1991-04-08

Mr. John Manley (Ottawa South):: Mr. Speaker, this morning the Liberal Party launched its campaign to bring to the attention of the public the need to defend Canadian workers against the latest attacks by the Tory government.
In its budget, the government, by example, told every employer to forget about bargaining rights and to threaten workers with job cuts and increase contracting out in order to block wage increases.
From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today on Parliament Hill, we are giving provincial and federal Public Service workers, pensioners and members of the employment equity target groups, teachers and the academic community a chance to voice their opposition to such blackmail.
When the government is threatening bad faith bargaining, back-to-work legislation and interference in the conciliation-arbitration process, the rights of Canadian workers and service to the public are in jeopardy.
Other such forums will take place on April 22 in Thunder Bay and Kingston. We encourage all Canadian workers to participate and to help us to tell the government that enough is enough.


TRIBUTE TO THE LATE LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MAURICE HALLE
Mr. Marcel R. Tremblay (Quebec-Est):: Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Brome-Missisquoi, Gabrielle Bertrand, who is not here today, has asked me to inform the House- of the passing on April 5 last of the former member for that riding, Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Halle. Mr. Halle served in this House from 1940 to 1947.
To Mrs. Halle and her family we offer our deepest sympathies during this trying time.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member.


HOUSING
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, the Allaire report and the C.D. Howe Institute have both recommended that housing become exclusively a provincial responsibility.
Before rushing to a decision, let us remember that federal government housing programs are available everywhere in Canada. Let us remember, as well, that only federal government mortgage insurance is available everywhere in Canada, and that mortgage insurance has helped to build one-third of the homes in our country. Let us also remember that the federal government programs have made possible 640,000 homes for low-income Canadians, homes which form an essential part of our national social safety net.
If housing does become exclusively a provincial responsibility, will mortgage insurance be available everywhere in Canada? Will we have a housing social safety net? Will our taxes go down? What do you think, Mr. Speaker?

S. ft 31


REFORM PARTY
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, over the past weekend the Reform Party held its convention in Saskatoon. It was clearly a well stage-managed production. I am a little concerned, that with all the lights and the hoopla, what actually transpired over the weekend may have been lost: the Reform Party has already sold out.
It is a shock for me to see that the party that was so quick to join with the NDP in the fight against the GST actually back-pedalled on the issue this past weekend. They now support the hated GST. It was truly disappointing. They are beginning to look more and more like the Tories already. Like Tories, they support user fees for medicare. Like Tories, they want to tear down the Wheat Board and orderly marketing for farmers. Like Tories, they want the free trade deal to go even further. And like Tories, their well-heeled backers call the shots.
Mr. Speaker, the well-financed, well-polished image the Reform Party projected over the weekend was no mistake. The Reform Party is nothing more than Tories in a hurry.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-Trinity-Conception):: Yesterday I joined many of our colleagues and thousands of Canadians to witness three Canadian warships return to their home port after nearly eight months' absence.
On Sunday, April 7, Her Majesty's Canadian Ships Athabaskan, Terra Nova and Protecteur sailed proudly into the dockyard in Halifax, returning with the same professionalism and dignity they displayed during their impressive and reputable contribution to the Persian Gulf war. These ships stopped 1,800 merchant vessels and boarded 22 in their enforcement of the United Nations economic sanctions against Iraq.
This House and all Canadians can look back with pride at this example which shows the ingenuity, dedication and commitment displayed by all those officers, men and women in the Canadian forces and with the Department of National Defence who knew their duty and did it well.


GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, on March 20, the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy decided to cut $5.6 million in the 1991-92 Budget for the Parliament of Canada.
The cuts affect the committees' operating expenses as well as the printing of parliamentary publications and the discretionary expenditures of parliamentary associations and delegations. Moreover, it was decided to use only one telecommunications satellite instead of two for the parliamentary television network.
Mr. Speaker, I applaud these cuts, but we could do more by cutting down on our discretionary and other expenses of the Parliament of Canada and the Senate.
Mr. Speaker, later this week, on April 11, I will disclose to the people of my riding the total cost of my discretionary expenses and of running my Parliamentary offices. Can the members of the Bloc Quebecois do the same, yes or no?


UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, the latest unemployment figures were released at the end of last week and revealed that unemployment stood at a shameful 22.2 per cent in Cape Breton, which was double the national average.
These figures do not include those whose unemployment insurance benefits have run out, those who have simply given up and those who have lost all hope of ever finding a job.
It is another bleak spring for Cape Breton, with no hope for a better or brighter summer. That is bad news for young people who are seeking summer employment in order to pay for their education. Tuition fees are rising, prices are rising, taxes are rising, but opportunities are declining.
Once again this Prime Minister and this government have failed. They have failed to respond to the severe economic problems Cape Breton and the country continue to face.
April 8, 1991

I call upon the Government of Canada and the Department of Employment and Immigration as well as ACOA to introduce emergency funding for job creation programs to assist Canadian families in those regions in this their hour of economic need.


LEADER OF THE BLOC QUEBECOIS
Mr. Denis Pronovost (Saint-Maurice):: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois has just given us another example of his lack of financial responsibility.
The new spokesman for Jacques Parizeau in this House is now ready to choose the American dollar as the currency for his future independent Quebec. This is another evidence, Mr. Speaker, of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois' unrealistic approach in spite of his heated rhetoric.
One day, the Bloc Quebecois requests a common currency with Canada, the next, they want a separate currency, only to change their mind again the day after and talk about aligning the Quebec currency with the American dollar. With this death wish theory, they even consider abandoning at some point the American dollar and creating a new Quebec currency.
So much for consistency! How politically irresponsible! The people of Quebec will not entrust their future to such adventurers who seem only motivated by anger and passion.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jerry Pickard (Essex-Kent):: Mr. Speaker, all across this country farmers want to prepare for spring planting. This should be a time of anticipation and hope. But this year it is marked by fear and anxiety; fear because farmers are uncertain of their future; anxiety because many are unsure of how they will finance their operations this year.
The past few years have been unkind to agriculture. Low commodity prices, natural disasters, floods and droughts have decreased earnings and depleted savings. Man-made disasters, such as the government's free trade deal, high interest rates and a high dollar have caused irreparable damage to Canadian agriculture. As
farmers attempt to plant the 1991 crops, this government sits idly by without giving immediate assistance.
In the past year, over 2,000 jobs have been lost and at least 12 plant closures or slowdowns have occurred. In Essex-Kent, two processors are gone and others are in danger of closing. Thousands of acres of fruits and vegetables are in jeopardy. Farmers' livelihoods are being lost.
I call upon this government to act now to save farming and the agrifood industry.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, Asian gangs are becoming a serious problem in Canada. In Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal we read of murders, gambling, extortion, drug trafficking, prostitution, immigrant smuggling and other serious and violent crimes, all connected to ruthless Asian gangs.
It is even more disturbing to read the reports that these gangs are actively recruiting more and more members, many of them school-aged youngsters.
I want to commend the police in these cities who are dealing with the gangs as best they can with the resources available. I also want to say that I appreciate their frustration with a system that is not screening out criminals and bogus refugees; a system that makes it difficult to deport immigrant gang members that are convicted of crimes in Canada.
I call on the government today to take a closer look at what we can do to strengthen our immigration laws and to prevent these violent and dangerous criminals from entering and staying in our country, and quickly deporting those convicted of serious criminal offences.


INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, the Mulroney government is again reneging on its commitment to international development; its promise to the poorest of the poor.
Without any consultation, the government forced CIDA to cut millions of dollars of support from Canada's development NGOs. NGOs, including CUSO, Canada World Youth, Canadian Crossroads International, and others, are losing funds to a shadowy ODA reserve fund, yet another government slush fund.

April 8, 1991
Two important points have to be made. First, by cutting funds to Canada World Youth and Crossroads, the government is cutting programs which foster international understanding through cross-cultural exchange.
Second, these funding cuts undermine all development NGOs' ability to operate in a business-like manner. Our NGOs are very prudent in their planning and management. Now, by breaking its funding contract with the NGOs, the government puts at risk the very future of these highly regarded development NGOs.


CANADIAN ARMED FORCES
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, the last few weeks have seen the return of many of our military personnel from the Persian Gulf-members of the first Canadian hospital from CFB Petawawa have return; RCRs from London; three ships with full crews, and many other military personnel.
Those of us who had the privilege to welcome many of our dedicated and professional service personnel home were very impressed by their comments. As a couple of young women said: "When you are facing a crisis, there are only a few things in your life that really matter. It helps you to put important things first and the rest becomes rather immaterial". Many said: "It takes an experience like this to emphasize that we do, in fact, live in the greatest country in the world and we should develop a greater appreciation for that fact".
It is up to the rest of us as civilians to keep this country united and strong. Only in this way can we honour them and pay them the rich tribute they deserve for being excellent Canadian ambassadors and service personnel.
So let us get with it Canada, and do our part by building a great Canadian nation so that Canada can continue to play an important role both here at home and in international affairs.


REFUGEES
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, today some three million Kurdish civilians, mostly women and children, are scattered in the valleys and mountains of Kurdistan without food, shelter or adequate clothing. Under harsh winter conditions where snow covers many mountains, they are fleeing Iraqi troops, desperate to reach Tbrkish and Iranian borders. The roads are jammed, children are dying and Iraqi forces have fired into this stream of helpless humanity.
These victims believe that they were betrayed by the American President and the world. For the Kurds the new world order looks very much like the old. In 1988 the world turned a blind eye when Kurds were gassed in Halabja in March 1988. Indeed, as historian Arshak Safrastian said: "In the world there is probably no ethnic group that has been more persistently abused and misrepresented than the Kurdish race".
In view of this desperate situation, I call upon our government to vastly increase the level of humanitarian aid and to ensure that Kurds are treated with the same generosity as refugees in coming to Canada, as Canada has historically treated other refugees. Plainly, Canada must support the 25 million Kurdish people in their struggle for democracy, for justice, for peace and selfdetermination.
We stand in solidarity with the Kurdish people, with their brothers and sisters here in Canada, who have been denied justice for far too long.


CRIMINAL CODE
Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, on March 21 the Supreme Court of Canada decided that the foetus is not a human being within the confines of the Criminal Code. In the absence of any other law in the Code, the court had no choice but to come to that decision.
However, that same court had invited Parliament in January 1988 to decide "the precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state's interest in its protection becomes compelling".
April 8, 1991

Parliament did just that in Bill C-43. Although Bill C-43 offered very little protection for the unborn, its underlying principle was that the state was protecting the foetus from conception to birth.
Given the Senate's rejection of Bill C-43 and the most recent decision of the court, I call upon all who want to protect life to accept their responsibility and work together to produce a realistic, incrementally sound strategy towards the goal of full legal protection to all human life from conception.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like permission to say thank you, to the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the NDP and members of Parliament from all sides who wrote me notes or telephoned wishing me well. It is proof once more, that despite differences, we are all members of the same club, in a way, to fight for a great country. So I would like to say thank you everyone.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, for more than a year, the Canadian economy has been in a recession. All economists now agree that this recession will extend until at least the fall. Statistics Canada said on the weekend that in Montreal, 223,000 unemployed people are now looking for work. At 14.1 per cent, there is more unemployment in Montreal than in cities with traditionally high jobless rates like St. John's, Newfoundland; Saint John, New Brunswick; Halifax and Moncton.
I therefore ask the Acting Prime Minister; Has the time not come to stop talking about inflation, about the high Canadian dollar, and get busy creating jobs for Canadians who want to work now, especially in Montreal?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, most Canadians want interest rates to go down
Oral Questions
even more. For this, we must reduce the inflation rate. Inflation has come down very well, resulting in interest rates that are 4 per cent lower than last spring.
I think that the reduction in the inflation rate can continue. I think that is the best way to improve the economy and that is the most important objective in our Budget for reducing interest rates. Every part of our Budget is meant to help bring down interest rates. We have been successful at it since spring and I think it is possible to be even more successful in the future.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not think this answer will put any Canadians to work or put a pay cheque in the pocket of any of the unemployed in Canada. There are 220,000 people in Montreal who would like to work; 200,000 people in Toronto who would like to work; 80,000 people in Vancouver, your home town, who are unemployed today. The big cities of Canada are becoming economic graveyards.
The people of Canada would like to know when this government will stop talking about inflation. It has been talking like that for the last six years. We have 1.4 million Canadians who want to work today to gain back their dignity. When will the Minister of Finance do something about that?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition says that reducing interest rates is not going to-he is shaking his head. He says that the reduction in interest rates is not going to create jobs.
I have been involved in consultations with people right across this country. The one thing that each one of the groups said to me was: "Get interest rates down." That is what we have been doing over the course of the last eight months. A 4 percentage point drop in interest rates is one of the largest drops in any industrialized country in the world during that period. The result is going to be a renewal of the economy in this country.
We have seen, during the course of the past few months, where there has been, because of the drop in interest rates, a substantial increase in activity in-


Some hon. members:: Where?

April 8, 1991
Oral Questions


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The people opposite wonder where. If they would read the newspapers they would see that there is a substantial increase in the amount of activity in the housing market. That is going to lead directly to housing starts. The increase in housing starts is going to lead to increased business for the forest products industry and for all the industries that supply the new housing markets. That is how we are going to create jobs in this country.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we will solve these problems when we have a different government and a different Minister of Finance.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I have another question for the government about its economic policy, this time about its foreign economic policy. I would like to ask the Minister for International Trade this question.
The President of Mexico, in a discussion we had with him this morning, made it absolutely clear that energy will not be on the table at the trade negotiations with the United States and with Canada.
If Mexico can say that energy is not on the table, why can Canada not do the same thing, and make sure that Canada will be like Mexico, which controls its self-sufficiency and the security of supply in energy?


Hon. John C. Crosbie (Minister for International Trade):: Mr. Speaker, quite obviously, Canada and Mexico have different interests with respect to energy. It was in the national interest of Canada to try to get a more secure market for our surplus of natural gas in the United States. Mexico is not in the same position. Their Constitution states the government must own the oil resource. So we recognize that this is the case.
I am glad to see the hon. the Leader of the Opposition back. He looks in good shape. He is sitting in a very dangerous position, but he is looking in good shape.


Mr. Simmons:: He will not be there long.


John Carnell Crosbie: That is true.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Much of this conversation could take place after Question Period. Perhaps the minister could answer the question.


John Carnell Crosbie: I hope that the voice of Clyde Wells is not being heard in the House, Mr. Speaker.
The President of Mexico said today in an address at lunch time that doubts that spring from reason with respect to future economic activities are certainly understandable, but that doubts that arise from fear are not. I would suggest to the hon. Leader of the Opposition that he heed that advice. If he has any doubts, I hope they will spring from reason and not simply from fears that somehow are conjured up by the Liberal caucus.


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pursue the questions to the Minister of International Trade about free trade within North America. The minister is on record as saying that the United States-Canada free trade agreement could be reopened in the upcoming trilateral negotiations. And yet today, here in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said that the free trade agreement will not be reopened.
When will the government make its position clear and how does the government believe that a trilateral agreement can be concluded without reopening the bilateral agreement?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, in the event there was actually some difference between what I said and what the Prime Minister said, I would be inclined to follow whatever the Prime Minister had said.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


John Carnell Crosbie: I would still have my own opinion, but it might not be the opinion of the government. However, I do not think there is any difference between anything the Prime Minister has said and that I have said.
The United States has agreed and we have agreed; we are not negotiating to open up the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement. But if we get some improvements, if we get something better while we are negotiating the tripartite agreement then there might consequentially have to be some changes to the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement. But we are not opening up the negotiations. So I do not think I have said anything different from the Prime Minister, but if I have, I am sorry.
April 8, 1991


Roy MacLaren: The minister's apology to the House is stimulating but hardly illuminating.
The Leader of the Opposition has drawn our attention to the contradiction between Canada's position with regard to energy in the bilateral free trade agreement, and Mexico's position with regard to energy in a trilateral agreement.
Let me address a further question to the minister. There is a contradiction, surely, in the fact that the United States government has rejected a recent decision of a binational panel in Canada's favour. That casts serious doubts on the effectiveness of the trade disputes mechanism in the agreement.
Will the government take the opportunity of the upcoming Canada-Mexico-U.S. negotiations to remedy such flaws in the bilateral agreement?


