in Quebec. They came from the southern townships of Quebec. I have roots in Alberta
where my father settled in Edmonton. I now have roots in British Columbia where I have lived for 40 years.
Because Canadians have roots in all parts of Canada we should have a national heritage day. It should not be a day that celebrates simply British Columbia or Quebec or Nova Scotia, but a day which emphasizes that we are all Canadians and that we have a heritage that is important to remember.
There is no area in Canada that does not have a rich heritage. My own municipality of Surrey, which was named after Surrey, England, is tremendously rich in the heritage of that area. People forget that it was one of the original logging areas. When we look at some of the pioneer pictures we find that particularly the north part of it was covered with massive Douglas fir. They are huge trees. The old pictures show the logging. It was nothing to have a six-foot diameter stump. The oxen and early steam engines dragged the timber out of the bush.
Fortunately for us in Surrey we have one of the best medium sized museums anywhere in western Canada if not in all of Canada. It is called the Surrey Museum. It has been able to capture and preserve a great deal of the history and heritage of Surrey. This is the heritage of the farm community which settled on the Delta between the Serpentine and the Nicomekl Rivers in South Surrey. It comes right up into the north part of Surrey, into what is now part of my riding in Port Kells. These were the original farming areas in the lower Fraser Valley. This is very good rich farming land. There are whole historical areas like the Tynhead area which has now been turned into a provincial park. This is where pioneers settled early on.
We have the Fraser River with its tremendous heritage. The Fraser River as everyone knows was the initial navigation river into the interior. It was the highway on which people went further into the interior in the exploration of British Columbia. It was a busy waterway in its earlier days and it still is for logging. Massive log booms were moved up and down that river. The lumber industry of British Columbia which has become known world-wide and is so much a part of our make-up

December 9, 1991
Private Members' Business
actually started predominantly in and around the Fraser River.
We have historical trails like the Semiamo Trail that link New Westminster right down into the United States. It was really our first north-south link with our neighbours to the south.
These are the things that even a small community like Surrey has that is part of its heritage. Surrey has a rich multicultural heritage going back many years with Indo-Canadian families, with Japanese settling in the area and more recently with large ethnic communities such as Portuguese, Italians and Vietnamese. This again enhanced the heritage of our community.
It would be appropriate and fitting as we move toward our 125th anniversary if Canada adopted a national heritage day. That could act as a focal point of unity right across this country. It could say to all Canadians that we are proud. We have a tremendous potential in this country. We have a rich history and diversity, but we have some common goals and we have some common things to celebrate.
Therefore I would urge members on all sides of this House to support whole-heartedly this motion put forward by the member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley so that we can pass it and that it can become law within the federal jurisdiction. Then next year, as we celebrate our 125th anniversary of Canada, we could have the first national heritage day.


Mr. Jean-Pierre Hogue (Outremont):: First of all, Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank you for recognizing me.
It is a privilege to take part in the debate on second reading of Bill C-236, an act respecting national heritage day, especially since the potential impact of this legislation is quite considerable.
As citizens of this country, we have a right to be proud of our historical and cultural heritage and of the vital contribution made by the men and women who over the years have helped make Canada what it is today, one of the most enviable countries in the world.
We also have a right to be proud of our ancestry, our language and our family and religious traditions, which are so richly diverse. Together, these values reflect not only our attachment to the past but also our admiration for those who shaped that past.
Considering the profound changes taking place in today's society, especially at a time when we are trying to redefine our common future, it is imperative that governments-and each and every one of us-make a more conscious investment in preserving our history and our cultural identity.
Canada, as we all know, represents a unique mixture of traditions and symbols based on our history, our diverse heritage and our historic experience. These traditions and symbols strengthen our sense of community and maintain a continuity between our past and our future.
We have reached a turning point in our history, both nationally and internationally. The constitutional choices we are about to make will not only affect our identity as a nation but also our position in the world.
As a nation we are a confederation, and we want to remain so. This does not mean that the framework for our confederation must remain identical to what it has been so far. We must be creative and show initiative. We must start these discussions with the conviction that we are going to win, that we will create a Canada where everyone will be able to benefit from what this country has to offer.
But how do we do that? Obviously we need a good dose of tolerance and openmindedness, and both tend to increase with our knowledge of the past. Learning about our past does not mean memorizing historic facts and dates but understanding the men and women who made that past. That knowledge will put us in a better position to build our future.
Internationally we want to remain what we are: a prosperous and competitive nation. To do so, we must keep up with the rapid changes taking place in the world. Canada's future prosperity will depend on our ability to take advantage of opportunities and successfully meet the challenges of rapid change in areas such as informatics, biotechnology and telecommunications.
December 9, 1991

It may seem unusual that I should mention those three areas, considering the subject before the House today. In other words, what connection is there between technological expansion and our heritage? A very close one, because unless we have a profound sense of our heritage and the community to which we belong, unless we understand and assimilate our past, we cannot move ahead.
If we look at other countries, those that have learned from their past experience and past mistakes happen to be the same countries that are looking ahead to the future. If we want to build Canada, and if we want to build Canada's future together, we must know our roots. If Canadians are to contribute to the development and unity of this country, they must know what constitutes its foundation.
As I see it, the question is not whether Canadians should celebrate the riches of their heritage but how. Creating a national heritage day could become part of the government's efforts to emphasize the importance of preserving Canadian unity.
It is also true that adding a holiday that celebrates Canada, its people and its accomplishments would complement Canada Day, celebrated every year on July 1. We are one of those countries that tend to understate their heritage. Nevertheless, we have every reason to be proud of our background. Making Canadians more aware of our rich history and of heritage values in general would undoubtedly help to enhance our sense of community as Canadians. Canada Day expresses our pride as citizens of the confederation to which we belong, and National Heritage Day would emphasize our diverse roots and help us gain a better understanding of what was accomplished by the men and women who built the society in which we live today.
It was suggested that we should celebrate National Heritage Day on the third Monday in February, during the longest period in the year without a holiday. We have no objection. It is an excellent idea. I am sure that Canadians would be delighted to have a day's respite in the middle of winter. It would be a good opportunity to spend a few moments to reflect on what our ancestors accomplished. A chance to get back to our roots. It would also be an excellent antidote for the winter blues a real morale booster for workers and for all Canadians.
Private Members' Business
Furthermore, Canada Day is celebrated during the summer holidays but National Heritage Day would be celebrated during the school year. Our young people would have an opportunity to reflect on their country's past. With their innate curiosity and questing minds, they would make us explore areas that are too often neglected.
Parents, seniors and various cultural groups could be involved in a series of activities organized in our schools to prepare for this day.
If we want future generations to be proud of their identity, proud of belonging to this country, let us give them a chance to learn about the past, to gain a better understanding of the changes that occurred over the centuries and shaped the country we live in today.
However, there are other considerations, and I am referring to this country's economic interests. A holiday would be very costly. In fact, Canada would lose about $2.5 billion as a result. I realize that pride and patriotism cannot be expressed in dollars and cents, but we must be realistic.
We believe that increasing our productivity is the key to increasing the real incomes of Canadians. Considering the present state of our economy, and at a time when we are trying to make our economy more competitive, these figures should make us stop and think. Although we agree with the principle of National Heritage Day, our concern must also be for the economic prosperity of our country.
Creating National Heritage Day might also have a very substantial social impact, since this day would concern only a minority of Canadians. About 8 per cent of the Canadian population would be part of this magnificent day. Finally-I am running out of time; I noticed your signal, Mr. Speaker-to achieve a consensus in this respect we must try and develop in this country a real sense of heritage values and work together to create the kind of economic, social and political climate that such a message requires.
A national heritage day requires broader consultation, and consequently I believe that until we have found a way to let all Canadians share this pride in our heritage, it would be best to proceed as requested.

December 9, 1991
Private Members' Business
[English\


Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to congratulate my colleague from Prince George-Bulkley Valley for presenting this piece of legislation today. I was sorry to hear from the member who spoke on behalf of the Conservative Party that he is now calling for some delay in considering such a piece of legislation.
Canada's heritage is something we cannot celebrate enough. We should be paying more attention and creating holidays such as this where we can draw Canadians to the values in this country that they should be respecting and celebrating.
At this point the fundamental basis of this country is under attack from many quarters. Many people are concerned that institutions which initially brought this country together such as Canada Post, the national railway system, VIA Rail are now being dismantled. As a result the very sinews that hold the country together are weakening and people are concerned all across this country.
The same is true of the debate around our Constitution and the separation of the province of Quebec. Many Canadians are concerned about what is going to happen to our country in the future. They want to have their concerns focused on the value of keeping this country together and on the heritage of this country that we all treasure.
People are concerned that the promises made many years ago about economic integration of the United States with Canada and other countries in the hemisphere is now being realized. As a result we are losing our national identity. At this time Canadians need something to focus on in order to recognize and pay tribute to the heritage that brought this country together in the first place.
For example, Canada is described as a country that was put together against all odds, even geography. In this hemisphere we have a north-south alignment of the geographical features, the mountains ranges and the Mississippi River valley, et cetera. All these things tend to draw our attention north and south. Yet the Canadians of many years ago built a nation across this country from sea to sea that was able to defeat the dictates of geography. It is that kind of nation we are attempting to keep together 125 years after its founding in 1867. I am
hopeful that we are going to it. We must constantly focus Canadians on the value of their countiy and heritage. At a time when there are tensions in this country that threaten to pull it apart I am concerned that people will be looking outward and will lose concern for their countiy.
A tremendous number of people over many years made great sacrifices to build this countiy and keep it together. I think those sacrifices ought to be honoured and recognized by Canadians. A holiday such as the one proposed by my colleague, a national heritage day, is exactly what we need. Dominion Day or Canada Day is recognized on July 1, but we are one of the countries in the world with the fewest days recognizing our natural heritage. I think the more we have the better off we are going to be. We need to focus people on the value of that heritage.
Many communities across the country are already attempting to do that. For example, I live in a community that grew up around the logging and forest industry. It was a pioneering community in terms of the development of pulp and paper on the west coast of Canada and the development of markets in Asia. The community where I live was a pioneering community in terms of those things. It was a community which really did not pay attention to its heritage until it saw that there was a threat to that industiy and heritage. Members in the community have now revived an old logging road system based on a logging Shay engine, what they called the two-spot. They have revived an old railway station that was about to be tom down. It has been rebuilt on the waterfront and focuses the community on an industry which was very important in building that community.
There is an old pioneer mill, McLean's Mill, in the valley that they are now putting together and rebuilding. They hope to have an old operating sawmill in that community to show people exactly how the forest industry was structured many years ago. It will show what kinds of tribulations workers used to go through to keep the machines operating and the raw materials supplied to that mill.
Many communities across this countiy are looking back into their history and taking things of value from it. They are reviving and emphasizing them and using them to teach children their heritage and show them what kind of values this countiy and its communities had in the past.
December 9, 1991

Too often over the past 20 or 30 years we have ignored our past. As a result many of the children and young people in our country have lost those values. I think this proposal for a national holiday to celebrate our heritage is a perfect idea to focus our young people on the values that we as Canadians hold and the value of our history.
It would be unfortunate if we took the view that another holiday is simply an additional cost added to doing business. The previous speaker mentioned that a statutory holiday in Canada would cost something like $2.5 billion, but that is only one side of the ledger. We all know that holidays also have an economic value to the country. Canada has fewer holidays for its work force than almost any other country on the globe. I was looking at an article recently in an American magazine where they listed all the holidays people are entitled to in various countries.
In Austria, for example, workers are allowed a minimum of 30 days of holidays per year; Denmark, 30; Sweden, 30; Italy, 28; France, 25; Netherlands, 24; Spain, 22; United Kingdom, 22; Australia, 20; Belgium, 20; Finland, 20; Switzerland, 20; West Germany, 18; and down at the very bottom with 10 minimum holidays a year is Canada.
Many of those countries at the top of the list are countries that are very successful competitors when it comes to competition with Canada. Holidays are not a cost of doing business. They provide value to business. People get time off from work and are able to relax and reduce the kind of stress that builds up in the work place. People get time off work and they acknowledge important holidays.
In addition, when people get time off from work, other people who are currently not employed are able to take their place and as a result we are able to reduce the unemployment level in this country. By reducing unemployment, as many of these countries with more holidays than Canada have done, we may be able to bring people back so they can feel they are playing a larger role in the country, contributing more, and that they are not a net drag on the country's resources and will be much better Canadians as a result.
Private Members' Business
I would ask all members to support this bill to create a heritage day in the third week in February. Again I congratulate the member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley who made this proposal.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker,
I want to say how delighted I am to be able to participate in this debate. I support this bill and I congratulate the member for this motion.
Establishing a heritage day in Canada is not a new idea but it is a very worth-while idea. As a Canadian who loves this country I have always found it a mystery and a conundrum why we have so much difficulty with our identity, why we lack the unity of what is really a very successful country. This is one of the best countries in the world. Millions if not billions of people who inhabit this planet would give their eye teeth to be Canadians, to be citizens of this country.
Here we are, one of the most privileged people in the world living in one of the greatest countries in the world and we have unity problems. We seem to stress the negative. We seem to focus on the things that tend to disunite us as opposed to those things we hold in common, the things that unite us.
The fact of the matter is that unlike our friends south of the border, the Americans, we do not celebrate enough. We do not flaunt our successes enough. We do not show our pride enough. The Americans perhaps go too far because they show their pride and wear their pride on their lapels or on their sleeves. We tend to be shy and diffident. While I would not suggest that we should be just like the Americans, I think we do have to tell the Canadian story because it is a wonderful stoiy.
Unlike America, this country was not bom in revolution. We have a peaceful history. We have had peaceful evolution. We should have great pride in that. We should be very proud. We tend, however, to sit back and be quite defensive about this country. We do not have to be defensive at all. Let us go on the offensive and tell the world how great we are.
I can think of so many things to celebrate. We are coming up to our 125th birthday of Confederation and what a good time it would be to establish a national heritage day. Think of the private sector-public sector partnership we have had in this country. We have had a tremendous partnership. It is one of the reasons for the success of this country. We have not done it just on private moneys or private initiative. We have had a

Private Members' Business
wonderful and very productive partnership involving government and the private sector.
We could think of the CPR, going back to the late 19th century when we established a railroad to the west coast. We could think of the seaway we built with the help of the Americans back in the 1950s. I can think of some of the great public initiatives like the CBC established in the 1930s.
Medicare, established in the 1960s, is still one of the great public health models and is envied, I would think, in most parts of the world. It has some financial problems today but it is a tremendous model, a successful model, a model to be emulated all around the world. We have a lot of things to celebrate.
We should think of our diversity. We should think of the fact that we have been the homeland of peoples from all around the world. People have come from the four corners of the earth to be here, to live here, to establish their families here, to pursue their careers and to contribute to this country.
That is another reason why we are successful. I think we have been able to have the cream of the crop of people from all around the world. We have had the very best come here and establish their lives. We have been the beneficiaries of this immigration.
When I think of a heritage day, I think not only of our diversity but of our multiculturalism which has given us some problem. I think it gives us problems because I do not think we understand multiculturalism very well. We compare it to what is called the melting pot in the United States.
The melting pot of the United States is largely a myth. For example, have the blacks been melted? Have the Hispanics been melted? They have not. There is a tremendous amount of diversity in the United States. There is a tremendous amount of multiculturalism in the United States. The myth persists about the great American melting pot. There is a melting pot at the level of the national anthem, at the level of the Stars and Stripes. It is there with respect to the flag and to good old fashioned American pie. When we get beneath that the United States is just as diverse and just as multicultural as we are.
I think that on heritage day we could explain multiculturalism. It would give us that opportunity. It would give
new Canadians and groups of Canadians bom elsewhere the opportunity to show how great they are as Canadians.
I believe to the very bottom of my heart that it does not matter whether your skin is brown, whether your religion is Islamic, Catholic, or what mother tongue you have: French, English, German, or Swahili. None of those differences stands in the way of being a good Canadians.
When someone asks me what a Canadian is, other than the fact that we all share a common citizenship it is very difficult for me to explain it. I do not identify Canadian according to race, according to colour, according to skin or according to religion. A Canadian is one who lives here, believes in this country, loves this country, has pride in Canadian citizenship and is proud of being a resident of this country.
A heritage day something we need. I think it would give us the opportunity to tell the wonderful Canadian story.
It could explain where we have been, where we are at right now-and we have some difficult times right now-and where we might be going. We have Canada Day on July 1, but we could do with a lot more. It is not unusual for other countries to have a number of days, several days in honour of national heritage.
A member earlier was mentioning Austria with perhaps as many as 30 days set aside to celebrate one way or the another its heritage. In the United States, just next door, there are apparently five national heritage days. Finland has 12.
It would seem to me that this great countiy could afford at least to have one more day. What better time than the cold month of February? This is a cold country and it would be good right in the middle of the winter, after Christmas and New Year's Day, to set aside a day to celebrate this country. We have a lot to celebrate.
I am happy to support this private member's motion. I congratulate once again the mover. I would hope we have a successful vote so that this motion could be examined further in committee.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen -Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to speak in favour of this motion instituting a national heritage day and I

would like to congratulate the member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley for putting forth this motion.
I would like to start my remarks in context of a quote from a government publication called Proud To Be a Canadian: A Rich Cultural Tradition. This government publication at page 21 stated:
A Heritage Day celebrated nationally would enhance two vital aspects of Canadian identity. We would focus on those parts of our heritage which are truly the expression of what we have achieved together, from our liveable cities to our artistic genius. And we would reach out across our many cultures to learn about and savour the differences our heritage stands for. A Heritage Day, in other words, would be a uniquely Canadian occasion to celebrate both unity and diversity.
I think that paragraph captures what the idea of a national heritage day is all about. It brings together all of those things which make us Canadians and make Canada the country that we believe in.
We have been made up over the past 125 years and before of groups of people from all over the world. We are a mosaic of people who bring to Canada our rich backgrounds, our rich heritage from other places. We bring different languages, different cultures, different ways of looking at things. Over the years we have moulded together in a country I believe we can all be very proud of.
We have our difficulties and we have our problems. We are in the middle of a national unity debate as to whether we should remain as a whole from sea to sea to sea. I do not think there is any doubt in the minds of most of us that the heritage we have has a richness unsurpassed in very short time by any other country.
I remember when I was in high school looking at what they taught us then and thinking at that time in my early teens that Canada was not or did not have a very rich background, a very rich history.
Yet as time went on, through high school I began more and more to realize and to understand how rich our history was and how enriched Canada was. The richness of Canada is something I learned about over many years of reading political history books, political biographies, excellent Canadian publications such as Canadian Forum, Options, Maclean's magazine, to name three, that set out what we, as Canadians see; why we as Canadians stand out in the world.
I wonder throughout this unity debate why it is not important to have a national heritage day to reflect on
Private Members' Business
how lucky we really are, and how we are viewed, not only internally in Canada, but how we are viewed by other nations around the world.
In talking to people from various other countries, they have a hard time believing that we as Canadians would even consider splitting this wonderful country apart. We have so much going for us, not only nationally but internationally. Looking at our heritage, I am a firm believer that we must take that step further. We must look not only at where we have come from and what we are today, but use this to show us where we should go in the future.
If I could be parochial for a minute, I will look back at Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt and some of the things within that riding and within the area of the Kootenays where I was bom and raised, that I think are so important to our history and so important to our upcoming generations. It is imperative that we protect that heritage and remember the richness of our history, our culture, our art-both visual and performing arts- that make us what we are.
If we look at Christina Lake, there is a group right now trying to preserve and save the Christina Lake or Cascade Powerhouse. It is an important building and an important point in the history of that region. Grand Forks, whose history goes back almost as far as any other community within British Columbia, has a rich heritage in mining. They are at present in the process of trying to preserve the railway station in that area, along with the abandoned rail tracks, to ensure that our heritage is protected.
Up in Penticton we have the ongoing restoration of the S.S. Sicammous, one of the few stem-wheelers remaining. The other stem-wheeler in our region in the riding of Kootenay West, in Kaslo, originally the home of both my father and my wife, is also preserving the S.S. Moyie and have a museum within that structure.
These are important parts of our past. It is important that we look at those parts of our past to ensure that our children understand what we went through and what our parents went through, little bits of the past that help us chart the course for the future.
I also would like to briefly mention how important to our culture and our heritage is art. On the west coast, for instance, there is the art of Emily Carr, an important part of the past, linking the heritage of Emily's back-

Government Orders
ground with the heritage of the community that was built up around her.
All across Canada in the visual arts we have the opportunity and have seen people take the opportunity to ensure that we understand and realize not only what is occurring at that time, what has occurred before and, what I am sure will come and be happening in the future.
Our performing arts such as the National Ballet in Ottawa, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the symphony orchestras having such a hard time across Canada whether they be in Vancouver or in any other city, these are important parts of heritage. Focusing on a day where we as Canadians can recall I think is important.
A minor part of that is the need for a day off for all working people of Canada to reflect. It would not simply be to have a day off to enjoy themselves, but for a focus as we have on Canada Day, July 1. It is a focus of the richness of our past, the richness of what we have in the present and the hope that I have of the richness that we will carry on into the future.
It is important. I believe that this House should go to the next stage on National Heritage Day, iron out the bugs that are within this bill and bring it back for third reading, passage and institution. Yes, Canadians want and need a day to recall the past, to remember the present and to ensure that it is reflected in what we do in the future.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I see that there is really only a minute or so left so I will just begin my remarks. If the matter comes back for debate, I would like to complete them at that stage.
I support this bill to establish a national heritage day. It is a very important bill, and I would like to congratulate the member for introducing it. I am disappointed that at least some government members have not said they are going to support the bill. In fact, the parliamentary secretary indicated in what is frankly a rather spurious reason that because the bill only applies to employees within the federal jurisdiction, it does not apply to enough people in Canada for the government to support it.
It seems to me that the government should recognize this bill as a first step. It does deal with those with whom
it is the jurisdiction of Parliament to deal. We can only deal with employees within the federal jurisdiction, and therefore, we ought to exercise that jurisdiction to its full if the idea is a good one. I know that many government members believe it to be fundamentally a good one.
With that, I notice that it is 12 p.m. Perhaps I can continue on the next occasion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired. Pursuant to Standing Order 19(93), the order is dropped to the bottom of the list of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.


Mr. Gardiner:: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I stand to be corrected but I think if you check with the Thble, if I am not mistaken, we have just concluded the second of three hours of debate. There is actually yet another hour of debate to be had and a vote to be put on this bill.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member is right.
I want only to remind the House, as I said earlier, that pursuant to Standing Order 93 the order is dropped to the bottom of the list on the order of precedence on the Order Paper.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to consider Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Finance.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Motion No. 1, standing in the name of the hon. member for Essex-Windsor, will be debated and voted on separately. The hon. member for Essex-Windsor.


MEASURE TO AMEND
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor) moved:: That Bill C-32 be amended by deleting Clause 1.
December 9, 1991



He said: Mr. Speaker, let us make it very clear what is involved here for people who are concerned about this debate.
The government is attempting to extend its discriminatory freeze on Canada Assistance Plan payments to other provinces of which three have been singled out: British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
The Canada Assistance Plan payments to those provinces will not be permitted to increase by more than 5 per cent per year. If this piece of legislation passes, this will hold until 1995. It is a very simple bill and has, in fact, simply one clause in it. To demonstrate our complete opposition to this piece of legislation, to demonstrate how completely unfair we feel this legislation is to the three provinces which are affected, and to the hundreds of thousands of unemployed people across the country who have had to go on to welfare because of the recession which this government created, we intend to move that that entire clause be stricken from the legislation, which of course would leave the legislation null and void.
We think that is in fact the best response to this irresponsible, uncaring and totally unacceptable piece of attempted legislation on the part of a government which does not seem to realize how badly it has hurt men and women and children across this country with the approach it has taken to try to save money, an approach which I have to say in my relatively short period here, about seven and a half years now, is the most heartless approach that I have seen this government or any government take. A more heartless approach I have not seen. It first created a recession. Remember, this has been called the "made in Canada" recession. It has not been called that by those of us in the opposition, it has been called that by the government's friends. The Conference Board of Canada, which is supported by the large-scale business community in this country, said this is a made in Canada recession, brought into effect by this government and this government's failures in economic policy.
Then, having created the recession, this government decided that they would put the following into effect. They would put into effect changes in unemployment insurance which would make it more difficult for workers in those parts of Canada that are being hardest hit by this
Government Orders
recession-British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario-to receive the unemployment insurance to which they were due given their years of contribution.
Let me refer to what those workers found instead of receiving a fair amount of unemployment insurance in the midst of what, in Ontario at least, has been the worst recession since the depression of the 1930s. The figures demonstrate it clearly, I say to the minister on the other side. Like so many ministers on the other side he takes the position that there is nothing but optimism to be seen, nothing but sunshine to see, despite the fact that even Statistics Canada is unwilling to announce this recession is over because it is so clear that this recession is not over and that it is damaging people from coast to coast.
They passed these unemployment insurance changes which forced people who were out of work to turn to welfare and then, to add insult to this further injury, they put into effect this 5 per cent limit on federal government assistance to welfare payments: the so-called cap on CAP, the cap on Canada Assistance Plan aid to the provinces. The consequence to the provinces has been that they have been faced with either letting people starve on welfare or paying themselves for the welfare costs of their people.
Because we are Canadians and because we believe in this country, we do not let people starve. We do not let people face the complete destruction of their lives because of the mismanagement of the federal government. Most provinces have said: "We do not like it. We think it is so unfair that we are going to try to take the federal government to court, but we will still pay these extra costs".
In the case of British Columbia the extra cost of this piece of legislation up to 1995 will be $900 million. In the case of Ontario the estimates for the first two years of this program are $1.7 billion. It is going to cost $1.7 billion in the first two years of this freeze. Alberta has the same kinds of devastating figures. Then the government turns around and blames the provinces for running deficits when what has happened is that this government has systematically forced the provinces either to let their people go hungry, to let them live homeless on the streets or to have a larger deficit which they do not like, a deficit which they would prefer not to run but a deficit

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which is intended to safeguard the people of then-provinces.
It seems to me that the heartlessness of this government combined with just tragic changes in unemployment insurance so far as people are concerned has led both to a financial crisis for our provinces and to devastating results for people across this country who have had to go on welfare, who have had to see their sense of dignity destroyed in many cases. These are people who have worked-I have talked to them-for 27 or 28 years for a single company and were thrown out of work by the free trade deal that the government has brought into effect. In front of us today the government wants to add insult to injury to further injury by passing this piece of legislation.
I urge this House to accept this amendment, to return this country to sanity and to make the federal government do the job that it is elected to do to safeguard the people of Canada.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that during the private members' hour between eleven and twelve o'clock this morning we were debating a bill about implementing a national heritage day.
I think one of our strong heritages in this country is a program such as CAP, the Canada Assistance Plan. I think it might be wise just to remind viewers what the Canada Assistance Plan is and why it was implemented.
As the mover of the amendment has already said, the CAP was enacted in 1966 to encourage the development and extension of assistance and welfare services programs throughout Canada. Under the plan the federal government has entered into agreements with the provinces and territories to share the costs incurred by provinces, territories and municipalities. This is crucial because the federal government seems to pass on: "That is a municipal affair, that is a provincial affair".
The plan specifically states: "and municipalities in providing social assistance and welfare services to needy Canadians. The primary objectives of CAP are: (1) to support the provision by provinces of adequate assistance and institutional care for persons in need". I underline "support", not cut as Bill C-32 wants to do. It continues:
"(2) to support the provision by provinces of welfare services designed to lessen, remove or prevent the causes and effects of poverty, child neglect or dependence on public assistance". Again, I underline "to support", not to cut as Bill C-32 attempts to do.
Under CAP the federal government contributes 50 per cent of the costs incurred by the provinces and municipalities in providing assistance to persons who are in need regardless of the cause of their need. I want to underline that: "regardless of the cause of their need". The plan goes on to say that it enables the federal government to contribute 50 per cent of certain provincial and municipal costs of providing welfare services to persons who are in need or who are likely to become in need if such services are not provided.
The plan goes on to underline who should get help from the CAP. Persons who benefit from assistance and welfare services include children who are in care or in need of protection due to abuse or neglect, mentally and physically disabled persons. I have many mentally disabled persons in my riding. The provincial government under then Premier Davis decided to deinstitutionalize the programs for the mentally handicapped. That was a good program but it did not come with any support services. It turfed them out on to the streets, and these persons are out there with no supervision as to when they should take medication, no help with housing and so on. The provincial Conservative government abandoned them and now the federal Conservative government is abandoning these people who are in need. Then there are one-parent families, the aged, the unemployed. Let me share what is happening with the unemployed in the Toronto area, specifically in Parkdale-High Park. People with university education are losing their jobs. They are going on to the unemployment insurance rolls. When their UI finishes they have no choice and are forced on to the welfare rolls.
Every time I meet with the chairman of metropolitan Toronto, Alan Tonks, and the newly elected mayor, June Rowlands, they are saying that the federal government is abandoning its responsibilities to the provinces and to the municipalities.