John Carnell Crosbie: I do not believe the matter to which the member alludes is a flaw in an agreement. In our opinion, the United States has launched an extraordinary challenge with respect to the matter of a pork countervail in violation of the spirit and the intent of the free trade agreement. We are not responsible for the actions of the United States. We hope that the judges who were appointed in this extraordinary challenge will deal with that in a very convincing manner.
It does not matter what provisions you have in an agreement. Two sides have to administer it and it may be interpreted and administered differently in different places.
It does not matter what provision we have in the U.S.-Canada-Mexico agreement, there will doubtless be differences about interpretation and different approaches in the two areas.
I am not gainsaying the fact that we believe that in this particular case the United States has acted in a way that is contrary to the intendment and meaning of the agreement, but we realize we are in a very sensitive position right now with respect to obtaining authority from Congress for a fast-track approach to other negotiations.


Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. We have had the Canada-U.S. trade deal now for a little over two
Oral Questions
years. What we do know is that Canadians have lost over
260,000	jobs in this country.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: We do know, and Canadians increasingly know, that the Canada-U.S. trade deal has been a bad deal for Canadians-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: -and that now this government is determined to make a bad deal worse by entering into the tri-level negotiations with Mexico.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. We believe that there should be fair trade. We believe that there should be expanded international trade. When will this government come in with a policy for fair international trade that will serve the interests of Canadian workers, and also international workers?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party says that there should be expanded trade, but she is against every effort to expand trade. She is against the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement which will expand trade. She is against the U.S.-Canada-Mexico negotiations which might, or may, or can possibly expand trade. She is very equivocal about the Uruguay Round, and she cites the loss of 250,000 jobs, which is against all the evidence.
I will just refer to one study. Peat Marwick shows Canadian firms investing $30 at home for every dollar spent on foreign mergers and acquisitions last year as compared to the situation before the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement. In other words we have given confidence to our own people to invest in Canada. I can quote the boss of Proctor and Gamble who says: "We have become substantially more efficient in the last two years and clearly we now have more jobs in our Canadian plants than we would have had without the agreement". That is Proctor and Gamble.
I could go on indefinitely, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Minister for International Trade. The Minister for International Trade can go on and cite how good the trade deal has been for multinational corporations, but maybe he should talk to Canadians who have lost their jobs in plants that will not open again.

Oral Questions
I want to say to the Minister for International Trade that there are many elements to the trade deal that I think will make the global economy more fair and serve better the people of all countries. Last December I asked the Minister for International Trade if he would consider in a trade deal looking at working conditions for workers, health and safety standards and environment, and the minister said it was a silly idea.
I say to the minister again, if he is truly interested in international agreements that serve the workers and all citizens, will he insist that in every international trade agreement working conditions for workers, health and safety standards, and environmental conditions are part of those trade deals?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, in reply to the hon. lady might I say that exports, for example, in agricultural products to the United States from Canada went up 20 per cent in 1990 as compared to 1989.
Farmers are not the corporate spooks that the hon. lady refers to. In 1989 agricultural product exports to the U.S. went up 13 per cent compared to 1988.
I hold in my hand here, from Mexico, a document which the hon. lady can have: "Mexico Towards a Better Environment", which is printed on recycled paper containing up to 40 per cent straw cellulose which shows what the Mexicans are doing with respect to trying to combat environmental and pollution problems.
The environment is the concern of us all. The more prosperous Mexico becomes, the greater its ability to combat pollution, the more assets it will have in order to increase salaries and improve the working conditions for people in Mexico.
Why is the hon. lady against giving Mexicans a chance to improve?


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, this party stands for making working conditions for all workers, domestically and internationally, safe and environmentally sound.
The Minister for International Trade talks about making the lives of people better.

Mr. Speaker, the government says that a North American trade agreement would help Mexico's poor. This
statement is hard to believe, because the gap between rich and poor in the United States and Canada is wider than it was before Canada-U.S. free trade.
My question for the minister is this: Where is the evidence that the situation would be different for the poor, for the working people of Mexico and Canada with an agreement between the three countries?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the proof is that in the world since 1945 and the adoption of liberalized trade policies by most countries of the world, including the United States, trade has expanded exponentially.
As a result of that, we have all become tremendously more prosperous, including Canada. Thirty per cent of our GNP comes from trade. Mexico is also becoming a trading country. It has reduced and changed its whole mercantilist regime.
Until four years ago, Mexico followed the same kind of blind, hopeless polices that the hon. lady advocates. It has changed them. It is now full of dynamism and hope. It is joining the world community. It knows it can only gain wealth and strength by being competitive with the world.
Mexico is turning its back on the old socialist, mercantilist policies. That is what we have done, and we are not going back in the direction that the hon. lady wants us to go back to.


REFUGEES
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Can the minister tell us if Canada would support international action to maintain a sanctions program until this brutal terrorism against the Kurds comes to an end?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, not very long ago in this House, the hon. member and others were asking the government to take action to ensure that help could be extended to children and to others who were disadvantaged in Iraq.


Mr. Peterson:: Don't be cheap.


Charles Joseph Clark: Somehow the member for Willowdale regards that kind of action as cheap. I do not quite understand that kind of logic.


Roger Simmons: You wouldn't.


Charles Joseph Clark: No, I do not understand that kind of logic.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Charles Joseph Clark: What we are very much in support of is action that tries to help people in Iraq who are victims of that regime.
That is why this government took actions beginning in the summer that resulted in a withdrawal from Kuwait by Iraq and its aggressive action. That is why we are supporting the United Nations now. That is why we announced on Friday of last week an additional $3.3 million Canadian to international humanitarian organizations to kelp the Kurds. That, as the member knows, is in addition to some $77 million for humanitarian purposes that we made available in the summer and on which we had not only made promises, but actually delivered the help to the people who needed it.
That $3.3 million will be expanded as the need increases. Our strong tendency is to continue to work through international organizations, whether Red Cross, Red Crescent or the organizations of the United Nations.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, my memory recalls the amount of money we pledged to help the tragic suffering of the Kurds is about
Oral Questions
the same amount the government spent on advertising the GST program. I do not think there is any comparison between the two.
If we are truly interested in stopping that suffering the minister knows is continuing, should it not be the responsibility of the international community to go beyond just condemnation and to take specific action?
Second, I want to ask the minister if we have made representations to our Turkish allies under NATO to make sure that Ibrkish refugees are given full asylum in that country and that we will promise and take leadership in ensuring that a major aid program is provided in order to give comfort and security to the Turkish government and the Iranian government, which must provide that refugee program.
Is this not, in scope, similar to what we faced in Indo-China back in the late 1970s and early 1980s? This is a tragic problem, and I would like to know seriously what you are doing about it.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I certainly would be interested in knowing what specifically the hon. member, I presume on behalf of his party, is suggesting is independent action that Canada should be taking with regard to that situation. I would be interested in the precedents that he would invoke and I would be interested in his view as to the implications that would have for the sovereignty of nations in which there is an uprising.
With regard to activities of the United Nations, I would remind the hon. member that he and his party, or at least many members of his party, were not prepared to support the United Nations at an earlier phase. They are certainly now prepared to support the United Nations very actively in all aspects of this matter.


Some hon. members:: That is a lie.
With respect to Turkey, I had the opportunity yesterday morning, to speak-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: There are a lot of people who would like to know what the answer is with respect to Canadian policy. I would ask all hon. members to give the minister a chance to reply.

April 8, 1991
Oral Questions


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity yesterday morning to speak to the Foreign Minister of Thrkey. He was on his way to the border areas. I will be speaking to him tomorrow. We are very conscious of the problems that the Thrks feel they face with regard to becoming a place of domicile, even on a temporary basis.
We have made it clear that we think the most effective help the international community, including Canada, could give would be to people who were either within Iraq or within temporary camps on the border, on the Tbrkish or on the Iraqi side. This is obviously a terrible tragedy and one that requires the whole of the world to respond as effectively as we can. We think the most effective response is going to be by way of international organizations.
As others have mentioned at earlier times in the House, one of the difficulties we are dealing with there is quite simply a difficulty of terrain. That makes more direct deliveries of food aid, for example, much more problematic than it might be in other parts of the world.
We are considering all options that would allow Canada to continue to play a constructive role. As I said, we were among the first nations to respond with humanitarian assistance in August. We have increased that now. We are prepared to continue to increase that as conditions warrant. We would prefer to do that within the framework of existing international organizations.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, the government has choked the CBC's budget in real terms and now, adding insult to injury, the government is rewarding one of its free trade friends with the pitiful patronage appointment of John Crispo to the CBC board of directors. It is just plain chutzpah.
Does the Deputy Prime Minister share the views of the appointee, John Crispo, that the CBC is, and I quote: "a lousy left-wing Liberal-NDP pinko network"? If that is the case, I understand what he has done. If not, will he withdraw Mr. Crispo's appointment immediately?


Hon. Gerry Weiner (Secretary of State of Canada and Minister of State (Multiculturalism and Citizenship)):: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Crispo supports the CBC as an institution.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Different people have different ideas about how the CBC should be run, but we all begin as supporters of the CBC. I think that is what is critical.
Here we have an individual, Mr. Crispo, an eminent economist. The CBC represents all Canadians and, therefore, it should reflect the great diversity of opinion that exists in this country.


Sheila Finestone: Mr. Speaker, this is the most gross appointment and you are certainly not supporting it. You are aborting the CBC.


Mr. Speaker:: I know the hon. member would want to put her question through the Chair. Please put the question.


Sheila Finestone: The CBC board gave a unanimous vote of confidence in the integrity of its news and its current affairs services, while the new appointee, John Crispo, calls it biased, left-wing and, to the journalists, a disgrace to professional journalism.
Is the Crispo appointment now the Prime Minister's way of censoring the CBC news or is this just another way that the government uses its cheap tricks, showing lofty contempt for the CBC?


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, I was not sure if I heard a question. As far as I am concerned, the CBC has a significant budget to administer, with global receipts of some $1.4 billion. There are other instruments by which funding has also been made available.
As far as I am concerned, I start my day by listening to the CBC, and I am a veiy strong supporter of that institution. I am not sure whether the member would want to get that involved in administering what should be a public corporation at arm's length and independent from the government.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Last week the Prime Minister appointed Uni-
April 8, 1991

versity of Toronto Professor John Crispo as his hired gun to carry out this government's vendetta against the CBC.
As we know, Mr. Crispo is notorious for his unabashed hatred of the CBC and views Canada's public broadcaster as a nest of anti-government, left-wing "pinkos" and a dangerous, if not evil force on our society. Those are his words.
Why is the Prime Minister intent on heightening his attack by engineering even more strife on Canada's public broadcasting system and why is he using Mr. Crispo and his take-no-prisoner rhetoric to carry out his scorched earth policy against the CBC?


Mr. Loiselle:: You missed a couple of cliches.


Mr. Epp:: That is okay, he will get a supplementary.


Gérard (Gerry) Weiner: Mr. Speaker, there are 15 members of the CBC board. I do not have an indication of the political affiliation of the members of the CBC. In fact, the only person I may know personally is the wife of one of the senators who, I am sure, is deeply committed to the continuance and to the operation of the CBC.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Mr. Crispo was one of this government's most ardent and vocal supporters of the free trade during the 1988 elections.
In light of U.S. trade negotiator Carla Hills' comments that under the Mexican Round, Canadian cultural industries will be on the free trade table, I would like to ask the Prime Minister through his deputy why it is his intention to use Mr. Crispo to dismantle the Canadian public broadcasting system under a trilateral free trade pact with the U.S. and Mexico. Or, does he just figure he has not done enough damage to the system already?


John Carnell Crosbie: Every time Carla Hills speaks the NDP shakes, but we do not. The United States might want to discuss the issue of cultural industries. We are not against discussing anything with anybody. But we do not propose any changes in the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement,
Oral Questions
which protected our cultural industry, and we are going to continue protecting our cultural industries.
The Mexicans are not threatening our cultural industries. So the hon. gentleman should not quake every time Mrs. Hills speaks.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: My question is also for the Minister for International Trade.
I would like to say to him that when John Crosbie speaks Canadians laugh, and it is not a laughing matter.
Since the introduction of the free trade agreement, we have lost 220,000 manufacturing jobs across this country. Since the arrival of the GST, we have lost 71,000 jobs in the service sector.
Given that the minister admitted earlier in this Question Period that the Americans are violating the spirit of the current free trade agreement, why is he pursuing willy-nilly a new trade agreement with another country with no conditions attached?


John Carnell Crosbie: We do not have an agreement yet with any other country. We have one free trade agreement so far, and that is with the United States.
We have got certain very firm benefits from that. We know that the United States is worried about its economic position in the world and there are very protectionist influences there. We know at the present moment the President is trying to get authority from Congress for an up-or-down power with respect to negotiating trade agreements, the fast track authority, and that therefore has some influence on what American officials say.
We have to live with the United States. It is right next door to us. We have been living with it now for some 125 years. The hon. lady does not have anything to fear. We are here protecting her and all those who think like her against the perils of living next to this giant neighbour. Because we have got this agreement, we now have a solid foundation with which to defend our interests in the United States whenever they are threatened.


Sheila Maureen Copps: I do not need your protection. The people who need your protection-

April 8, 1991
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask the hon. member to remember that she should put her questions through the Chair.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The people who need protection are the 1.4 million Canadians who are losing jobs a result of the devastating economic policies of this government. GST, a failure; free trade, a failure.
I ask the Minister of Finance what specific programs can he offer to Canadians today to put our people back to work. Never mind the Mexicans and the Americans; why don't you put Canadians back to work?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear!


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I am sure that my hon. friend was here this morning listening to the speech and she should reflect on the fact that Mexico went through the wringer in 1982 because of the high debt, high deficit problems that they have, and they had difficulty getting out of the economic problems that developed at that time.
It is instructive to note that a country that has gone through those difficulties is following the policies that this government is also following: getting the fiscal problem under control, getting the debt problem under control, combating inflation, deregulation, encouraging greater flows of foreign capital, changing the regulations of how foreign capital is treated in this country and the sale of public enterprises.
I think the point here is quite clear. Policies that they are following and policies that we are following are designed to improve the quality of the economy and designed to improve the capacity of individuals who are out of work today who want work.
My friend opposite wants to go back in the dark ages of economic policy and look back at ways that led Mexico into problems, that led this country into problems and-


Mr. Speaker:: Order.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also for the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Speaker, as our leader already said, Montreal is the city with the highest unemployment rate in Canada. Montreal is also the city with the highest rate of poverty in Canada. The situation in Montreal is a national tragedy and the government has decided to forget Montreal. My question is the following: Why has the government not approached the governments of Montreal and of Quebec to initiate a special program to reverse this horrible situation in Montreal? Why not?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I think that it is absolutely wrong when the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace says that there is no agreement between the Government of Quebec and the Government of Montreal. I met the Mayor of Montreal on Friday morning. We already have two areas of Montreal where millions of dollars are being spent, in the east and the southwest. Of course, there is a problem of industrial infrastructure in Montreal. We are trying to change that. A month and a half ago, you had the announcement of $300 million for the Space Agency in the Montreal ara. Other announcements are imminent. Once again, I ask the hon. member to be honest. The situation in Montreal today is difficult, but it is not comparable to what it was in 1982.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the situation in employment is worse now than it was in 1981-82 and that answer will not relieve the thousands of unemployed in Montreal at the present time.
One out of four Montrealers now lives below the poverty line. There are 192,000 more poor in Montreal than in all four Atlantic provinces. The government has a special development program for Atlantic Canada and for other regions in Canada. Why not such a special program for Montreal?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I just said to the member that we have two special programs in the most hurt parts of Montreal, which are southwest Montreal and east Montreal. We will continue to work. We work with the province of Quebec. I heard that this province should
April 8, 1991

Oral Questions
make a few announcements in May in its budget and we will make other announcements.
But we have to work with the reality. It is what we do. Nobody wants the layoffs and the job losses that we have in Montreal. We are working on it, but we have to work in such a way that those jobs will be permanent, will help Montrealers and the great city that Montreal has always been.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade.
Sometime after May 1, American wheat will begin entering Canada without restriction as a result of the free trade agreement. Regrettably, once this occurs the decision can never be reversed. This cause has been triggered partly because American subsidized grain sales have directly affected traditional Canadian markets in violation of the free trade agreement.
Will the government today advise the U.S. that American wheat will not come into Canada freely and that an action will be commenced against the U.S. for a violation of the free trade agreement under article 701.4?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, when the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement was negotiated, Canada received an advantage because it was agreed that Canadian wheat and other grains would be eligible to be exported to the United States without impediment.
At the same time, American wheat and other grains would not be exported to Canada freely until such time as any subsidies received by American grain farmers with respect to American grains were at the same level as the assistance given by governments to Canadian farmers.
Now, after several years of the agreement, the situation changed with respect to oats, as I recall it, a year or two ago. American oats had been permitted to be exported to Canada under this arrangement. If American assistance for wheat is no greater than Canadian assistance in the coming year, American wheat would be
eligible to be exported freely to Canada. Is there anything more fair than that? We have had the advantage, if anything, for the last two or three years in selling our wheat and other grains in the United States. If the American subsidy level decreases and becomes the same as the Canadian subsidy level, surely they are entitled to be able to sell their product up here in Canada. Could anything be fairer than that?


Rodney Edward Laporte: That clause has been invoked because the United States has violated the free trade agreement. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the National Farmers' Union and Prairie Pools and others have all been calling on this government to act.
.It is clear that U.S. subsidized grain sales have hurt our traditional markets and have violated the free trade agreement. When is this government going to finally stand by Canadian agriculture and give farmers the support it promised them when it announced the free trade agreement in the first place?


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I have just explained how the free trade agreement worked to the advantage of Canadian farmers. The present estimates of support by government in both countries are still preliminary. This year, American levels of support may or may not be higher than Canadian levels of support. That is a different issue than the abhorrent American Export Enhancement Program which they devised to assist them in competing with the European community, which has an even more abhorrent system of subsidizing exports. While they are battling the European community, they are not paying sufficient attention to who their friends are. We certainly do not agree with that procedure, but with respect to the main question of the hon. member, we were treated very well under the free trade agreement. We have had the advantage and we will have to see what happens in the future.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the members' attention the presence in the gallery of a parliamentary delegation from Hungary, led by Dr. Ibolya David, member of Parliament of the Hungarian Democratic Forum.

April 8, 1991
Privilege


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINT OF ORDER
Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. During Question Period, my friend from Burin-St. George's made a comment which I think he would like the opportunity to withdraw.


Mr. Speaker:: I have not heard complaints about the remark. The hon. member may be able to repeat it.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, if I had said something which offended the right hon. member I would be the first to withdraw it. I would like to see Hansard to see exactly what I said. At the time, the right hon. member was saying that we did not support the United Nations and that is not true. We do support the United Nations. We do not support kowtowing to Bush.


Mr. Speaker:: I will look at Hansard and examine the record, if there is one.


Mr. Jack Shields (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister for International Trade):: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I heard distinctly what the member from Burin-St. George's said. He called the external affairs minister a liar twice. He should have the courage to stand up in his place and withdraw.
If the hon. member said that, he should withdraw. If the hon. member wants to see whether it appears in Hansard, I am prepared to wait.
There is no question that if it was said, it should be withdrawn.


Roger Simmons: Clearly, I do not know what all the fuss is about. I called a lie a lie. If it is not parliamentary, I withdraw it.


Mr. Speaker:: There are a lot of different ways to say things in here, but the raison d'etre for a rule against unparliamentary language is a very simple one.
It is based on the fact that when it is used, it creates disorder. As a consequence we do not have free speech.
That is why the rule is there, and hon. members have to support it.
It is not just for the Speaker to go through a list in Beauchesne and remind hon. members of what, from time to time, has been ruled unparliamentary.
In supporting it, if somebody has become excessive, a withdrawal has to be a complete and unequivocal withdrawal, or we are not supporting the convention. I would ask the hon. member to assure the House that his withdrawal is unequivocal.


Roger Simmons: I thank you, Sir. The withdrawal is unequivocal.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. member.


PRIVILEGE
Mr. Louis Plamondon (Richelieu):: Mr. Speaker, I sent you a letter raising a problem, because my rights and privileges as a member were violated in an exceptional and unacceptable way last Sunday, that is yesterday.
In my absence, with no authorization or consent from me, my confidential files and everything I had in my office were taken. My office was plundered. It was opened without permission, without my giving the keys, without my staff being warned, without notifying me. All my documents and personal effects and those of my staff were taken away to another building, without my consent.
My rights as a member are in your hands. As Speaker of the House, will you let such a thing be done to me? I never received a notice from you to change my office. What I asked for in writing-I wrote to you a month ago-I never received a reply, except an acknowledgement of receipt. I therefore want to go over the facts, because I think it is not only a violation of my rights as a member of Parliament but also contrary to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for people to raid a member's office without a warrant and without him being there.

April 8, 1991

I spoke to the person in charge of moving to tell him that I could not be there on the 3rd, that you were out of the country and that I did not agree with that waste of money. I therefore said that I would not take part and that I would contest the legality of expelling me from my office and spending $10,000 for nothing. And I said: When the Speaker gives me an order by letter, then I will know whether the Speaker of the House is there to represent not the. three party whips but all members equally. Who can claim office space for me based on my seniority of a member first elected in 1984? No one, because the Bloc and independent members are not recognized.
The Speaker of the House must make this request. He must defend me. He did not do so as far as I can see. I want to know. I talked to Mr. Riedel, who is in charge of all physical arrangements on the Hill, on Friday and said to him, "On Monday, I will ask the Speaker of the House whether he will defend my rights as a member in the same way as others. We will wait till Monday." He said, "Veiy well." And he is supposed to be in charge of all physical arrangements. He agreed to wait until Monday to be able to talk with you. Now without warning, on Sunday morning, they moved, paying the movers, telephone installers and fax installers overtime. Everything was moved under special surveillance, it seems, with extra staff. Those are unacceptable expenditures! It was moved to another place on Wellington Street and I was even offered to have everything redone if I kept quiet- to have the carpets changed, to have painting done, extra walls put up and so on. I do not accept that.
I ask who authorized this move because I received no letter from you. If the authorization came from the Chair, well, you acted in a partisan way to the detriment of my rights and privileges as a member, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: First of all I listened very patiently to the hon. member whose office was moved from one to another. I am prepared to discuss the matter with the hon. member, or any other hon. members, but I have to advise the hon. member that it is not a question of privilege. He may or may not have a complaint. It is a matter of administration and there is quite a lot more to the story than we have heard and I am prepared to discuss that at another time, and that is the end of it.


Louis Plamondon: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Speaker:: I am sorry, but it is not a question of privilege. The matter is closed in this House.


Louis Plamondon: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member on a point of order.


Louis Plamondon: In that case, Mr. Speaker, forcing my door without my permission and taking my confidential files-how is that not a question of privilege and how are my rights-


Mr. Speaker:: Once again, I am sorry, but it is not a point of order.

A point of order is something that rises out of the rules of this place. This is an administrative matter and will have to be settled one way or the other to the member's satisfaction or otherwise, but not in this Chamber.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to 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 response to 39 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, I have the privilege and the honour to present a petition signed by 173 Canadians. Most of the names were collected on the VIA run between Truro and Halifax a week and a half ago. The petitioners call upon Parliament to support the NDP plan to restore VIA Rail services, cut on January 15, 1990, maintain and where appropriate upgrade remote services on which many Canadians rely. They do not think train service is a laughing matter. They ask as well for a legislative mandate for VIA Rail, and to make available the resources it needs to become a modem passenger rail system in a class with those throughout the rest of the western world. This petition is also signed by a number of residents of Cape Breton who attended the Sydney East Richmond annual general meeting of the NDP.

April 8, 1991
Routine Proceedings


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, it is my duty to present four petitions signed by citizens of my riding of Ottawa-Vanier who condemn the decision by Canada Post Corporation to close the franchise at 580 Rideau Street.
The petitioners maintain that this will inconvenience all customers in the area, especially all the retired people who live nearby and will be deprived of an essential service that they need.
For these reasons, the undersigned ask Parliament to call on Canada Post to review the decision to close station 23.


Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition signed by many residents of the city of Edmonton, many of whom are descendants of original Ukrainian settlers. They wish to bring to the attention of the House-and I quote from the petition-"That during the First World War and after Ukrainian Canadians were unjustly interned in concentration camps, deprived of property and valuables, deprived of liberty of movement, and deprived of the right to vote." Therefore, these petitioners pray that the Parliament of Canada will pass a resolution acknowledging these injustices. That is all they ask, surely it is not too much.


Mr. Douglas Young (Acadie-Bathurst):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour today to present a petition from people who still oppose the Goods and Services Tax. These residents of Pont-Lafrance, Sheila and Pont-Landry in the Tracadie region still bear the unacceptable burdens imposed by the Goods and Services Thx.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 have the honour to present further petitions in addition to the thousands already tabled.
The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to ask Canada Post to honour Marie Sklodowska Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth, November 27,1992, which I might add is also the 125th anniversary of Canada's birthday.


Lyle Dean MacWilliam: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today and present quite a number of petitions from many parts of British Columbia. They come from communities such as Burnaby, Hundred Mile House, Surrey, Vancouver, Langley, Coquitlam, Pit Meadows, Vernon, Kelowna, Prince George and a number of other locations.
These petitions, which total about 1,040 names, ask the Minister of Communications and this government to oppose UNlTEL's bid to compete with Canada's telephone companies in long distance telephone services.
They urge the Minister of Communications to consult with all affected parties, specifically those citizens living outside Canada's main urban centres, who will be impacted very severely by this form of deregulation.
Lastly, they urge the minister to hold local hearings in our communities before deciding the fate of Canada's telecommunications system.


Mr. Ross Reid (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, it is my honour and privilege today to present to the House a petition signed by thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, which asks Parliament to do what it can to ensure that the many hundreds of Bulgarians who have come to Newfoundland and Labrador are not sent back to the uncertain state of that country and sure persecution. It asks that they be allowed the opportunity to build a life in Canada, not only for themselves and their families, but also for other Canadians.
April 8, 1991

I want to add that this is a petition that I personally support very strongly.


Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland -St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions asking that Marie Sklodowska Curie be honoured for her scientific contributions to humanity.
This is a request made by many of my constituents and constituents of the Niagara Peninsula. I would ask that this House consider these two petitions in the name of my constituents.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Madam Speaker, I move that all questions stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Tuesday, March 26, consideration of the motion of Mr. Andre (p. 19027).
Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing on a point of order.


Chris Axworthy: Madam Speaker, I have a different point of order from those raised before and I will be as brief as I can.
This relates to the possibility of dividing Motion No. 30 into categories so that we can make an effective decision on each, because Motion No.30 is complex and contains several distinct proposals. I think it is not possible for members to give a yes or no answer to the question of whether this motion should be adopted. It is over 30
Government Orders
pages long and contains 64 clauses touching on virtually every aspect of the operations of the House.
I suggest dividing the proposals into perhaps five groupings: One, proposals to change the dates and hours of House sittings and to limit the debate on supply, the budget, the Throne Speech and so on; two, proposals to alter the operations of committees; three, proposals to amend the passage of government bills and government business including reduction in time of some speeches, to refer those bills to standing committees, to facilitate the use of closure and time allocation, to remove the right to divide on first reading, et cetera; four, proposals to override the denial of unanimous consent; five, proposals to change the conduct of Private Members' Business.
I would like to refer to Beauchesne, fifth edition, page 150, paragraph 415 where it states:
(1) A motion which contains two or more distinct propositions may be divided so that the sense of the House may be taken on each separately. The Speaker has a discretionary power to decide whether he should divide a motion.
It should be noted as a precedent that in 1964 the Speaker make a landmark decision on that particular provision in Beauchesne when he decided to divide what was a short nine-line motion. At that time the House was seized with a motion which sought to change the Canadian flag and sought to enable the Union Jack to continue to be flown.
The Speaker at that time recognized that many members wished to say yes to parts of that motion and no to other parts of it. He relied on British practice and quoted one British Speaker from 1912,1 believe, who said: "The rule of course is if any member feels embarrassed on voting on a resolution that the Chair shall revise the resolution in order that the member may if he wishes to vote yea on one part and no on the other not be embarrassed by having to vote yea or no on the whole of it".
In that particular case the Speaker of our House ordered the flag motion divided.
Since then the House has been offered many complex or complicated questions, including constitutional amendments for example, and often an accommodation is made among the parties to permit the proposal of a

Government Orders
series of amendments which would give members an opportunity to state their positions clearly.
The House has also considered amendments to Standing Orders which touch on one or more aspects of our House business. Today's motion though is unique in that it does not come from a committee study, where an opportunity exists to put forward concerns, and nor has their been an arrangement made among the parties to reach some accommodation with regard to voting.
It will not be possible for Motion No. 30 to be amended sufficiently to permit members to divide up the question for themselves and vote yes to those sections they support and no to others. The government, it is reported, will not entertain a long debate on this motion. It has been suggested that closure will be moved later this week.
If that is the case, it is unlikely that there will be an opportunity for more than one amendment to be presented. The two major parties will have the opportunity to have their views on the record; the government's view contained in the motion and the Official Opposition's view contained in its amendment. There will not be an opportunity for an official view to come from the New Democratic Party, from the Bloc Quebecois, from the Reform Party, from any of the independents or indeed any opportunity for government backbenchers to voice their concerns.
Unlike the experience of the House on constitutional issues, there is apparently no willingness in this House to accommodate those members by permitting a series of amendments to be put to the floor. My colleagues on all sides may agree with much that is contained in Motion No. 30. I agree with many of the 64 proposals, but I disagree vehemently with others, as do other members in the House.
How can we vote yes to something that contains so much with which we disagree and vote no to something that contains so many sensible proposals?
Madam Speaker, I would ask you to use your discretion, as is clearly possible in this circumstance, and consider the precedent of 1964. I ask you to divide Motion No. 30 into the five distinct motions I mentioned earlier and to permit each to be debated, amended and voted on separately.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Madam Speaker, I will not be long in my intervention, but I do want to indicate a few difficulties that I have with the
proposal from the hon. member for the New Democratic Party.
To begin with, the relationship between hours of sitting and other rule changes respecting the manner in which legislation is dealt with and so on is not separate, they are related. One cannot, on the one hand, change the rules respecting the days, hours we sit and so on while, at the same time, carrying along those rules respecting length of speeches, length of debate that were appropriate for a different calendar. They are related. The separations that the hon. member suggests would be inappropriate because you cannot have one without the other.
I do acknowledge that there are some separations. The committee -part of it- does stand on its own from the other things. Certainly, if that were suggested as separate votes, I do not have any particular problem with that.
I do have to take this opportunity to make a couple of points. The hon. member said this is unique in terms of rule changes. He is inaccurate. In 1969, there were major rule changes brought forward. This is not a unique occurrence in that regard. They did not come from some other source, they came from the government.
The other problem I have is this. These rule changes are a result of negotiation discussions that go back over a year. I will go into some more detail on it during the debate. What we have is this phenomenon. I proposed, on behalf of the government, a major set of changes which I gave to the other major parties and said: "Consider them". They came back and said: "We do not like this, we do not like that, we do not like this". Some of what they did not like we said: "Okay, we will take that away even though having them would have been nice from the perspective of the government House leader". In other words, we negotiated. We negotiated and arrived at a final package that had a lot of give-up on our side and acceptances. We did not accept all their suggestions. I am not implying that. Nor did they say at all times that they agreed fully with the total package, but we did have a negotiation.
Now what the hon. member is really saying by his suggestion is we now want the opportunity to put into our pocket, as collected and received, all of those things we gave up in the negotiation, but we want the right to challenge and vote against, in as many different ways as possible, those things we did not. It is a kind of have your cake and eat it philosophy. It is the way they have been operating in committees, I am told, where in fact they sit down in a standing committee study, demand that the
April 8, 1991

report reflect their point of view, the committee accommodates their point of view and, at the end of the day, they say: "Fine, now that we have got that we are going out with a minority report''.


Ross Harvey: Which one?


Harvie Andre: Which committee, the hon. member for Edmonton East says. I can give him a score of examples.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, order. The hon. minister is getting into debate at this point. The House has heard the points presented by the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing. I think the hon. minister has given us a good idea of where he stands and he will certainly have time to express more of those ideas in debate.
Is there one more point the hon. minister would want to make, but I would not want him to get into debate at this point?