The CAP is to help the families or individuals in crisis. This is left up to the Salvation Army because the federal government has abandoned these people. Then we have low income workers and battered women. Most of the men in this House wore white ribbons last week, and what happens this week? The government is going to implement Bill C-32 to cut programs for battered women. One week they wear white ribbons; the next week they cut the programs. That is the sincerity of this government. It is no wonder the public is losing faith in such management and in such ruling.
Every day we see headlines of how the cap on CAP is affecting people. Turning to medicare, every day we see headlines such as: "Budget Crunch Puts Care Jobs at Risk" and "Hospitals Face Crisis".


An hon. member:: The Toronto Star.


Jesse Philip Flis: No, it is not The Toronto Star. That was The Ottawa Sun, for the minister's information. They continue: "Bed Closings in Hospitals to Increase, Langdon says". Here is an item from a Tory paper, The Globe and Mail: "Ontario says hospitals may have to merge", "Minister warns of tough times ahead", "More lay-offs are inevitable, hospitals told", "Hospital squeeze", "Cash strapped province insists on belt-tightening".


Mr. McDermid:: This has nothing to do with transfer payments.


Jesse Philip Flis: The minister says: "This has nothing to do with transfer payments". It has everything to do with transfer payments.
Now the effect of transfer payments hits education. My daughter just began university this year. The professors at the university are warning the students already that their tuition fees next year may go up by 20 per cent to 30 per cent.


An hon. member:: May.


Jesse Philip Flis: May. Let us not pass this bill and then they will not. The minister says: "May". There are other students who went to the same high school as my daughter and are not in university because they could not afford it. What a shame. Students with talent and potential cannot go on to university because of this federal government saying nyet to education. Yet the same government puts out a $20 million package called Prosperity Through Competitiveness.
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My daughter tells me the first programs that will be cut at the post-secondary education level will be languages. How can we stand up in this House and say we are going to promote competitiveness? We want to be more competitive, but we cut off the languages. We are not going to speak the languages of the countries we are going to trade in. What an investment. What mismanagement.
My God, get your act together, you people on the other side. If you are going to put millions of dollars into talking about competing and being more competitive then do not cut language programs in the universities.
My daughter, Mr. Speaker-


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I believe the hon. member should be accurate. Education is a provincial responsibility. Those decisions are made by the universities and by the provincial governments, not by the federal government.


Mr. Blaikie:: Mr. Speaker, that was not a point of order and I believe that should be pointed out.


Jesse Philip Flis: I want to go back to dealing with our universities. My daughter is studying French.
Do you know, Mr. Speaker, how they teach French in universities? They put 100 to 200 students in a class. They give them a French textbook and they tell them to translate it into English. That is the way we teach French in our country. Instead of having small groups of 20 to 30 students so that they can learn, they are given a textbook and are told to translate. Why are they using those methods? It is not the fault of the professors and the universities. It is because the federal government has been cutting these payments and they have to stick 100, 200 or 300 students in a language class.


An hon. member:: Good Lord.


Jesse Philip Flis: That is what our education has been debased to. This same government wants to teach and spend millions of dollars so that our students will be competitive in the future. It dismantles post-secondary education and then it supports its advertising and consultant friends in order to give them jobs. Will my daughter get a job when she finishes university? She will not be able to speak the other official language the way it is being taught in the universities right now.

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When I read the headlines I see another shocker. Another effect of Bill C-32 is how the transfer payments are going to affect the police. The Ontario Provincial Police is very worried. There are headlines such as "Provincial Police Face Lay-offs as a $16 million Deficit Looms", "Cutbacks Hamper Police Work, OPP tells the Solicitor General", "Budget Cuts Threaten"-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. The member's allotted time is over.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this amendment put forward by the NDP. I am happy the Minister of State for Finance and Privatization is in the House today. I do not think he is focusing on something happening in the marketplace today which is as much a part of the economic equation of managing a country as looking after things such as fighting inflation and making sure we have a lower interest rate.
It has to do with the spirit that exists in this country today. I want to say to the minister that I recognize the interest rate is the lowest it has been in 18 years. I recognize that the inflation targets for the government are probably three or four months ahead of schedule.
Inflation in this country is practically zero. Reducing inflation is a noble objective. No one in this House would argue that point. However, the aggressive, lean, mean approach that the government has as its agenda has caused a fear factor in the marketplace today. This has caused an incredible drag in terms of the consumer confidence and spending habits.
The people out there without jobs, and even the people with jobs, are fearful they are next to go. When we hear of corporations like IBM and Dialects Diversified, institutions that are foundations within our community, going through a restructuring it is natural that it sends a shiver into the marketplace.
I talked with one of the local fruit merchants on the weekend. He runs Sunland Fruit on the Danforth. He was telling me that people are buying more and more damaged goods. In other words, a sale one or two years ago might have been $20 or $30 but now people are buying $5 or $6 worth of fruit because the fear factor is so high. They are only buying $10 worth of fruit at a time. The fear factor has really taken hold of the economy.
One of the instruments the government has to stabilize the marketplace and minimize some of that fear is the CAP. The Canada Assistance Plan was always meant to be a secure safety net. The 5 per cent cap on it is a symbol. Most Canadians do not understand. In other words, it exacerbates the fear factor.
What do we hear from the provinces and municipalities? We hear about all these programs, whether they are for one-parent families, the aged, the unemployed or people on welfare. Because the unemployment insurance fund has been cut back we now have many more people on welfare and we have a problem in terms of the welfare system being properly funded in terms of battered women and low income earners.
When we hear that the government is putting a cap on the Canada Assistance Plan it exacerbates the fear. In other words, are things that bad in our country that the national government is sending out such a signal to the most disadvantaged people in our society?
Earlier today we talked about the motion the hon. member put forward dealing with a national heritage day. One thing this country in terms of its heritage has had great pride in, in the last few years, is our strong social safety net.
One instrument is the Canada Assistance Plan. Even if times are bad it is one of those instruments that we do not tamper with because it sends the wrong signal into the marketplace. It exacerbates the fear factor and puts a drag on consumer spending, which is ultimately going to affect all our retailers and to cause a never-ending vicious circle in terms of our unemployment and other social services. For so long we have had absolute pride in these services and have had a sense of security that we would never tamper with them.
My point to the government is that it is sitting over there way ahead of the inflation targets. It is sitting over there with an interest rate that is the lowest it has been in 18 years, but it must also realize that one of the reasons the interest rate is so low is that the consumer spending is almost at a standstill.
I would suggest to the government that it is time to park this lean, mean machine type approach and put a little of caring back into its economic plan. I do not think anyone in this country would argue with this government's ability to be a lean, mean machine. Part of
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governance is also having as part of its value system an attention to caring. I think that on this bill it should go back to its caring factor and drop this cap on CAP.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood said that no one would argue with the characterization of this government as a lean, mean machine. The minister was quick to point out that perhaps the Reform Party might argue with that characterization. I think it is instructive that as lean and as mean as this government has been, the Reform Party would promise to be even more Tory than the Tories, which is something people who might be considering voting for the Reform Party should keep in mind. If they do not like what they have received from this government, it makes absolutely no sense to vote for the Reform Party which would give them an even heavier dose of what is afflicting them now.
This cap on the Canada Assistance Plan which is the way in which the federal government has traditionally cost shared social assistance programs with the various programs, is a despicable moral as well as economic choice of action. What we see here in the cap on CAP is really the government's ethical framework being revealed for all and sundry. At the same time as it refuses to consider eliminating the business and entertainment tax deduction which goes toward the financing of lunches for the rich and famous and special hockey seats for friends of corporations, et cetera, it is keen to put a lid on the assistance that goes to people, many of whom must now use food banks.
At the same time as the government is still willing to finance through the tax system very expensive lunches at very expensive restaurants, it is limiting the ability of those Canadians who must now use food banks for their lunches to further their own economic interests and perhaps at some point get themselves off social assistance.
The government also refuses to consider eliminating a number of other tax loopholes, such as the interest deductibility rule which is used by foreign corporations to borrow money here interest-free so that they can expand their operations elsewhere; the manufacturing and processing tax credit which was variously justified over the
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years in ways that no longer hold water but still continue to exist; the special tax treatment of capital gains; the special tax treatment for real estate developers for writing off depreciation on properties that technically are supposed to be depreciating but are actually rising in value.
There are others such as the 21-year deemed realization rule for the trust accounts that were set up in 1972 which the government has indicated it will change so that those wealthy families that 21 years ago put this money aside will be able to continue receiving that tax break.
All these things stand out in contrast to the cap on CAP whereby this government has said that when it comes to touching the rich, its policy is to make things better for them. The Minister of Finance said clearly in one of his speeches in this House that Canada does not have enough rich people. This government has certainly gone out of its way to ensure that the rich in Canada feel better than they did previously. It has changed the income tax system, which used to be more progressive than it is now, so that the top few per cent of Canadian income earners pay even less tax than they did before.
These are indisputable facts. The Minister of State for Finance can argue the contrary if he likes, but the fact is that his government did so amend the progressive income tax system that the people in the very top bracket now pay less tax than they used to. That is a fact that even the government is not willing to dispute because it was part of an intentional policy on its part.
What we have here is the contrast between what this government is willing to do for the very wealthy in Canada and what it is doing to the very poor in Canada by extending this cap on the money it is willing to make available to cost shared programs with Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The reason initially given for this was that these were the three wealthiest provinces and they should be able to carry this burden by themselves.
There are two things wrong with that. First, we do not unilaterally break a federal-provincial agreement that has existed for decades. The Canada Assistance Plan is a program which after many studies has been found to be, although not perfect, one of the best federal-provincial programs in the country.

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The government is unilaterally withdrawing from this as it is from other federal-provincial programs. It is no wonder we have a constitutional crisis and a lack of confidence in the federal government. The government has taken upon itself to do all these things unilaterally, to pull out of agreements that it made years ago.
Unfortunately for the hon. member for Broadview- Greenwood and others who may have spoken to this amendment, this had its origins in Liberal governments. It was a Liberal government in 1982 that first unilaterally changed the federal-provincial fiscal arrangement when the Minister of Finance, now the hon. Senator MacEa-chen in the other place, unilaterally changed the federal-provincial fiscal agreements that were to be negotiated in 1982.
I do not say that to excuse the other side because it has certainly accelerated that trend. It criticized it when the Liberals started it, but it no sooner got into office than it was guilty of its own unilateral action. There was action after action after action of this type, whether it was with regard to Established Programs Financing or Canada Assistance Plan or, for that matter, other programs.
The fact is that what we have here is a trend line of federal governments getting out of agreements in a unilateral way. Unfortunately, as I say, that was started by the Liberals but it did not need to be accelerated and made much worse by the Conservatives.
Ontario and other wealthy provinces are in a very difficult position, Ontario especially right now because it has that many more people going on social assistance thanks to the free trade agreement. It is radically restructuring the economy of Ontario in such a way that there are not the kinds of jobs there used to be.
I was just reading an article the other day about how some 36 or 40 per cent of people are on social assistance in Ontario now. These people had very good jobs not so long ago, only months ago. It is a real problem for Ontario. It is very bad timing for the government to say, at a time when Ontario is going through such difficult times thanks to the free trade agreement: "Sorry, you are going to have to go this on your own even though it is a federal government policy, the Canada-U.S. Free
Trade Agreement, which has created the situation in Ontario".
All in all, this is a truly despicable act by this government. Putting a cap on CAP and now extending it is a sure sign of the ethical depravity of the government on the other side which chooses, as I said before, to put limits on traditional commitments to helping the poor in Canada while at the same time refusing to close these many tax loopholes which continue to benefit the very rich.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, listening to the last speaker provoked me to rise and say something because he spent the bulk of his speech, as the members of the New Democratic Party are often wont to do, attacking the Liberal Party's record in terms of its dealing with recessions in this country and talking about the fact that the Liberals are ones who started to cut some of the transfers to the provinces.
If he would listen to what I have to say, he might learn something. Clearly his attempts at blaming past Liberal governments for this are misguided. First of all, he forgets that Liberal governments established the programs in the first place. They are the ones that set them up, not the Conservatives and not the New Democrats. The New Democrats have never had office in this country and they have not set up a thing. It is the Liberal Party, when it was in government, that set these programs in place in the first instance. For the member to sit here and dump all over the Liberal Party in the course of his speech is frankly ridiculous.
The second thing is that he should remember how NDP governments behave once they take office. We are seeing it every day in Ontario. We realize what a disastrous situation people in our province face. It is a serious crisis in Ontario, and it is more serious because of the fact that it has an NDP government which seems incapable of dealing with the situation.
One only needs to look at the vast increase in the provincial debt which is not being used to create new jobs. It is being used to pay people to do nothing. That is what the Ontario government is doing. It should be spending its money on capital projects as Liberal governments have done in the past.
My hon. friend from Broadview-Greenwood knows extremely well that in the last recession the federal
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Liberal government spent billions of dollars creating jobs in Canada by funding capital projects across the country.


An hon. member:: They spent money they did not have.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says: "They spent money they did not have". I agree that they did that, but the proper course is to borrow money and spend during the course of a recession and that is exactly what they did.
This government has continued to borrow through six years that it says are the best Canada ever had. The hon. member for homelessness says that is not so. The six years they have been boasting about as being years of unbounded prosperity in Canada and which the Prime Minister keeps talking about are the years in which they have continued to run up Canada's debt $30 billion a year.


An hon. member:: Thke credit for it.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says: "Take credit for it". I am reluctant to take credit for his government's incompetence. He knows perfectly well that his government has bungled this thing so badly it does not know which way to look. He is embarrassed now. He is starting to blush. I can understand that. He should be blushing furiously at the way his government carries on.
This is the way the Liberal Party in the past has carried on: it created and paid for capital projects to create jobs in Canada and to put Canadians back to work. Sure they increased the deficit to do it but any economist knows that is the normal practice. You spend in the tough times so that you save in the good times. The difference is that this government failed to save in the good times. It kept increasing the deficit and now it is in a position where it says: "We do not want to run up the deficit further in order to create jobs".
Then we have the NDP government in Ontario which runs up the deficit fivefold and does not create any new jobs. You know perfectly well it has not created any new jobs.


An hon. member:: That is hypocrisy.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says this is hypocrisy. He knows what is going on in this country. He knows how his government has failed to get the deficit under control through six years. Here we are almost into year eight of Tory mismanagement and the national debt has doubled,
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thanks to his government he has supported throughout. That is why the government is unable to deal with the crisis it has created in Canada through its economic mismanagement.
The New Democratic Party government in Ontario is now offering peanuts to people who are on welfare. It is not able to keep up with inflation rates. After standing in this House complaining constantly about how fair the NDP is and how unfair any increase of less than inflation is, it seems once it takes office it starts acting like Tories. We have always suspected that the NDP and the Tories were in bed together. I see members opposite are laughing. They should be ashamed, not laughing. Even the minister is starting to blush again. It is a shame.
In any event what I want to deal with is the unfairness of this bill. I suggest that the amendment moved by the hon. member for Essex-Windsor is a reasoned and sensible amendment. This bill is a bad bill. It should not be approved by this House in this form or in any form.
The cutbacks the hon. member for Parkdale-High Park mentioned in his speech are real. They are keenly felt in my constituency of Kingston and the Islands. The cuts in education have been a disaster. This federal government, by making these cuts, has made it more and more difficult for the provincial governments to maintain their share of educational expenditure that is so vital in our country.
This competitiveness paper that the government is spending $25 million on is a great waste of the taxpayers' money, yet the government is so keen on indulging in it. It recognizes the need for education as a high priority to make Canadians competitive in the global environment it says is so important and is so much a part of the situation Canada is facing. Instead of assisting in education expenditures it cuts them. It cuts them in what it calls the most prosperous provinces, the have provinces of Canada, where the money is needed as much as any place else in this particular rubric of public expenditure.
If we cut funding for training and education in Canada, how are Canadians going to compete in the global environment the government says is so much a part of our system? Surely to goodness we have to continue those expenditures. We have to augment those expenditures, not cut them. This is particularly so at a time of recession when the provincial governments, including

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the NDP government in Ontario, seem so keen on cutting expenditures to post-secondary institutions.
I was just reading in the paper the other day how the minister of education in Ontario is warning the universities and hospitals to expect a zero increase or a very low increase this next year. How can we cut funding to our educational institutions which are the backbone of our future competitiveness if we are going to put ourselves in a position where we are competitive? It defies all logic and it defies all reason.
That is the policy that is being pursued both by the New Democratic Party in Ontario and by the federal Conservative Party in government in Ottawa. It spells a disastrous potential consequence for the people of Ontario and the people of all Canada if we pursue this kind of blind and wrong-headed policy that is inappropriate for the circumstances which are based on all the government's other reports.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I also smile at the harangue from my colleague who just sat down. It is very clear that the Liberal Party shifted dramatically to the right after its Aylmer conference. Now of course it is trying to put up a big smoke screen. Its members are the ones who initiated the national debt because of their mismanagement of the economy. Many of the things that we are now seeing in the cutbacks to social programs were in fact initiated and promoted by the Liberals when they were in government.
It is quite interesting to talk about Bob Rae. He is now 4 per cent or nearly 5 per cent more popular than he was the day he got elected.


An hon. member:: No, he is not. Check the polls.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: The polls show he is well over 40 per cent elected as of last week. He is very popular and it is time the Liberals started taking a look at that.


John Horton McDermid: What hypocrisy.


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: It has been very clear that his government has the support of the people because they understand many of the things it is doing. Let us take a look at the Canada Assistance Plan and what it was designed to do.
It was designed to deal with poverty in Canada and its causes and its effects on people. It was designed to deal with a whole range of welfare services from day care to child abuse to services for battered women. These are the programs that are now being attacked by this bill and by this government.
The Canada Assistance Plan was based on a federal-provincial partnership. It was a concept that called for the federal government to be involved with the provinces in these kinds of programs. I think it is very important to remember at a time when there is anguish in this country as to whether there is any reason to keep the country together that the government has been attacking these unity programs that are based on a partnership between the provinces and the federal government.
We have to start to make the conclusion that many Canadians are now questioning the validity of Canada because of the tax on these programs.
I want to focus a bit on the whole issue of income assistance. The income assistance case loads in most provinces are up dramatically for two reasons. The first is the change to the unemployment insurance scheme which makes it more difficult for people to qualify. They are entitled to income assistance for a shorter period of time. The second is the recession in this country. It has been deliberately precipitated by the federal government through its free trade deal which has devastated the industrial heartland of the country.


An hon. member:: I guess that is what caused the recession in the States too, is it?


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: The high Canadian dollar and the artificially high interest rates have certainly wiped out many of our export industries including the lumber industry in British Columbia. They are still too high compared with those of the United States.
The federal government creates these things by changing unemployment insurance and by the recession. Then what does it say? "Of course we do not want to have to meet the financial responsibility for these kinds of changes. What we are going to do is pass legislation, offloading the responsibility on to the provinces, particularly the three big provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario".

It simply limits its liability to 5 per cent at the same time as it is dumping down on to the provinces not millions but billions of dollars of expenditure. Of course it has impact. It has an impact even on large provinces like Ontario. It cripples the province's ability to provide for the poor.
It is also starting to do a couple of other things. It is undermining some of the fundamental concepts within Canada. One of the things that happened when the Canada Assistance Plan came in is that residential requirements were waived. One could move from one province to another province and be entitled to receive financial assistance or income assistance.
I remember when I first started working in public welfare in British Columbia. A whole bureaucracy was designed to track down not only the province but the municipality in which that person lived for one full year without receiving any public assistance. Then that person had to bill back the municipality and the province for the income assistance that was granted. A whole bureaucracy developed.
All of a sudden now the wealthy provinces are hearing: "If people come from Nova Scotia, from Manitoba or from Quebec, we are not going to cost share". People are now starting to say: "Maybe we should get back to the old idea of residential responsibility. A person's financial assistance is the responsibility of the province in which they last resided a year".
Without financial help from the federal government, provinces are being forced to say: "Maybe that is what we are going to have to do". All the things that this Tory government does destroys standards of national programs. In income assistance it said that one could not use residential requirements in order to restrict income assistance.
I think it is very dangerous for the government to single out individual provinces for differential treatment particularly when it comes to social programs. Then it is simply saying: "We are going to treat you differently from other areas".
Another whole area of the Canada Assistance Plan relates to family violence and child welfare. This is the most hypocritical area in which this government has functioned. It champions the whole UN year of the child and the rights of the child and then refuses to live up to it. The government makes a big announcement about the program on family violence spending $137 million spread over five years. Actually it will spend some $40 million
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before 1993 when it is going to be long out of government office.
Then what does it do? It takes back from those provinces three and four times the amount of money they could have used for child abuse prevention and investigations of child abuse, for battered women's shelters, for transition houses and for counselling programs for women who have been abused. These are all of the very basic programs that are necessary to stop family violence. The government guts with its limit on the Canada Assistance Plan but then does a great PR splash saying: "We are going to solve it with this money that we are going to spread out over a number of years".
The Canada Assistance Plan is one of the mechanisms that has a unifying effect on Canada. This government has chosen to attack it, as it has attacked other types of unifying and social programs.
The government must no longer be surprised that this consistent attack results in the questioning of the unity of Canada.


Mr. Pat Sobeski (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, I have decided to partake in this debate this morning because of the number of comments that I have heard from the other side of the House. I would like to try to put a few things on the record.
I found it interesting when the NDP member for Essex-Windsor was up talking this morning about Ontario and how difficult it was. I am confused because I am not sure where he is coming from. On Friday, he was up defending the budget of the Ontario NDP. As a matter of fact, he was quoted in Hansard on page 5947 as saying: "It is striking that the unemployment rates have continued to go up in every other province but have decreased in the province of Ontario thanks to the excellent budget that was put into effect in that province".
On one hand, when he was here on Friday, he talked out of this side of his mouth, but when the debate goes the other way, he is talking from the other side. The member knows that.
The other thing that I think is important on these programs, and one of the difficulties, is that the federal government in a cost sharing program is responsible for paying 50 per cent of the costs. Yet we do not have exact firm controls as to how the money is spent. As a result,

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sometimes provinces will spend money and then send the bill to us afterward.
I would just like to quote something that was in the Ontario NDP budget of this year. It said: "Total payments from the federal government were $406 million higher than the forecast in the 1990 Ontario budget. Part of the increase was for prior year claims while most of the increase reflects significantly higher levels of provincial spending on cost shared social assistance programs".
We are asking to put controls on it, but that is how it works. It was reflected in the Ontario budget. I am standing here quoting this morning from NDP pearls of wisdom that have been stated both in Queen's Park and here.
The member for Kingston and the Islands came forward and talked about the fiscal policies of the Liberals in the early 1980s. I happen to have here a quote from Donald Macdonald, a long time Liberal cabinet minister. He was quoted as saying: "I have had really limited dealings with Prime Minister Mulroney during the last three years, but on the whole, I like the Prime Minister. He has been prepared to undertake a couple of policy initiatives that politicians, including guys like me, did not have enough guts to do".
There is a comment from a Liberal cabinet minister as he looks back and reflects on his term here in the House of Commons and what has happened during the last eight years. I guess he is showing some admiration indeed for the Prime Minister.
I guess the final point I would like to make just to get this on the record is that we are talking about CAP, Canada Assistance Plan payments. In 1984-85, the amount paid was just over $4 billion. By 1990-91, it had gone up to over $6 billion. In 1991-92, it increases to $6,350 billion and in 1992, it goes up to $6,642 billion. Indeed, the numbers continue to rise. I guess the final point-


Dennis Joseph Mills: After you fix the recession.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: I hear the member for Broadview- Greenwood. He mentioned in his speech that indeed inflation is basically down to zero. If we have inflation down to zero with a 5 per cent cap rate, that seems to be 5 per cent of pure growth.
I just wanted to put those comments on record.