Harvie Andre: I accept the Chair's admonition. My point in raising that in the first place is to accept that as a principle is to interfere significantly with our modus vivendi in terms of working with the House leaders in terms of negotiations. If the Chair is to accept their principle that everything must be broken up and they must have an opportunity to challenge each of the items separately, then one can see, I think, that there would be very little incentive for the government to negotiate and discuss these things. Rather it would be in our interest, since in fact we are going to end up with a debate and vote on each and every item, to develop our own proposal totally independently and bring it forward, present it to the House and say: "Okay, let us debate and decide ".
I think that would be a significant diminution, if you will, in the way we ought to operate. It is for that reason I would ask the Chair that the request of the New Democratic Party for the opportunity to separate all of the groupings they talked about not be considered.
It would challenge the fundamental way we operate. More than that, we cannot separate the calendar from those aspects of the rule changes which are designed to
Government Orders
make it possible for us to accomplish what we need to accomplish within the context of the proposed calendar.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, very briefly to the same point of order of my hon. friend from Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing.
Listening to my hon. friend, the government House leader, I want to make it clear that in no way was there any suggestion that the 64 different sections of the motion before us be broken up for obvious reasons in terms of the difference and the unrelated nature of each of these parts.
They are obviously inter-related. The point my hon. colleague was making was that there were five categories. Perhaps Madam Speaker, on behalf of the members you would identify two or three.
We are simply saying that to change the way not only this House operates but the way the members of Parliament do their work within the parliamentary precincts and within the general nature of their responsibilities is to acknowledge the fact that work done in committee, while it may in some way be related unquestionably to work being done in the House, is really a separate kind of behaviour.
We are talking about rule changes: what time of the day we should meet, how long a period we should have for presenting petitions and what time the House will adjourn for the day.
This set of changes, I think we all agree, is related in a very similar way. It has nothing to do with sizes of committees and members of committees and the way committees ought to operate.
Madam Speaker, we are simply asking you on behalf of all members of the House to provide an opportunity, not to debate on a whole number of different items and vote. I agree with my hon. colleague that discussions have taken place and so on.
On the other hand, he also agrees that perhaps there were two or three different major items on which the House could render a decision.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I just want to briefly add to the arguments of my two colleagues.

April 8, 1991
Government Orders
When my colleague from Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing spoke, he made reference to the fifth edition. I have what appears to be the first edition in my hands, dated 1884. It says: "A motion which contains two or more distinct propositions may be divided so that the sense of the House may be taken on each separately".
It is clear that for well over 100 years, the right has been given to the Speaker to make that determination on behalf of members so that we can make an appropriate judgment on the various components of the motion before us.
I would think it would be in the best interests of all members of Parliament, and not just opposition members or independent members but government members as well to have the opportunity to say "yea" or "nay" on the particular groupings that have been suggested.


Chris Axworthy: Madam Speaker, very briefly I just wanted to reply to two things that the government House leader said.
He said that I had mentioned that this was a unique motion. I did not say that. I merely said it was a very complex one, and I think he agrees with that.
I want to point out that he did suggest that at least the proposals relating to the operations of committees could be treated differently.
I think you have some indication of recognition of the point I was making at least with regard to one of those sets of proposals. I would urge you to consider the possibility of dividing them into five categories so that we can really address them properly rather than in a confused state all mixed together.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Madam Speaker, I did not intend to speak but, as someone who has been a Whip now for two years and a bit, when somebody stands in the House and says that committees are not related to the hours of the House et cetera, I can simply say out of my experience they are intertwined.
One affects the other. Attendance, the hours of the House and all these things are intertwined in the same way that a large statute like the Bank Act which runs several hundred pages from time to time of revisions are intertwined.
We can go down a very slippery slope if we start breaking things up to the point where we pass something which on its own may make sense but has an impact on the other side. Certainly, these rule changes have been examined from the perspective of all three parties. They have been shared with large numbers of members of the House. They track back to the original parliamentary reforms package in 1984-85, and they are interconnected in a way that I did not want to leave unacknowledged in the House. Interconnection between these changes does, in fact, exist.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The Chair had undertaken to hear other points of order that could be presented during the consideration of these changes to the Standing Orders that govern us. I therefore listened very attentively to what first the hon. member for Saskatoon- Clark's Crossing and the hon. Leader of the Government in the House, the hon. member for Kamloops, the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan and the hon. member for Calgary South said to us.

The hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan will allow me, I think, to wonder about the author and date of the book he cited. I do not think that Beauchesne was really part of our lives in those years, but nevertheless it was something quite interesting and certainly gave the chair the opportunity and the possibility of dividing things which are put to the House.
At this point I can tell the House that the Chair will look into it and will re-read all the arguments put to the House at this time. The Chair will come back with a ruling in the shortest possible time.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Centre.
Point of order, the hon. member for Kamloops.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, just to seek clarification, when we were last here a case was made about whether proceeding with this debate would be appropriate.
Could you give some indication of when the Chair would be indicating its response to the arguments put forward at that time?
April 8, 1991


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I can assure the hon. member that a response will be forthcoming as quickly as possible. We do not feel at this time that it should prevent us from proceeding with debate.
The hon. member for Calgary Centre.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Motion 30 which introduces significant, and in my view long overdue, changes to the rules under which this House operates.

Parliament's task is to debate issues and to make decisions and the Standing Orders of the House guide this process. They govern the proceedings of the House and establish a framework in which the government carries out its legislative program and the opposition questions the government in an orderly way and hon. members debate issues and make decisions by a majority vote.
The modification to the Standing Orders before Parliament is the result of a year of discussions and great co-operation among the House leaders. It is the most important series of changes proposed in the modem history of the Canadian Parliament.
The proposals seek the following objectives: to improve Parliament as a forum for good relevant debate through the modernization of obsolete and vague rules, a greater contribution from members to the parliamentary process, but also recognition of their obligations towards their constituents.

I want to talk about the public environment. Parliament and politicians are held in disrepute, and there is a heightened and dangerous sense of cynicism in the public of Canada concerning this institution, about which we should all be concerned. People are demanding more contact with members of Parliament and more involvement. The days when they were satisfied to have their representative act in their best interests in Parliament are long gone. They want now interaction on a more regular, routine basis.
We hear it exemplified by demands for referenda and recall elections. Free vote is a part of it. We hear incessantly that people want to have more impact, more
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interaction and more influence on their members of Parliament. Some of that is healthy, some is not. The demand that we represent our parish, our constituency to the exclusion of every other interest is at this time quite dangerous because you hold a country like this together by accommodating the points of view in other parts of the country.
If we parliamentarians cannot see the other point of view, if a person like me from Alberta cannot appreciate the concerns of someone from Cape Breton, Newfoundland or Quebec and cannot participate or vote in concert with those colleagues, but is required by the exigencies of political pressure to say: "I vote in the affirmative only for those things which benefit Calgary and in the negative for everything else", then we are not serving the country very well. One cannot keep a country together like that, one cannot keep a family together like that. Yet we are hearing those demands.
I am not saying parliamentary rules are the source of all this public concern, but parliamentary rules cannot be excluded from it. Parliamentary actions and the reputation we have as parliamentarians are certainly a part of it. Therefore, we should approach the question of how we function, how the rules govern us, not just from the perspective of what it does for our partisan advantage in our adversarial system, but also what it does for the institution and for the country over the long haul.
The public is saying it wants more information and less rhetoric. It feels insulted in a lot of ways by what it sees here. I think we in Parliament have all experienced school kids visiting, sitting up in the gallery, watching us function and going away shaking their heads saying that if they acted like that in the classroom their teachers would discipline them severely.
I am not suggesting there is something wrong with this current group or that it is a reflection of who is on which side of the House, because it has been occurring frequently. Part of the problem is the way in which the public is informed. The vehicles used to inform the public do not work very well.
The March 25 CBC news item on the rule changes is perhaps a good example. It was clip-by-clip effort to give the viewers the message that the government is out to stifle Parliament. Nothing could be further from the truth. There were inaccuracies in that three-minute story, just plain factual inaccuracies. It is no wonder that no one understands Parliament when they are 50 feet off this hill.

April 8, 1991
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We know many Canadians rely on television for their news. If they had to rely on that particular news story, they would have a very distorted view of what in fact is happening. Apart from the errors and lack of facts, there was a cynical and partisan tone. It simply reported and accepted the partisan response of opposition. No wonder the people are cynical.
Even on a non-partisan issue like this, only the base politics came through. We saw only the accusation that this was Fascist, stifling and Draconian. These kinds of shrill, loud adjectives when used bring us all into disrepute. It is something that you are going to see various members of the New Democratic Party objecting to; my condemnation of the use of those words. I want to ask them to reflect sincerely. If they believe that public debate helps and that their reputations as parliamentarians help when they go on television or in public for various reasons, do they really think using words like Fascist and Draconian brings respect on themselves or this institution? Is it is helping to bind this wounded country together, to generate jobs for people, or helping anybody in any way? I want to ask them to reflect on that sincerely before they so glibly defend that kind of thing.
We live in an adversarial system. The government proposes and Parliament disposes. There is the give and take, but taken to extremes and under the glare of television I wonder what we would do. It was Bismarck in the last century who said: "There are two things people should not watch being made, one is sausages and the other is laws." Well, like it or not, modem communication has the people watching laws being made. If we do not want to make them all sick to death of our democratic institutions we should bear that in mind as we perform in this Chamber and look at these things.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Harvey, you are turning us into a sausage factory.


Harvie Andre: There is my friend from Kamloops who participated in these discussions more intensely over the last couple of months, but was aware of them going back a year. He never once in private said to me that these are Draconian, Fascistic and would stomp on Parliament. Never once in our discussions did he use any such
language. Sure, he did not like every clause, I acknowledge that, but he has to acknowledge that we made some changes to reflect-


Nelson Andrew Riis: Name one that we suggested. Name one that the NDP suggested.


Harvie Andre: We will name several, as a matter of fact, that were changed in reflection of the changes suggested. He knows that the day before his public utterances there was a three hour meeting in the office of my colleague, the parliamentary secretary. He knows that substantial changes were made then. He knows what he said privately at that time. He then walked out of that private meeting and said: "This is Fascistic, this is Draconian." Then, when my parliamentary secretary said: "Well, you know that in view of your statements we can no longer agree to those changes." He said: "I understand that." That is the root of the problem. You participate in good faith in negotiations and discussions and then at the opportunity for partisan advantage, for a shot on television, you have got to make sure you use the noisiest adjectives you can: "Draconian", "Fascistic", "stomping on Parliament". All the things that will get you on national television. You then sit down and say: "Is it not sad that we are brought into such disrepute as politicians."


Nelson Andrew Riis: It is not politicians, it is the Tories who are in disrepute.


Harvie Andre: Right. The editorial in today's Ottawa Citizen is I think instructive to the hon. member for Kamloops and to everybody else. I will just read a part of it:
The juvenile antics and partisan performances of our elected politicians in the House of Commons sometimes make it very difficult for Canadians to care much about what goes on there.
Amen.
And as our political leaders lose credibility they're diverting attention away from the seat of democracy by relying on commissions of appointed officials to address the woes of the nation that should be addressed right here, in Ottawa, on the Hill.
In short, our elected leaders are making Parliament irrelevant.
Thus it is difficult to understand all the opposition politicians' complaints and moans about the Commons rules changes recently introduced by Government House Leader Harvie Andre.
April 8, 1991

These reforms would do more to restore some credibility to the
House and its occupants than another roving committee of so-called
great Canadians could.
It goes on, Mr. Speaker, but I think it makes the point very well.
The Canadian political system can no longer tolerate that level of debate, that kind of language, the extreme shrill noisy level of debate, a level which I humbly suggest has sunk far too low with those last outrageous claims by the opposition parties, particularly the New Democratic Party. Canadians deserve a better opposition, not just opposing for the sake of opposing, which is what we are seeing here. They need more rational, intelligent opposition and analysis through better quality debates, more fair and technical review of legislation, through more pre-study and constructive committee work. That is what these reforms are all about, making us more relevant to the times, recognizing what Canadians have been asking for, better quality representation both in Ottawa in Parliament and in the constituencies in direct contact with the elector.
However, rather than that constructive and reasoned input Canadians are fed the standard pat, shrill claims from the outraged opposition.
Not once in the last several months during our almost daily discussions with the Liberals and the NDP have I heard about these objections. There was never a word about constitutionality, not a peep about the theory that we would only sit one day, no mention that the NDP will take these to court, not one word in all of those meetings.
It is offensive that they both actually contributed items to the package. How can they take such active part on the one hand and yet profess the extreme indignation on the other?
Our work with the opposition has a long track record and tradition. Just to go back over the history: Prior to March 1990, my predecessor, the present Minister of Transport, actually raised the issue. In March 1990, discussions on rule changes were held and I was present, as were the current leader of the New Democratic Party and the past House leader of the Liberal Party.
In July 1990, as a result of an all-party agreement, the House leaders travelled to the United Kingdom to review standing orders and discuss the British parliamen-
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tary practice. There were two representatives from the Liberal Party, there were three from the Conservative Party, and at the last minute the representative of the New Democratic Party had to cancel.
A package of proposals was assembled through my offices and on December 5 I wrote to the Clerk of the House indicating that with the approval of the three House leaders, we would ask the Clerks to provide expert assistance in writing into the language of our rules those proposed rule changes that were written out in more descriptive fashion in the proposal.
On December 20, 1990, we put forward an initial package with some degree of clarity to the opposition for its review and comment. On March 1 the House of Commons Clerk prepared a preliminary draft of the rule changes for review and discussion in a package. On March 19, after several discussions between them, the House leaders met and final discussions and negotiations were completed before caucus presentations on March 20.
On March 20 the New Democratic Party contacted the House of Commons Clerk, withdrawing approval for any further drafting assistance. On March 22 we filed the rule changes with the House of Commons at 2.15 p.m.
Every step of the way it was a fully co-operative process. There was no sneaking up with rule changes that had not been fully discussed.
That is not to imply there was approval with every single step. It is to say, as I said earlier, there were no surprises and there was no indication to me that these were Fascistic, Draconian or perhaps subject to court challenge, as is implied by the House Leader of the New Democratic Party.
What do they do in general? Key to the rule changes was the question of a calendar that would provide for more time for members of Parliament to be in their constituencies. Initially we had two proposals on the table, as a matter of fact. One proposal would have us go to a four-day week, with not sitting on Fridays. The other proposal was for a program that basically said one week a month would be free for members to do other things.
In the end it was agreed, particularly by the New Democratic Party, but of members from my party from western Canada who also felt quite strongly that the one week off a month was the preferable option because of distances involved, and the difficulty they had in getting back to their constituents and then back to Ottawa.

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That was what was proposed. I should say that leading up to that, I had asked for a little bit of research to be done. It was done by the Library of Parliament. The research was on what other jurisdictions around the world do. What do other democracies do? How long do other legislatures and parliaments and congresses and so on sit in other countries? It was an interesting piece of research.
Australia sits an average of 66 days a year. Its parliament sits 66 days a year; 89 per cent of the bills introduced by the government are passed, for an average of about 14 per day of government business.
Denmark sits an average of 106 days a year; 89 per cent of government bills are passed, for an average of seven bills per day of government business.
Canada sits, although the calendar provides for 175 days, but because of unscheduled non-sittings, an average of 155 days a year over the last 10 years. Only 56 per cent of government bills are passed, for an average of one bill per government day of business.
France sits 149 days. Western Germany sits 17 days. Japan sits 43 days. The Netherlands sits 100 days. New Zealand sits 100 days. Norway sits 180 days.
There is the first of that list, countries that actually sit more days than Canada. Spain sits for 88 days. Sweden sits for 134 days. The United Kingdom sits for 170 days. There is a unitary state where they have two levels of government. They pass an average of two bills per government sitting day, compared to the one per sitting day in Canada, so they get twice as much legislation through than we do.
The United States sits 144 days. We sit longer than the U.S. Congress. The European Community sits 65 days. In other words, only Norway and the United Kingdom actually sit longer than Canada's parliament in terms of sitting days per year.
If somebody could demonstrate that in fact we have better laws, that we are more democratic than the rest of the democratic world, then I think a case could be made for even sitting longer. But with a country this size, this diverse, to suggest the best thing we could do is keep members of Parliament here in Ottawa as many days a year as possible is absurd. It is an absurd proposal. We
know that our provincial governments, many of which pass just as many pieces of legislation as we do, do not sit anywhere near as long as we do. Everywhere from New Brunswick at 42, to Manitoba at 98. Quebec is at 74, Ontario is at 84 days a year. Nova Scotia sits 62 days a year.
In the context of this national constitutional debate we are having, members of the legislative assemblies, national assemblies, provincial parliaments, are in then-constituencies talking to their constituents, interacting with them.
Members of Parliament, who have a national mandate, are not able to be in their constituencies with the same frequency, with the same opportunities for interacting. Is that really something we should applaud, underline, repeat, particularly when we have examples of other legislatures around the world which manage to do more business in less time? If somebody can demonstrate that they are less democratic than we are and that somehow their people are worse off than we are, then I would like to hear those arguments.
In proposing the rule change for one week off a month, basically we will be sitting the same number of hours; more, as a matter of fact, because there will be an additional hour a day added to the calendar. So, effectively, on an hourly basis we will not be sitting less.
The new calendar will give more time to members of Parliament, particularly those from the more remote regions who cannot easily get to their constituencies and back in a two-day weekend. It will give them time to be with their constituents, to interact in a manner that Canadians are increasingly demanding.
Some have suggested that fewer Question Periods are somehow going to significantly weaken our democratic system. I offered to extend Question Period time a little bit, but that was not received.
I do not want to get into this debate too far, but I think it would be instructive to have, perhaps, some independent observers, perhaps from political science departments, to reflect on the degree to which Question Period helps or hurts our democracy and democratic institutions.
April 8, 1991