Mr. Howard McCurdy (Windsor-St. Clair):: Mr. Speaker, I found the hon. member's intervention very interesting. He seems totally oblivious to the fact that there has been a vast increase in unemployment. Of all the unemployment created in this recession, caused by his government, 75 per cent is in Ontario. There have been huge increases in welfare costs, occasioned by the recession that this government caused, not to speak of changes in UI and other transfer payments which have precipitated an even greater need for expenditures in the social welfare field. Those are the facts.
This member said he is going to have his last words. I hope he talks a great deal over the next few months because in all probability, very few Conservatives are going to have a chance to comment on anything in this House after the next election.
Earlier we were debating the bill to create a national heritage day. I see the hon. minister has come in to carp, and I will fish because I know he will bite. There he goes already. But I want to emphasize to you and the hon. minister that we are talking seriously about what is going on in this country.
Before he came in, letting loose with his usual interventions that are so unworthy in most contexts, I was saying that we were talking about the heritage bill this morning which would have celebrated the characteristics of this country that have made us so proud to be Canadians.
It could not have been missed. One of the things we have celebrated in Canada which sets us apart from our neighbour to the south is the extent to which Canadians believe that in fact we have a collective responsibility for one another. We believe there should not be extremes of poverty and that when people are in need, the taxpayers-that is you and I-will pool our money to help the least fortunate in a system that is based on generosity and concern.
Sometimes that is exaggerated, because when this government looks at the question of the deficit, it seems bound and determined to communicate a message that the deficit is because Canadians have been profligate in their expenditures on social programs.
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Part of the reasoning behind the cap on CAP is that the deficit is in some way attributable to that Canadian sense of generosity, and we have spent ourselves into a hole by helping the people in this country who are least able to help themselves.
The fact is that of our budget deficit, of our debt, 6 per cent is occasioned by social programs. Forty-four per cent of our debt is attributable to payments or tax breaks for corporations and the very wealthy. The rest, about 50 per cent of the entire debt, is for payment of interest. The ballooning level of interest based debt is partly attributable to those very high interest rates we had in the early part of this decade, when the Liberals were in government and pumped it up in a futile attempt to try and get things straightened out again. This government must recognize that a large portion of our debt goes in payments to exactly those people who are benefiting from the so-called tax reform. If you are very rich you are going to make a lot of money on that deficit.
What are the Conservatives going to do to attack it? They are going to attack ordinary people. They have imposed a 5 per cent cap on British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. I suppose the presumption under all of this is that Ontario is doing terrifically well. There was a time when Ontario did not do too badly, but that was before this government came into office. That was before the free trade agreement. That was before the destructive failure of government industrial policy put Ontario in the terrible state of affairs it is in right now.
If we look at southwestern Ontario and Windsor, we find that there has been a 24 per cent increase in the welfare case load. Measure that against the 5 per cent cap on the CAP that this government is perpetrating now. It is a cap that has already cost the province of Ontario $1.7 billion. Therefore, we have a province that up until this government came into office was the richest and most productive industrial province in the country. It has damned near wrecked it, and now it would impose limitations on payments to those who have been hurt by the very actions of this government. What will they do? They attempt to blame the NDP Government of Ontario, which is trying now to pick up the scraps that this government has created. It is an outrage.
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An hon. member:: It sure is.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: We were talking this morning about the heritage day proposition and the celebration of all that is good about Canadian heritage. There is going to be a period of our history on which we are going to reflect. It is going to be known as the dark days of Canada when a niggardly, mean Conservative government tried to follow the script of the Business Council on National Issues and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and tried to change this country for the worst.
There is hope because on that future heritage day, Canadians are going to celebrate the day that they drummed these people out of office and saved Canada so they could follow the civilized path it followed in the past.
I understand the utterances, name-calling and silliness going on across from me between the minister and the minister of state. They are concerned, but they should not be too concerned. They will collect their pensions as they will collect the blame for what they have perpetrated over the last seven years.


Mr. Maurizio Bevilacqua (York North):: Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to present to the House a special case study that we could use as an example to indicate to this government that indeed poverty and needs are not relegated merely to the poorer provinces or the poorest towns and cities of this nation.
I represent an area that by national standards is considered one of the most affluent. I had the occasion, along with community leaders, organizations and associations concerned with individual Canadian's needs in my area, to participate in a report called Addressing the Crisis of Human Services in York, Region.
Today I stand in the House of Commons, look to the government side and analyse what it has done with the present state of the economy. I soon realize this government has obviously lost touch with the reality of what is going on in this country. It has lost touch particularly in the area of caring and compassion.
In my area, the report that I cited earlier clearly indicated that of all the times to be cutting transfer payments to the provinces, this is the worst.

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We are faced with a situation where we have single mothers and people who are suffering and calling out for help. In this government's philosophical disposition toward a market driven economy, there is no room for human compassion and caring. We have seen cuts and caps. Call it what you may, the reality is that people are not being reached by this government.
Addressing the Crisis in Human Services in the York Region in one of its recommendations calls for the federal government to work to increase the level of federal assistance to cost share human services programs. The research that we did in our area, the York region, and the analysis that we were able to compile is based on an area that by national standards is considered affluent. Let me tell you, there are people hurting and in poverty, and need sees no boundaries in this nation. What people want from the federal government is the type of leadership that will bring effective change and reach out to those people who are desperately in need.
We have 1.5 million Canadians unemployed who need help. We have single mothers who are compelled to stand with their children in front of their local food bank for their daily meal. In an area as rich and affluent as the York region, the Fire-Fighters Association, the Salvation Army and I were forced this year to have a food and toy drive.
The Conservative agenda does not work anywhere in this country. It does not work because it fails to realize that one of the most fundamental purposes of governing and government is to reach out to people when they are in need.
I want to go back to the report in the York region because we have been seriously hit by the regressive economic strategy of this government. We have seen a widening gap between the rich and the poor. We have seen an unfair tax system. We have seen during the boom years a government that accepted all the extra revenue. Now Canadians are asking why it has not been able to get the deficit and the debt under control, while at the same time Canadians have been whacked over their heads with unprecedented tax grabs.
There is an accountability problem with the federal government and people in my riding of York North and elsewhere are asking themselves how this government is dealing with communities like mine that have a high population of young families. There is an increased
demand for schools, child care, family counselling and health care. They want to know from this government what it is going to do with York region, which is the fastest growing municipality in the greater Toronto area. It has the lowest per capita community mental health funding in the province. York region's Children's Aid Society has the lowest per child funding in the province. The education system is the fastest growing in the province of Ontario and schools are over-enrolled on opening date. York region has one women's shelter, one men's hostel, eight group home beds for homeless youth and it is the third lowest funded public health unit in the province.
This is all happening in the perceived land of the rich. There are people in my community who are hurting. I think the response we are getting from the federal government is not the one that I, as a member of Parliament, can accept. I do not accept it because I think the federal government has a moral obligation and a duty to reach out and not merely accept things as a fact of life. Because 1.5 million unemployed Canadians should not be a fact of life in an industrialized country like Canada.
We should not merely accept human tragedy and family breakups as something that occur in every day Canada. I remember when this nation offered Canadians opportunity. I remember when this country gave young people the type of hope that was required to build a prosperous nation. Today we are devastated by bad news. Today we are demoralized by a government that only cares about taking care of the few, the friends of the government, while it is punishing millions and millions of Canadians with inaction. It is watching them as they cry out for help.
That is not the way we have governed in the past. That is not the way Liberals governed. While this government uses a tunnel vision approach toward the deficit, it is doing it on the backs of the unemployed. It is doing it on the backs of single mothers. It is doing it on the backs of those individuals who need help the most.
I will tell you that Canadians will not forgive this type of attitude. They know best when their children go starving, when single mothers and single parents are lining up in front of food banks every day of the week. Canadians are sick and tired of this type of arrogant attitude that is bringing about the demoralization of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

I ask the minister, who is attentively listening to what I am saying, to force cabinet to start looking at the human side of governing instead of looking at a bottom line that is creating despair, and not caring about those individuals who are truly in need.


Mr. Dan Heap (TVinity-Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak against Bill C-32, or more particularly to speak in favour of our amendment. It would cut out clause 1 of Bill C-32 and have the same effect as defeating it.
Bill C-32 is not only a cruel bill that will affect millions of people who are in deep trouble through no fault of their own. It is also a very foolish bill and furthers what this government has already done to destroy the economy of Canada.
In round figures, this bill will probably cost the governments of British Columbia and Alberta $389 million in their 1991-92 budgets. In Ontario, it has cost $415 million in the 1990-91 budget and $1.2 billion is expected to be the cost in the 1991-92 budget.
Figures like that are so large that the average person listening has a hard time telling the difference between a million and a billion. If they get a few thousand in income in a year, that is the size they are familiar with. I want to talk a little bit about the effects.
The former finance minister brags that he will be taking more than $2 billion per year now out of the people of Canada through this cap, this lid he has put on the Canada Assistance Program. This is the only program through which Ottawa aids the neediest people in the provinces of Canada.
I want to talk first about one type of program locally in Trinity-Spadina that is being savagely cut. We have several community centres, mostly built by municipal funds and to some extent provincial funds.
Their programs for the young people, the children, the youth and the young adults are being chopped because the grants on which they have relied are being cut back or wiped out. They are asking to combat drugs among the young people by providing alternative educational programs. They are being starved for money for those anti-drug programs. They are asking for money to help young people become better job hunters. That is exactly
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what this government claims to be supporting, and it can usually get the money to do that.
But places like the University Settlement House, Scadding Court Community Centre, St. Stephen's Community House, St. Christopher House are trying with less and less money to serve more and more poor, destitute people in the area. They are trying to give the children, the kids in high school or dropping out of high school or even a few who get through high school, a sense of something to look forward to.
We are not getting it. We have the highest level of unemployment in Toronto since the dirty thirties. In Canada, at least 435,000 industrial jobs have disappeared in the last couple of years and half of those are gone forever.
The iron workers union in Ontario tells me that the main employment for iron workers is dismantling plants. They are not building plants, they are dismantling. It is this government that caused it with its program of inviting the buy-out of Canada.
The government brags about investment, but 97 per cent of the outside investment coming into Canada is simply to buy out Canadian enterprises. In may cases they are shut down, all the jobs are wiped out, and they take the whole enterprise except for the name. For example, they still sell Inglis washers in Canada but they are not made in Canada.
This government has caused this unemployment. In Toronto it means there has been a 30 per cent increase in food given for the Christmas season, but a 60 per cent increase in what is needed. One hundred and forty thousand people are relying on food banks for groceries, compared to 90,000 at this time last year and 60,000 of those people are children.
The question is why? The government says in effect that the workers are lazy. That is a lie. The fact is that the government refuses to tax the rich and instead asks the poor to pay the taxes that the rich are not paying. Its argument has been that if the rich get the tax breaks, they will invest the money and make jobs. In fact, between 1979 and 1990 Canadian investors sent their money out of the country. It was a little over 5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product then and is now closer to 15 per cent. It is going out of this country in the form of investments by Canadians who got much of that money

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from tax breaks given by this government and the preceding Liberal government.
These are the same. Many of them, their pals and the Business Council on National Issues, bailed out the Tories in the last election campaign by a monstrous third party advertising campaign through their subsidiary financial groups. Their reward is further tax giveaways. They are cutting job creation in Canada and asking poor people to pay the tax bill.
According to The Financial Post of August 29, 1990, Revenue Canada estimated that the so-called tax gap, the amount owed but not paid by Canadians, hit $10 billion in 1987, the last year for which an estimate was available.
I can well understand why the government is not providing up to date figures. That was almost four times the 1977 level. What it does is not only give tax breaks, but when the largest companies do not pay their taxes they can argue about it for five years in court and by the time they do pay it, they have had a five-year free loan.
The government is telling industrial workers, transport workers, clerical workers, unemployed people if they are still drawing unemployment insurance and welfare families to pay the taxes that the rich people and the rich corporations refuse to pay and are excused from paying by this government.
The government has even cut back the Revenue Canada program which would catch some of the tax cheaters. It was a huge success, earning $17 for every dollar spent in the taxes it recovered. The government has cut it back to less than a quarter of what it used to be. It does not want to catch the big tax cheaters, because those are the people who finance its election campaigns.
Shame on this government for forcing poor people to pay the taxes of the rich.


An hon. member:: You are right, Dan, you are absolutely right.


Mr. Benoit Tremblay (Rosemont):: Mr. Speaker, this bill to limit the growth in federal payments to the richest provinces to 5 per cent and the amendment moved by
the finance critic of the New Democratic Party to simply maintain the status quo reflect the lack of debate and a minimum consensus in the country.
Canada Assistance Plan spending grew much faster in the richest provinces in the last 10 years and federal transfers to the richest provinces grew much more than those to the poorest ones. This has intensified since the Progressive Conservative government took power in 1984.
In fact, federal transfers for the Canada Assistance Plan and even all federal transfers to the provinces increased more rapidly for the richest provinces than for the poorest ones, even if equalization is included.
Since 1984 federal transfers to the poorest provinces rose at a 5.7 per cent rate, while those to the richest provinces went up 7.7 per cent. Taking out equalization, which offsets this somewhat, the growth rate for federal transfers to the richest provinces would be almost double.
Today we have a proposal from the federal government to limit transfers to the three richest provinces to a 5 per cent growth rate, and the New Democratic Party, which claims to defend the poor, is opposed and brings in an amendment that would simply cancel this bill. That party, which should defend the poorest provinces, on the contrary clearly seeks to maintain the status quo of federal transfers favouring the richest provinces.
That same party very recently raised a hue and cry because of the regional development agreement whereby the federal government would give Quebec $160 million over five years, or a little more than $30 million a year. In equalization payments alone Quebec has lost $2.2 billion since 1987. For the current year, the cuts will amount to some $440 million. Did you see a single New Democratic member rise to denounce the situation? They all get up this morning to denounce a bill that would restrict the growth in spending in the richest provinces.
That is the real face of the NDP, and I hope Quebecers will take a good look, because this morning, they had a chance to restore a modicum of fairness to transfer payments. I agree this is a unilateral decision by the federal government, whose power to change unilaterally the rules of the game in fiscal arrangements has just been confirmed by the Supreme Court. It is also a

situation that is intolerable for any responsible provincial government. Fiscal arrangements should include a mutual commitment by the federal government and the provinces that any changes in these arrangements will be negotiated. We would have a good chance to get a more balanced system, now that fiscal arrangements between the provinces and the federal government must be renegotiated for 1992-1997, and in fact, negotiations are under way. However, there has never been any serious debate about the type of fiscal arrangements, the type of agreements we want to see between the federal government and the provinces. We are now seeing a transfer of the federal deficit to the provinces, and unlike what is being said today about the New Democratic Party, these cuts, these transfers have, in recent years, tended to concentrate on the poorer, not on the richer provinces.
The freeze on transfer payments for health care and education applied to all provinces. The capping of equalization payments has been in effect since 1987. Yet we had to wait until 1991 for a cap on spending by the richer provinces which are still getting more funding from the federal government, funding that should be used to establish some kind of balance, to restore a measure of fairness and maintain the fiscal ability of governments to provide services to the entire population. This situation is so obvious that the finance ministers will meet this week, when the Government of Quebec will again clearly express its views on cuts in equalization and EPF transfer payments but also on the money the federal government wants to raise. I did not hear anyone from the NDP mention this. The new taxes that the federal government will raise through its decision to no longer allow deduction of payroll and capital taxes for federal income tax purposes will cost Quebec $46 per capita a year and Ontario $15 a year. Alberta and British Columbia will gain $39 and $16 per person respectively.
Not only are transfer payments cut but the tax base is being reorganized in such a way as to collect $325 million more. In that context, the bill presented by the government this morning is a small measure of fairness towards the provinces with less fiscal capacity, while the system as a whole is still very beneficial to the richest provinces.
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Mr. David Barrett (Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on what the proceeding member said.
I listened very carefully to what he said and I cannot, frankly, understand why he would make the proposition that the PQ makes, that it wants to be a separate province.
I am puzzled because one of the most thoughtful statements, part of what the member said, was the concern about the less wealthy areas of this country. It was a very profound, emotional statement by that member pointing out what Canada is all about. There is no gap in terms of the sentiment about ordinary Canadians which that member spoke about so eloquently between his party and other members of this House.
Frankly, as I sat in this Chamber, I had a sense of pride hearing what that member had to say about fighting for other unfortunate people in Canada.
That is what we could have in common; not breaking this country up but keeping this country together on a sense of fairness and decency and openness to each other across the country.
He made the point eloquently.
I want to take the theme that my colleague from Quebec has raised in this House and expand it. We can argue about the differences in terms of capping the transfer payments and equalization payments. It was traditionally true in this country up until the advent of a very lax Liberal administration in the late 1970s and early 1980s and a disastrous Tory administration for the past six years in this government. We have now been reduced to fighting each other region by region because of the fiscal policies of this government.
I remind my friend there is no gap regardless of whether you speak English or French about the concern for the poor regions in this country.
While we are reduced to this in this debate, another story unfolds daily in this country which shows how bankrupt morally this government is. While we are reduced to moving a motion to kill the bill rather than have the kind of intelligent debate that we all want as my

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colleague points out, it is true that we missed the point in reducing ourselves in this debate as my member from Quebec so eloquently spelled out.
What is the point of this debate? We are talking about cuts when the people who should be paying their fair share in this country are getting away with murder. The wealthy in Quebec, the wealthy in Ontario, the wealthy in British Columbia, those corporations that abuse the work force of this country to build incredible profits over the years, have actually had their taxes reduced by this government.
It has us squabbling and quibbling region to region in this country at each other's throat over language issues, provincial rights issues and is diverting us in the constitutional debates when the very foundation for this kind of rancour and hostility in this country is the fact that from coast to coast there has been unfairness in taxation in this country and the poor people have suffered.
I say in common cause with my colleague with whom I was very impressed the thing that should unite us in this country is the word fairness.
Just this past week we discovered that the banks have made a usurious profit of over $3 billion while the country is going down the tube, while the government is cutting off services to people in Quebec, in the mari-times, in British Columbia. While it is cutting back and capping, the banks took an extra $3 billion out of the pockets of working people in this country.
It is usurious. Furthermore, when there is some pleading in this House for a simple, remedial matter in terms of just the credit cards alone, what does this government do? It wrings its hands and says it cannot do anything. It is so embarrassed that even the members of its own party have announced that the banks are going to be grilled on the obscene profits. Its own party.
The members want to save their skins in their ridings and I say if they are that motivated and concerned They should raise holy blazes here in the House and say no to the capping and collect the taxes due from the banks and the corporations in this country.
They say they are at the banks. They had the timidity not even to give the banks a slap on the wrist about their charges on interest on credit cards. You are a paper tiger. You are a paper kitten. You are a paper pussy. This is a gutless government that has abandoned everything to
the private sector and caused the divisions that my friend from Quebec so eloquently spoke about today.
It was a great Canadian speech and I was proud to hear it. Now I want to tell you this. It does not matter what language you speak in this country, English or French. The real roots of the problems are the inequity in the economy and taxation in this country and a sense of fairness from coast to coast. What it does is drive people to protect their separate regions rather than build a great Canadian nation we all dreamt we should have and at some point did have.
I want to tell you that even our great neighbour to the south of us which skinned us on the free trade agreement came out of this economic downturn better than we did. Ronald Reagan was their great soulmate. They believed that he was the greatest sports broadcaster who ever lived, let alone their president.
I want to tell you that even the United States of America has a 20 per cent minimum corporate income tax. Do you know how much money would be raised for the province of Quebec, for the maritimes and for every other province in need in this country if there was a minimum corporate tax in this country? Over $6 billion would be made available, my dear friend. None of us would be quibbling about $200 million here or $200 million there.
It is embarrassing to have to fight for the unemployed in Montreal who are the same as the unemployed in Toronto and who are the same as the unemployed in Vancouver. This is one great nation that can be held together by fairness, but not by regionalism and divisiveness as created by this bill.
Putting a cap on the rich provinces when times are tough means that they in turn will not want to share when times are good.
In the past Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario have willingly shared when times were good. By putting a cap on them now when times are bad you are saying to them: "Be greedy and hang on until times are good". That is no way to build a nation. That is not how the ordinary people of Quebec feel. That is not how the ordinary people of Ontario or any province feel.
My colleague made a profound statement today on a pan-Canadian basis. I did not think it would come from the Bloc Quebecois but it did and I think it should be respected. I say to him in return that the alternative is a fair taxation system that collects money on an equality of
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basis to pay and the banks are the worst users of the tax system of anybody.
I say to you there is a united voice in this House on a bill like this that I have not heard before. It has nothing to do with regionalism or with separating and fighting for your own constituency, which is a paramount virtue for every politician who wants to get elected. It is, however, a statement about Canada and a fair tax system. The only party out of step in this House is the Conservative Party and it is not the Conservative Party of John Diefenbaker. This is a sell-out government that has capitulated to a free trade agreement and a low tax base in the United States to serve those corporate interests rather than the needs of the ordinary people of Canada.


An hon. member:: What about the Liberals?


David Barrett: The Liberals do not know which side they are on. They have to go back to Aylmer again and start all over.
But I will tell you that one of the most moving statements made in a pan-Canadian sense was made by a member from the Bloc Quebecois. That is very interesting. People are people right across this nation. They are all Canadians. We are all Canadians. If you want to keep this country together, then stop playing favourites when it comes to taxation. Make the rich pay their fair share. That is the way to start rebuilding this country again.


John F. Brewin: Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to follow the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He puts the argument about the impact of this bill and the successive policies of this government on national unity exactly where they should be put.
This bill that puts a cap on Canada Assistance Plan contributions to three provinces in Canada is a divisive bill. It penalizes those who can afford it least. It further destroys the social service network in this country and represents in my submission a very serious blow to national unity exactly at the wrong time in this country's history.
Bill C-32 which we are now dealing with at report stage extends from 1992 to 1995 a specific limit on federal contributions under the Canada Assistance Plan to three provinces: Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Its predecessor Bill C-69 put a limit on caps to 1992. In the last budget the government announced its inten-
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tion to proceed with this legislation to extend the cap to 1995.
The financial impact of this bill is very significant. The government has said it expects to save the federal treasury $2 billion a year and it seeks to justify this bill on the basis of financial constraints on the federal government.
This bill is flawed for three broad reasons. First, it is attacking the deficit by going after social programs which will inevitably have a negative impact on those who can least afford it at a time in our country's history when we are facing recession right across Canada.
We hear for example that in metro Toronto there will be over 200,000 children this Christmas who will have to get Christmas dinner at food banks. Child poverty is one of the disgraces of this wealthy nation. This bill will perpetrate and extend the scandal in the way in which our society has treated our children. This comes after the words of the Prime Minister at the UN not so very long ago who spoke at a summit on the rights of children.
We have rhetoric and no positive action. The only action we get is a bill of this kind which will have a direct impact on children and those who can least afford it.
The second problem with this bill is that it fails to attack the deficit where it should be attacked. The deficit that has built up in this country over the last 20 years by successive Liberal and Conservative governments has been almost entirely as a result of two policies by both Liberals and Conservatives. The first policy has been to give increasing numbers of tax breaks to the corporate sector and to wealthy individuals. A recent study demonstrated that 44 per cent of the current deficit is a result of those policies started by the present member for Vancouver Quadra when he was Minister of Finance. This continued under successive Liberal governments and has been given an accelerated drive by the Conservatives.
The second policy which both Liberals and Conservatives followed whenever the economy got into any kind of trouble was to increase interest rates. We saw it in the early 1980s when interest rates went up to over 20 per cent and we have seen it recently under the Conservative government. This of course had an impact on the deficit because as the federal government was beginning to run into deficits each year, the accumulated debt required

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higher and higher interest payments. This was one of the most significant costs to the Canadian taxpayer.
Social services have only added 6 per cent to the total national debt over the last number of years.


An hon. member:: What nonsense.


John F. Brewin: My friend from the Liberals from Kingston keeps shouting: "What nonsense". You can always tell when you get to the Liberals because they start heckling at that point.
The Conservatives and those on this side of the House from the New Democratic Party are fully aware that there is virtually nothing to choose between the policies of the Conservatives and the policies of the predecessor Liberal governments.
We find it interesting that for a period in opposition the Liberal Party began to shift to the left. We see now in Aylmer it has have gone back in a shift to the right. It is now going to try to compete with the Conservatives for the business vote in this country. It is welcome to it.


An hon. member:: Tell us about Bob Rae.


John F. Brewin: The third problem is with the impact of this bill on national unity. Let me speak to that in particular. First of all, this bill breaks a specific agreement with the provinces. This was a unilateral breaking of an agreement with the provinces.
The courts have found that this Parliament is within its jurisdiction and the government is within its legal right to bring forward this bill. But we submit that it has no moral right to introduce a bill of this kind which breaks a solemn undertaking that had been given to the provinces across Canada.
Second, the bill discriminates against three of the ten provinces. It has picked the so-called have provinces. These are the ones which also have large bills for social assistance because of the recession which the government has imposed on this country. It develops an argument whereby it says: "This does not affect us. We cannot therefore have any problem with adding to the tax bill of the people of Ontario, Alberta or British Columbia". It is a bill which gives a reverse kind of
special status to B.C., Alberta and Ontario. At this time in our country's history it is a bad bill.
Finally, it very specifically attacks our social security and social service system. This is part of a larger Conservative agenda and is at a time when that very social service system is one of the distinctive natures of our country and is a key foundation of building a sense of nationhood.
The Canada Assistance Plan is a plan which is effectively a federal-provincial partnership. It has been in existence for many years. The federal government undertook to pay 50 per cent of the cost of designated social services at the provincial level. This gave the federal government a large and significant role in the social security net in this country. This represents a significant step by the federal government to back away from a federal role in social services in Canada. It is part of a larger agenda of which this is a key part.
First, this government has changed the tax system in order to reduce the burden on the corporate sector and those of wealth.
Second, this government through the free trade agreement has reduced protections for Canadian industry and opened this country up to even greater attack from multinationals from outside the country.
Third, this government has made it easier for foreign companies to attack and invest in Canadian companies and to buy Canadian companies even with our own money.
Fourth, the government has set about a process of privatization which has undermined public institutions.
Fifth, it has been an attack on public servants in this country and Public Service employees in particular. We saw the recent attack on the Public Service employees in the PSAC strike. We have seen a set of policies, including contracting out and including the use of exclusions and designations to undermine collective bargaining at the Public Service level.
When even that failed, the government came in and passed legislation to impose its own agenda as an employer on Public Service employees in Canada.
Most critically, it has attacked social services in this country. It has attacked family allowances and pensions. It has gone after medicare and accessibility of university and higher education in this country. It has reduced the effectiveness of unemployment insurance which has again imposed a special strain on social assistance programs right across the country.
December 9, 1991


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Your time has expired.


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak out against Bill C-32, the Canada Assistance Plan and the 5 per cent limit to the provinces of B.C., Alberta and Ontario.
I would like to start out by making a few comments with regard to the speech made by the Bloc Quebecois member. I think he made a very interesting speech about his concerns, but I want to say to the member from Quebec that if you are poor in Quebec and you are poor in the Atlantic provinces and you are poor in British Columbia, then that is what this plan is all about.
We should not be starting to bring in legislation that is going to start to bring about caps in some provinces because they happen to be rich. The poor in the provinces across this country are crying out for help. We have a national program that is supposed to be the Canada Assistance Plan.
I say to all of you what a time to be discussing the Canada Assistance Plan. It is three weeks before Christmas and this government is bringing in a policy that is going to cap social assistance programs in the province of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
I say it is shameful. I say to the people in the food banks across this country as the people line up there that some of these government members better go down to those food banks and listen to what is going on across this country. I want to say to you that you would not be bringing in a cap at this time for these people across Canada.
At the same time, as my colleague for Juan de Fuca has said, the banks are making profits with their credit cards and various things. We have raised this in this House and the government turned a deaf ear to it. It does not want to hear that. It does not want to hear that the banks are making a profit. Why can we not bring in a taxation system that when a worker makes his wages, he is taxed immediately on his wages and on what he does. Why can we not tax the banks and the large corporations at the source of their profits at 20 per cent minimum tax as the hon. member for Juan de Fuca has said. "We
should bring in a minimum tax across this country". The Liberals would not do it. The Conservatives sure are not going to do it. The New Democrats will soon show the people of Canada a fair taxation system. The NDP will bring about a fair taxation system that will recognize the needs of the people of Canada.
We will not do it by dividing the country. We will not do it by cutting back on social programs. The Prime Minister of Canada in the last election said that our social programs are sacred to the people of Canada and to this government.
Mr. Speaker, I see my time is running short so I will continue after Question Period.


Mr. Speaker:: It being two o'clock p.m., the House will now proceed to Statements by Members pursuant to Standing Order 31.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
Mr. Lawrence MacAulay (Cardigan):: Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday a letter from the minister of fisheries was printed in the Charlottetown Guardian. In this letter the minister said that because the lobster fishery is the biggest fishery in Prince Edward Island, Island ground fishermen did not deserve government assistance.
For the last 18 months fishermen have been calling for their fair share of government assistance.
In the recent $40 million aid package, Prince Edward Island did not get one cent. In the $584 million package in May 1990, P.E.I. received a miserly $150,000 from the government, some of which went to study the GST centre in Summerside.
I challenge the minister of fisheries to listen to the inshore ground fishermen who will not be able to make their boat payments. I challenge the minister to explain to fishermen why the ground fishery in P.E.I. does not get help.

December 9, 1991


NATIONAL UNITY
Mr. David Bjornson (Selkirk-Red River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today because I am concerned about the future of my country, also because I am concerned about the recent comments on this nation's future made by the leader of the Parti Quebecois.
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, on many occasions the concept of our country has been described as a marriage. The people of my constituency believe that this country like a marriage is an association created out of mutual love, trust and respect. Any other concept is nothing more than a common law relationship.
The people I represent are not interested in a common law relationship for Canada.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, we continually hear the Prime Minister saying how proud we are to be Canadian citizens. However, this undoubted privilege is being denied to some 50,000 legal immigrants who are now trapped in an Order in Council backlog.
For these tens of thousands of immigrants, who by and large have completed their security and health checks and are in Canada, this backlog is the only thing that stands in their way to becoming landed. They must receive their landing papers before they can apply for citizenship.
There is no reasonable explanation for this delay. The reality is that the government is holding them back so that the immigration levels announced by the immigration department can appear as though they are being met.
I ask the government to stop playing with figures. These people are here in Canada and have been processed in accordance with our laws. There is no reason to delay their landings any further. It should stop playing with the numbers because by doing so it is playing with people's lives.


ABORIGINAL SELF-GOVERNMENT
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Yukon Territorial Government, the Council for Yukon Indians and the federal government on reaching an historical aboriginal selfgovernment agreement.
The agreement ratified by four Yukon First Nations this past week signals the end of one era and the beginning of a new relationship, a relationship based not on dependency but on equality. The agreement puts into practice the principle that Yukon's First Nations people have the inherent right to govern their land and their people.
It shows all of us that when the political will is there, when governments of all levels can come together and there is a genuine commitment to creating a more equitable society, self-government can be achieved.
I strongly encourage the government now to ratify this historic self-government agreement and put principle into action.


CANADIAN UNITY
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland-Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, December 18, there will be a forum in the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia to address a proposal by Dr. Bruce Filiter for English speaking Canadians to indicate their desire to keep Quebec within the country.
Dr. Filiter believes the politicians have not been successful in delivering messages back and forth between Quebec and the rest of Canada, and I agree with him. He also believes that unless ordinary Canadians begin to show each other that they care about the future of the country we have a distinct possibility of losing it, and I agree with him.
Dr. Filiter's idea is that English Canada could send a very clear message by flying the Quebec flag at every opportunity, and this will be his proposal put forth at the seminar on December 18.
In a letter to the premier of Nova Scotia he has said that flying a Quebec flag may be a small gesture but it is gestures like this that can smother the flames of separa-
December 9, 1991

tion fanned by the misunderstandings and petty jealousies and the media's preoccupation with divisive forces.
I agree with Dr. Filiter that it must be up to Canadians from all walks of life to stand up and be counted in this debate. The politicians and the media have done a very poor job in sending messages back and forth and have certainly exaggerated any differences there may be.
I applaud Dr. Filiter for his efforts and determination and wish him every success in his approach to this all important question.


BATTLE OF HONG KONG
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, December 8, was the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Japanese attack on Hong Kong which ended on Christmas Day of that year, 1941. Of 1,975 Canadians, 557 were killed or died in prison camps. Those who returned after years of brutal treatment would never be the same.
Their will to live and their will to be good Canadians, in spite of doubts about the wisdom of the policy and the government that sent them there, should be an example to all Canadians who are tempted to cynicism about Canada by much less personally devastating events.
The Canadians at Hong Kong were Winnipeg Grenadiers from Manitoba and Royal Rifles from Quebec. Let what they did together in defending the indefensible and in suffering the insufferable put our current tribulations into perspective and remind us of what Canadians can do as Canadians when the best in them is called to the fore.


VAL-D'OR AIRPORT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the federal Minister of Transport, officially announced the creation of the Val-d'Or airport economic development board.
The new agency, made up of community representatives, is meant to promote and develop the interests of this northern Quebec regional airport. Transport Canada's regional airport in Val-d'Or boasts a runway that is
10,000	feet long and 200 feet wide. It has already accommodated a Concorde, Boeing 747s and the USAF Galaxy C-5, the world's largest plane.
Today, the airport can handle 400 to 500 flights a day and up to 30 flights an hour. Last summer, international airlines started making technical stops in Val-d'Or. A feasibility study showed that a market for technical stops exists on east-west routes to Toronto and Chicago.


POVERTY
Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, this evening in St. John's two events are taking place at the Radisson Hotel. In one the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans from Newfoundland and the Prime Minister are engaged in a function inside the hotel at $500 a head. At the same time another function goes on, a soup kitchen. That one is at the hotel, though outside. It is a soup kitchen to serve some of the poor who have been hurt by the policies of this particular government.
The two events are together a graphic summation of what is happening to this country: while some people hobnob at high prices and dine luxuriously, the other half who have been decimated, whose jobs have been lost by the policies of that same elite, sit outside in the cold and eat soup at 50 cents a bowl.
My one disappointment is not that the minister of fisheries is celebrating 25 years. I congratulate him. He has done some good service to the province and to the country during those 25 years. What disappoints me, though, is that tonight he will find himself inside the room with the elite instead of outside with the people who sent him here in the first place, a place where he is often much more comfortable. I appeal to him at this late hour to stay outside instead of going in with his buddies, the elite.


UKRAINE
Mr. Brian White (Dauphin -Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, in a free and fair referendum on December 1, the citizens of Ukraine voted for freedom, democracy and independence.

Yesterday in Winnipeg hundreds of people gathered at city hall to celebrate by raising the Ukrainian flag. One of the speakers of the ceremony was Mr. Ihor Derkatch, member of Parliament from Ukraine. Other guests included representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic churches and speakers from all levels of governments representing all political parties.
Canada was the first western country to recognize the independence of Ukraine. It is quite clear from declarations made by the Ukraine Parliament and from statements made by the new president, Mr. Leonid Kravchuk, that Ukraine will be a strong advocate of international arms control and human rights.
It is therefore imperative that Canada further recognize a free Ukraine by establishing diplomatic relations immediately.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday the government announced in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal a major green plan initiative to combat smog. This initiative should result in significant reductions in emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, the main smog creating pollutants, and will lead to a major improvement in air quality over the next 10 years.
Specifically new regulations, protocols and codes of practice will be developed for rail transportation, vehicle diesel engines, power and chemical plants, and dry cleaning facilities. A research program will be implemented as well as a public education campaign, and bilateral agreements will be negotiated with the provinces.
This green plan initiative is a major step forward in our fight against smog in this country.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. David Berger (Saint-Henri-Westmount):: Mr. Speaker, there are disturbing reports in today's papers
that the government is backing off its commitment to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground of discrimination.
In 1986 the government accepted the subcommittee on equality's recommendation that the Canadian Human Rights Act be amended to include just such a prohibition.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has also repeatedly recommended that the government amend the act. Human rights codes in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Yukon all include such protection.
The government has the responsibility to protect Canadians who face discrimination. Further, the government has a responsibility to live up to its promises. There are many Canadians who suffer from discrimination on account of their sexual orientation and require protection. It is unacceptable for this situation to continue any longer.
I urge the government to act without further delay and introduce the long delayed legislation.


WOODSTOCK SANCTUARY HOUSE
Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday I took part in a ceremony commemorating the first anniversary and completion of renovations to Woodstock Sanctuary House. This project was made possible on funding obtained from the federal government through CMHC's Project Haven initiative.
Woodstock Sanctuary House provides temporary accommodation to victims of family violence. The transition home operates on a 24-hour per day basis to provide shelter, food, emotional support and access to other services. It also provides a safe and secure refuge to abused women and their children.
Woodstock Sanctuary House recognizes the specific and distinct needs of children from abusive environments. Congratulations and a thank you are in order to the citizens of Woodstock, New Brunswick and surrounding communities for working to make Woodstock Sanctuary House a reality.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Joe Fontana (London East):: Mr. Speaker, almost eight years later this government still has not managed to lay the foundation for a prospering economy. The current recession shows no sign of turning around for the better. So far this recession has a casualty toll of 71,000 lay-offs in Ontario, and last year alone 350,000 jobs disappeared permanently in Canada.
With businesses continuing to fail, thousands of Canadian workers are becoming the permanently unemployed. Welfare rolls are skyrocketing and families are relying on food banks to make ends meet.
Ask any retailer: the Christmas boom has turned into a Christmas bust. Canadians are displaying their lack of confidence in the Canadian economy and their lack of confidence in the current government.
When will this government stop pretending there is a recovery and start doing something about this dragged out recession? The Prime Minister even makes Scrooge look good, if that is possible.


BILL 178
Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current -Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are suffering from chronic constitutional fatigue. They are tired of debate, sick of threats, weary of consultation, and fed up with rhetoric. Constitutional dialogue cannot be a one-way street. It is time traffic moved in both directions.
The Meech Lake process did not fail in June 1990. The spirit of Meech was destroyed in much of English Canada in December 1988 with the passage of Bill 178 in Quebec.
I want to congratulate Premier Bourassa and the Quebec Liberal Party for their resolution yesterday calling for alternatives to Bill 178.
Quebec and its people are an important and valued part of Canada. It is time for its leadership to come to the table and get involved. Yesterday's motion concerning Bill 178 is a most welcome step in this direction and indeed should be applauded by all Canadians.
Oral Questions



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
The Minister of State for Finance bragged on Friday that his government was expecting a good recovery and that it was already under way. However the figures show quite a different picture. Last month alone the Canadian economy lost 49,000 jobs. Statistics Canada noted that
305,000	manufacturing jobs have disappeared forever since June 1989.
The only benefit of this economy seems to be the U.S. retailers who pocketed more than $3 billion from Canadian shoppers. People have given up hope. They are disappearing into the black hole of jobless despair.
Does the government intend to base its so-called recovery on simply sweeping Canadians under the carpet?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that in the second and third quarters real growth averaged 3.3 per cent, an increase of 3.3 per cent. It is a modest increase in growth but it is growth and we do feel that we are coming out of the recession.
For the hon. member to describe whether I was bragging or not, I certainly did not mean it in a bragging sense at all. We are still in tough economic times, but we are coming out of them.
The hon. member should do a little promoting about Canada rather than talking about people travelling to the United States to shop. It would do us a lot more good.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, what we on this side of the House would like to do is promote food for hungry children.
The number of people depending on food banks in this year of so-called recovery has increased by 20 per cent. Some 284,000 kids will depend on food banks this Christmas. To put it in perspective, we could fill the SkyDome, B.C. Place, and the Olympic Stadium with

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hungry children and we would still have 100,000 kids waiting outside trying to get a meal.
These kids are not sitting on Santa's knee asking for presents. They want food and they want a government that will care about them.
How can they call it a recovery when the line-up at food banks has increased by 20 per cent this year?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, nobody takes comfort in seeing families in need at any time of the year, but especially at this time of the year.
To be fair, the hon. member knows full well that a number of people, low income families, have come off the poverty roll over the last period of time. We know that we have increased the child tax credit. There are a number of projects that this government has undertaken to help those who need the help at this period of time. Of course the low income rebates from the goods and services tax which pays cheques quarterly to low income families is also a source of aid at this time.
I wish we could do more. I think everyone in the House wishes we could do more, but in this period the best thing for these people and for all people in Canada is to ensure that our economy gets back on track, that jobs are created, and that people are able to get off unemployment insurance and welfare and back into the work force with a meaningful job. That is our goal and we are going to accomplish it.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, in Montreal alone there are 50,000 needy children, almost enough to fill the Olympic Stadium. We also know that Robert Normand said on Saturday that he expected unemployment to rise to 11 per cent. How can the government claim that the recession is over when it knows that the number of needy children has risen 20 per cent this year alone?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, that was the same question in French as it was in her English supplementary.
I can tell the hon. member that the economy is picking up. It is starting to improve. It is a vested interest for opposition members to see poor conditions because they
think that will vault them into power the next time around.
Let me say to the hon. member that the economy is getting better. If we talked a little more positively about the good things in this country the economy would pick up faster, instead of the whining we hear time after time from the opposition in this House.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
A confidential report of the Department of External Affairs says that for competitive reasons Canada must never lead the world in the development of environmental standards.
This is totally contrary to the Porter report, to the competitiveness strategies of Japan and Germany, countries which have already stated that being ahead environmentally is an integral part of their plans for economic dominance.
My question is: How could this government introduce an economic prosperity agenda a month ago and obscenely spend some $21 million, spreading it cross the country, when its true agenda is to deny Canadians the opportunity of becoming competitive in the fastest growing market of the next decade, that of the development of environmental technologies?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the hon. member wait until he can read the entire report.
I would like to mention first of all that my colleagues, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of State for Environment and I just met with some Canadian leaders from the Stockholm conference who are helping guide us toward UNCED. One of the things we have been discussing is the important connection between trade and the environment and how we indeed can use environmental issues.
We are into a different world now than we were before. The two go together. We are proud of our environmental record in Canada and we intend to

continue to stay in the lead on environmental issues in the future.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, unless the minister is now in the process of busily rewriting the report, I have the complete copy, and it is very clear that it says that Canada must improve its step, must not lead our partners in the development of environmental standards.
The statement on the government's strategy is not only bad environmental policy; it is incredibly dumb and archaic economics.
However, be that as it may, my supplementary question is: How does the minister reconcile the statement in this strategy paper that in terms of environmental protection Canada must not move ahead of its trading partners, with the contrary position that has been taken by the same government that in the North American Free Trade Agreement it is perfectly acceptable that Canada enforce environmental standards that are much higher than that of Mexico?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, I think the pertinent part of the document the member is referring to when it will be made public is the objective sections of the document. That is the one the hon. member and all members of this House should look to. I pray that he will wait until that document is out and then he will have the benefit of looking at the objectives part to make any judgment or statement about this document.
Furthermore, the hon. member made an allusion to the fact that environmental technologies are important. This government, through the green plan, announced a $100 million initiative.


Mr. Martin:: That is nothing.


Jean J. Charest: Only a Liberal would say that $100 million is nothing. Over six years $100 million for environmental technologies is what is dedicated through the green plan to develop technologies and bring them to the marketplace. That is the commitment this government has made.
In the context of the Canada-United States-Mexico trade agreement, the hon. member also knows that we are conducting parallel negotiations with the three parties on environment issues. That is something that in
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itself is unparalleled and has never been done before. We are making great progress in this area.


THE ECONOMY
Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister. Today we heard that housing starts are dropping, that cars are not selling-20 per cent fewer cars were sold this month than last month-and that stores are expecting business to be slack over the holiday season. The economy is crumbling and during this time the Prime Minister is travelling across the country to raise funds for his party and his ministers responsible for the economy are busy with the Constitution. When will this government set its priorities straight and help Canadians find work?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, housing starts are at an annualized rate of some 174,000 which is about the average over the last number of years for Canada. They are up some 20 per cent over last year's starts. Those are hopeful signs.
As far as car sales are concerned, the hon. member said that sales are down 20 per cent. One of the interesting things is that foreign sales are down rather dramatically and North American made cars are up about 1.5 per cent. That is not a great increase but at least an increase. Those are workers for Canada not for the foreign makers.
Those are good signs we are seeing in the economy. We hope they will continue.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
We would all like to see good signs, but a 13 per cent decrease in housing starts and the sale of vehicles being down 20 per cent are not good signs either to the people who sell, to the people who manufacture or to the construction workers.
I want to say also that 35,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last month alone. The Canadian Manufacturers' Association said: "If job losses continue at this rate we have only got 30 months left before no one is left".

December 9, 1991
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I want to ask the minister: When can we expect an announcement of a first ministers' conference on the economy and a clear indication that the government will take such a conference seriously and be open to changes in its economic policies?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been meeting with provincial premiers across Canada and the Minister of Finance will be meeting with the finance ministers this Thursday to discuss many of the issues that the hon. member raises and that the premiers have raised with the Prime Minister.
Once those meetings take place on Thursday and Friday, the Minister of Finance will be in a position to advise the Prime Minister on the advisability of having a first ministers' conference on the economy.
I would point out the comment of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa when he said that he would consider going to a national summit on the economy if other premiers do not turn it into a concert of whiners. We want to make sure that that is the case.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have another supplementary question.
While Canadians would like to see some action by this government on jobs, we still have a million and a half unemployed, the same number on social assistance or unemployment insurance, and hundreds of thousands of children who can expect to find their Christmas dinner, if they can find it at all, in a food bank. At the same time the banks in this country are still posting almost $4 billion in profit this year.
The minister knows there are loopholes that will allow banks to avoid paying taxes on much of this profit. The government says it needs money. The people of Canada know that money is needed. Is the government prepared to take action so that the banks will pay their full and fair share of taxes this year?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member raised that question, because indeed before this government came into power banks hardly paid any tax, if any at all. Last year they paid three-quarters of a billion dollars in tax and this year they will be paying more than double that amount. There are taxes coming from the profits that the banks are making today.


Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of State for Finance.
He pointed out that on the weekend the premier of Quebec, Mr. Bourassa, became the sixth premier to express a willingness to attend a first ministers' conference on the economy.
I ask the minister or the Deputy Prime Minister: Now that a majority of premiers are interested in having such a conference, why will the government not announce today an early first ministers' conference on the economy so that the federal government can work with the provinces to create new economic growth and more jobs for all Canadians? What is it waiting for?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the hon. member did not hear my answer to the Leader of the New Democratic Party. I will repeat it for him and I will go slowly so he can understand it.
The provincial premiers across the country have met with the Prime Minister and they have given a number of agenda items that they would like to talk about.
The ministers of finance are meeting on Thursday and Friday with the Minister of Finance of Canada to discuss agenda items on a number of the subjects that the provincial premiers wish to discuss.
Once those meetings are over the Minister of Finance will give the appropriate advice to the Prime Minister in co-operation with the provincial premiers. There is no sense announcing a meeting today until the ministers of finance have had an opportunity to discuss these issues, as well they should.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, while this minister is responding with callous arrogance to the concerns we express on behalf of the million and a half Canadians out of work, more and more of them are being added to the welfare rolls.
In its recent proposals on the Constitution, his government said it wanted to work with the provinces to strengthen the economy.
I ask the minister how his government and its proposals can have any credibility with Canadians when just two months later the federal government has not expressed a willingness and in fact so far is refusing to meet with the

very provinces it said it wanted to work with to keep the economy moving? Why does this government not have any real commitment to economic growth and jobs for Canadians?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I would just ask the rhetorical question: What do you think the finance ministers are meeting about this week? What a silly question.


REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.
In April 1989 this government announced the creation of a Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. Last March the commission mandate was extended by a year. Last week for perhaps the first time ever, appointed members of a royal commission announced that they were suing the same royal commission in the Federal Court.
How could this government let things get so out of control? Why the gross mismanagement of such a serious matter?


Mrs. Barbara Sparrow (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies is dealing with very complex issues regarding research into the reproductive system. You get into surrogate motherhood, sperm banks and organ transplants. They are very difficult. We look forward to the recommendations that the royal commission will bring forth at the end of 1992 and know that they are overcoming some very difficult issues.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the chairperson of the standing committee on health and welfare.
Twenty five million dollars has been spent by this commission and now this commission refuses the medical community for summaries of the commission's funded proposals. Will the chairperson of the standing committee on health and welfare convene a meeting of the standing committee so that members of Parliament
Oral Questions
of all political parties may question and probe the commissioners of this incredible fiasco.


Mr. Speaker:: I just want to make it quite clear that provided that question is strictly directed to what the committee is about to do, the hon. member can answer it. The question was directed to the chairperson of the committee.


Ms. Barbara Greene (Don Valley North):: Mr. Speaker, we are having a business meeting of the committee tomorrow. I would certainly be interested in discussing the issue there. I am not certain that the subcommittee on the status of women is the most appropriate venue for such a hearing, but I certainly do think that there should be a hearing on this issue.


TAXATION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, may Canadians believe that the elimination of the GST would be a great boon to the Canadian economy and bring us out of the economic doldrums that we are in.
The Minister of Finance said just last night on TV that the money raised by the GST would be difficult to replace.
I ask the Minister of State for Finance: If the government is truly interested in alternatives to the GST why the government refuses to consider eliminating the business entertainment tax deduction, the special tax treatment of capital gains, the special tax breaks for real estate developers, tax breaks for mergers, interest deductibility for foreign owned multinationals, the manufacturing and processing tax credit, the dividend tax credit, just to name several many billions of dollars that the government could look at if it was serious about the deficit, instead of its ideological agenda?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I find it passing strange that New Democratic Party members who stand up here, as their leader did today, and complain about jobs disappearing in the manufacturing industry would absolutely cripple that industry with additional taxes.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, what is crippling the manufacturing sector in this country is the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement brought in by

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this bunch over there and the fact that they refuse to admit it.
If the government is serious about deficit reduction, as it always says it is, why does it refuse to consider eliminating all these tax loopholes that are benefiting wealthy Canadians while poor people have to line up at food banks on the same day that the government is putting a cap on social assistance in this country?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, to make a blanket statement like that, one that it is just helping wealthy Canadians, is nonsense.
The various tax incentives that are there are designed to make our Canadian industries competitive with their competitors with the United States and other countries with which we compete.
Certainly we have got to compete with them. We export 35 per cent of what we produce. We have to be competitive. If we followed the NDP policy on taxation, we would be taxing our industries completely out of the competitive field and we would be wiped out by the people whom we have to compete with in other countries.
The tax measures that the hon. member refers to are not tax loopholes. They are tax incentives, and he knows that.


PORT OF CHURCHILL
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Acting Minister of Transport.
At the end of last week, the Minister of Transport indicated in Winnipeg that the government is now seriously examining closing the port of Churchill in the new year, a decision that would have a disastrous impact on the prairie economy and certainly upon the town of Churchill itself.
I want to ask the minister why, when there have been a number of recent grain shipments to the various republics in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, a portion of that grain cannot be shipped through the port of Churchill. Why is this government engaging in a
conspiracy with CN Rail to shut down the port of Churchill?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, there is no conspiracy with CN Rail to shut down the port of Churchill.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I can only conclude that the government is doing it all by itself, which is no excuse.
I want to ask a supplementary. A private firm called Canada Space Technologies has announced that it has chosen Churchill as a site for a major development because of its rail and port infrastructure, a development that would bring hundreds of millions of dollars of development to the north plus many, many jobs.
Will the government now commit itself to keeping the port of Churchill open to allow this development to go ahead and for some new opportunity to be offered to the people of northern Manitoba?


Hon. William C. Winegard (Minister for Science):: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that there is a commercial company doing market studies to see whether in fact it makes sense to reopen the Churchill Rocket Range. When those studies are complete, we will have the Canadian Space Agency review this whole matter.

[Translation\


CANADA-U.S. FREE TRADE AGREEMENT
Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.
Considering the reaction of the United States to the way the Government of Quebec manages its hydroelectric resources, in particular Norsk Hydro, a decision having to do with Quebec government subsidies for these companies, and now that Quebec is beginning to realize that the free trade agreement is likely to ruin its economic and industrial infrastructure, what measures will the minister take to ensure that Quebec will not suffer even more from the free trade agreement that you signed with the United States?


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member knows that the minister is working very closely with the province of
December 9, 1991

Quebec and we have objected very strenuously to the United States about this matter.
We believe that the action taken by the United States in this case is absolutely inconsistent with the GATT and we have made our position very clear.


M. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister if in the coming days he intends at least to consult the Quebec government on that, because it does not agree at all with the approach he has taken in the free trade agreement to protect energy resources, in particular from Quebec.


William C. Winegard: Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that we are consulting with the province of Quebec on this important matter. There is no doubt in our mind that what the United States has done is inconsistent with the GATT and we are taking steps to ensure that we fight this case with everything we can.


INTEREST RATES
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
The bank rate is down to 7.54 per cent, yet the interest rates on credit cards are two and a half times to almost four times higher on charge cards. Yet this government is looking to consumer spending to get the economy out of the doldrums.
Will the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs instruct financial institutions to lower the card rates to the floating limit recommended by the consumer and corporate affairs committee two years ago?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague mentioned, interest rates have not yet been this low in years. This is a direct result
Oral Questions
of this government's economic policies and I think that we should be very pleased. Interests rates are so low that someone can negotiate a mortgage for a mere 8.25 or 8.5 per cent and personal loans at a slightly higher rate. We had not seen that in a long time.
That being said, by raising this important issue my colleague gives me an opportunity to reiterate in this House that if consumers are better informed, as I have done last week and as my colleague has done on occasions, they can be encouraged to make wiser choices between the various types of loans available and to take a personal loan instead of paying interest on their credit cards.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, we know the answer.
Jesse James developed a notorious record for holding up banks. Today we have the spectacle of banks developing a notorious record for picking the pockets of consumers in Canada.
My question for the minister is this, and it is asked in a very positive way. Is the minister prepared to call in the heads of all the financial institutions for a summit meeting and to ask them to drop the rates immediately as part of a national program to build consumer confidence and to allow consumers to share in the windfall profits which the banks have enjoyed?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I know that Jesse James and Ninja turtles are the heroes of my friend. I saw a picture this morning with my friend looking at Ninja turtles.
To be more serious, I met last week and the week before with the head of the Canadian Bankers Association, all the other associations of trust companies and departmental stores. I told them what I said to the hon. member here in this House, that I am concerned about those rates. As members know, those rates went down over the last couple of weeks.
Maybe we are not yet at the bottom of it, but I think we should continue to put pressure on them and make sure that the consumers make the right decisions when they go to their banks.

Oral Questions


PATENTED DRUGS
Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
Bill C-22 on patented drugs, which was passed in 1987, ordered a government review of the situation after four years, which means this year. Could the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs tell this House if pharmaceutical companies have, indeed increased their funding for research and development and whether as a result there has been an increase in the price of brand name drugs?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, this is an extremely important question that my hon. colleague is raising. Indeed, Bill C-22, passed in 1986, provided for a review of the effects of this legislation. In fact we have noticed that the price of patented drugs has increased by only 3.1 per cent compared to a
4.7	per cent increase in the consumer price index for the same period, which is excellent since we had set up a committee to monitor these increases.
Also, R and D in the pharmaceutical sector reached a level of almost $300 million in 1990. This year it should invest 10 per cent of sales, the goal set for 1996. Everything tends to demonstrate that this was a good decision and we will continue in the same vein.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton Southeast):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of Employment and Immigration.
The Matta family in Edmonton are Christian Israelis. Fhimi Matta was a bus driver in Israel who was asked by some terrorists to place a bomb in an Israeli bus depot. He refused. A decision handed down recently by a credibility panel in Edmonton directed that the family must leave Canada.
Will the Acting Minister tell us today that she and her colleagues will exercise their undoubted discretion in allowing this family to stay in Canada?