We cannot deny that it is an important check on potential abuse of government power; or deny that it is an important vehicle for members to bring forward the concerns of their constituents. But we cannot deny that the manner in which we conduct Question Period brings disrepute on all of us. It is more theatre than exchange of information. We adopted it from the United Kingdom, the mother of all Parliaments.
To give an example of the difference, twice a week for 15 minutes each day, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom must be in the House. On average, in that 15 minute period, 20 questions are asked and answered.
In the first 20 minutes today-and I was looking at the clock-there were five questions, many of them lead questions from the Official Opposition.
That is not a total measurement or the be all and end all of what Question Period should be. However, the House Leader of the Official Opposition, on a point of order, raised the question of whether we could not improve the efficiency of Question Period by reducing- he referred primarily to the length of the answers, but acknowledged that, perhaps, the length of the questions might be examined as well. At that point, I did say I would welcome that discussion. I would welcome the opportunity to have some appropriate discussions. Maybe I would want witnesses the next time we get together to discuss rule changes in private. Perhaps a committee of this House could look at the rules of Question Period to see whether we could not make it more effective than it is. That is something that could be done.
I dispute absolutely the accusations made that somehow we are less than democratic because we might have 20 less Question Periods a year. The suggestion by some that 20 less Question Periods a year makes us less democratic is just absurd. You wonder if they could be watching Question Period. I can understand, from some journalist's point of view, that Question Period is pretty useful. A journalist can get up, go to the office, clean off his or her desk, come over and watch the show for a while, get the stoiy, go back and write it up and be be back in the press club having a beer and the day's work is done.
If the journalist doesn't have Question Period, he or she is going to have to dig for a stoiy. So I can understand some objections. But I do not understand anybody who says in all sincerity that we are well served
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by the way our Question Period operates, and that somehow we are more democratic.
If a person is ultra-partisan, yes maybe; but if he or she is really looking at the respect the institution should have if it is going to guide this country into the next century, I don't think anybody in all sincerity would say that we couldn't look at some changes. I hesitate to add that these rule changes do not affect Question Period in any of the ways that I have been talking about; that is something that we will need to consider later.
There are rules to improve debates; allowing more speakers by reducing time limit on 20-minute speeches after five hours versus eight hours. Now we have half-hour speeches, or 20 and 10 for the first eight hours. The new rules will be for the first five hours and then we will switch to 10-minute speeches. It is going to force a longer speaking list and more concise arguments; it will be a better quality and more lively debate.
The fact that this place empties out after Question Period and nobody pays much attention to the debate ought to be a cause of concern to all of us. Anything we can do to sharpen up the debate should be welcomed.
It is interesting to look at other legislatures and what they do to sharpen up debate. There are some interesting lessons that we could learn.
This change allows the Whips of each party to split the time allotted so that they can accommodate the members within their own caucus in a better way than is possible now. It promotes the objectives of the McGrath commission report, such as the question and comment period we added last time, as well as the committee changes, the five envelopes to develop expertise in the membership in each envelope, and to allow members to focus on their own area of expertise.
There is a clear distinction between legislative and standing committees. The intent of the McGrath commission report was that legislative committees would be different from standing committees. They would exist temporarily to handle legislation. However, they have become a kind of duplicate of the standing committee and have gone off on national tours and what have you with legislation. That was not the intent. In a sense, it is a contempt of Parliament when they do that, because when legislation passes at second reading in this House it has received approval in principle-the principle is approved. The role of the committee is not to debate again whether the legislation is appropriate in principle, by touring the country and hearing from groups about the principle, but rather to look at all the details.

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Earlier the opposition was concerned that we were going to exclude the ability of groups to appear before these committees in the language used, that we would talk about technical witnesses. It was not intended to exclude in that sense and it will not be used in that sense. I think the amendments to the language are appropriate. The intent is to signal clearly what the McGrath commission had recommended, and to which everybody agreed, that a legislative committee should act a like legislative committee and that people appearing before the committee as witnesses should be there to critique the provisions of a specific bill, not the principle of the bill. Therefore, they should be knowledgeable in that sense. We think that is an improvement.
The envelope system will permit more government consultation on policy development. It will improve consultation prior to drafting, hopefully making for better laws.
We are providing the rules to experiment with television in committees, giving the same access as print, following the recommendation of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.
We are allowing, formally, minority reports to be tabled in the House. We are also allowing the member to speak to it on the floor of the House, which is a change.
Private Members' Business will adopt the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections, another example of the government acting on the McGrath commission report. There will be only three hours of debate before a vote, instead of five, with an extra hour added on Wednesday to facilitate the substitution of Private Members' Business which we know will be helpful.
I have not gone into all the details. The parliamentary secretary, the member for Peace River will in the course of his debate be more specific on the details.
Let me say that the work of my parliamentary secretary, the member for Peace River, has been extraordinary in this whole exercise. Indeed, he has followed a long tradition in this regard.
He was a member of the McGrath commission and as a result is very familiar with the rules. He feels very intensely-as intensely as I or any other member of the House-about the importance of these rules and this institution operating in a business-like fashion. He has done an extraordinary job, and I want to say in this public way how much I appreciate the work he has done. In a very real sense, these changes would not be here but for the work he has done in this regard.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, we live in an extraordinary public environment today where all politicians, particularly those at the federal level, are held in disrepute.
I saw some public polling data the other day which asked people in every province of this country which government they felt closer to, the provincial government or the federal government. Every province was basically the same. About 12 per cent felt closer to the federal government and 78 or 80 per cent felt closer to their provincial governments.


Mr. Milliken:: That's because they've had a Conservative government for six years.


Harvie Andre: I heard the member for Kingston and the Islands say it is all due to the fact that one party is in office at this time. I hope that was said in jest. I hope he feels that we do have a sincere, genuine, real problem in this country with respect to how people treat and feel about this institution, and how they feel about us. I hope he shares my view that that is very much a part-not the total-of the constitutional problems, the lack of unity that is evidencing itself throughout this country.
I hope he feels, as I do, that it is important that we not trivialize these debates over rules and this debate in the House of Commons by excessive partisanship and extreme language about motives.
I hope he feels that we do not need any more the extremes of our adversarial system. What we need is more evidence to show to the Canadian public that we can work together, that in the end, we have an interest first and foremost in this Parliament as opposed to our particularly partisan advantage.
April 8, 1991

These rule changes were negotiated in good faith. I outlined the history of what happened. There was every indication that there was a high level of consensus and agreement. That is why we proceeded with them and that is why we are proceeding them now.
In a sense, these reforms are stage two of parliamentary reform. The McGrath report was stage one. This is not the be all and end all. I think we need a stage three to reduce the particularly bad and damaging aspects of our adversarial system.
We need to do this with some urgency. We need to recognize that we have a responsibility to this institution and I hope, pray and to a degree expect that after some genuflection towards our partisan instincts, goodwill and common sense will prevail. We will deal with these rules in some reasonable fashion, have them in place and the country will judge and I think see that they work a little better than the rules they are replacing. Hopefully, that will give us the energy to carry on with phase three.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Pursuant to Standing Order 38, it is my duty to inform the House of the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment: the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier-Official Languages; the hon. member for Edmonton East-The environment; and the hon. member for Saint-Leonard-The economy of Montreal.
We continue the debate with the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, much has been said by the government House leader, but I wanted to refer to a number of passages which I think will clarify some points for members on both sides.
I rose in my place as the opposition House leader and indicated the following to the government leader as well as my colleagues. I wish to quote from those remarks. This is from Hansard February 25, 1991:
This is the first time that I have been called upon as opposition
House leader to co-operate with the government in arranging the
business of the House. I want to make it perfectly clear that I hope I
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shall be in a position to provide this kind of co-operation on most occasions.
It should be noted, however, that co-operation is very much a two-way street. It is my intention to approach discussions about House business as my predecessors have done in a reasonable and understanding manner, and I expect that the leader of the government in the House will do the same.
While the underlying assumption in parliamentary democracy is that the majority shall in the end prevail, it is essential as a facet of the process that the minority has the right to express its views in full. This House represents all of the people of this country, including the 57 per cent who did not vote for the government in the last federal election.
I quote those words because we, as the Official Opposition, have attempted at every opportunity to be reasonable, to be pragmatic, to try to facilitate what we believe to be the important business of the House. What are some concrete examples of that? We agreed with the government on the setting of the budget debate. It needed a consent order from this House, which it received from my party and, if I may indicate, co-operation was also forthcoming from the New Democratic Party.
There was speedy passage of the borrowing bill. I believe, if my memory serves me correctly, and I am sure hon. members opposite will jump to their feet and correct me if I am not, it was I who indicated in our discussions that perhaps an extension of the hours might be appropriate in order to give members of my party as well as others an opportunity to debate in full the contents of that particular piece of legislation.
We co-operated in expediting the passage of the agricultural bill, which our critics debated very vigorously in committee, as well as on the floor of the House of Commons. However, due to the pith and substance of that bill they thought it very appropriate that it have passage in order to provide farmers who are in desperate need with some form of financial assistance in the foreseeable future.
In the expediting and completion of the Parliament of Canada Act, my predecessor, the member for Ottawa- Vanier, did a superb job on behalf of our party. We again demonstrated to members opposite our willingness to co-operate and give quick passage of that particular piece of legislation once we received the amendments from the upper House.

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The Financial Administration Act was another piece of legislation where members of the Official Opposition co-operated with the government. The passage of the Bretton Woods agreement amendments was another piece of legislation we adhered to.
With the legislation that has come forward from the government, we as the Official Opposition have been reasonable, have been respectful of the majority opposite. We have stated our case and in many instances we have lost the battle in terms of the democratic debate and subsequently, of course, the vote.
I think the record has to show that, notwithstanding the co-operation, we did demonstrate clearly and unequivocally on the floor of the House of Commons that when it came to the proposed rule changes, since assuming my position on or about February 1, 1991, and thereafter in subsequent meetings both privately and public, I have indicated quite clearly to the government members that in no way could we agree with the contents of the proposed rule changes. That is not to suggest that there were not discussions which followed thereafter. In fact, there were discussions that followed thereafter. There was a working committee to look at some of those proposed new changes.
My colleague from Kingston and the Islands has done a superb job, not only with regard to the rule changes, but other matters as it affects the business of this House.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


David Charles Dingwall: I had some discussions with the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader. I am a bit surprised and in some respects quite offended at the government House leader suggesting and implying that somehow we consented to these rule changes and then at the ninth hour backed off. That is not the case at all.
We said early on, clearly and unequivocally, that we were opposed. Yes, there would be some discussions that would take place with this working committee, but let it be said once and for all that there was no agreement either by myself nor by my predecessor with regard to these proposed rule changes.
I think the record ought to show that very, very clearly, so that no member in this House can have the interpretation which I believe the government House leader tried to imply in his remarks.
I note that he is not here and perhaps it is not appropriate for me to say that in his absence. Nevertheless, I say that in all sincerity.
The presentation by the government House leader endeavours to present the government's amendments to the Standing Orders as being necessary to make Parliament, as he says, "more efficient". The minister might well have borne in mind the words of Professor Franks, the founding chair of the Canadian Study of Parliament Group when he wrote, and I quote:
Reform of Parliament is not simply a technical matter of making Parliament more effective and more efficient, although it is often presented in those terms. Reform is also a question of the purposes for which political power is to be used in Canada and how various interests and viewpoints succeed and fail to influence political choices and outcomes. The balance between Parliament and government affects the balance between an emphasis on the particular and on the general welfare. There are many collective public goods that can only be provided by government and will only be adequately ensured if a strong voice defending a general public interest is heard in politics. Fundamental and often competing goals of equality, freedom, justice, private and public goods and economic growth and stability must be balanced in the political process.
The government's proposals are heavily weighted towards what it considers to be parliamentary efficiency and effectiveness. The government, unfortunately, has lost sight of the whole picture. There is more to Parliament than the legislative efficiency of its workings.
First, Parliament provides, through the electoral process, the political legitimacy of any government. Second, it provides government with the resources necessary for governing: the authority, the funds, the dollars and the cents if you will. Third, Parliament exists to make the government behave, to be the public's watchdog. Fourth, it is an important function of Parliament to provide an alternative government, that is, to enable the opposition to present its case to the public and to the country. Fifth, Parliament provides a forum for the development of political leadership. Finally, Parliament provides a focus for political communications when its discussions express the mind of the people, informing both society and government of grievances and problems.
April 8, 1991

There are many more expectations of Parliament than the processing of government legislation. It was the late Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker who put it so well when he said: "Parliament is not a sausage factory".
The government is presenting its package of so-called reforms less than five years after the House embarked on what the Hon. James McGrath called the most ambitious attempt to pursue major and comprehensive reform in the more than 100 year history of the Canadian House of Commons.
Perhaps Professor Franks' more realistic view on the subject commends itself to the House today when he said:
The record of reforms of the past decades is not one of unblemished success-Many reforms have not accomplished their stated objectives, while others have had unanticipated and undesirable consequences. Reforms that are not solidly grounded in reality are not likely to succeed. Quite the reverse, they are likely to create unlikely and unreal expectations which cannot be met. The resulting failures lead to disillusionment, pessimism, and a loss of legitimacy for the public and for the participants. Constant reform can become as much a habit as immobility and can be as inappropriate a response to problems.
It is with this in mind that I question the appropriateness of the government presenting this package of major changes to our procedure at this time. There has been no general blockage of the legislative mills in recent years. There has been no major blockages of these legislative bills or statutes that have come before us. Even the most offensive and most unpopular bills have been quite readily forced through the House using the existing rules we now have. Nor do I hear any crying out by the populace that their members of Parliament do not spend enough time with them. To the contrary, most of us find that our electors expect us to spend most of our time here in Ottawa attending to the affairs of the nation.
Quite frankly, I suspect that the government's real motivation in presenting this package at this time is merely a matter of what the members of the Cabinet perceive to be convenience. Ministers of the Crown are irked by having to attend the House and by having to answer for their inadequacies. Madam Speaker, I do not have to inform you of the numerous inadequacies on the front bench of that side. By having to report daily to the public who employs them, Parliament is an irritation to
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these ministers of the Crown. In presenting this package of rule changes, ministers of the Crown are seeking relief.
We, on this side of the House, will not allow Parliament to become a subcommittee of Cabinet. We will not allow that.
The government forgets that the only source of its legitimacy is the House of Commons. It will find that its efforts to denigrate the institution further will only diminish what little public support it has left. It will soon be reminded of the wisdom of that old folks saying: "If it ain't broke don't fix it".
Let us turn now to the specific proposals. First, there is the proposed new parliamentary timetable. There are two facets to the government's proposals, a revised parliamentary calendar and a revised daily sitting times.
Essentially the government is proposing that the House adopt an annual calendar that would see it sit for eight fewer weeks of the year. Eight fewer weeks of the year. The normal Christmas, Easter and summer adjournments would be lengthened. In addition to the mid-trimester breaks in the November and February, the House would have weeks off in May and in October. This would reduce the number of sittings per year to about the number common in the post-second World War period. It is interesting to look at the history of the House calendar to assess whether the government's proposals are much of an improvement to that time.
This is a matter that has gone through many changes. The one constant has been that the House, once called into session, has sat Monday through Friday. Until about 30 years ago, standing committees often met on Saturdays, and for the first 40 years after Confederation, a session typically began in January or February, and continued into the spring, usually until late May or June.
Usually the House would adjourn as a result of a government motion for a week or two to enable members to go home for Easter. On occasions, sessions would begin in November or December, in which case the government motion would provide a few weeks adjournment at Christmas.

April 8, 1991
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On a number of occasions the usual spring prorogation was forgone in order to permit certain committee work to proceed, and the House adjourned pursuant to government motion over the summer.
Earlier in this century, the pressure of business led to late autumn openings of the session becoming more common, with a Christmas adjournment on government motion becoming the norm.
During World War II, and in the post-war years, sessions became longer and adjournments at Christmas, Easter and for the summer, on the basis of a government motion became a source of frustration because of their unpredictability. As early as 1947 there were proposals to establish a regular parliamentary calendar, but these were not acted upon. By the 1960s it was not unusual for the House to sit into August.
The adoption of the present supply system in 1968 with trimesters built into the calendar gave rise again to proposals for a set calendar for sittings. But the guessing game about Christmas, Easter and summer adjournments continued, and on occasion, such as Christmas in 1971, the normal adjournment was missed altogether. It took the long, acrimonious, pointless debates on the question of a summer adjournment in 1980 and 1981 to cause the House finally to act. It has been the conventional wisdom that it was the government that wanted to keep the House sitting to pass legislation and that the opposition wanted it to adjourn.
It is even said that for many years, Mackenzie King resisted improving the air conditioning in the Chamber because he thought the hot and humid Ottawa weather in June and July acted as a legislative catalyst.
This conventional wisdom, however, is based entirely on the wrong-headed, simplistic and anti-democratic view of Parliament as a legislative sausage factory. Any government as slap-happy over closure as this government naturally would be happy to keep the House open even less.
There is that much less time for the opposition to call the government to account. There would be fewer Question Periods to probe the government's inadequacies. There would be fewer opposition days to criticize the government and to put forward ideas. There would be less time for debate and discussion designed to inform the public. I would remind you that the public wish to be informed of all the facts, coming both from the government as well as opposition.
When the House sits less often, it is not the legislative function, it is the watch-dog function that is diminished. The bureaucracy gets its legislation and the public gets the wool pulled further down over its eyes. Ministers of the Crown then have the opportunity to vacate Ottawa and do what they do best, or what they think is best, and that is to be political.
The government makes the argument that members can better serve their constituents by spending more time with them.
If members are to understand fully what their constituents think about the issues of the day or what issues are of particular interest in their own regions, they obviously must spend a great deal of time in direct contact with their electors.
The present parliamentary calendar combined with the excellent facilities made available to members already guarantees that any conscientious member can keep himself or herself fully informed about the issues in their constituency.
Members have always had free postal privileges and for more than 20 years, free telephone privileges. In addition, members have up to 62 round trips by air each year that permits them frequent travel between Ottawa and their constituencies.
An effective member of Parliament does not need an additional eight weeks a year in the constituency to improve upon his or her services. What is needed is the opportunity to pursue constituents' problems or grievances both through private communications with the government and its agencies and through parliamentary processes, including questions, debates, private members' proposals and others.
A further eight-week reduction in the time that Parliament sits can only serve to diminish a member's ability to serve his or her constituency. The government is proposing to give members more time to hear about problems, while on the other hand less opportunity to do anything about these problems.
I heard the government House leader refer to the fact that members wanted to spend additional time with their constituents. I think what members of the general public would want, as was so ably demonstrated during the discussion with regard to the goods and services tax, is not necessarily for members of Parliament to spend more time with their constituents, but to listen to their constituents and thereafter act on their behalf. That is what they want their members of Parliament to do.
April 8, 1991

The ability of the House of Commons as a whole to call the government to account is also being reduced. The reduction of the normal annual sitting time by eight weeks means that there are 40 fewer days during which the government is obliged to deal with the Question Period. There will be 40 fewer days in which ordinary citizens' petitions may be presented to Parliament.
There will be 40 fewer days in which emergency debates to deal with urgent national development may be proposed, and there will be 40 fewer days in which it is likely that committees will be able to find quorums in order to pursue their business.
There will be 40 more days each year in which the government will be able to function in semi-secrecy. There will be 40 more days for the government to pursue its own hidden agenda, whatever it may be, and 40 more days for the government to escape the public eye and the scrutiny, if you will, of the national media.
The government asserts that its proposed eight fewer weeks a year is designed to make members of Parliament more effective. In fact, this proposal can have no effect other than to make members of Parliament less effective. It represents a 20 per cent dilution of the focus of parliamentary work, and it represents an attempt in my view and in the view of my party of an unpopular government trying to hide its misbehaviour from the people of Canada.
It is not content with reducing the time that the House sits. The government also proposes to make it more difficult for members to be effective when the House is permitted to sit. It proposes to add hours of sitting. That will reduce the time that members have to make adequate preparation for debate, diminish the amount of time available for committee meetings and erode the amount of time available for members to perform the very constituency related duties that the government claims it is so concerned with.
Until very recently, changes in the sitting hours of the House was very slight and came very slowly. After Confederation, the House sat at 3 p.m. on Monday through Friday and since most members lived well over a
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day's journey from Ottawa, Saturdays were often used for committee meetings.
This was not as leisurely an approach as it appeared because the House did not have automatic time of adjournment and frequently sat into the small hours of the morning. Nonetheless, it left mornings free for constituency work or in the case of ministers, departmental work and members could find the time for a fulsome and unhurried Victorian lunch before settling in for the day's debates. That was years ago. Some members at that time complained that the rigours of late night sittings left them in no condition for the next day's work, but the hours of sitting were unchanged for well over 40 years.
In 1906 the hour of meeting was advanced to 2 p.m. and Wednesday night sittings were eliminated. For 85 years the institutionalized Wednesday evening off has been invaluable to members for meeting their constituents, for dealing with many other non-parliamentary obligations and in the case of those who have brought their young families to Ottawa, for giving them at least one night in seven of something approaching a normal family existence.
For another 20 years the House did not have an automatic adjournment hour, although there was a working arrangement under which the government would usually move the adjournment around 11 p.m.
For the 40 years after World War II there was frequent experimentation with the sitting hours, and most significant and enduring of which was the replacement of Friday evening sittings with Friday morning sittings in order to enable the majority of members to travel to their constituencies for the weekends.
Finally in 1982, all of the often disruptive and counterproductive evening sittings were replaced by morning sittings.
Now the government is proposing to add an hour on a day of government business to each sitting. It is doing this by asking the House to sit earlier on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and later on Wednesdays and Fridays.

April 8, 1991
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There are some questions as to the validity of replacing days with hours that will be raised later. First, one might take note of the ill-advised proposals for Wednesday evenings and Friday afternoons.
As mentioned earlier, Wednesday evenings have been kept clear of House sitting for 85 years. This has been a recognition that members of Parliament do have extraparliamentary duties or family responsibilities that require at least one week night to be kept free. Wednesday has virtually for the entirety of this century been institutionalized as the evening embassies, interest groups, regular visiting groups have planned for years ahead to have various events scheduled for that particular evening.
Now the government proposes to create this unnecessary chaos. No doubt there are bureaucrats perhaps in the Prime Minister's Office or elsewhere or some other place who cannot envisage members of Parliament being required in Ottawa some place other than Parliament Hill probably because they themselves are restricted in their undimensional existences.
The proposal to extend the hours on Fridays is even more of a surprise since the present sitting arrangements for Friday are entirely the product of the Conservative backbenchers who a few years ago proposed sitting at 10 a.m. on Fridays and adjourning at 3 p.m. in order to facilitate members keeping constituency engagements on Friday evenings.
The government claims that it needs these additional hours to replace the legislative time it is losing by sitting eight fewer weeks in a year. One might well marvel at the ignorance of the way the House functions on the part of the bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office. Sausage makers may be judged on the number of bangers per hour but legislators think in terms of days and weeks. This proposal I suggest is a foolish government miscalculation and ought to be dropped.
One must not diminish or dismiss so lightly the application of this principle to the so-called opposition days, which are really government days allotted to the business of supply, to permit the opposition to choose the topic for debate. Part of the government's proposal is that the number of so-called opposition days be reduced from 25 to 20. The government argues that the additional sitting hours compensate for the lost days. In fact, the proposal reduces the number of issues that the opposition may raise before being compelled to vote the government the money it requires and needs.
The business of supply is the essential business for which the Crown summons Parliament and the principle of-and I quote- "grievance before supply" is absolutely central to parliamentary democracy. The opposition day system is the main vehicle for the maintenance of this principle and it is absolutely unacceptable for the government to attempt, in the guise of making Parliament more efficient, to bring about a major erosion of the exercise of this principle by reducing the number of grievances that the opposition may raise by some 20 per cent.
There is an even more insidious move by the government buried in those proposed rule changes; that is the proposal that if the government uses its majority to stop the House from sitting when the rules normally require it to sit, the number of opposition days is further reduced. In other words, if the government used its majority to force an adjournment from the end of March to the middle of June, it could do away with virtually all the supply days. That is at the very time that the Main Estimates, the government's principal spending plan for the year, is before the House.
I ask you, Madam Speaker, is that fair? Is that just?


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: They don't want democracy to work.


David Charles Dingwall: The government is proposing to give itself a vehicle for preventing the House of Commons from giving any consideration at all to its main spending plan.
This strikes at the very purpose of calling Parliament into session at all.
Earlier this year we proposed to the government a modification of the supply rules whereby the allotment of supply days would be determined, not by the calendar but by the nature of the estimates, the nature of the demand for supply that the government at any given time had before Parliament. We felt that this would give the government some much needed flexibility, while protecting the right of Parliament to examine the estimates and to "grievances before supply".
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April 8, 1991

Our proposal disappeared into the great bureaucratic maw, and what came out instead was a proposal that would diminish the absolutely fundamental parliamentary activities.
This is totally unacceptable.
Thus, we see that the government's parliamentary timetable, presented as a vehicle for efficiency and effectiveness, is in fact just another power grab, just another attempt to reduce the means for holding the government to account to Parliament and through Parliament to the people of Canada.
This desire to silence the opposition is reflected not only in the timetable proposals but also in a series of proposals regarding the length of speeches and debates.
Arguing that the reduction in annual sitting days ought to bring about a corresponding reduction in the number of days that are devoted to the already limited-by-rule debates, the government proposes to reduce the debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne from eight days to sue days.
In its drafting the government has also eliminated the opportunity for the opposition and for a third party to move a second amendment or subamendment, thereby eliminating yet two more opportunities for the confidence of the House in the government to be tested.
The address debate, more colloquially known as the throne speech debate, is a unique event in a session in that it gives members virtually unlimited scope to raise in Parliament all issues that they consider worthy of attention and action.
The session opens with the Speech from the Throne by the Governor General in which the government's priorities are outlined. Government backbenchers then propose an address in reply, thanking the Governor General for his or her speech. The opposition proposes amendments to the address in which issues that it deems require different or greater attention are raised. By the end of the debate, members have had a wide opportunity to deal in general with the state of the nation and are ready to get down to specifics.
In a House which has grown to 300 members, this was a real opportunity for backbenchers in all political parties to come to the House and to express their views during
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the throne speech debate on a variety of issues, some national, some regional and, yes, some which were of particular significance to their constituency. I recall that in 1980 as a backbencher when we were in government having that opportunity to express the concern of my constituents. It was an opportunity in which I participated and I would recommend very strongly to members of Parliament, of all political parties, that they should also participate. But by reducing the number of days you are prohibiting the number of members of Parliament who have legitimate concerns, not partisan, testy issues where barbs are thrown back and forth, but a real opportunity to lay before their colleagues and members of Parliament real issues of substance and great concern.
I suggest at a time when our country is debating the very structure of what we wish to have in the future, by removing this opportunity for members of Parliament, it will not add in any substantive way to greater understanding, or appreciation of the regions and of the different peoples who make up this great country.
Originally there was no time limit to the address debate and in the first few years after Confederation, the address was sometimes adopted after only one day. The address in the early days was a lengthy one, sometimes with many paragraphs referring to specific government proposals in the Speech from the Throne. These were voted on separately, and amendments were infrequent.
Early in this century the address changed to a single paragraph expressing thanks for the speech and amendments commenting on the inadequacies of the government became more common. The address debate also became lengthier, culminating in a 26-day marathon in 1926 that had to be ended by closure. Originally amendments to the address were not automatically considered non-confidence items and at least twice in 1899 and as late as 1951 amendments were accepted by the government.
In 1959, however, Mr. Speaker Michener ruled that amendments had to directly challenge the government's policies. After the 1926 fiasco pressure mounted for a limitation on the length of the address debate and the establishment of a framework for consideration of amendments.

April 8, 1991
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The present system was adopted in 1960. In recent years governments have drifted away from annual sessions with a result that the present government has now been in office for almost seven years but has permitted the completion of only three address debates.
Thus for years on end members have been deprived of this valuable opportunity to air the issues that concern their electors. Consequently they have been forced to seek other vehicles for putting these matters before the House and there has been a somewhat disruptive effect on the conduct of other business.
Now the government seeks to further institutionalize the reduction of this valuable time, an action that seems likely only to institutionalize the consequences for the length and tone of other debates.
So I ask the government: Where is the rationale, where is the thinking if you want members to go back to their constituencies, meet with their electors, listen to what they have to say but then be denied the right to come to Parliament and to express their views, or a particular view? Where is the logic? There is no logic, none whatsoever.
Similarly, the government proposes to abbreviate the budget debate by two days. In the 19th century there was no formal budget debate. The Minister of Finance made his annual financial statement either on a motion to go into the committee of ways or means or in a committee of ways and means or of supply.
After 1912 the statement was always made on a motion to go into committee of ways and means. There was great reluctance by the House to limit the length of the budget debate since taxation is so fundamental to the role of Parliament. In 1955 the debate was limited to eight days and this was reduced to six in 1960.
The rationale for limiting this debate on the general budgetary policy was that there would still be ample opportunity to debate the specifics in considering the various bills emanating from the budget.
I wish to underline that. The rationale for limiting this debate on the general budgetary policy was that there would still be ample opportunity to debate the specifics in considering the various bills emanating from the budget. I will come to that very briefly.
In 1968, debate on specific ways and means motions was eliminated and the committee on ways and means was abolished. Thenceforth, the six-day budget debate
has been on a motion: "That the House approves in general the budgetary policy of the government."
Tax measures cannot be introduced until this general debate is completed, and until 1985 the committee stage of tax bills had to be in a Committee of the Whole. The insistence of the government in 1985 that tax bills be referred to a standing or legislative committee further eroded the focus of the House as a whole on these fundamental fiscal issues.
Now the government is proposing a further reduction in the time the House may spend on its fiscal policies. It not only proposes to reduce the budget date by two days, it also proposes automatic closure after two days debate on any budget-related bill that increases the government's borrowing authority. This is another unacceptable abridgement of Parliament's fundamental role.
Again, I come back to my point. Spend more time with your constituents, yes, but why on the other hand do you want to deprive hard-working members of Parliament- and let us take a minute or two here. There are numerous members of Parliament in all political parties who work very hard, diligently on behalf of their constituents, who do not ask their electors what political partisanship or party they belong to. They represent them all, in most instances very well. And now you say to those members of Parliament in the Throne Speech, you are going to slap two days off; on the budget debate, slap two days off; opposition days you are going to cut to five.
To the casual observer it does not mean anything, it is just a few days off. But we represent people, live people in all regions of this country, and they have particular views and concerns that only members of Parliament who are aware of them can present in a sound, reasonable and rational way.
The government is not content with the abbreviation of the three so-called set pieces, namely the address, the business of supply, and the budget. It is demanding new, more Draconian rules to limit debate on other legislation as well. So it just does not stop there, it goes well beyond.
When the House decided in 1968 that most bills should be referred after second reading to a standing committee rather than to a Committee of the Whole, it was thought that the second reading stage might be treated by members with somewhat less urgency, that many members might prefer to wait until third reading stage when the bill was in its final form before participating in the debate. That did not prove to be the case. Second
April 8, 1991

reading debates frequently continued to be lengthy and after a couple of days of debate, it was noted, tended to be repetitious. In 1982 it was decided that after eight hours of second reading debate, that is after about two sitting days, further speeches would be reduced to 10 minutes. That is the present system.
That was an experiment that appeared to be working, but one which the present government has been generally unwilling to facilitate. Almost no second reading debate has been permitted by this government to pass the eight-hour threshold before this government has invoked some form of closure.
Now the government proposes to reduce the eight-hour period to five hours, about one sitting day. It also proposes to apply this rule not only to second reading, but to the third reading as well.
In addition, the government is removing the provision for a 40 minute speech length for the first spokesperson for the third party and it is eliminating the heretofore unlimited speech length for the first two speakers at third reading.
We do not have to say it in a loud voice. We can say through you, Mr. Speaker, to the people of Canada, that this is a very well thought out package of rule changes. It does the following.
Members of Parliament draw a salary of some $64,000, a $20,000 in tax free allowance, as well as other perks for telephones, postage, office and staff. I think it would be safe to say that we would average roughly $100,000 a year in income or thereabouts. We are now being told by the government opposite that we will be paid that sum of money not to be in Ottawa for 235 days. When we are here, the government does not want us to talk too often. It does not want us to participate in the budgetary debate of the Minister of Finance. It does not want us to participate in the Speech from the Throne.
Opposition days will be reduced by 20 per cent. Individual statutes, some of which you have expressed great concern and interest over the many years that you have served in this Chamber, members of parliament will
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be cut off on second reading and will be cut off on third reading.
If the general public does not understand what is taking place, I want to say that this is taking place 18 months before the next federal election. Do you see what is happening? This is an attempt by a government that is so low in the polls to put together a package which would enable them in some way to allow their colleagues, their members, to go to their constituencies in the hope that they might be able to soothe the anger, the frustration, the disappointment, the contempt that the general public has for them, their leader and their party.