Hon. Monique Vezina (Minister of State (Employment and Immigration) and Minister of State (Seniors)):: Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I am not aware of that specific case. The hon. member knows full well that the Access to Information Act prevents us from providing details. However, I can check with the department and with my colleague responsible, for that matter, and within the parameters of the Immigration Act I can try to follow up his question.


David Kilgour: I understand the minister's colleague is reluctant to do this because Mr. Matta went back to Israel to get his family.
Does the minister know that Mr. Matta was trying to raise money to buy plane tickets to bring his family to Canada? Does she know that he also had to wait for seats to come back to Canada? Does she know that in Israel he was in hiding?


Mr. Speaker:: Given the response of the minister, the question seems to be going on a bit.


Monique Vézina: Mr. Speaker, I repeat, as I said earlier, that I cannot comment on the specific case brought up here in the House.


THE MINT
Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: My question is to the Minister of Labour. The Winnipeg and Ottawa Royal Mints, which are both on general strike, were informed that management is refusing to meet the employees, the workers.
The strike has already cost Canadians over $500,000. Will the minister intervene and appoint a mediator to bring an end to this dispute? It is not only costing Canadian taxpayers thousands of dollars, it threatens the very reputation, viability and future of the Mint. It
December 9, 1991

Oral Questions
prevents its men and women and their families from spending a peaceful and worry-free Christmas.


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member is aware, the services of the mediation and conciliation office of Labour Canada are always available in situations such as the one the hon. member raises. However, I am surprised at his question because he is the one who says we should appoint a mediator. I have not had a request from either management or the union to appoint a mediator.


Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the same minister. The minister knows that he has the legal right under section 105 of the Canada Labour Code to appoint a mediator and the obligation under the same law to promote good labour relations in this country.
The minister did it for the post office and the grain handlers, and he can do it for the Mint. Can I please tell my constituent, who has worked faithfully for the Mint for over 30 years and does not want to be on strike at Christmas time, and other striking workers, that the minister will appoint a mediator as he is able to do by law?


Marcel Danis: The hon. member is correct when she mentions section 105 of the act. However, the hon. member will know that when a mediator is appointed, the person is appointed in the hope that a settlement is possible. In the previous cases the hon. member mentioned, the requests have come from the parties themselves. In this case, I can assure my hon. friend that if there is a request and we feel there is a little chance of success, I will appoint. But so far there has been no request from either side.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture.
When samples were taken of the barley waiting to be shipped from Seattle, inspectors found flour mill beetles, Mediterranean flour moths, flatgrain beetles, mustard
grain beetles, lesser grain borers, granary weevils, rice weevils and confused flour beetles. These were all picked up from a filthy Cargill elevator and is now going to cost farmers thousands of dollars.
Will the minister do something positive to maintain the integrity of the Canadian grain system, and say there will be no more of these so-called experiments by the Canadian Wheat Board?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: The
hon. member has a substantive list of beetles and bugs and some things that concern him, and something about confused beetles.
I can say to the hon. member that the Canadian Wheat Board is fully aware of the problem. It is taking steps. It has time to take the steps to fumigate the grain. That will not b(e done at a cost to the Canadian Wheat Board, as I understand it, or to the producers; it will be done at a cost to the operator whose facilities the Canadian Wheat Board is using to facilitate this experiment.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, it seems clear and many would be suggesting that it is Cargill and the Canadian government that are plotting to undermine the entire grain industry in this country. Cargill ignored proper procedure by loading bins contrary to regulations before the inspections were made, tying up grain cars and shipping which is going to bear demurrage costs while they try to clear up this infestation.
I would like to ask the minister why he refuses to admit that this experiment has been a disaster for farmers, for the grain system and for the reputation of our high quality product?


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is aware, I am sure, that the decision to follow through on this experiment was a decision that was made by the Canadian Wheat Board. The Canadian Wheat Board is charged with doing the best within its power to provide an ultimate return to the Canadian grain farmer.
I am sure the hon. member and his party are continuing to support the Canadian Wheat Board. Why does he now wish to change the direction of the Canadian Wheat Board?

Oral Questions TOURISM


William D. (Bill) Casey: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of tourism.
The province of Nova Scotia and the federal government recently signed a $19.3 million tourism agreement but there were no details of how to access the agreement and to obtain funding.
Can the minister tell the House how much of this fund is pre-committed and how groups or individuals can access the money?


Hon. Tom Hockin (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: I would like to thank my hon. friend, Mr. Speaker, for his very timely question. Last week it was announced by the minister for ACOA and the relevant provincial ministers that there is a new program of promotion of tourism, one of the most important industries in Nova Scotia.
Over $10.9 million will be contributed by the federal government and $8.3 million by the province. It will be used for developing products, it will be used for advertising what we have, it will be used for training, and this will go a very great distance to making Nova Scotia better known, not only within Canada but internationally as a tourism destination.
He can apply through ACOA and through our officials and he should know that none of the funds have been pre-committed.


CANADIAN CITIZENSHIP
Benoît Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for citizenship.
In light of the recent statements made by the prime minister in Montreal regarding Canadian citizenship in the context of a sovereign Quebec, I would like to know if the government is planning to introduce in the near future an amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act to withdraw the right every Canadian citizen has enjoyed since 1977 to acquire a new nationality while retaining his Canadian citizenship.


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship):: Mr. Speaker, we will soon be tabling a new Citizenship Act. At this time we are just starting to
consider the subjects to be addressed, but I cannot see the issue raised by the hon. member as having any chance of being included.
* * #


CANADIAN PASSENGER VESSEL ASSOCIATION
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds -Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
When the minister was in my riding in Brockville a couple of weeks ago, he assured the president of the Canadian Passenger Vessel Association that he would meet with them to discuss problems faced by that industry. That is very encouraging.
I want to ask the minister if a time, a place and a date for that meeting has yet been established.


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Transport, I will certainly contact him and find out if a date has been set and if one has not been set when he is available I will be pleased to try and set one within my time schedule to meet with them.


Jim Jordan: Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister of state for that answer.
I wonder if the minister could give me some assurance that on the agenda of that meeting they will discuss the government regulations that are restricting the passenger tour boat industry to the extent that they can no longer compete with the Americans in this business keeping safety in mind, of course.
I wonder if I could establish with the minister that she will ask the Minister of Transport to make sure that item is on the agenda of that meeting. Could I get that assurance today?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, of course safety is always the first principle with which we look at regulations and I will be glad to take that to the minister and ensure that it is discussed with the owners.


AIRPORT SECURITY
Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, this is for the Minister of Transport.
December 9, 1991

Routine Proceedings
In September 1987 the Ministry of Transport announced a new security plan for Canadian airports, called the Airport Restricted Area Access Clearance Program, or at least part of it was. Under the program airline flight attendants and their spouses had to submit to fingerprinting as well as credit checks and personal investigations conducted by CSIS.
How does someone who has an Interpol warrant against her find herself on her first flight on a struck airline to be picked up by Interpol in Brussels? What happened to the security program this government put into place?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, the person in question did not have a personal access pass, only a pass by which they must be accompanied. That plan is in fact in place in airports and is being followed by Transport Canada.


Joy Langan: Mr. Speaker, when all of the airline flight attendants in Canada were required according to this program to go through this kind of scrutiny, if an airline has a labour dispute and is using replacement personnel, are the restrictions then waived to facilitate the quick hiring of scabs?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, nothing is waived in any type of hiring. The passes that are issued are on a temporary basis until a full security check is made and during that temporary period they are not allowed full access. They can only go through the airports when accompanied by other personnel.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Agriculture. This could be the eleventh hour for article XI of the GATT. Since the end of negotiations is just days away, what concrete guarantee can the minister give us today so that we can assure Canadian farmers that their quotas will be maintained?


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I think that the Canadian government has done all it could in the last two years to defend the Canadian
position, which is exactly what farmers in Quebec and Canada want. I can tell you that our colleague, the minister of state for grains, is now in Geneva. After a meeting with the Cairns Group, he had discussions with other officials from foreign countries that share our position on that issue. Also, I will meet shortly with representatives from Quebec and Canadian agricultural groups to discuss the situation and to see how we can maintain the marketing boards in Canada. I believe this is a commitment that the government has taken and has every intention of keeping.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I did not hear an assurance from the minister yet. Can he assure us here and now that the quantitative controls that are presently in place at the border will remain after the conclusion of the GATT negotiations? Can he give us that assurance now? Yes or no.


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, as I have mentioned, it is our intention to maintain the supply management system in Canada. It is our position. It is our policy. We stand by it and we are not going to change our mind.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to 15 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ORDER IN COUNCIL


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a

Routine Proceedings
number of Order in Council appointments which were made by the government.
Pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 110, these are deemed referred to the appropriate standing committees, a list of which is attached.
While I am on my feet, I would like to designate tomorrow an allotted day, the final allotted day of this supply period.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 19th report of the Standing Committee on House Management regarding the selection of votable items among Private Members' Business.
Pursuant to Standing Order 92(2), this report is deemed adopted and laid upon the table.



BILL C-13 -REPORT OF LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE

Mr. Ken Monteith (Elgin-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the report of Legislative Committee C on Bill C-13, an act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, with amendments.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



CONTRAVENTIONS ACT


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-46, an act respecting contraventions of federal enactments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 68(2), the motion is deemed adopted.


A. Kim Campbell: that the bill be now read the first time and ordered to be printed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 69(1), the motion is deemed adopted.
Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.


PETITIONS
Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by 1,050 electors of the great riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. The people of this riding are concerned about the present GATT negotiations and are asking this House and this government to preserve article XI of the GATT which is so vital to Canadian supply managed agriculture.
I am pleased to give my personal support to this petition as well.


Mr. Mac Harb (Ottawa Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of the House a petition signed by many residents of Nepean, Ottawa, Hull, Gatineau, Vanier, Gloucester, and so on.
All these residents are calling on the government to take action in order to correct the injustice when it comes to the gasoline prices in the Ottawa-Carleton region.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition with several hundred names.
I am told by the member for Hamilton Mountain that
100,000	people signed their names to the petition about the tragic murder of Nina De Villiers. These petitioners are mostly from Ontario. Some are from Alberta, I am happy to say, as well.
They are underlining their concern about the criminal justice system, the fact that sentencing of many violent criminals do not reflect the seriousness of the crime. They are asking that the crimes of violence against a person be treated with amendments to the Criminal Code, the Bail Reform Act and the Parole Act accordingly.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present.
The first petition deals with discrimination in taxation. These petitioners, mostly from my constituency, point out that for receipted day care, for example, one can get up to $4,000 worth of deductions for children from birth

to six years of age and $2,000 from seven to fourteen years of age.
The petitioners point out that there is discrimination as well between married couples and those who are not. They are not looking to have those levels lowered. They simply want to make sure that it is fair and consistent.
They also point out that these particular policies discriminate against the amount of time that parents can spend with their children if they choose. That choice is not really there. There are really very few options.
The petitioners ask that these regressive policies and many others be changed.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, my next petition is with regard to the education cuts that have been suffered by all Canadians of almost half a billion dollars this year.
People are really angry about the 3 per cent administrative fee on student loans. They believe it makes a mockery out of terms of globalization, competitiveness and productivity.
The petitioners believe that we need better policy for a stronger, more united, more productive country.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, my final petition is with respect to the goods and services tax on magazines, books and newspapers.
These petitioners point out that we have never had a tax on these materials since Confederation. They point out that reading and associated materials are the cornerstone of a democratic society such as ours.
The petitioners ask that this regressive, malicious tax be removed immediately.


Mr. Doug Fee (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present 36 pages of petitions which have all been certified correct by the clerk.
These petitioners are calling upon Parliament to take a look at the proposed regulations respecting the closing of the airports in Banff and Jasper National Parks.
Routine Proceedings
For reasons of public safety and mobility the petitioners are calling upon this Parliament to make sure that those two air strips remain open.
It is my pleasure to endorse and support their petition.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege tOvpresent today a petition from many constituents in Saskatoon-Dundurn of Ukrainian descent.
The petitioners point out that on August 24, 1991 the Ukrainian Parliament declared independence for the democratic state of Ukraine. They also point out that the Governments of Canada and Ukraine have signed an agreement to strengthen contacts in the spheres of politics, the economy, science and technology, education, the arts and other areas as well.
The petitioners point out that Canadians of Ukrainian descent have supported the concept of a Ukrainian homeland for over the 100 years which they have lived in Canada.
They are calling upon Parliament to urge the Government of Canada to give genuine support to the people of Ukraine by officially recognizing Ukraine's independence and establishing full diplomatic relations with the government and the people of Ukraine immediately following the positive confirmation of the vote in Ukraine's referendum on December 1.
It has been taken. It has been confirmed and I call upon the government to do as my petitioners so humbly pray.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the duty to present to this House three petitions.
The first petition is signed by Canadians living from Vancouver to Whitehorse. The petitioners pray and call upon Parliament to fulfil its duties and responsibilities to the citizens of the First Nations and aboriginal peoples in Canada by taking immediate steps to recognize the right to use, preserve and enhance aboriginal languages in the Constitution of Canada.

Routine Proceedings REFUGEES


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: The second petition is signed by literally hundreds of individuals.
These petitioners humbly pray and call upon this House, and especially the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Secretary of State for External Affairs, to speed up the processing of any outstanding refugee backlog and refugee claimants' applications.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: The last petition I have today is signed by many people living in the Hamilton and Burlington areas.
These petitioners join over 100,000 other petitioners in our area of Hamilton-Burlington. The member for Hamilton Mountain initiated this petition. She got together with a family who suffered a tragedy, the parents of Nina De Villiers.
The petitioners draw to the attention of this House and request that Parliament recognize that crimes of violence against the person are serious and abhorrent to society and that we should amend the Criminal Code of Canada, the Bail Reform Act, 1972 and the Parole Act accordingly.


Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon -Souris):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of many residents of Brandon-Souris, I am tabling a petition today which asks the Government of Canada to classify women's sanitary products as essential commodities so that the purchases of such may be exempted from the GST.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 too have the honour of tabling close to 2,000 petitions which are in addition to the over 2,000 already tabled on the subject of allowing east European immigrants to remain legally in Canada without prejudice.
The petitioners state that east European refugee claimants are being refused landing at the pre-inquiry humanitarian and compassionate reviews. Many are being prejudiced by the delay in the processing of their claims.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to request the Minister of Employment and Immigration
and the Secretary of State for External Affairs to speed up the processing of any outstanding refugee backlog and refugee claimants' applications, to accept all persons registered in the refugee backlog who are established in Canada for landed immigrant status at the pre-inquiry humanitarian and compassionate reviews, and to allow any persons registered under Bill C-55 provisions to apply for landing under the self-exile program provided they were in Canada prior to August 31, 1990, the date that the program officially ceased to exist.


Barbara Greene: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present four petitions on the issue of gun control today. The first one calls upon Parliament to enact immediately laws requiring that all firearms be registered and included in a national data base of owners and weapons.
The second one calls upon Parliament in French to do the same thing.
The third one asks Parliament to enact immediately laws forbidding the ownership of firearms in Canada for any person with a criminal record.
The fourth petition calls upon Parliament to enact immediately laws forbidding anyone in Canadian territory from having in their possession automatic or semi-automatic firearms.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from the people of Winnipeg, particularly Winnipeg North Centre, who are concerned about the slowness in the recognition of Ukraine by the Canadian government.
Winnipeg has one of the biggest concentrations of Ukrainian Canadians. They have shown their concern not only through petitions but by showing up at rallies such as yesterday's in downtown Winnipeg.
The petition humbly prays and calls upon Parliament to urge the Government of Canada to give genuine support to the people of Ukraine by officially recognizing Ukraine's independence and establishing full diplomatic relations with the government and the people of Ukraine immediately following the positive confirmation vote which was held on December 1, 1991.
December 9, 1991


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker,
I have the pleasure, pursuant to Standing Order 36, to present several hundred petitions with probably several hundred thousand signatures to add to the over hundred thousand we already have.
These petitions are from Nova Scotia, Edmonton, Toronto, Oshawa, Cambridge, Woodstock and all over southern Ontario.
These petitioners are supporting the parents of Nina De Villiers who was murdered a few months ago. They feel there are serious deficiencies in the Criminal Code. They ask Parliament to recognize that crimes of violence against a person are serious and abhorrent to society and they ask Parliament to amend the Criminal Code and the Bail Reform Act, 1992, accordingly.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition signed by numerous residents of the Ottawa area who are calling upon Parliament to urge the government to correct the injustice to Ottawa area motorists because of high gasoline prices.
The government's hands-off approach to gas prices, as to interest rates on credit cards, indicates its willingness to tolerate this rather pernicious price gouging which frankly these petitioners are objecting to with good reason. I wish to indicate my support for their petition.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk)
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 125, 134, 154 and 170.


Mr. Manley: What is the anticipated gross national revenue in 1991 from the goods and services tax with respect to (a) children's clothing (b) home heating oil and gas (c) air, train and bus passenger transportation (d) non-prescription drugs (e) funeral services (f) postage stamps?
Routine Proceedings


Hon. Donald Frank Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: It is assumed that the hon. member is essentially interested in determining the GST paid by consumers on the expenditures listed in the question.
The data sources available to the government do not provide for an expenditure breakdown for all the categories listed in the question. The following is the closest approximation available to those categories:
Anticipated GST Revenues
($ Millions on an Accrual Basis for 1991)
(a)	Clothing - includes both children's and adult's clothing	1,240(b)	Home Heating Oil and Gas	345(c)	Purchased Transportation - includes air, train, bus (urban and intra-urban), boats, and taxis	475(d)	Non-Prescription Drugs	140(e)	Funeral Services	not available(0	Postage Stamps	not available
Question No. 134-Mrs. Maheu:		
With respect to the matter of redress for the Chinese head tax (a) has the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship met with representatives of the Chinese community in Canada to discuss the matter (b) is the government committed to proceed with a redress package ship, and, if not, for what reasons?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: (a) On instructions from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Multiculturalism and Citizenship has met with representatives of the Chinese Canadian community on a number of occasions to discuss this issue.
During his most recent meeting with the Chinese Canadian National Council on October 28, 1991 the minister received detailed proposals which he will study carefully.
The minister has also been meeting with representatives of other aggrieved ethnocultural communities. As soon as he has heard from all interested parties, the

Routine Proceedings
minister will report his findings to the Prime minister and his cabinet colleagues for their consideration.


Mr. Jordan: Did the Solicitor General of Canada recently travel to Victoria,
British Columbia, on government business and, if so, (a) how many days did the minister spend in Victoria (b) what was the total cost for accommodation and travel for the minister and the public servants who accompanied him on the trip?


Hon. Douglas Grinslade Lewis (Solicitor General of (c) Canada):: On October 11, 1991, the Solicitor General of Canada travelled to Victoria, British Columbia to attend the Criminal Justice Association of Canada Conference.
a)	One day.
b)	The minister was accompanied by one exempt staff member and one contractor and the total cost for accomodation and travel was $1,228.32.


Mr. Proud: With respect to members of the Veterans' Appeal Board, (a) who are they (b) what are their salaries (c) what is the term appointment for each member (d) have there been any resignations during the last two years and, if so, for what reasons?


Hon. Gerald Stairs Merrithew (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: 


[Stage Direction]
(b)	Chairman - (GIC-7)	$95,200 to	$112,100Deputy Chairman - (GIC-5)	$77,800 to	$91,700Members and Additional	$71,300 to	$83,900
Members - (GIC-4)
[Stage Direction]
T. Whalen	7 years
R. Wedge	7 years
B. Cormier	5 years
K. McCorkell	5 years
B. McGinn	5 years
J. Diamond	3 years
R. MacArthur	3 years
B. McKenna	3 years
A. Roy	3 years
M. Gass	3 years
R. Howie	3 years
G. Garyeau	3 years
W. Wright	3 years
A. Lawrence	3 years
*
*

MEMBERS	RESIGNATIONS
Chairman -	Twila Whalen	(d) Norman Pimlott - reassignment to the CanadianDeputy Chairman -	Bernard Cormier	Pension CommissionMembers -	Roger Wedge	Mike Forrestal - appointed to the Senate-	Kathleen McCorkell	George MacKay - retiredBrendon McGinn
Additional -	John Diamond	
Members -	Robert MacArthur	STARRED QUESTIONS
	Brian McKenna	Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minis-
		ter of State and Leader of the Government in the House
-	Albert Lawrence	of Commons): Mr. Speaker, would you be so kind as to-	Andre Roy	call Starred Question No. 95.-	Melbourne Gass	I ask that Starred Question No. 95 be printed in Hansard as if read.-	Robert Howie	"*
Mr. Riis: Gaston Garyeau William Wright	Did the government assume costs in relation to the activities of the Board of Inquiry on Activities of the RCMP related allegations made
		in the Senate of Canada (Cogger inquiry) and, if so, what were (a) the

costs of (i) counsel representing Senator Michel Cogger (ii) of all other
counsel (b) all the other costs?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: In relation to the activities of the Board of Inquiry on Activities of the RCMP related allegations made in the Senate of Canada (Cogger inquiry), expenses which have been paid or will be assumed by the government are as follows:
(a)	(i) Counsel representing Senator Michel Cogger, $27,321.65.
(ii) All other counsel, $462,695.
(b)	All other costs paid up to September 30, 1991, $455,190.


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


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Shall the remaining questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I have an application under Standing Order 52.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek leave to move the adjournment of the House under Standing Order 52 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the unfolding tragedy in Croatia.
The federal Yugoslavian army continues its unrelenting attack against Croatia and has resumed shelling of Dubrovnik. A recent report of the European Community monitors has documented widespread and unprovoked attacks against civilians, hospitals and schools.
Finally, on November 18 this House did have an important debate on this question. I hope that the House would agree once again to debate this issue to look at the very serious situation, including the possibility of the immediate sending of UN peacekeeping troops and the question of Canada's recognition of Croatia and Slovenia.
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I hope the House would agree to an emergency debate tonight on this desperate situation which affects the people of Croatia and about which all Canadians are deeply concerned.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway raises a very important and troubling question, but under the present provisions of Standing Order 52,1 cannot grant the request of the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway for the time being.



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[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-32, an act to amend the Canada Assistance Plan, as reported (without amendment) from the Standing Committee on Finance; and of Motion No. 1.
Sidney James Parker: Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak out against Bill C-32. I am resuming my debate begun prior to breaking for Question Period when I was discussing what the Prime Minister had said during the last election and during the free trade agreement. He stated that the social programs were sacred and that he would see they were kept sacred in Canada.
Of course we have a bill here that brings about a 5 per cent cap for British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario. That is not bringing about a universal system.
I want to say that during the free trade agreement when these kinds of discussions were taking place and they were talking about the level playing field, these were the kinds of issues we tried to bring before the Canadian people, what this government would be doing.
I want to refer a bit to some of those programs and how it is affecting them. This government brought in the free trade agreement shortly after we came back to the House. After all the profits being made by the banks we have Bill C-21 which makes it harder to get UI and makes it run out more quickly.
Again we have the government bringing in Bill C-21 which will change the whole system. In the past the

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workers, the employers and the government shared equally in contributing toward that program. Now the government has brought about a change which eliminates its participation in that program. It is strictly an employee-employee relationship. This reverts directly to the free trade agreement, so that it can say to the Americans that it is not subsidizing this program any more.
Then we go to another act that came into the House dealing with the partial deindexing of family benefits. It means families that need money get less each year. This is another program to show its American friends that it is not going to be subsidizing these programs.
The clawback of family allowance and pensions, also partially deindexed, means that the threat of cut off of benefits gets higher each year. Again the government can say to its American friends that it is looking after this and bringing about an order that brings about a fairer playing field.
There have been further cuts to social assistance, to health and post-secondary education. Bill C-69 and Bill C-20 are threatening the future of medicare and accessible education. Again we come right back to the free trade agreement because that is what is happening. This government is systematically bringing about changes to the programs in Canada to tiy to meet the needs of its American friends.
There is still no sign of the long promised national child care strategy which is so desperately needed in Canada. There is no mention of that during these times.
We have the high Canadian dollar which the former President of the Treasury Board in the last government told the Canadian people was directly related to free trade. The high Canadian dollar was promised to the Americans to offset the kinds of markets we were going to be dealing with.
That high Canadian dollar in Kootenay East has affected our coal sales and our national sales, because it is all tied to the Canadian dollar and how we sell our mining materials. We have had those kinds of problems throughout and they directly affect our social programs.
The GST is directly related to the free trade agreement. What we have seen here is a system of programs brought about by this government to implement its free trade agreement.
The Prime Minister promised the Canadian public that the free trade agreement would not affect our social programs. The Prime Minister said it was a sacred trust. I say the Canadian people cannot trust this government or the Prime Minister to look after our universal social programs. They are under serious threat. We must stand up in this House and defend those programs at every opportunity we get.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, the convention on the rights of the child was the main topic of the UN summit on children co-sponsored by Canada on September 29 and 30, 1990 in New York City. I understand that Canada will be adopting the convention for ratification some time this week.
The summit for children made a declaration which was very progressive, very compassionate and very far-reaching for the children of the world and for the children of Canada.
Unfortunately the rhetoric of the government does not necessarily come out in its legislation. We have before us action being taken by the government which indicates that its sincerity in the summit a year and half ago in September and the ratification which is coming this week are mere words. It is not taking the same kind of action for the children of Canada.
One of the government's actions relative to children is this Bill C-32 which puts a limit on the amount of increase the federal government can or will make to the Governments of B.C., Alberta and Ontario relative to the Canada Assistance Plan. The Canada Assistance Plan is basic legislation in the country which was set up to alleviate poverty and support things like the Canada Health Care Program.
If you are poor in Alberta it hurts just as much as if you are poor in Newfoundland. Poverty is always hardest on children. All this discussion about the summit and the convention of the rights of the child is so much rhetoric when you allow children in this country to live in poverty.
For example, one child in six in Canada is poor. There are over a million children under the age of 18 in Canada who live in poverty, making children the largest single group of people living in families on low incomes.
Does the government think that none of these children live in Quebec, Ontario or Alberta? Almost half the number of Canadians who rely on food banks for something to eat part of the time are children. Approxi-
December 9, 1991

mately 284,000 children go hungry and need to go to food banks to eat. An article in The Globe and Mail says:
As many as 284,000 children in Canada won't have enough to eat this holiday season, a spokesman for the Canadian Association for Food Banks predicts. Gerald Kennedy, who is also the director of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, said that this estimate is based on the number of households receiving social assistance and relying on the food banks.
There are 50,000 children who go without food part of the time and need to use food banks in Montreal. We could do that kind of liturgy for every one of the large communities across the country.
The government keeps telling us that there are less poor in the world or in Canada lately. Although there has been a decline in the number of children living in poverty in Canada since 1984, there are still more poor children than there were 10 years ago, despite a 3.7 per cent decline in the total population of children in Canada. As if Bill C-32 is not damage enough, we have gone through another series of bills over the last few years which has contributed to the poverty that children live in or the difficulty their parents have taking care of them.
As my colleague has mentioned, Bill C-21 makes UI harder to get and it runs out more quickly. There was a partial deindexing of family allowances and of old age pensions. The clawback of family allowances and old age pensions which have already been partially deindexed means that the threshold for cutoffs of benefits gets lower each year.
There have been further cuts for social assistance and for health and post-secondary education in Bill C-69 and Bill C-20. These bills threaten the future of medicare and accessible education.
This kind of legislation contributes to the malaise that is felt all across the country. It also contributes to the poverty, the need for food banks and the need for more assistance. This bill suggests there is a need for more assistance to these kinds of situations but that need is not in Ontario, Quebec or Alberta.
We are dealing with the problem of disunity in Canada and we are contributing to this kind of disunity by treating some provinces differently. Bill C-23 is another attack by this government on the social programs the
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government claims it is doing in the name of fiscal restraint.
Fiscal restraint depends on how we spend the money or where we get the money. The government is getting its money from the poor who are the people who need it most. It is allowing the banks to increase their profits by over $137 billion this year. It is not taxing them anywhere near the level that they are taxing the poor. If those banks paid 7 per cent tax on that amount just like we do on every product we buy, we would get a lot more taxation from the banks.
My colleagues and I will not support Bill C-32.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in opposition to Bill C-32.
Our party has been in the forefront of opposing this legislation when it came to the House earlier in September. I thank my many colleagues who rose at that time to keep the debate going. We opposed it during the budget. We lead the way in opposing it during the committee hearings. Many groups came to us and they had the same perspective as the Liberal Party in that not only do we oppose Bill C-32 but we also oppose Bill C-20.
Those who are interested in looking at the record will notice that last week one member after another rose on amendments and on a major motion to protest to the government about the declining support for health and social welfare.
This week I was struck by two more developments. The first was the articles in the newspaper about the increase in the number of people who use the food banks, particularly for children. As we head into winter I am struck by the number of times we see nothing but negative articles about this. I was fortunate to visit the Soviet Union. I saw the bread lines forming throughout the Soviet Union, particularly in Russia. You say to yourself: How can that country survive the lack of food? You come back home and you look not at the same scale but at the same phenomena. We can no longer feed our youth. We can no longer care for the people who have turned to us for years.
I was struck by the report coming out of Nova Scotia from the Nova Scotia working committee on the Constitution. In its report entitled Canada: A Country for All there is a discussion of social programs on page 28:

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Nova Scotians are of the view that our social programs must be preserved, protected and promoted across the country. This includes universal hospital and health coverage, unemployment insurance and all the rest of the net of programs which guarantees a level of assistance to all Canadians.
Interest was also expressed in extending that net through changes like a guaranteed annual income. Other people are worried about the consequences of the changes that are taking place at the federal level.
Let me just say that that paragraph in a capsule expresses the concern about social programs and the implications of bills such as Bill C-32 are not those of the whimsical interests of the opposition parties. In fact they are at the heart of the concern being expressed across the country.
The damage has not only been done by the federal Conservative Party. One of the ironies is that the provincial government in Ontario last week was unable or unwilling-this is perhaps a better word-to contribute to those people on social assistance who so desperately need support. I am sure the member for Kingston and the Islands would have noticed this since it is his province.
According to testimony in front of the committee on finance last week, over 900,000 people in Ontario are now on social assistance. According to some reports, over 250,000 of those people live in metropolitan Toronto.
Here is the jewel of our country being destroyed federally by the Conservatives and provincially by the NDP. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands knows that. One of the saddest things is that in the narrow partisanship of the NDP in this debate, they refuse to address these national issues.
They refuse to understand that the question of tax reform permeates not only federal but provincial governments. They join the ranks of the provincial premier who for endless generations attacked the federal government looking for a scapegoat.
Here we have now the new Messiah in Canadian politics, the premier of Ontario. What does he do? He chooses to attack the federal government. It is an easy way out, but you must be committed to reform across the board and wiling to chastise your colleagues when the time comes to chastise them.
The Liberal Party which is more experienced in governing knows full well how to chastise its colleagues when time comes.


Mr. Angus:: Tell us about the provincial Liberal government which left us a deficit of $8 billion.


David Walker: The member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan said the Liberal government in Ontario left "us" a deficit of $8 billion. He said: "us", the royal "we". Here we have a voting member of the Ontario legislature joining us. He has a dual appointment. What an anomaly. It is us or them. There was that whole speech by the last member. It is us or them. Tax the rich. Save the poor. It is a great new speech. I have not heard that for 200 years.
What is it with these guys in their analysis? They have not read anything for 200 years. They have no understanding of the changes going on in Canadian society. They have no understanding of how to fight for Canadians. Instead they stand up with these cliches in the House hoping to fool their householders with no understanding of the damage that they are doing.


Iain Francis Angus: A good example is standing there.


David Walker: The member is throwing some support. That is very kind of him. A multipartisan approach in this thing would be greatly appreciated.
I stand up decrying the misuse of the House for partisan points and wishing that all members would understand that it is the responsibility of all levels of government to help the poor.
I oppose Bill C-32 because it shows the inability of this government and the unwillingness of this government to fight for the poor of this country. I decry those other governments when it takes a mandate on one premise, then turns around and governs on a different premise.
I know parties who have always criticized the Liberal Party: "You campaign from the left but you govern from the right". We are seeing across this country people manipulating and voters given the hope of a better future and it turns around and treats them more miserably than the last government.
It is a shame but one that should be spoken about in public so that all Canadians understand this debate that is taking place.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I must say that the bill before us in its timing as it winds its way through this House and on to the other
December 9, 1991

place is a very lousy Christmas present for the poor people and the lower income people of this country.
During my short intervention I want to give an indication of what we are up against. I want to talk about my own community to let you know what the impact has been of the economy brought to us by the Government of Canada.
There is the high dollar, the higher interest rates although they are coming down, which is a plus, and the free trade agreement. We have seen mills close entirely. We have seen work forces at paper mills cut in half. We have seen the woodlands operations almost disappear. One company is planning on making them all but disappear because of the change in operations.
We have seen an increase in general welfare assistance. The number of beneficiaries has gone up by almost 19 per cent from September 1990 to September
1991.
We now have 3,767 beneficiaries in the community of Thunder Bay with a population of about 110,000. Our social services department estimates a 56.4 per cent increase in general welfare assistance expenditures for 1992 over 1991.
We have to recognize that the Canada Assistance Plan is a formula that at one time ensured that provincial governments and municipalities could afford to deal with the fluctuations as the numbers of welfare beneficiaries rose or dropped.
We now find that in Thunder Bay our gross costs in 1992 will be $28.5 million to look after the people in our community who have no jobs, who have no unemployment insurance, who have no disability payments and who have no pensions in order that they can get by in a very meagre way.
We are seeing signs in other areas. There are ramifications from this kind of playing with peoples' lives and peoples' futures. The Lutheran Care community in Thunder Bay provides for people who come in looking for help. In 1991 they gave out 755 hampers up to September or about 84 a month. It is interesting to look at the breakdown of the income source of these people: some 44 per cent are general welfare recipients, 20 per
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cent are on family benefits, 9 per cent are on disability income; 12 per cent are unemployed, 12 per cent are the working poor and 3 per cent are transients. This is some society we have where people on government income assistance still have to rely on churches and church organizations and community organizations to get by from month to month.
The Do Drop Inn is a soup kitchen operated by St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Thunder Bay. It serves about 80 people a day. That is up 30 per cent from last year. Fifty per cent of their clients are psychiatric patients who have been deinstitutionalized. They were turfed out into the streets without any kind of support whatsoever.
At this time of year when we obviously tend to think of others less able or fortunate than us, we find that in Thunder Bay we are expecting that 2,600 hampers will have to be produced for the Christmas cheer fund to be delivered to 3,900 children and 2,100 adults. That is 6,000 people who need the assistance of charity in order to get by this Christmas. I do not think that is the kind of society we want. By capping CAP we are contributing to that situation in our society.
In our emergency shelter, there has been a 40 per cent increase in 1990 over 1989 and another 18 per cent increase this year. In 1991 they averaged 75 people per day at the soup kitchen.
When the Government of Canada through the first bill and now through Bill C-32 decided to put a cap on the province of Ontario, the province of British Columbia and the province of Alberta, they in effect decided that if you are poor in Ontario it is different than being poor in Atlantic Canada. If you are poor in Alberta, it is different than being poor in Saskatchewan. If you are poor in B.C., it is different than being poor in the territories.
Surely this government understands that you are poor no matter where you live; if you do not have enough money to put a decent roof over your head or to wear clothing appropriate for the climate that we have or to purchase the kind of food that an individual and family needs to get by in a healthy way. Poor is poor is poor. The government says to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia that it is going to slow down the money coming into their provinces because they are have provinces. I cannot

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speak for Alberta or B.C., although I know that times are tough there as well, but I can tell you that in Ontario we have been ravaged by the recession. We have been ravaged by the free trade agreement brought to us by this government. We have been ravaged by the high dollar that has seen thousands of jobs across the north disappear, not just temporarily but forever. We have been ravaged by the changes in unemployment insurance, so those people who do have a good severance package find their income eroded because of the UI regulations and legislation. We have been devastated by the softwood lumber fiasco that this government allowed to happen. Sawmill after sawmill is closing, woodlands operations are closing and people who have no other skills, who rely on the Canada Assistance Plan to get by, are thrown on a waste heap.
I am the first to admit that money made available to welfare recipients and to anyone on income support, by federal and provincial governments, is insufficient today to meet their needs. There is no question about it. The federal government is saying to Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia that they have to do more on their own. It is not going to help them as much. By saying that, the government is telling the people of Ontario, Alberta and B.C. it does not value them in the same way it used to. It does not care if they are hurting. It does not care if they have massive increases in unemployment and welfare rolls. They have to find their own funds.
In previous governments, both Liberal and Conservative federally, when money slowed down from the federal level to the provinces, the provinces found themselves having to transfer the responsibility down to the local level. Provincially and federally, revenues primarily come from income tax, while at the local level it is user fees or property taxes.
Municipalities can no longer afford any increases. In some ways the federal government is transferring its deficits to the provincial level. The provincial levels find themselves shifting the deficits to the municipal levels. It is all the same taxpayers. They all have had enough of this game playing. They are crying out for some kind of fair tax system to ensure that services are provided to those who need them when they are needed in a quality way, without putting people on the streets and cutting
back on programs for income assistance, child care, community services support and what have you.
That is why my party has always opposed this bill. That is why we will be voting against this bill. It is wrong, wrong, wrong, just like this government is wrong, wrong, wrong in almost everything it does.


Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, it is really quite unfortunate that we are dealing with this legislation, Bill C-32, legislation to put a cap on CAP, the Canada Assistance Plan.
At this date, the House moves toward its adjournment at the end of the week for the Christmas time period. Most Canadians are hoping that it will be a festive season, when in fact the government of the day is the grinch of the day. Canadians will find lumps of coal in their Christmas stockings from the Conservative government this year as in the past couple of years.
It is amazing as well how much damage a government can do with a bill that is two pages long. The legislation we have been debating lately is 300 to 400 pages long, is very complicated, amends a great number of bills and requires a great deal of concentration and scrutiny to see exactly what is being done.
Today it is different. In two quick pages, this government is doing more to try to destroy social programs in Canada than the 400 page bill that we dealt with just the other day. It is important to really put on the record some of the concerns and problems that we have on this side of the House, certainly in the New Democratic Party in any case, over this legislation.
Let us have a little bit of background. "The Canada Assistance Plan, which was enacted in 1966, had the objective then of encouraging the further development and extension of assistance and welfare services programs throughout Canada by sharing the costs of such programs with the provinces and territories". That is official. That is from the Minister of National Health and Welfare in a letter that he wrote to me when I expressed my concerns about Canada Assistance Plan funding and the various programs and how they might apply in my community, primarily the Prince George area.
The result of this government's more ideological view of the world is its concern for Canadians and its drive to

really put that Conservative imprint on the social policy in Canada, a policy that is failing in Canada.
There is no question that when you talk to Canadians in each province, you will find that people are rejecting the Conservative view of the world and we are all hopeful that in the election which will come either next year or the following year, Canadians will ensure that they follow through with their vision of what Canada should be at the ballot box and send a strong message to the Conservative Party.
This legislation, which allows for the extension of the 5 per cent limit on the Canada Assistance Plan in B.C., Alberta and Ontario, as my colleague from Thunder Bay said, means you are different if you are poor in Ontario, British Columbia or Alberta. You are different there because this government has decided that those provinces are not deserving of the ongoing commitment to social assistance and social programs that the federal government should be providing.
The very provinces being affected by this legislation from the government are the provinces that likely are going to be in the greatest need of the Canada Assistance Plan. When the economy is failing as it is, because of the GST, because of free trade and the other economic measures of this government, it is these provinces that traditionally in our country have been seen as the provinces in which if you lose your job somewhere you can go to these provinces and try and find other employment and what have you. Unfortunately for many of the people in our country, they end up on assistance, be it in British Columbia, my province, or in Ontario in which the municipalities even have to share in some of the costs.
It must be an incredible burden for some of these local governments in Ontario, given the devastation that free trade and the tax policies of the government have wrought on that province.
The Canada Assistance Plan is an important and integral part of the kind of programming we have put together in this country, the shared vision of Canada between the federal and provincial governments. We have the Canada Assistance Plan, a 50/50 sharing program with the provinces. We have the Established Programs Financing focusing primarily on post-seconda-
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ry education and health, which is suffering, as I have raised in this House many times. We have the block funding formula which was started by the Liberal Party and now allows some provinces to spend health and education money on highways. We have the equalization formula.
We also have a number of specific federal-provincial agreements which help develop the economic aspects of our country and provide for the different social programs such as forestry in British Columbia. Our agreement there fell far short of what was required. Nova Scotia, as another example, is still waiting for the minister of forestry to actually sign the agreement with that province, though he tells the forestry committee that he hopes that maybe before Christmas some of the ministers who want to get in on this can all get their date books together and find some time to actually sit down and sign on the dotted line, so to speak.
This Canada Assistance Plan plays an important role. It is a vehicle through which the federal government works with the provinces and in some cases with local governments to deliver social assistance programs.
I have done some research in my own area of Prince George.
I have a list of some 20 organizations that are registered by the government as societies that can benefit from this: Mums and Kids Drop-in, Native Friendship Centre, the YM-YWCA, the Home Support, Senior Citizens Activity Centre, Spruceland Parent Participation Nursery, Cerebral Palsy Association. All of these organizations are now likely in the next year or so to realize the impact of what we are debating here today, that two-page legislation. These organizations in Prince George are going to find out in the next year or two what it means to them.
When Ronald Reagan was in office, this government talked about the benefits trickling down. We know that does not happen. We know that under the Conservatives and under the Socreds and under the Liberals it is not the benefits trickling down, it is the benefits drying up. That usually is what happens under these governments.
The key aspect of all of this is that it is a way for this federal government and our provinces to work together to develop the kind of programming which means that

December 9, 1991
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for the most unfortunate among us we have some assurances that they are going to be taken care of. There cannot be anything more important for a government to do. Raising and spending tax dollars is not more important than ensuring that its citizens are protected, fed and housed.
It is these kinds of programs that help do that. It is this kind of legislation that is starting to destroy those measures. We hope that some of the members opposite will go back to their ridings and find out what the impact of this legislation is going to be and what changes it is going to impact on them. I hope that when we vote on this bill they will reconsider the government's position, they will reconsider what the government is trying to do and join with members on this side of the House to oppose Bill C-32.1 hope they will do that in good spirit, in the spirit of friendship and in the spirit of the festive season.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, this is not the kind of bill that should get a very easy ride in this Chamber. What the bill and this government are doing, and the bill's predecessor Bill C-69 has done the same thing for the fiscal years 1990-91 and 1991-92, to those categories of people is so devastating and so unfair that this bill should get the roughest possible ride almost of any piece of legislation that comes before us here.
This is not something about which we can sit on hands and plead party loyalty, or whatever the glue is that keeps that crowd together over there. It is certainly not common sense. Common sense must have deserted that crowd long ago or it would have many months before coming unstuck as a team over the goods and services tax, just as an example. Eighty-five per cent of the people out there are against it and this crowd is refusing to turn up its hearing aid or is refusing to hear.
Nobody is so deaf as he who will not hear. Has the government not learned any lesson at all as a result of that shemozzle called the goods and services tax? Has it learned nothing as a result of the misery it has inflicted on people with its free trade agreement? How many times do you want to be hit over the head with baseball bats before you get simple messages? Are they all kamikazes over there, all suicide oriented in political terms? What is wrong with this crowd?
They look like normal people. They have nice shirts and ties, or dresses and so on as the case may be, but they behave most abnormally. They do not respond.
One time during my university days, I had the occasion to visit B. F. Skinner in his classroom at Harvard University. He showed me the famous Skinner box. He was the authority on the matter of the Pavlovian response, the stimulus and response connection.
This crowd, including my good friend from the riding of Red Deer, does not respond to the kind of stimulus that Dr. Skinner was talking about. As politicians or as human beings these people do not seem to be reached by things like human suffering. They seem to have awfully thick hides on matters that normal people respond to.
Go out there now to the shopping malls during Christmas and you see normal people who cannot walk past the Salvation Army or one of those Christmas kettles because it is an opportunity for them at this season to say in tangible terms that they feel for those who are down and out. They would like to do something tangible about it.
Compare that and trust that to these people over here. They do not seem to understand that the public, the poor, are going to be devastated one more time by this bill. The poor do not need another kick in the shin from this crowd. They need a bit of compassion. Times are rough out there. They are very rough. They are rough in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador, but they are rough in Ontario.
That is only half because of the NDP government. They would have been fairly rough anyway. They would have been rougher but that is another story. They are rough in Ontario.


Robert Evans Skelly: Trying to spend the Liberal deficit.


Roger Simmons: I knew that would get a rise from my friend from British Columbia.
Great British Columbia. There are poor in British Columbia, too. There are poor all over this country.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: That is right and you can blame it all on the new government after a couple of weeks in office?


Roger Simmons: My friend from Spadina should know a couple of things. One is that the government in Queen's Park has been there considerably longer than two weeks.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Trying to catch up on the Liberal deficit that the Liberals lied about.


Roger Simmons: He is not only being unparliamentary, he is also being inaccurate.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: They concealed it.


Roger Simmons: He is also doing something else. He is giving one of the finest speeches he has given in this Chamber. I am going to make a deal with him.
If he will shut up for the next five minutes, I will sit down and listen to him for ten. As he knows, I only have ten. I love an opportunity to spar with him because he helps the case that I am making here.
The specific case I was making is that Tories seem to be so preoccupied with the political agenda that they have not got time for the people of this country. What the gentleman for Spadina has just done unwittingly is demonstrate to me that the NDP across is no different. All he wants to do is fly the NDP flag and sit here and tell us that the poor crowd led by the arm chair socialist named Bob Rae has only been at it a couple of weeks.
It has had a couple of devastating weeks, I will say to him. God help the people if it stays there very long.
I ask the member for Spadina and the other NDP members in this Chamber plus the Tories in this Chamber to listen to what I am really saying. Would they put aside their partisan agenda for a moment and spend less time defending the Bobby Raes of this world and more time defending the poor people out there who are going to be devastated by this bill?
They are going to be devastated by this bill.
You can call it Liberal deficits or Tory this or NDP that all you want, but when we get into the frame of mind that somehow you can define a person's goodness in this Chamber by what party label he wears alone, it is time to have a good long look at yourself in the mirror, whether you are from Spadina or wherever you are from.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: You have forgotten. You started it.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, we are hitting a few nerves and that is fair ball.
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Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Hitting yours too.


Roger Simmons: One of the nerves the member for Spadina is hitting is my nerve and he is absolutely right. When I hear that tripe, that absolute nonsense, that somehow the crow of socialists in Queen's Park can do no wrong, I happen to have difficulty with that. As a matter of fact, what he responded to was just a throw away line.
What I was really trying to say, since he is not saying it very well on behalf of the people who sent him here, is that people in Spadina are hurting too. Maybe one of the reasons they are hurting is because of the kind of government in Queen's Park. That is only one of the reasons. There are many other reasons.
Whatever the reason, it does not help a poor person who cannot buy the groceries to know the reason he is hurting unless somebody is doing something about the reason, unless somebody is doing something to help him or her buy the groceries.
Bill C-32 is another nail in the coffin of that government in partisan terms. In compassionate terms and more to the point it is another kick in the guts for people all over this country who have had already far too many kicks in the guts from this uncaring government.
Despite our differences, for the gentleman from Spadina and I and others, I am sure there is one thing that we will be united on. It is our opposition to this particular bill.
I would appeal to my good friend from Red Deer to show the compassion that he has been known for on a one to one basis.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: You will be voting for our amendment, will you?


Roger Simmons: I appeal to him to show some compassion to his constituents back home.
As for the NDP amendment, we will have a look at any sensible amendment which does not give us much time to have to worry about some of the stuff that comes from the NDP. We will put doubts aside and have a quick look at its amendment.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly wanted very much to speak on this bill, to strongly oppose Bill C-32 which will cap the federal financing for social services in three provinces, British

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Columbia, Ontario and Alberta. It contravenes in my view, and the view I think of most people in this House, the whole concept and principle of Confederation and unity in this country.
Many people have spoken and there are many facts that have been put on the record today and other days stating why we feel so strongly that this bill really is anti-Canadian. I want to speak particularly on behalf of my constituents in Vancouver East and people on the west coast along with people in Ontario and Alberta who are suffering very much from increased unemployment, from the regression in our economic circumstances and who are not getting the kind of support services that the Canada Assistance Plan should provide during such tough times because the federal government will not pick up its 50 per cent share of the cost.
I ask the government to recognize that unemployment and poverty have increased considerably in these three provinces as in other provinces. It is grossly unfair that the government should be cutting back on financing for essential services.
It means that the budgets of provincial governments and also local governments are very hard hit. They cannot possibly meet the needs without federal help. There is very little money at all for support services such as day care, training programs, community service jobs needed to also assist people to get out of the welfare cycle.
There is really nothing, no increase at all in funds despite the very definite increase in needs in that area.
Because of the desperate state of the economy, for which the federal government must bear responsibility, we have had a collapse in traditional manufacturing jobs and resource related industries. We have men and women who have worked all their adult lives now finding themselves on welfare and with no chance of getting off social assistance in the future.
I am thinking particularly about Vancouver East in British Columbia, and workers who have worked in the forest industry, members of the IWA who have been union members and have contributed so much to building the economy of British Columbia in the past. They now find themselves out of jobs and not only on unemployment insurance but worse still, now on welfare.
I am thinking of the highly skilled workers who have been involved in the past in ship building in my province and the lack of federal support for that industry which has resulted over the past two years in workers not only using up all their unemployment insurance and their savings, but having to go on welfare. These are highly skilled workers.
Free trade has shut down the garment industry and the market gardening industry in which many immigrant people have often found work, particularly until they could learn to speak English and get into the general economy. Also, free trade has caused suffering to businesses that employ immigrants.
We have increased homelessness, people on the streets, living under bridges in Vancouver. We have young people out on the streets getting into drugs and prostitution and who will never get out of that cycle. They would not be there if their families and communities were able to provide alternatives. In many cases the alternative means programs and support of social assistance during hard times.
It is absolutely essential that the federal share of the Canada Assistance Plan should be maintained in all provinces across Canada. We should have a 50/50 sharing of costs. Why should this government discriminate against three provinces, the so-called richest provinces which in reality have been the hardest hit by free trade and by the recession?
It is not only the impact on people and on services and on the cost of government which is so devastating, but it is really a promise and a responsibility of Confederation which is being broken by this government, particularly by this very regressive piece of legislation which erodes the Canada Assistance Plan, one of our most important social programs on the federal level.
I remember that when the Canada Assistance Plan was brought in, it was one of the better social programs established in Canada. When I was in social work and studying social policy, we always said how important it was. This was a progressive program which should be maintained along with our universal floor of social benefits as part of Canada's responsibility to its citizens.
We opposed very strongly moves in the 1970s and 1980s to try to change the 50/50 method of funding when some people, governments in particular, were trying to go for block funding or to open-ended funding such as
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we have for established program funding for health care and post-secondary education.
The Canada Assistance Plan was good because provinces and communities could rely on 50/50 funding. When they put out money for social services, including preventive and rehabilitative kinds of services as well as welfare services, they knew that the federal government was obligated to pay 50 per cent back. It meant that we were able, at least in the early part of the 1980s and in the 1970s, to develop preventive kinds of programs as well. Those have all gone by the boards because we have had such increases in the costs of welfare and such reductions by both provincial and federal governments which do not recognize how important this is.
Now we have this government trying to use the Canada Assistance Plan to reduce the capping of CAP, as we say, in three of the largest provinces, and to do so on the backs of the poor.
As I said, we should be maintaining the 50/50 shared costs.
One of my colleagues said that when you are poor and you do not have enough to eat and you do not know how you are going to afford the rent and you have no place to sleep at night, it does not matter which province you live in. It is hard enough on adults who are forced into poverty or who have grown up in poverty and have no chance of getting out of it, but it is a tragedy for children and for young people. It is a tragedy that in a country like Canada they will have no opportunities to hold up their heads and get out of the cycle of poverty.
This government is ignoring the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the sanctimonious remarks that the Prime Minister made when he chaired the summit on children a couple of years ago when he said: "We must give children a better future". His government is not giving children a better future by cutting the very moneys that are needed to feed them.
Bill C-32 certainly contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
CAP funding is urgently needed to help, particularly with inner city problems. I would like to mention, as an example, some of the needs and projects in my own riding of Vancouver East. We have caring teachers, parents and community workers who have banded to-
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gether to document the needs for better health care, the needs of hungry children and the fact that they are dropping out of school and getting into other kinds of social problems because they simply do not have enough to eat and because of all of the effects of poverty.
We know that from infancy, even from prenatal situations, poverty affects children and the stress on families is very severe.
There is no surprise at all that when children become teenagers and when they have not been able to function in school they get into youth gangs. The assaults, suicides and runaway children are very common. In our communities, the inner city schools and their neighbours are trying to do something about this, but they must have Canada assistance moneys continued and both provincial and federal funding to help with school lunch programs, nutrition programs, to help with support for families.
I would conclude by imploring government members to vote against this bill. Join us in voting for the children of Canada and fulfil their obligations as Canadians.