An hon. member:: They are wasting their time.


David Charles Dingwall: As my colleague from Newfoundland, a distinguished House leader in that assembly, said just a moment ago: "They will never do it. It is not going to work". It is just not going to work. Canadians must realize that this is a contrived document. I suggest it came from the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's Office and, of course, the government House leader and his very able-and I want to underline this-parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, very able, but misguided in every way.
There is little justification for any of these proposals. The elimination of the 40 minute provision for the third party's principal spokesperson is, in my view, and I say to my colleague of the New Democratic Party, peevish and it is petty and a removal of the unlimited time for the principal speakers from the government and opposition at third reading is unnecessary and probably in the long term will prove to be counter productive.
It is at the third reading stage that the House finally has before it the bill in the form in which it is to be passed. This is the only opportunity on which either the government or the opposition has to comment fully on the bill and all of the issues and circumstances pertaining to it. The unlimited time provisions are virtually never abused. In fact, it is a short-sighted government that proposes to do away with it. I do not think it is necessary to give that up. All that will happen is that more speakers will want to speak longer. Rather than improve the quality of the debate, this proposal will unfocus it.

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Keep in mind, that it is a part of the grand strategy to tell members of Parliament, representatives of the respective political parties, that: Yes, you have a complete statute before you, a complete bill before you, with various amendments, and after it goes to committee, second reading, third reading, report stage, the whole works and it comes back and you want to have ample opportunity as say the Leader of the Opposition or party spokesperson, the government does not want to do that.
Even with all of these incursions into members' time, the government opposite is still not satisfied. It is not enough for them to reduce the number of supply days, it is not sufficient to cut off the budget debate, it will not do to sacrifice 25 per cent of the address debate, even the premature shortening of the speeches at second and third reading will not satisfy the government's appetite for beating up on members of Parliament. It needs something else. It needs a streamlined time allocation rule as well.
When time allocation rules were adopted by the House in 1969 it was written into their text a device to discourage governments from unilateral action. If the government could reach agreement with all of the parties, it could move a time allocation order without notice and see it decided without debate. If it had a majority of the parties but not all of them it could proceed without notice, but the order would be subject to a two-hour debate. In cases where it did not have the agreement of a majority of the parties, the government would have to give a day's notice before the two-hour debate.
These safety valves have not been onerous. Successive governments have not been inhibited from using the time allocation rules and members of the present government uses them almost as often as they change their own socks.
Nonetheless, the Conservatives are an impatient lot and they find it hard to live with the fact that the day on which a time allocation motion is debated cannot be counted as a day within the allotted time.
Now the government proposes to make all time allocation motions non-debatable and to make the day on which such an order is adopted count as a day within the allocation. This will save the government a whole two-hour debate. It will accelerate the passage of the bill
by one calendar day or perhaps two if time allocation is used both before and after committee. What it removes, however, is any inhibition of the government attempting to ram legislation, no matter how undesirable or unpopular, down the people's throats. It will also remove any inducement for the opposition to co-operate in any way with the government in moving its program forward. Making time allocation easier for this government is like giving an alcoholic the keys to a distillery.
The government will find, more and more, that it is compelled to use the rules rather than other forms of persuasion. On legislative items that might otherwise have been passed after a moderate amount of debate will not proceed unless the government uses the rules that it seeks to make more convenient. These rules, to which the government now too readily turns for relief, will have to be depended upon in the normal course of events. Without co-operation from the other parties, the overall progress of the legislation will be slowed by the constant invoking of the rules that were meant to be used only in exceptional cases.
Earlier, it was mentioned that at least some of the motivation for these proposals at this time was pettiness and peevishness. The government's motion contains a number of proposals for which there can be no other explanation. For example, there is a proposal that the loss of a quorum should mean only that the House adjourn for the day and that the item under consideration not disappear from the Order Paper, unless restored later. A government with a majority has a responsibility to keep the House open and it should be prepared to pay a price for not being able to live up to that responsibility.
A government with a majority should be able to keep 12 per cent of its members in the House to keep its business moving and, if it cannot, it should not be able to get off with so light a penalty as merely having the House adjourn for the rest of the day. Similarly, moving the axing hour of closure from 1 a.m. to 11 p.m. merely serves to make Parliament's most unseemly rule even less severe. A government desiring to use the guillotine of guillotines should be forced to keep the House open to a very late hour, not merely to give more time to the debate that is due to be cut off, but also to provide more disincentive to the use of this severe rule.
April 8, 1991

The proposal for which there appears to be no explanation at all is the closing of the Notice Paper at 2 p.m. on Fridays. This comes in a package that proposes to keep the House open until 4 p.m. on Friday. Surely the Notice Paper ought to be open as long as the House is sitting. This proposal must come from the bureaucrats or politicians interested in political games. Nevertheless, does it add anything to the facilitation of government business? Does it add anything to the principles of natural justice where in any court of law, where before any tribunal, quasi-judicial or otherwise, one would be given an opportunity to have notice and the government wants to slam it down at 2 p.m. as opposed to 4 p.m.?
I want to be candid with all members of this Chamber. There are some proposals in this package that are either acceptable or could be acceptable in other circumstances. For example, the government is proposing that the introduction and first reading of all bills be deemed to have taken place after notice. That is, no vote be permitted on the introduction and first reading of any bill.
It has always been a principle of our party that every member of the House should have an unfettered right to bring in a bill. The first reading stage is merely an offer to print a bill and its adoption at first reading in no way implies approval of the substance of that bill.
The circumstances in which this proposal is being made, however, make it more difficult to support it. The government is attempting in this package to cut off as many vehicles as possible for which members may voice their constituents' discontent. When legitimate channels for grievances are blocked, the grievances will find less constructive routes for their expression.
On occasion forcing a vote on the first reading of a bill has been that route. The government in proposing to make that stage non-votable is blocking a comparatively harmless safety valve for the House of Commons. It will find that the grievances will be channelled elsewhere, quite properly and probably along an even less agreeable route.
A similar proposal is the provision enabling the government to do by notice what it heretofore has had to do by special order in arranging the presentation of the budget. The government's proposal is rather loosely worded and may lend itself to manipulation. I would not
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want to leave the impression that the government opposite would want to manipulate the workings of the House of Commons. I would not want to suggest that, but I am sure other commentators would, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you can refer to them at length. In itself it does not appear to impair the functioning of the House.
The government is also proposing some refinements of the process of recording divisions. It has only been a few years since the House began to defer divisions and it is natural that we should now be considering some revisions to this process.
Similarly, the specific ending of the possibility of repetitive ringing of bells when the House is involved with successive divisions merely reflects what has become the common practice of the House today. The whole process of recording votes in the House has been unsatisfactory to most members for some time. The McGrath committee recommendations were not fully acted upon and there have been other recommendations over the years that also bear further examination.
Finally, the government is proposing a process that would formalize pairing. In previous years pairing was quite common and members often took the time of the House to record them. My party, as of this moment, has not decided to accept the principle of pairing, but if other parties in the House so choose it is willing to let them record their pairs as they so desire.
The government package does contain a number of quite positive measures. First, there are refinements to the process of the adjournment debates, the so-called late shows. These refinements will allow more members to participate, will allow more current topics to be discussed, and will provide some resources for members to whom the government refuses answers to written questions on the Order Paper.
Similarly, the government has taken a positive step in proposing that motions dealing with Senate amendments to the bills be put on the Notice Paper. This will greatly facilitate the House in dealing with matters that are frequently quite complex and very technical.
Finally, the government is to be congratulated for continuing the process of modernization of the handling of the Private Members' Business. This began with the McGrath report and now the government seeks to make permanent the refinements recommended by the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.

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On that note, I wish to thank publicly on the floor of this House of Commons the superb work done by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands with regard to that.
Another proposal the government makes that is rather intriguing is its proposed new Standing Order 56.1. The government seeks to circumvent the awkward and downright debilitating doctrine of unanimous consent.
For many years the House of Commons has used this doctrine to circumvent its rules, usually those involving notice. If nobody present objects, then it is considered fair to ignore the normal rules and proceed on the grounds of expediency.
There are some proceduralists who have always questioned the doctrine of unanimous consent on the grounds that, since the request for leave to circumvent the rules is usually in itself done without notice, the rights of members absent to be protected by the rules are subverted by the doctrine itself.
The government proposal goes a long way to correct this error. The government may have been motivated by a desire to avoid being obstructed by one or two members when the leadership of all groups in the House have agreed, but what it has come up with is, in fact, a considerable improvement, in my view.
Under the circumstances in which the government is proposing this rule, it is not improbable that unanimous consent on the spur of the moment will be less easily obtained, but this proposed rule offers a compromise, a method whereby a form of notice is in fact provided, and a fail-safe whereby a reasonably small number of members, at a time when attendance is usually high, may prevent the circumvention of the rules.
The remaining area of procedure that the government deals with in its proposal concerns the working of committees. This is a subject that has been actively discussed by members at least for the last 20 years in the House and is likely to continue the evolution of the committee system for many years to come.
In the post-Confederation period, there were only a handful of standing committees, each of which consisted of several dozen members and none of which did much more than consider the merits of proposed private bills, a
procedure that occupied a great deal of parliamentary time before general laws concerning incorporation, transportation, communications, et cetera, were enacted. From time to time standing or special committees conducted special investigations of issues, but only at the initiation of the House itself.
Any bill that was referred to a standing or special committee still had to follow the regular legislative process, including a committee of the whole stage.
Gradually, the memberships of the standing committees were reduced to more workable sizes and, commencing in the mid-1950s, estimates were referred to standing committees for detailed study, although the estimates still had to be examined by the committee of supply as well.
In 1968, the foundations of the modem committee system were established with the procedural reforms that sent all estimates to standing committees and abolished the committee of supply and also sent most bills to standing committees rather than to the committee of the whole. The number of subject matter investigations increased as well.
Over the years the standing committees have continued to evolve. Their powers have been more clearly defined and enhanced and they have gained real roles in both the legislative and policy development processes. Many members, especially backbenchers on both sides of the House find that their most gratifying work comes in the less formal and less partisan form of committees. These bodies, however, are creatures of the House and inevitably reflect the political conflicts that preoccupy the House as a whole.
Until recently the government and opposition alike had no problem staffing committees. In the last 18 months, however, the political situation in the country has made, in my view, the government's backbenchers less willing to spend time on committees, thus making the task of the government whip in maintaining the government majority on committees far more difficult.
The response of the whips on the government side last autumn was to attempt to force a radical reduction in the size of the committees, thus reducing the number of government backbencher bodies that would have to be
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produced for any given committee meeting. The opposition parties whose members remain as eager as ever to participate in committees resisted this unfair reduction in opportunities for committee membership.
The result was that the September report of the Striking Committee was never concurred. The functioning of the committee system has been impaired since that time.
The government proposal for the committee system leans heavily to the government side. In order to rationalize the staffing and meeting of committees, committees are placed in five envelopes containing the number of specialized standing committees and two legislative committees. Each envelope of committees will have certain dedicated rooms and priorities will be clearly established, so we are told.
Legislation will go either to a standing or legislative committee after second reading, depending on the workload and the issues before the various committees. In discussions over the winter the House leaders and whips have agreed on the size of the committees and taken together with the envelope system, it is hoped that the differing point of view will be reconciled. I suggest that only time will tell whether it can be reconciled.
There are a number of general considerations, however, that the proposals for committees bring to the forefront.
First, there is the question of minority reports. The government proposes to place in the rules the right to amend minority reports and to comment on them when the report is presented to the House.
Second, the question of broadcasting committees. The proposed new rules for the first time mention this possibility but do so in such a way that the possibility of such broadcasting may actually be reduced. A government like the present one which is so desperate in the polls may actually use these rules to retard the progress in this particular regard.
Third, the question arises as to how the proposed new Standing Committee on House Management can deal effectively with its heavy burden. This committee is to function as the Striking Committee, the Management and Members Services Committee, and the Privileges and Elections Committee. It is to be a comparatively
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small committee and it is to accept the burden of staffing other committees, bird-dogging the administration of the House of Commons, operating the complex system of Private Members' Business, considering ongoing questions of procedure and electoral reform, and dealing with any matter of privilege or contempt that may come along.
This is an awesome burden for any committee, especially one that is going to be rather small. It is likely to be dominated by very senior members and there is a serious danger-and I do not wish to imply the motives of anyone because that would be totally inappropriate- that it will tend to operate unduly in closed and even secretive ways. I am talking about in-camera sessions.
The potential for making the House of Commons look as if it is an Old Boys Club is a real one with this kind of proposal, and consideration will have to be given to a less exclusive approach to dealing with the matters proposed for this particular committee.
If not, the charge will be made and the perception I suggest could become reality within a very short period of time.
Finally, there is the question of the witnesses that may be heard by committees on bills.
The proposed new rule refers to these committees being permitted to hear only, and I quote: "technical witnesses". The government seems to think that only government departments and agencies can provide witnesses with sufficient technical knowledge to assist committees in the legislative process.
That means if a bill is referred to a legislative committee, members would only have the right to summon before it individuals within the bureaucracy or the department to give a specific explanation of how the law or the statute is read, hence classifying that individual as a technical witness.
I suggest that is very unfair. A lot of the time and on a lot of occasions, members of Parliament need the assistance of those groups and individuals who are the victims or the beneficiaries of the legislation to explain how it will actually work. It is a different perspective and it is a different view, but on many occasions they are very helpful.

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For instance, I remember when we were debating Bill C-21, the Pharmaceutical Act, some years back and both we as opposition parties and the government summoned experts from across the country. They were able to amplify, not only the meaning of the technical language, but its far-reaching effects; not only in three months or six months, but in two or three years. Of course, you always have jurisprudence. You may have common law or decisions reached in other countries which may have a particular effect on our legislation. There may be some judicial decisions before the courts. To limit ourselves as members of Parliament to quote technical witnesses and restricting what a technical witness can be, I think we hamper substantially, the work that members would want to do in terms of improving a particular piece of legislation.
The opposition fully understands that the community at large has many technically competent persons who are not only able, but also are very much needed by any committee on a variety of legislation. Government officials cannot possibly possess adequate expertise to help a committee assess the impact of any piece of legislation. Business, labour, interest groups and academics, potential beneficiaries and potential victims of legislation will all be able to provide the kind of technical assistance that committees require on legislation.
Any ill-conceived attempt by the government to narrow this definition will not merely lead to political difficulty in the House of Commons, it will lead to further public frustration of being shut out of government. That, unfortunately, is the real thrust of the government's proposed rule changes. The real impact is to shut people out of government.
So much for the Prime Minister's statements of an open government. The government must think it clever to claim that its package is intended to do the opposite. It claims that it will give members more time in their constituencies to interact with the people. What it is really doing is reducing both the time and the opportunities for members to try to do something on behalf of those very people.
The government claims its package is designed to enhance the reputation of Parliament. Yet, virtually every one of its proposals is intended to de-fang Parliament. To make it more difficult for Parliament to deal with the issues that concern the people of Canada. All the government will achieve with these proposals is to frustrate Parliament.
It can be sure that the frustration will gain expression most probably, Mr. Speaker,-I say this to you, Sir, being cognizant of the many years that you have spent in this House-in some unforeseen way that is highly unlikely to enhance the reputation of Parliament, let alone the Government of Canada.
The government proposes to deal with a number of procedural issues that simply do not cry out for change, except that in responding to the people they create inconveniences for the government.
Even in cases where the government makes proposals that do need further procedural evolution, the government is acting in a pre-emptory manner or, in the case of the committee system, planting the seeds for future efforts to shut people out.
I wish to be clear on behalf of my party that we are opposed to this package of rule changes and have said so consistently.
I listened to the government House leader talk about the effectiveness in Parliament, the efficiency of Parliament and the cynicism of the Canadian people. He suggested having fewer sitting days because other countries have fewer sitting days than we do, but he did not talk about the geography of Canada. He did not talk about how Canadians are displaced all across this great country. Basically, we have a small population; hence the need for further dialogue and debate, and better appreciation and understanding of different viewpoints.
He makes reference to other countries. As I said earlier in my remarks, it is part of the grand strategy to shut Parliament down.
For a moment, let's talk about the national media. What will it do to the national media in this country? It has a role to play. Sometimes it is not very complimentary to the government and sometimes it is not very complimentary to the opposition. Nevertheless, we live in a free and democratic society and the media has the right to probe, to make ministers accountable for various speeches that they may give across the country.
By shutting down Parliament and by having us sit 40 fewer days, if you will, that will deny the media real access to ministers of the Crown. It will preclude us as members of Parliament to raise issues on the floor of the House of Commons which enable Canadians, through the media, to understand what is going on whether they be valid points of opposition or not. The Canadian people will judge.
April 8, 1991