Robert Evans Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of the amendment that is before us today, which essentially does away with the single section of this act.
Basically this act is an attempt to starve the Canada Assistance Plan out of existence, starting with the three provinces that in a previous time were the wealthiest provinces in Canada. As a result of the policies of the current government, virtually every province in this country is operating on the edge of bankruptcy. It does affect first and foremost the three provinces British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, which used to be considered under a more favourable political and economic system the have provinces of Canada. Under the current government they have been reduced like virtually every other province in the country to have not status.
My concern about this bill is that it does not even do what the government claims it is going to do. The government says this bill is necessary in order to cut the costs of government so that government can trim its expenses and reduce the deficit, which is largely a result of the interest and principle payments on the national debt. Statistics Canada has already pointed out that the major cause of the debt and therefore the major cause of the deficit in this country is not the social programs. It is

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not program spending, as the Conservative government would have us believe.
Statistics Canada pointed out, in a study initially suppressed by the government until it was forced to release it, that 44 per cent of our national debt is due to tax and other concessions granted to large corporations, the wealthy and the powerful in this country.
Fifty per cent of that debt is attributable to the high interest rate policies, not only of this government but also of the former Liberal government. High interest rate policies have resulted in the ballooning of the debt. We now see a debt that is approaching something in the neighbourhood of $400 billion as a result of those tax concessions granted to the rich by both the Liberal and Conservative governments, as a result of the high interest rate policies.
According to Statistics Canada, only 6 per cent of Canada's debt can be attributable to the costs of social programs. The government should be targeting the 44 per cent by reducing some of those tax concessions to corporations, especially the ones not serving any useful purpose, that do not result in what the Conservatives believe in terms of the trickle down theory, because it does not trickle down. Everybody knows the reason it makes tax concessions to the wealthy and to corporations is so they can keep their wealth. They can keep their assets and not pass them down to other people. If you want something to trickle down, why serve the middle man? Why not pay that money directly to the people who require it and stand to benefit from it, the poor and those in need of social programs in this country.
It simply does not trickle down. It is a policy that does not work. It has been demonstrated decade after decade after decade that it does not work. Because it is a part of the ingrained ideology of Conservatives, and Liberals when they are in office, this theory continues to dominate the legislation in this country.
If we want to cut the deficit, do not do it by cutting social programs that everybody knows are not responsible for the deficit. Do it by cutting useless tax concessions to the rich. It has been pointed out in previous debates in this Parliament that we allow a billion dollars
in tax to go uncollected in order to finance business entertainment expenses for people involved in large corporations, wealthy people.
One billion dollars. We could reduce the deficit in a single year by one thirtieth if we cut business expense deductions. It does not do Canadians any good. There is no demonstrated value that comes from that business expense deduction. One billion dollars.
Eliminate the ability to deduct losses sustained in businesses overseas from profits earned in Canada. Again, that would save hundreds of millions of dollars from deductions which are allowed to Canadian businesses operating overseas, which serve no useful purpose for people in Canada. Billions, hundreds of millions. There are tax concessions that have been made to business by Liberal and Conservative governments over the years which serve no useful purpose and are responsible for 44 per cent of the national debt. Yet this government has done absolutely nothing to cut those. In fact over the last eight years, it has increased them. The rich are doing even better than they were in the past while the poor have been suffering more.
On October 14 I read an article in Maclean's which talks about one of the world's wealthiest men. The eighth wealthiest man in the world is Kenneth Thomson. According to Maclean's he makes over $27,800 an hour whether he is awake or asleep, living or dead; $27,800 an hour. There are many people in my constituency who would enjoy making in a year what that man makes in a single hour without lifting his hand or doing anything. He makes $4.4 million in a single week. This is the kind of person who benefits from the tax concessions that are granted by this government and by previous Liberal governments in order to assist him to make $27,800 an hour whether he is awake or asleep, no matter what he does. Nobody in Canada should be making that much without paying their fair share of the tax burden in this country.
We should not be cutting programs like the Canada Assistance Plan that basically benefits the poor, the sick and the people in need of government services until we start taking the fair share of taxes out of the $27,800 an hour that Ken Thomson is making by the sweat of other people's bodies.

I was reading in another magazine article that Canadian corporate executives are paid at least 100 times what production line workers are being paid. That is the spread between income of production line workers and Canadian corporate executives.
In Japan, a corporate executive makes only 16 times what a production line worker makes. Why are our corporate executives paid so much and why are they not paying their fair share of taxes? Instead, this government brings in legislation like this and who does it hit hardest? Abused and neglected children in need of protection, mentally and physically disabled persons, single parent families, seniors, the unemployed and the working poor, battered women, families and individuals in crisis.
What kind of a country are we living in when some people pay virtually no tax at all and are making $4.4 million a week, $27,800 an hour. The government does not touch them at all, except to augment their income with tax concessions, and yet legislation like this attacks the poorest of the poor, the people who need those services the most.
I would urge members, if they have any compassion at all, to read this legislation, understand what its impact is going to be and vote against it. Support this amendment by the New Democratic Party.


Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, this is the second time in less than a week that I have come over to the House to speak on an issue that strikes at the very heart of what it is to be a Canadian.
Legislation that was put through this place last week at report stage, I believe it was Bill C-20, sought to transfer this government's economic mismanagement on to the backs of the poorest provinces. This bill today seeks to transfer this government's economic mismanagement, not just on to the backs of the poorest provinces, but on to the backs of some of the poorest people in our country.
There is something inherently wrong with a society, a government, a country as wealthy as Canada, perhaps the wealthiest country in the world, when the government has squandered the resources and has been misdirected in where those resources should go. In the middle of the recession we are in-a lot worse than anything we have seen I think since the dirty thirties-in the wealthiest country in the world, we have in every community in
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Canada line-ups at food banks. We have churches whose resources are stretched to their limits.
My riding of Dartmouth is a wealthy city. It is fairly well off with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Atlantic Canada and a large industrial base. It has a lot of people with two incomes, two cars and a condo. But many times they forget that right in their midst, in the city of Dartmouth, there are individuals who because they cannot find a job or can only get a job that pays $5 an hour, cannot even afford to feed their children. They cannot afford to put decent clothes on the backs of their children. They are living in accommodations that no Canadian would be proud to say was a result of this great nation Canada and our absolute failure to redistribute wealth in this country.
I mentioned the churches in my riding of Dartmouth. I was absolutely stunned, shocked. I talked to Rev. Chang, an individual who has done much to try to reach out and help people in our community who have been shut out of the greatness of our economy, even during good times. He tells me that the number of individuals who have had to cash in their pride and integrity and stand in line waiting for a Christian handout from the churches in my community is growing almost exponentially. The people who have tried their very hardest to contribute, keep their integrity and provide for their offspring, have seen this recession bang the hell out of them.
At the same time that the ranks of the poor are multiplying like rabbits, we saw the spectacle last week of the Canadian chartered banks posting record profits. The vice-president of the Royal Bank sent me a nasty letter today because they do not like what I have been saying about their profits. We see the Royal Bank post a one billion dollar profit in the middle of a recession. We see the Bank of Montreal post the highest profit since it received its charter. We see businesses going out of business hand over fist in this country.
There is something inherently wrong when the government comes and tells us, through this bill, this regressive piece of legislation, that it can no longer afford to pay its fair share, to spread the wealth around to the poorest of the poor. It does not have the resources and everybody has to bite the bullet a little more.

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What about the big banks and financial institutions? I do not know that any of the shareholders of the Royal Bank would go out of business if their profits were $750 million instead of $1,000 million, $1 billion. Two hundred and fifty million bucks would go a long way to fill hungry stomachs just before Christmastime right across this country. It is the same for the Bank of Montreal or any of the institutions.
We have become preoccupied in this place with dealing with special interest groups and putting forward legislation to make sure that the tax system is fair for Canada's largest corporations. We make sure that individuals who have a trust do not have to pay tax on income from the trust. Then the government comes forward and says: "Our hands are tied, poor kids. That little grumbling in your belly is going to have to last a little longer because we do not have the bucks to do it". Perhaps the government does not have the wherewithal or stamina to do it.
I talked to a colleague of mine in the Senate today, an individual who held the seat before me, Senator Forre-stall. We talked about how wealthy this country is and how unfortunate it is that there are so many Canadians who cannot take advantage of the wealth and the resources that we have. That is the role of government and has been the role defined for government since this country came together. We have enshrined, right in our Constitution, the principle of equalization. That makes sure the wealth we have in this country belongs collectively to all of us. It is the role of government, through the instruments of government, this place and through legislation, to spread that wealth around. We have tried to do that since 1867. We have taken regions like the Atlantic, and at times the prairies, and have helped one another. We have used the tools of government and the uneven distribution of growth and wealth, but nevertheless wealth, to ensure that there is nobody in this country who should have to do without.
The government comes in the middle of a recession, and says: "Well certain provinces are better off than others so we are going to go after British Columbia and we are going to go after Alberta and we are going to go after Ontario and we are going to put a cap on CAP", knowing full well what that means. It means that you have lessened the provincial government's ability to provide minimal service to the poorest of the poor. That
is what you are doing here. The province of Ontario is in the middle of a recession. You have seen the manufacturing industry which was the heart of Ontario's economy absolutely devastated because of free trade and because of this government's crazy economic policies. Ontario is where the wealth is created in this country. That is where the tax base is that allows governments to redistribute wealth.
Not only does it drive the Ontario economy into a recession but then a little further on it says to Ontario: "Now that we have driven you into a recession, we are not going to help you as much as we should help you look after the poorest of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the downtrodden, the elderly and those who need our assistance the most. We are not going to ensure that you are able to provide that level of assistance".
There is something drastically wrong with a government that brings in such a mean-spirited act as this one which caps CAP.
A lot of people think that the poor have no voices and in many cases they do not. They are faceless in too many of our communities. I have three children. I have a little girl Danielle who is seven and Matthew who is five and I have a six-month old baby at home. When I think of the concept of an individual having to worry in this society today about whether or not their children are going to have a warm meal in their belly, it makes me sick.
Everybody likes to talk about the welfare bums and the poor. I will tell anybody in this House or anybody out there on the far right wing of society that if they think that individuals in society choose to be poor, then they are crazy. It is demeaning, it destroys integrity, it destroys your ability to dream. Consider a child who is brought up in poverty- The biggest crime that we perpetrate on that child as a society is that we destroy their ability to dream. When you do that you desensitize them and you ensure that their chances of becoming a full participant in society are pretty damn minimal.
The New Democratic Party opposite has come in with a motion that basically says-and that is what we are debating here today-that the cap on CAP legislation or the enabling legislation would basically die because it is a one clause bill and they want to delete it with an amendment. I agree with them that the clause should be

deleted. But I also agree with those tens or hundreds of thousands of Canadians who say that we have to re-establish what our priorities are. Our priorities are to feed our own, to redistribute wealth and to give the poor back the dignity that they so richly deserve but which is withheld from them so often.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of the motion that we have put forth with respect to capping the CAP. It is with a lot of regret and some emotion that I rise to speak to this bill because this is a bill that is indicative of what we are doing in this country to the poor and to those who are living below the poverty line and those who are struggling to keep above the poverty line.
We have in this country a major problem with the redistribution of wealth. Speaker after speaker in this party has been rising condemning that action and calling for some logic and some direction with respect to those Canadians who are deeply in need of an opportunity to get themselves out of the financial situation they are in.
The government has not been doing the job. There have been over the years a number of non-governmental organizations or NGOs that have been established. These groups are struggling as well. Although this particular motion and this particular bill only affects the three provinces Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia there are ripples right through the entire system. This is not the only bill that this government is putting forward. It is not the only action it has done. NGOs across this country are suffering and these are the ones who more and more are striving to fill the gap that is being left by governments.
In my own riding one of the most active groups is Transition House. Transition House is in Moose Jaw which is a small town compared to some of the cities in this country. It has a population of about 35,000. Transition House has one home. It is overcrowded. It is in need of expansion. They have no money for that. They used to be paid quarterly. They are now being paid monthly, making it very difficult for them to operate and to budget. Their funding has gone up far less than inflation has. In some years it has not gone up at all.
They are struggling. For example they were told by the former provincial government that they could manage
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on one eight-hour shift. Transition House is open 24 hours a day. It has to be open 24 hours a day because no one knows when tragedy is going to occur or when a situation arises where a mother, a wife, is going to need Transition House. They cannot have a sign on the door advising people to have their problems occur between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
What they have been doing is keeping Transition House open 24 hours a day on an eight-hour salary. The only reason Transition House is open is because of the commitment these people have made toward their fellow Canadians.
They would also like to have a child counsellor position because there are many children going through Transition House. These children are in need of counselling. Children suffer the most during such incidents and such tragedy. They are impressionable and their experiences at this tender age have an effect on them for the rest of their lives.
In the city of Regina they have managed to bring in a child counsellor position but not in Moose Jaw. Regina is suffering very much as well, but they have no money for that. This government has gone so far with respect to the GST that they are actually having to absorb some of the GST costs, which is devastating.
If it was not for the commitment of these people and the dedication of its director, Marilyn McCrea, and others then that facility would be unavailable to people. We also have Moose Jaw Family Life which is a counselling group. There is also Moose Jaw Christian Counselling.
We just had a lobby group that came to Ottawa recently to talk about its problems in the area of mental health and the need for governments to pay more attention to those areas. I just mentioned two facilities in Moose Jaw that are doing what they can to help counsel those Canadians who in many ways have many problems that stem from economic incidents or are made worse because of the economic situation. Many situations either go untreated or are accentuated because of the poverty that exists in many of these homes. It is not because people are lazy or not because people do not want to try. It is because they are being denied an opportunity.

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We have in this country a situation where more and more it is a country of the haves and the have nots. It is very fine for us as MPs with our generous salaries and some other Canadians to live in comfort and go home to a nice home and a good meal knowing there is a pay cheque coming in. There are other people who know they have no opportunity for that.
These counselling facilities are desperately needed and they are struggling just as Transition House is struggling to survive and to provide a service. There are committed people that are determined to make sure those facilities survive. And yet they are getting less and less help and less and less guidance and less and less support from this government.
We have another facility called Thunder Creek Home Care which provides facilities for elderly people who are trying to stay in their own homes. Many of them are on fixed incomes. Certainly in my riding most of them are on fixed incomes. Their incomes have not been rising with inflation. They have increasing costs and Thunder Creek Home Care has been attempting to help those people. They are suffering as well.
In the rural area of the Moose Jaw riding there is a tremendous need and much of it is directly related to the economic situation in this country. There are farm families in rural communities that are literally dying. There are all kinds of family problems and all sorts of situations that can be directly related to the economic problems that exist in this country. Those people need help from this government. The Canada Assistance Plan instead of being cut should be increased to help these people through their situation and to get on their feet but it is not happening.
Along with the poverty of course is another institution, which is food banks. Today I was reading in The Globe and Mail that 284,000 children are using food banks in this country. That may come as a surprise to the minister for external trade who says that there are no people in this country who are suffering from poverty. In fact in a speech he recently gave in the U.S. he said that we are spending our money on things like culture and the arts and so on and that no Canadian goes hungry. That was an unfortunate statement to have been made but it was made and it is comments like that that really put a lie to the facade that this government has been putting up with respect to aid to Canadians.
There are 284,000 children requiring food banks in this country. That is something that is hard to believe. The fact is that many of these people live below the poverty line and we talk about cutting back on the Canada Assistance Plan. But at the same time why is it in this country that people living below the poverty line are forced to pay income tax? Does that make any sense? Why is the government not amending the Income Thx Act to say that people who live below the poverty line will pay no income tax? That would help. But that does not happen. We do not see tax reform on the basis of helping Canadians who are suffering economically to get back on their feet.
We have a government whose income tax programs are helping wealthy Canadians and it is doing very little to help redistribute wealth in this country. This bill that is in front of the House is a tragedy and a mistake and it is something that we as a Parliament should be ashamed to even have in front of this House.


Ron Fisher: Mr. Speaker, ever since I came into this House and even before that I have listened to some of the parliamentary debates. I keep hearing references, particularly from the government side, that this is the wealthiest nation in the world.
I guess if you were a member opposite circulating among the elite of society as you are wont to do, you probably would be saying that this is the wealthiest nation in the world. It would not really matter if it was not because you would be living well enough that if it was not the wealthiest one in the world, you would not be able to tell the difference anyway. There would be enough to buy the caviar, enough to buy the best wines, enough to take the best vacations, enough to hob-nob with the best people, enough money to have a private box in the SkyDome and enough money to be able to buy the prime shares on whatever stock exchange you felt like investing in: Toronto, Tokyo, Paris or London. I suspect you would invest in any and all of them because you would be putting your money where it did you the most good.
I suppose there are some people in this House of Commons who would say that we live in the wealthiest country in the world. I cannot say that. From my experience I know that we are not the wealthiest country in the world.


An hon. member:: Wealthy is relative.
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Ron Fisher: Yes, wealthy is relative. If you are talking about the number of people who are going to the food banks-which I think is a pretty good measure-then by that measure alone it is impossible to say we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
There are innumerable countries in the world where children are not living in the abject poverty that they are in this country.
It certainly is obvious since I came into this Parliament that the prime reason why Canadians are becoming poorer and poorer all the time, and there are some pretty good statistics to show that and I will get into that presently, are the policies of this government. Certainly we in this party and for the most part, the opposition, have been arguing against such things as free trade.
We have been arguing against those policies of the Conservatives, this Conservative ideology, this monito-rous scheme that was so much of the philosophy of Ronald Reagan. These are the successors of Ronald Reagan and his contemporaries while he was in here. Fortunately that anomaly, that out to lunch president, has departed the scene.
When they brought in the changes to the unemployment insurance, we told them over and over and over again that if you require people to work longer in order to qualify for unemployment insurance and then pay them less once they do become unemployed, having become unemployed as we also told them to a good measure because of the free trade agreement, not only were the citizens of the country going to be suffering from it but also the provinces, which is obvious, and municipalities, also becoming more obvious every day. That was going to be the logical outcome of what these people were up to.
I guess the Prime Minister was telling the truth when he said: "Give us 20 years and you will not recognize this country". It has not taken them 20 years. It has taken them not a mere eight years yet. They have accomplished I am sure what is far beyond the dreams of Milton Friedman, far beyond the dreams of the monitors, far beyond the political philosophy of this Conservative government to enhance the pocketbooks of the rich in this country at the expense of the rest of the people.
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I would suggest that the upper 20 per cent of this country are enormously well off. The upper 10 per cent are living in a wealthy situation that is impossible for the other 90 per cent of Canadians to even imagine.
In that instance, the Prime Minister was telling the truth. I must say that this country is unrecognizable. I must choose my words a little more judiciously. Since this government was elected in 1984, inflation has gone up by 29 per cent. Corporate taxes have gone up by 17 per cent albeit from 1986 to 1989 they actually declined in relation to the figure I am about to give you.
Corporate taxes since 1984 have gone up by 17 per cent. This is far less than inflation. I am not going to keep anyone in suspense because the individual taxes have gone up by 103 per cent. Is it any wonder that Canadians are becoming more and more impoverished every day? It is no mystery to me or to the people I talk to on the doorsteps of my constituency why they are so much worse off.
One of the main themes which I hear constantly on the doorstep of Saskatoon-Dundum is: "Ron, we have never been worse off. We have never been worse off". The figures show this.
In the 1960s, disposable income grew by 34 per cent. In the 1970s, disposable income grew by 22 per cent. This was still not too bad. Any of us who lived through the 1960s and the 1970s would realize that we did not do too badly. Things did improve. We were able to get a new car every three years or whatever it was. We were able to supply, without too much effort, the food, shelter and the education of our children.
In the 1980s disposable income grew by .5 per cent, one forty-fourth per cent of what it was in the seventies.
There is no mystery to the people I have talked to on the door steps. It is no mystery to me why some young people who started work in 1980 have not been able to make any progress at all in so far as being able to better themselves within our society.
Whatever happened to the concept of upward mobility? With figures like that, this who concept, this whole basis on which our society is economically established, upward mobility has come to a grinding halt. The predictions for 1992 and beyond are not that disposable income will grow, but that disposable income will decline.

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We come to a bill like Bill C-32, a cap on CAP. The government says: "We have to do this. We have to cut back on these transfers to the provinces". It has got nothing to do with the debt. What it has to do with is the mean spirit of this government which takes a look at this block of people, mostly children, the elderly, the handicapped, single parent mothers, women who absolutely need the kind of help that this gives insofar as transition houses are concerned, houses for battered women. The government looks at this block of people in our society and says: "Those lazy, no good bums. People on welfare are lazy. If they are not going to work, we have to do something to try to force them to work".
It is completely beyond my comprehension how the government can give so many tax breaks. Someone else has pointed out that tax breaks to corporations account for 44 per cent of the federal debt. Fifty per cent of the federal debt is accountable for the high interest rates we have had to pay on the money that we had to borrow because getting it from the corporations was forgone.
The only reason these people are making these kinds of changes to the legislation, the only reason that they are holding this back, is because they believe that if they do this they will be able to somehow or another save the national debt. It escapes me how they can give the gigantic tax breaks to corporations and say that is an incentive. If they want to give an incentive to people who are poor, why can we not treat them the same as we do the corporations?
What is wrong with putting a decent amount of money into the pockets of the people who are receiving social assistance? It seems to me that an incentive for one ought to be an incentive for the other and this government in its mean spirit says: "No way".


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, I am not necessarily happy to be taking part in this debate. It is not the kind of debate that Parliament should be having, given the circumstances the country is in.
I want to start by saying that the test of how civilized any society is is how well it treats its old, its sick, its poor and its children; how well it protects and preserves its environment, its wilderness and wildlife; how well it treats our aboriginal peoples; how well we help those
unfortunate human beings in the poor countries of the world.
Governments and societies that do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it and we are doing that now. The situation Canada is in now is equivalent to, and in some cases worse than, conditions we had in the dirty thirties. From 1930 to 1935 Tory governments under R. B. Bennett reigned.
I remember as a child of 10 hearing the grown-ups say: "Tory times are tough times". From 1935 to 1940 under the Liberals of Mackenzie King the tough times continued and in some respects got worse.
Both governments pleaded: "Where are you going to get the money?" The government is talking the same way now. It has not learned anything from recent history.
By 1940 every municipality, school board, provincial and federal government in this country were in debt and some were broke. My own province of Saskatchewan was bankrupt. You could not give its bonds away. There was no credit rating and the people were in the depths of despair and poverty.
"Where will we get the money", the government asks. There are several ways it can get the money. It can pick up another $1 billion or $2 billion by closing dozens of tax loopholes that still exist and benefit corporations and the wealthy. It could get the money by enforcing and going after the collection of what is politely called a tax gap, the collection of over $10 billion worth of unpaid taxes in this country. It was $10 billion in 1987. You can bet that it is a lot higher than that in 1991. In 1987 are the last figures that The Financial Post, and not some socialist periodical, came up with out of a report of Revenue Canada itself.
It talked about the tax evaders and the tax avoiders, the tax delinquents, all of those who can afford chartered accountants and lawyers to take advantage in every possible way of the tax law. Even when the tax avoider or tax evader loses to a successful challenge by Revenue Canada, there are a few types of taxpayers likely to change from non-compliers to compliers, to quote The Financial Post.

There is much to be done in this country and we have no excuse for not doing it. I have mentioned two areas in which billions are there to be obtained over the next year or so. I cannot say that I am speaking on behalf of my party in this instance. I am one of those who has been a close follower of John Maynard Keynes. In tough times you borrow and you spend and in good times you tax and repay.
If I had my way, over the next two years we would run the deficit up by another $2 billion, $3 billion or $4 billion, whatever is required. There would be short-term funding for food banks. My God, when I was a youngster in the dirty thirties they were called soup kitchens. It is refined now to food banks.
The fact is that it is a blot on our country and a disgrace for any government in any society to keep on putting up with that. The only way to get rid of deficits and debts is following policies of full employment. Why not establish a municipal fund from which municipalities can borrow? If the government can get the money at 7 per cent, then let the municipalities have it at 5 per cent and subsidize the interest rates or let them have it at 4 per cent, or in the first year pay all the interest charges.
The federal government is the one that has the complete control and authority on monetary and fiscal policy of this country, not any one province, not any municipality or school board and my hon. friend opposite cannot run away from it.
This country has scores of municipalities whose infrastructures need rebuilding and enlarging.
My God, we are still running raw sewage from Montreal into the St. Lawrence River. When are we going to see to it and do our part in helping to correct that?
Scores of municipalities across Canada have to fix and rebuild and modernize sewer and water systems, streets and sidewalks, power lines. That means jobs. It puts hundreds of thousands of people to work and they pay taxes. There is not a city or a large town in this country that does not have a list as long as your arm of people waiting for a house, waiting for a chronic care bed. Why are we not investing? A gain in construction means more and more jobs in low income and co-operative housing, federally, provincially and municipally.
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We could put, over the next several years, a quarter of million people to work just cleaning up our air and our water. This will take some courage. It will take flying in the face of conventional wisdom and the typical Tory and Liberal line: "Where are you going to get the money?"
When we had a declaration of war all of a sudden there was a lot of money, lots and lots of money. I submit that we should now have a declaration of peace and make the same kinds of effort in fighting a war on poverty, illness, poor housing and our environment, to a greater extent than we ever did during the Second World War.
It is going to take that kind of effort, with the whole nation behind it. It has to be led by a federal government and it has to be led by this Parliament. The more we sit and wring our hands, the more we sit and rely on old ideological, worn out, wasted excuses and reasons. Where are we going to get the money? The money is there. What we need to do is challenge Canadians to roll up their sleeves and do all these things that need to be done. A policy of full employment will do more to wipe out deficits and substantially reduce if not eliminate the national debt.
That is what is required. We did it following the Second World War. If we translate our debt in 1945 into 1991 dollars, our debt then was as great or greater than it is now. It took us 10 or 12 years to pay it off. We financed the entire Second World War without a nickel of foreign investment, without a nickel.
We continue to sell out our economy for the sake of attracting foreign investors so that they can come in, make a profit and take the money out. They usually borrow the money from us. They financed the takeover of our economy and our country with our own money.
There are all those things to be done by this Parliament.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, actually it is not a pleasure to speak on this particular piece of legislation, but certainly we have to speak out against this and hope to bring the government to its senses on what it is doing to medicare.
I have just returned from Kamloops after having spent the last three days visiting people in their homes and talking to people in the shopping malls and going door to door throughout the small business community. When I

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asked people if they are aware that the Mulroney government is in the process of eliminating medicare in Canada, they said: "No".
I reminded them of Bill C-69. They do remember that because it put a cap on the contribution the federal government provided for medical care and hospital care across Canada. They said they remembered that and they remembered people saying that this was the beginning of the end of medicare in Canada. I reminded them of this Bill C-32 which extends that process.
It is interesting to look at the pages and pages of testimony before the committee. I have the testimony of a number of expert witnesses in the health care field, the professional people who operate our health care system and people who have professionally studied the health care system of Canada. Virtually every one of these people who appeared before the committee pleaded, begged and said to stop this bill because it was the end of medicare in Canada, one of the hallmarks of Canadian citizenship.
We all know that each year there are hundreds of thousands of people, nay millions of people who would love to come to Canada, become landed immigrants and eventually citizens of this great country. They know there are a number of benefits that accrue to Canadian citizenship and one of them is medicare. It does not matter where you live in this country, whether it is in Newfoundland, the territories, British Columbia or the prairies. You have universal health care. Today we find that the United States of America is holding up the old Canadian model and saying: "This is the model that we want to have in the United States".
This government, these cabinet ministers and these back-bench Tories are in the process of dismantling the medicare system that is the hallmark of Canadian citizenship. We say that is wrong.
The people of Canada recognize what the government is doing to the country and our health care system. The people of Canada, through our efforts as members of the opposition, will find out that every single one of these experts in health care has said this legislation is the death-knell of medicare in Canada. The Conservatives should be chastised for initiating this legislation. They should be tossed out of office. Canadians will put the
New Democrats into office and we will once again put medicare back on the sound, financial footing that it should be on so that no matter where you are in Canada you will have access to this great system.
I cannot believe that my friends across the way are doing this. What do they have against sick people?


John Horton McDermid: We are not and you know it.


Nelson Andrew Riis: What do they have against people who are ailing?


An hon. member:: They are not your friends.


John Horton McDermid: What nonsense. What poppycock.


Nelson Andrew Riis: There is my friend, the minister who says all these experts are wrong; oh, yes, he is right or his colleagues are right, but all the experts are wrong. I say I will throw my lot in with people who professionally know what health care is all about. I will say to my hon. friend-


John Horton McDermid: Where are you going to get the
money?


Nelson Andrew Riis: He yells out where am I going to get the money. I will tell the minister where we are going to get the money. There are 69,000 profitable corporations in this country that do not pay any income tax at all. That is where some of the money should be coming from.
In any other country of the world when you inherit vast amounts of money and invest vast amounts of money you have to pay some taxes, but not in Canada. If you are a wealthy family and you are receiving millions and millions of dollars bequeathed upon you by your family, do you have to pay income tax in Canada? No. That is because those wealthy families have their friends across the way. They are called Conservative cabinet ministers who give privileges to the wealthy in this country and they pay for it by dismantling medicare.


John Horton McDermid: What nonsense.


Nelson Andrew Riis: We say it is absolutely wrong. It is unCanadian. Why should we be surprised by an unCanadian act by this government. Show me an area, whether it is in broadcasting, the economy or social policy, where this government has done a single thing to benefit the people of Canada other than a handful of wealthy people. We cannot find it. We can look under every report and
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initiative that has come out of this cabinet and we will not find it.
People around the world are perplexed because they know in their own countries they do not have this type of service. You think of what is going on, for example, in what used to be Yugoslavia today. The Croatian people are suffering by the tens and hundreds of thousands at the hands of a Serbian led army. People are defending themselves, their homes, their properties and their families with hunting rifles against tanks, artillery, air force and navy bombardment. The Serbian led Yugoslavian army, as we speak, is destroying historic monuments designated by the United Nations as historic treasures of the earth. They include old hospitals, churches, historic towns, cities and areas being bombarded presumably to break the Croatian people psychologically. They look at us and wonder why on earth we would be dismantling something as wonderful as medicare when they are struggling simply to maintain their own homeland against these barbaric forces.
When you think about it, 500,000 Croatian refugees are trying to leave the country wherever possible or seek refuge with family, friends or neighbours. An incredible hardship is being placed upon innocent people in that part of the world, and yet our government refuses to recognize the country of Croatia.
A number of Conservative backbenchers have asked the Prime Minister, as have others, to recognize Croatia but the government has not done it. Has it asked the UN Security Council to send in peacekeepers? No, it has not.
When I listen to the backbenchers of the Conservatives calling upon their government to take action, and they are being ignored, why would I be surprised at the government ignoring all of the experts when it comes to health care? When it does not even listen to its own backbenchers on something as life and death as the situation in Croatia, why would it listen to any of the people who understand health care recommending against the passage of this particular bill?
It is simply part of the old process. It is the father knows best approach to government. The Prime Minister says: "I am big brother. I know what is best for you Canadians. I know you do not agree, you do not support us, you do not support me, but I know what is best".
That is what a dictator says. That is what a leader of a totalitarian government says. At this sad time this is what
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our Prime Minister says. He knows best, the people of Canada do not know what is best, the experts do not know what is best, but our Prime Minister does.
It is a sad day when we think that. For years and years we have developed one of the world's finest health care systems. This government, starting a few years ago with Bill C-69, decided to end medicare in Canada. It decided to have maybe some health care for profit in some parts of Canada. Some of the wealthier provinces will be able to sustain the absolute destruction of medicare, but the poorer parts of Canada will not be able to maintain the level of health care.
In terms of national standards they will be gone because the federal government has given up its leverage when it fails to participate at reasonable levels in the funding of health care. It is a very sad day. It is a sad day for Canada, a sad day for Canadians, and a sad day particularly for all of those men and women who dedicated their lives to establish a decent health care system in this country. Regardless of whether you were wealthy or poor, an eastern or western Canadian, no matter who you were, you had access to universal health care. In the future that will not be the case and it will be the Prime Minister of Canada and his government that will have used the wrecking ball on what we have known as medicare in Canada.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, we know where the headaches are. They are right over there on the other side of the Chamber, right across from the opposition.
The government has brought in a bill to extend the cap on CAP for another three years. When the cap on CAP was first brought in, the godfather of the first cap on CAP was none other than the former Deputy Prime Minister, Erik Nielsen, old velcro lips. He was appointed chief honcho to take a look at all the government programs and see where he could cut fat and save money for the taxpayers.
He looked at the Canada Assistance Plan. He said: "It is a very good plan, a very good plan. It does a lot of good things". He then said: "You cannot have these open-ended agreements". The godfather of the cap on CAP is old velcro lips Erik Nielsen himself. When it comes to poor people, when it is time to transfer money to the less

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fortunate people, he is a tightwad, a Scrooge. He is not the scrooge when it comes to his own spending.


An hon. member:: Tell us about it.


John R. Rodriguez: The members says: "Tell us about it". Here is this guy who wants to spend like Santa and save like Scrooge. He spends like Santa on himself. This same Erik Nielsen recently put himself up in a Vancouver hotel for two nights at a cost of $1,000. He took a motor trip from Ottawa to Whitehorse, Yukon for $5,865. He took a slow car from Ottawa to Whitehorse, Yukon.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Did he buy the car?


John R. Rodriguez: That is a good question. Actually you could buy a new car with that money. He could buy one of the airlines in this country right now for that kind of money. Between November 1 and November 3 he was in Edmonton where he stayed at the Fantasyland Hotel for two nights at a cost of $403.20.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: He has been in Fantasyland for years.


John R. Rodriguez: The entire trip from November 1 to November 3 cost taxpayers $1,888. Then he was off to Vancouver again from November 10 to November 12. The air fare was $1,805 and the hotel accommodation for two nights was $973.44. That is over $2,700 for a two-day visit.
This is the godfather of the cap on CAP. This is the person who sat and examined government accounts. It was this gentleman, Erik Nielsen, who said: "We have to tighten the belt and trim the fat".
We must remember he was in Fantasyland. This person is spending taxpayers' money. Why did he not think of cutting his own fat and saving taxpayers some money? I see government members on the other side. It is all right to applaud after the horse has left the bam, after the money has been spent.
It took an exhaustive search and fight through the freedom of information office to get information on this kind of spending. It seems it is an old adage: if you look after the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. Members on the other side represent only one interest: the fat cat interest. They are not interested in
the people who are suffering as a result of some of the things they have done.
That is part of the Tory culture. They have never been sensitive to the needs of people who work hard for a living. They have only been interested in and only benefited those who invest. They said: "Oh, no, you are not being fair". Government members say to me: "You are not being fair". Let me try to be fair for the record.
I am looking at The Financial Post and at an article that appeared on August 29, 1990. It says: "Big corporations leading tax evaders". We are talking about tax evasion here, not tax avoidance. There is a big difference.
Here is what the article says: "Revenue Canada estimates that the so-called tax gap, the amount owed but not paid by Canadians, hit $10 billion in 1987, the last year for which an estimate was available". That is almost four times the 1977 level.
We are talking about tax not collected. When a widow in my riding owes a few hundred dollars to Revenue Canada, we can see how tough it is on her. It sends out the knee breakers, the letters. It threatens. It is tough. It is tough in collecting.
Then the member of Parliament gets involved and says to the Revenue Canada people: "How come you are so tough on poor people? Inco owes you all kinds of taxes. Why do you not get as tough with them? Why do you not go over there and tell them that you are going to break their knees, that you are going to send some boys over?" Why does the government not do that? Why does it not put a lien on the mine or garnishee its receipts?
It will not do that. It will not do that at all. I want to suggest very seriously that it deliberately complicates the tax laws of this country so that its corporate friends avoid paying the tax.
They should read the tax act. They all get up and piously say: "We have to simplify the language of the tax act". There is piety over on the other side about the simplicity of the tax laws. The government has been in office now for seven years and we have not seen any simplification of the tax laws of this country. The
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government has made them more complex, more complicated. Corporate tax law is extremely complicated.
What does a corporation do? It simply goes out, hires fancy tax consultants, tax lawyers and tax accountants and it avoids paying the taxes. Even when it gets nailed, it does not pay it. It appeals it and it goes through a whole procedural rigmarole and it never, for years, pays any taxes. It does not for years.
I suppose some of them are skiddled off to the sunshine states where they can set up shop and avoid paying. The tax structure has been so jiggered that now the government collects about 45 per cent of its revenues from ordinary taxpayers. From its corporate friends, it collects about 9 per cent of the total revenues.
This is a new switch. This is a new concept of a medieval view of Robin Hood. Robin Hood used to take from the wealthy to give to the poor.


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


James Capsey (Jim) Karpoff: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. For the last couple of hours we have not had the pleasure of hearing any of the Liberals respond to this bill. We are wondering whether the Speaker is no longer able to see any Liberals or whether the Liberals are no longer fighting to protect the Canada Assistance Plan.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I remind the hon. member that was not a point of order.


Jesse Philip Flis: Mr. Speaker, had the hon. member been here he would have heard the number of Liberal speakers who spoke all morning and all day, but because he was absent he did not hear them.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: Mr. Speaker, it is wonderful to be complimented by someone who gives bald men a bad name in the House of Commons.
The amendment before the House of Commons today is an amendment which deals with Bill C-32. Bill C-32 is the bill that will extend the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan up until 1995. It is an extension of Bill C-69 which became known in infamy throughout Canada over the last year when people realized that through this bill there was an attack, as my friend from Kamloops has
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said, on the medical care system and the health system in Canada and on the post-secondary system. We spoke to that part of the extension last week.
Bill C-32 deals directly with the Canada Assistance Plan which deals with the transfer payments of the federal government through to the provinces for matters of social assistance and all those matters interprovincial-ly and within the provinces that deal with, for the most part, those who are less able to care for themselves through usually no fault of their own.
The amendment from my friend and colleague from Essex-Windsor is an amendment that would simply delete that extension. By taking away clause 1 of Bill C-32 it effectively does away with the bill and we go back to the system as it was set up and as it should be.
I speak in favour of that but in opposition to the idea behind Bill C-32.
In the Montreal Gazette on December 7,1991 a letter from Southam News' Eric Beauchesne points out in a headline: "Abandoning the job hunt". In that article he says:
Thousands of unemployed, frustrated by a lack of job opportunities, quit looking for work last month and that's all that kept unemployment from rising above an already dismal 10.3 per cent, analysts said yesterday.
Employment fell by 49,000 in November but the unemployment rate remained at October's level because 45,000 workers also dropped out of the labour force, Statistics Canada said.
Statistics Canada further reported the week of December 7 that job prospects are their bleakest in seven years.
What does the unemployment rate and those that dropped out of the job market have to do with the Canada Assistance Plan? Where do these people go? They can no longer get unemployment insurance because this government changed the rules. It made it harder for people to get unemployment insurance and for those who can get on the unemployment insurance rolls. It shortened the period they can continue getting benefits.
In today's job market, as has been shown in this article and many others, it is clear that these people want jobs. They want to work. They need money to keep food on the table for their families. The average family has over

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two children each. It is these children who unfortunately suffer as a result of the poverty of their parents.
When they can no longer get unemployment insurance, they run through any savings that they have been fortunate enough to carry over the years. Where do they turn?
They turn to social assistance. The welfare programs are carried on by provinces or in some provinces by the larger cities themselves. They have to turn to these people.
Those 45,000 who dropped out of the market are some of those same people who are now looking at alternative methods of financing themselves, often and probably through social assistance. The money that comes from that social assistance has to be gained somewhere. By robbing Peter to pay Paul, the federal government is shirking responsibility to those people who have been hurt by the fiscal and monetary policies that this government has been following since 1984.
In the evidence given before the finance committee looking into Bill C-32, Lise Corbeil of the National Anti Poverty Organization, stated: "Bill C-32 will have an incredible negative impact on poor people. They are asked to tighten their belts in the name of deficit reduction, to trim the fat from their expenses while the National Council on Welfare study proved that there is absolutely no fat to trim when you live on welfare. To the federal government, CAP is one among many budget items on an expense sheet. It is just a line. To people living on social assistance, CAP is a lifeline. Welfare is their means of livelihood. It is not an intellectual exercise to try to balance a budget".
That brings out very graphically what the problem is with this government capping the Canada Assistance Plan.
As the unemployment roles increase and more people go on welfare and social assistance and as more people transfer into provinces such as Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, the three provinces hurt by the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan, the provinces are forced into either cutting back services or increasing taxes within those provinces that most need the assistance of the federal government because of that immigration from other areas of the country and other areas of the world. Those people come into these most desirable
areas such as Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia and it is these three provinces that have had their assistance capped by the Canadian government.
Who is hurt by this policy? The poor, the poverty stricken, those who have nowhere to go, those who depend on this as a lifeline. It is a lifeline of the children who are hurt through the lack of assistance from this government.
It is interesting to note that one child in six in Canada is classified as poor. More than 1 million children under the age of 18 live in poverty. It is an interesting and sad commentary on today's life in Canada that almost half of the Canadians who rely on food banks are children, an estimated 225,000 children.


An hon. member:: Shameful.


John R. (Jack) Whittaker: It is shameful. It is unfortunate. It is something this government must take into consideration. It must look at its policies. Many poor children live in families struggling on 50 to 60 per cent of poverty line income.
At a time such as this, leading into Christmas, it has become more and more apparent: the long line-ups at food banks; the number of people living in poverty; those who will not be able to sit down to turkey and stuffing or have gifts under the tree; those who will not be able to enjoy Christmas as Christmas should be enjoyed, by children and by all of us. It is hard to remember the joy of the season when you do not have food on the plate to feed your children and as a child your stomach is empty.
We have to do something about this bill and I suggest to this House that the way to do it is by supporting the amendment. I would ask this House to consider that amendment strongly and pass it.


Ms. Dawn Black (New Westminster-Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that the very parliamentary day following December 6, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, that we should be standing in this House debating a bill that extends the cap on the Canada Assistance Plan.
On Friday members of the government were standing in this place decrying violence against women and saying that we must end the situation that creates violence against women. They were saying that we in this House

of Commons must take effective action to end violence against women. They were saying that we must provide the services that battered women so desperately need in this country to escape from violent situations.
It is ironic and it is sad. It is sad because this Bill C-32 will have a chilling effect on the building of shelters for battered women. The Canada Assistance Plan is the only funding mechanism in place right now for providing shelters for battered women. Now the government is extending this limit on funding until 1995. It is such hypocrisy. All the people in the House heard it say on Friday: "We must take action to end violence". Yet it is cutting from the very services that these women so desperately need to get out of violence and to break the cycle of violence.
It is beyond me. It is beyond me how this government can brag over and over again as it did again on Friday about its family violence initiative fund and then cut and then continue to cut from the services that women need.
It cut the social programs. It cut shelters for battered women with this bill. It is cutting child care spaces as well with this bill and we all know what a desperate need there is for child care in this country.
CAP is the only funding mechanism in place for child care spaces. The government knows how badly they are needed. The situation in Canada for child care is desperate. In fact today when a woman becomes pregnant in Canada, probably the first thing she does after getting that confirmation from her doctor, if she is a woman who works outside the home, is go and put her name on a list at a child care centre. She is hoping that by the time her child is two years old she may have child care. But they still wait years and years and years to find suitable child care in this country.
This government has refused to honour the promises it made in 1984, the promises it made in 1988 and the promises that it has made in throne speeches over and over again to provide Canadians with a national child care program. Now it is extending the funding cuts again from the only vehicle in this country that funds child care spaces.
It does this with the rationale of saying: "We are only capping the funds to five per cent". It calls it capping. In reality we know with the rate of inflation and everything
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else it is an actual cut in services. It says it is doing this in the name of fiscal restraint and it says it is only doing it to the rich provinces that can afford to take this capping. This government also knows that over 50 per cent of the poor in this country live in these three provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
In my province of British Columbia we have a food bank in Vancouver that is there simply and only for women and children. What has it come to in this country when volunteer organizations and church organizations are organizing food banks for women and children? The fact is that 50 per cent of the poor live in those three provinces. They are just as poor as the poor in other parts of Canada.
Those women who are beaten in those provinces are just as black and blue, just as degraded as the women in any other part of Canada.
This bill is just another example of how this government has decided to place the burden of paying off the debt on the shoulders of those who can least afford it, those who are not responsible for the debt.
Statistics Canada has shown that the spending on social programs is only responsible for 6 per cent of the national debt. In reality it is the tax breaks to wealthy people and to corporations that are responsible for 44 per cent of the debt.
The government has not targeted the cause of the debt to resolve it. Corporate taxes from 1986 to 1989 declined by approximately 20 per cent even though those profits increased by 34 per cent during the same time.
In fact the Statistics Canada figures in April show that taxes increased the most from 1988 to 1989 for those on the second lowest rung of the income ladder, with an increase of 1.1 per cent. But those in the highest income levels saw taxes rise by .9 per cent and those in the second highest by only .3 per cent.
Is this what the government means by tax fairness? Is this its idea of what it calls tax reform? It seems more like tax deform than tax reform.
These figures only confirm that those who should be paying for the deficit are not. Ttx loopholes for the wealthy and for big corporations amount to more than $6 billion a year. For $6 billion we could have a heck of a

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good child care program in this country, one that meets the needs of all of Canada's children.
The Tories have not made a single move to get rid of the loopholes that were caused by the previous Liberal government. It had its commissions when it was in government and ignored the recommendations it received for tax fairness, just like this government does.
The largest group of people affected by this bill, of course, are children; the children and the poor of this country. Contrast the government's action with its commitment to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. I want to ask the government how removing money from social assistance will help children to escape from poverty. It is ironic that Canada plans to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, since Bill C-32 will have a devastating effect on the health and the well-being of the children in this country who rely on social assistance, over a million children in Canada.
We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world and we still have a million children living in poverty. We are second only to the U.S. in the level of child poverty in the industrialized world.
These children, these battered women and the poor of this country are the ones who are being asked to pay the price for the tax loopholes that are offered to the wealthy and to the big corporations. I want to ask, is that just? Is that fair? Is that tax reform? I do not think so.
As if Bill C-32 is not causing enough damage, when you put it together with all the other regressive actions of this government the future for Canada looks very bleak indeed. Bill C-21 will make UI harder to get. The de-indexation of family allowance benefits means that families get less and less and children get less and less each year. There is the clawback on family allowances and old age pensions.
Further cuts to social assistance, cuts to health and post-secondary education, Bill C-69 and Bill C-20 are threatening the future of medicare and accessible postsecondary education for all of Canada's people.
There is still no sign of a child care policy. Promise, promise, promise, nothing but broken promises from this government. This is just another Tory attack on social programs which the government claims it is doing in the
name of financial restraint. But it is clear this is a move about politics. This is politics, not money, not fiscal restraint, and these politics amount to more breaks for the friends of the government and a life of poverty and hunger for millions of Canadians who are burdened under the weight of high taxes and a tattered and weakened social safety net beneath them.
This really is a government of grinches at this time of the year.


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: The present economic situation is disastrous, Mr. Speaker, and it is definitely a bad time to be capping the Canada Assistance Plan.
The poverty rate in the greater Montreal area is at an all-time high. More that 15 per cent of the people living on the island of Montreal is made up of poor families, that is to say 200,000 more than in the four Atlantic provinces combined. At least 60 per cent of welfare recipients in Montreal have been on the welfare rolls for two years. The unemployment rate in the Montreal area-the statistics were released on Friday-is still 12 per cent. What can be done to get out of this slump? During these difficult economic times, the government wants to cap the Canada Assistance Plan.
According to Statistics Canada, 45,000 workers have been dropped from the list of people looking for work not because they found jobs, but for the majority because their unemployment insurance benefits ran out and they are now on welfare.
My office is in the same building as the welfare office and I can assure you that every time I take the elevator I see unhappy people. There are a great many of them and in my riding as elsewhere the welfare office cannot keep up.
Our unemployment insurance offices cannot keep up with the demand. What about our welfare offices? There are over 10,000 homeless people in Montreal alone who spend the winter in subway stations. With the freezing temperatures we have in this country, what do you think they are going to live on this winter? Food banks-I just happened to be reading in the newspapers last weekend
December 9, 1991

that Sun Youth, an organization which does a great job, cannot keep up with the demand the Holiday Season being just around the corner. The shelves are empty. There is not enough food to go around.
It surely is not a good time to make cuts, to cap public assistance. Last Friday we heard from both sides of this House statements on violence against women as well as on violence in general. Every morning I look at the newspaper when I get up and every day I read that someone somewhere was shot or killed. Why? Because they have nowhere to stay, nothing to eat, no job, nothing. We can see the result: increasing violence. The number of violent crimes is increasing every day.
The government has the responsibility to do something, to help in this very difficult period. There will be, I hope, as you do, Mr. Speaker, better times in this country, but for the moment the situation is so bad that we have to help people in need so they too can have some hope.
In Montreal-and this is not the first time this is mentioned in the House-exams had to be scheduled so as to coincide with the receipt of welfare cheques, because after a couple of weeks there is no money left and children come to school hungry, a fact which is not exactly conducive to good performance during exams. This is so serious it is almost unbelievable.
In Montreal East-I am giving figures for the whole of the island of Montreal, but there is the west, the centre and the east-it is totally unacceptable. We have never seen such a situation before.
I urge the government to revise its plan, to drop its decision to cap welfare payments, and to give to those who are in real need. During the Christmas season it is important to give. It is important for people to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel, that there is hope for a better tomorrow. What if we abandon them? Of course the government will argue it is strapped for money, but is it the right time to make those cuts? Is it the right time to deal with those financial problems?
The government had a number of good years. There were years when the economy was in good shape, and that is when it should have dealt with those problems. Unfortunately they were incapable of dealing with those economic problems and that is why we are in this recession today. The government keeps cutting. If you
Government Orders
keep squeezing a lemon when there is no juice left, the result is the kind of violence we see every day not just in Montreal-I am from Montreal so I am very aware of this-but across Canada.
I hope the government will be able to listen to members on both sides of the House, because I am sure there are government members like yourself, Mr. Speaker, who share this view. Perhaps, in the spirit of Christmas, we should set aside political partisanship, withdraw this bill and increase welfare payments so that Canadians living in poverty can hope to have a Merry Christmas.


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River):: Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion doing radical surgery on Bill C-32. It is an amendment but it is radical surgery.
This is a bill that imposes a significant amount of belt tightening on our public finances in this country. It is belt tightening but we must look and ask who we are asking to tighten their belts. Who is going to do the belt tightening here? It is the poor and the hungry. It is not those who have the decent pay cheque coming in every week and who still have a job in this recession. It is the poor and the hungry.
The government says this is just a marginal impact on transfer payments, the Canada Assistance Plan payments that are paid to the provinces. It is marginal and puts a limit on the increases but every single dollar of that margin is being borne on the backs of the poor and the hungry. It is not marginal for that class of people in this country.
What was a two-year plan is now a five-year plan. It is extended out another three years and involves another $2 billion. I want to ask the House to contrast the fight that was waged by the Public Service in this town and across the country on the matter of the zero, three and three wage control and the imposed arbitration. That was a big fight. That was a strike. There was dislocation of government services right across this country and yet this bill is going to impact just as much and maybe more on the poor and hungry of this country.
Where are they? I would venture to suggest that many of them do not even know what is happening here. Who is here to speak for the poor and the hungry right here

Government Orders
now as we approach the Christmas season? The timing is terrible.
The reason why the belt tightening has been made necessary is the failure of this government to address its fiscal management in the mid-1980s. It ran up a deficit that began in 1982 and 1983. It escalated and it kept on coming year after year right through the good years when we had an opportunity to put our finances in order.
I am very critical of the government for permitting this situation to occur.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Your time has expired.


BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 1991 MEASURE TO ENACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, December 4, consideration of motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 1991, be read the third time; and of the amendment of Mr. Walker (p. 5662).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to order made Tbesday, December 3, 1991, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the amendment of Mr. Walker at the third reading stage of Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 1991.


[Stage Direction]
Call in the members.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-4, an act to revise and amend the law governing federal trust and loan companies and to provide for related and consequential matters, be read the third time and passed.
nil/aucun
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the amendment lost.
The question is on the main motion.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I think you will find that there is unanimous consent to apply to the main motion the results of the vote just taken on the amendment, but in reverse.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Is there unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: We do not have unanimous consent. The next question is on the main motion.
All those in favour will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: In my opinion the yeas have it.


Some hon. members:: On division.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion negatived.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the third reading of Bill C-4, an act to revise and amend the law governing federal trust and loan companies and to provide for related and consequential matters.


PAIRED-MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil/aucun
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.


BANK ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. Mazankowski that Bill C-19, an act respecting banks and banking, be read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred division on the motion for third reading of Bill C-19, an act respecting banks and banking.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I will try a second time and I hope to have more luck than with my first attempt. If you again asked for the unanimous consent of the House, we maybe could apply the result of the vote that was just taken to the next motion.


Mr. Gerin:: Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois was not consulted on that procedure.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. Is there agreement to apply the result of the vote that was just taken to the next motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Since there is no unanimous consent, I must proceed with the vote.
The vote is on the main motion relating to Bill C-19.


PAIRED-MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil/aucun
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.


INSURANCE COMPANIES ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, December 6, consideration of the motion of Mr. Loiselle that Bill C-28, an act respecting companies and fraternal benefit societies, be read the third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Pursuant to Standing Order 45(6), the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred divisions at third reading stage of Bill C-28, an act respecting companies and fraternal benefit societies.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, through you, I would now like to ask all members of this House if they wish to give their consent so that the vote that was just taken be applied to the main motion on Bill C-28.


Mr. Plamondon:: Mr. Speaker, I would like the member to get into the habit of consulting us before the votes, as he does with the other parties.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Since there is no unanimous consent, the next vote will be on the main motion on Bill C-28.


PAIRED-MEMBERS
[Stage Direction]
nil/aucun
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I declare the motion carried.
Bill read the third time and passed.
Milliken
Monteith
Nicholson
O'Kurley
Paproski
Peterson
Porter
Mills
Nault
Oberle
Pagtakhan
Parent
Plamondon
Pronovost


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 6.50 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.50 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Tuesday, December 10, 1991