Canadians are cynical, yes. They are very cynical about the government. They do not want their members of Parliament to be in their constituencies listening on the weekend in the coffee shops, in their constituency office, at a Rotary Club or a business luncheon or at an ethnic group sitting.
That is not what Canadians want. It is part of the equation. It is a very important but small part. Canadians want their members of Parliament to act on their behalf. What better example of hypocrisy of the government House leader and the government opposite than the goods and services tax?
Every Canadian I have talked to in my constituency, every small business person, everyone who pays taxes in this country-we have had some unprecedented levels in tax increases with this particular government-have opposed the goods and services tax.
They have petitioned members of Parliament. They have petitioned ministers of the Crown. We have had a lengthy debate in the House. We have had a lengthy debate in the Senate. We have had committees travel this country and what has happened? The government has said: "Up yours, we are not going to listen". So what is this argument, this smokescreen of spending more time so we can find out the problems? That is fine, but what are we going to do about the problems? The Conservatives did nothing with regard to the GST. It had 57 per cent of the Canadian population against it in the last federal election. It has many economic measures which are opposed by labour groups, by various regions in this country, whether it be health care, whether it be post-secondary education, a whole host of things.
The argument is being made and written by some of the editorial writers in this country that Parliament will become more efficient, that yes, it is wise to send members to their constituencies. No one has said it is not wise to send members to their constituencies, but do they ever stop and think that a government has to act when it talks and when it listens to people? This government does not listen to people because if it did, it would not be where it is in the polls today.
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I find it rather shocking and disturbing that the government House leader would come forward today and say: "Canadians are cynical". Do not paint every politician, every political party with the same brush. We are the ones who opposed the free trade agreement. We are the ones who opposed the goods and services tax. We are the ones who opposed the cutbacks with regard to health care in this country, with regard to post-secondary education. We are the ones who opposed the cutbacks to VIA Rail, the privatization of some of our Crown corporations. We are the ones who opposed the unprecedented level of higher taxation in this country.
This government has not listened. Do not tell me, do not tell my party and certainly do not tell the Canadian people that all of a sudden the Conservatives have taken a shower and all of the toxics inside have now come out and have gone and that they are going to start listening to Canadians because they are 18 months before a general federal election. Let us not be cynical, Mr. government House leader. Let us not be cynical. Let us be candid. Let us be realistic. Let us be pragmatic. Let us be honest with ourselves that these rule changes are not in the best interest of Parliament. They may be in the best interest of a few ministers of the Crown and maybe a few backbenchers on the other side who wish to get to the constituencies a little bit more often.
Surely to God we can work out systems within our respective caucuses to allow members of Parliament, if the need be, to spend more time in their constituencies if the issues and the subject matter arise. That is the real crux of the problem that we are facing here today.
People are not demanding to speak to their MPs. They are demanding positive action on their behalf. As a result, they want to have their members of Parliament whom they believe, by and large-I do not know of any public opinion poll that would substantiate this sentence-but I think most constituents understand that their member of Parliament, whoever he or she may be, whatever political party, is working very hard on their behalf. They also believe that we are paid a fairly good wage. To get that wage the government is now telling us: "You will get that big salary but you are going to spend 235 days in your constituency".

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What is going to happen, Mr. Speaker, if these rule changes pass? There are a number of scenarios. You are in for three weeks and you are off for one. Members of Parliament are in their constituencies. They come to Ottawa. We have an extra hour of debate every day on government business. We have sessions on Wednesday. We have a committee system which is quite different. Some changes have evolved there.
Do you think committees are going to be sitting those three weeks, Mr. Speaker? Do you honestly believe that those standing committees of the House of Commons are going to sit on a regular basis?
I would venture to say that they will be scheduled to sit, but because of other demands, because members are being circumvented in terms of making presentations here before the House of Commons, we will have very little opportunity to participate in meaningful ways in committees. That is not to suggest that they will never meet. They will meet. There is no question about that. But what will be flawed, is: do not meet tonight, do not meet tomorrow, you can meet while you have the week off. So the three weeks are up. You have the week off to be in your constituency, or you can be in a committee in Ottawa. You know what is going to happen. Members will have to go back to their constituencies because they will tell people for three weeks that they have to be in Ottawa but they have a week off and will be back.
Where does the committee work go? Where does the examination of the estimates end up? Will there be a focus in committee? Some, yes, but perhaps for many, no. Members will be tom, they will be tom: stay in Ottawa, participate on special committees, legislative committees, standing committees, or go back to their constituencies because they have been told by the government that is the week you spend in your constituency so that you can listen to your constituents.
It all fits. It is just like putting your hand into a leather glove. The scenario is very, very smart, if you want to choke off debate in Parliament, if you want to provide less time for ministers of the Crown to be accountable to the opposition parties and to the national media and to the interest groups across this country, less time for
those of us in opposition to be the public watchdog as to what is taking place with regard to the government activities of the day; less debate on the budget; fewer opposition days; less debate on the Speech from the Throne; less opportunities with regard to second reading on a particular piece of legislation; less opportunity to speak on third reading of a particular bill; a more effective-if you will-time allocation rule for the government, not the opposition; committees which will meet or may not meet.
It is a pretty neat, sophisticated package. A neat package for a government that is in political trouble. I say to members opposite: "This will not save you. What will save you in the next election is if you were to listen to the Canadian people".
Members who are here with me today make the point that it is too late. It is too late for members opposite to change their ways, to correct their sins of the past. But perhaps they ought to try. Perhaps they ought to try to do the democratic thing that they talked so much about from 1984 to 1988. Perhaps they ought to tiy to give members of Parliament greater latitude in discussing the various issues of the day. My colleague, the member for Kingston and the Islands, and I think other members, have alluded to the government that not every motion that comes before the House has to be a non-confidence motion on every occasion. We understand the realities of quorum and people, et cetera, being here. We could accommodate that. But they do not want to hear that. They believe that just by getting back to their constituencies for that week, that will be able to resolve their political difficulties. I am afraid they will be sadly disappointed after the next federal election when the hon. Jean Chretien and the Liberal Party of Canada become the governing party in this country.


Mr. Hockin:: I doubt that.


David Charles Dingwall: Hon. members say they doubt that. Perhaps if they are true to their conviction, and I see the minister for small business who has particular responsibilities in an area that I represent in the Parliament of Canada, and I say this in a kind of shy way because I am kind of shy, but if the minister really believes that his policies are so good, if he really, really believes that his privileged status as a minister of the Crown has endeared

April 8, 1991

him to the people of Canada, why does he not try to convince his colleagues in cabinet to do an honourable thing and we will have a little vote. If you do not want to call a general election just have a little vote in your constituency and winner takes all. Better still, have a vote in my constituency and the winner takes all as to whether or not they have confidence in the hon. member opposite or whether they have confidence in this hon. member who represents the constituency of Cape Breton-East Richmond.
I suggest that the minister opposite, who has a privileged status-and I underline that-earned but, nevertheless, status. Not only does he get $64,000 a year, not only does he get $20,000 in tax-free allowance, he is a cabinet minister and they make the big bucks. They get the chauffeurs to the car, they get all the deputies, they get all the assistants and they get all the big invitations.
I say to that hon. minister, run. Let us have an election and winner takes all. You will see that the sins of the past and your present attitudes toward various policies which exist at the present time and your attitude with trying to choke off the democratic ways, the House of Commons will not meet the test that Canadians expect of parliamentarians in the next election.


An hon. member:: I win when I run.


David Charles Dingwall: The hon. member says he wins when he runs. Well, I have just given him an opportunity. If he is so believes and has conviction that they are running such a wonderful government and that these rule changes meet the test of the Canadian people, perhaps he should put something on the line. I say that somewhat in jest because I know hon. members opposite do not want to go to the polls. They are hoping by some miracle that the phoenix will arrive from the ashes and that Mulroney will do an about face and become popular among the Canadian people. Quite frankly, that will not take place.
In closing, I wish to say that the two-


An hon. member:: Not yet.


David Charles Dingwall: If the hon. member wishes me to speak longer I will accommodate him and I will speak longer. If he is enjoying my intervention that much, I will try to accommodate for a while yet. I want to thank the hon. member for his vote of confidence.
I have another speech, but there are two points. I indicated to the government House leader and I indi-
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cated to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader that we, the Liberal Party of Canada, were opposed to these rule changes both privately and publicly. I indicated to them quite clearly that there ought to be a process. Let us move from the substance and let us go to the process. It is all well and good for individuals to have some discussions with regard to rule changes, but I have indicated clearly to him that we should have a standing committee, perhaps a special committee.
In fact, my colleague for Kingston and the Islands even made the intervention at one of our meetings with regard to having the whole matter referred to the Standing Committee on Elections and Privileges in order that we may examine, have witnesses come in, have Canadians see and be consulted. That was not to be. We have asked for a special committee of members of Parliament, not necessarily to travel the country or go to other jurisdictions, but perhaps to bring people here and discuss these in a reasonable manner if in fact rules have to be amended and changed. That was denied.
What was given by the government was a mere discussion of some of the rules by a working group which I believe the parliamentary secretary, my colleague from Kingston and the Islands, and a senior member of my staff had. But there have been no "substantive changes with regard to their proposals". They have backed off a few things, but nothing overly substantive that could cause a reasonable person to conclude that this package is in the best interest of Parliament, of parliamentarians, or of the Canadian people.
They score very low in terms of process and in terms of substance. So the cliche that has been used in this House on many occasions, the Old Boys Club, is the route that they elected. That is the route that they follow, but they were told along the piece at all times that there was no deal. I know-this may sound unfair and I hope members will forgive me-that the government House leader was the minister responsible for Bill C-21, amendments to the Pharmaceutical Act.
I do not know if he has a cold or is on some form of drug, or whatever it is, but he has certainly forgotten some of the facts as I have enunciated them here today. Some have suggested that he has used bully-boy tactics. I leave that for others to discuss at another time. But let it be clear that we oppose these rules. We will debate them in the weeks ahead, Mr. Speaker, and I see you nodding

April 8, 1991
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your head and you are in agreement as well and I am sure you would want to participate and I welcome your participation because as a distinguished member of this House you, too, realize as I am sure many members do how Draconian and how terrible this package of rules is for Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, I accordingly move, seconded by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands:
That the motion be amended in the tint paragraph by deleting proposed amendments numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 16,17, 21, 25, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, and 45 and by deleting section 73(5) in proposed amendment numbered 24.
Mr. Speaker, I was intending to sit down but since the hon. member opposite has wanted me to speak for another period of time I want to accommodate him because it is not often that I get a chance to speak in this Chamber, particularly on a subject which is so vital to our deliberations here.
I know the hon. member opposite who made that statement is a long-standing member of the House of Commons and he, too, will probably want to participate in the debate over the next number of weeks as we approach June, and that he would want me to put other items on the record.
I want to assure him that there are many members of my party who will now want to speak, particularly after the interventions which have been made by the government House leader. I know my colleague from Kingston and the Islands and the member for Ottawa Vanier will want to participate at length and they will have other things to say. I do not want to disappoint the hon. member, but I want to tell him that they will have, shall we say, an enlightened view on some of the proposed rule changes, perhaps very similar to the views that I have expressed here today. I hope that he would be in the Chamber and afford them the same kind of opportunities and courtesies by listening to their interventions which we believe, and which we know, will add a great deal to this particular debate on a very important subject matter.
Finally, I want to say thank you to my colleague from Kingston and the Islands and to members of my staff who reviewed this legislation. But I want to thank the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader
and the chief government Whip for their deliberations on this particular subject matter. I know in my heart of hearts that way deep down, both those hon. members know very well that these rule changes are wrong, and probably on Wednesday when they go to caucus they will stand in their place and echo the sentiments that we are echoing on this side of the House: No, no, no to these rule changes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I find the amendment moved by the hon. member to be in order.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I must say we enjoyed listening to that exhaustive examination of the proposed changes to the rules of the House. Now, of course, we are debating government motion No. 30, rules of the House of Commons and changes to the Standing Orders.
It sounds very straightforward and perhaps rather inconsequential in many respects to those listening to the debates and watching the discussions. Thirty pages in our books, 64 different clauses. Let's face it, there is quite a range of issues here, some very trivial issues that simply needed to be brought up to date in terms of the modernization of dealing with the legislative material.
Others have touches of totalitarianism associated with them, major changes in terms of how the House of Commons operates.
Perhaps it is not by mistake. You will notice how it is dark over the House of Commons today. When you look out the windows there is a dark cloud hanging over the House of Commons. It is symbolic, I might add, in terms of the dark cloud that hangs over the Parliament of Canada and the dark cloud, indeed, that is hanging over parliamentary democracy as we know it in this country.
I must say that what we are debating today is perhaps one of the most important issues that we will debate in this House for the next number of weeks and months. Today, when the Prime Minister introduced the President of Mexico, he referred to the House of Commons as the "crucible of parliamentary democracy". When the President of Mexico spoke, he referred to this House as "the House of democracy in which is determined the will of the people of Canada".
April 8, 1991

This is a crucial House of debate. This is where the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada come to reflect the views of their constituents and reflect their views as elected people regarding government policy and government programs. We were asked to study and to examine these government policies, programs and proposals, to examine their impact on different regions of the country and on different groups within our society, whether it was the free trade agreement or the goods and services tax. I refer to these as perhaps two of the largest and most important pieces of legislation we have had a chance to discuss in this House in the past number of months.
I think all of us, certainly the people of Canada, would recognize that it is very important we debate issues that the government of the day brings forward and that we examine legislation in detail, that we hold the government accountable for its deeds or for its actions or for the various acts of individual cabinet ministers. We have seen over the past number of months, as a result of that accountability, whole sets of ministers of the cabinet have had to resign or have seen fit to resign.
The government House leader spoke of the anger and frustration of the electorate and the fact that they hold members of Parliament or politicians, generally, in contempt. May I suggest that one of the many reasons for that is that people feel a sense of powerlessness. They have strong views on certain issues, whether it is the GST or the free trade agreement, and they bring it to their members of Parliament. They raise their issues at parliamentary committees or through other avenues, and the government totally ignores them.
When a government House leader says that it is important for members of Parliament to go back to listen to their constituents, we all know that constituents have been saying to members of the government for months and months on end: "Do not proceed with the goods and services tax", in every constituency across the country. Those of us in opposition have risen to reflect the views of our constituents. Many of us on dozens and dozens, and perhaps hundreds of occasions, have reflected their views that this tax is punitive, cruel and mean and is the wrong tax to be bringing in at this time.
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I look across the aisle and I know that some of my friends on the government benches hold meetings in their constituencies and they are publicized. The media attends and reflects the mood of the constituents and the questions being raised. Once again, hundreds of thousands of people have registered their opposition to the goods and services tax or to the free trade agreement or to the changes to the unemployment insurance legislation, and the government just ignores their concerns.


Some hon. members:: They are not listening.


Nelson Andrew Riis: No wonder people are frustrated. No wonder the electorate feels that the government does not care, because it has not shown in any way, shape or form that they, in fact, do care about what the people who elected them are concerned about.
I think people are saying that they are fed up with government arrogance. What they call this government, essentially, is an elected dictatorship, where the government is elected for a period of time and it feels it has the mandate to do anything it wishes. It does not matter that the programs and policies it is introducing was not discussed or raised during the last federal campaign.
As a matter of fact, I think it was the present Minister for International Trade who said, not many weeks before the last campaign that: "We could not tell the people of Canada what we were going to do, because if we did, no one would elect us". So, obviously, they fooled the people of Canada. They did not say: "If we are elected, we are going to introduce the goods and services tax".
So when the government House leader says that Parliament must be reformed, I must say that we can have all the rules in the world and unless the will is there, it is not going to change behaviour. We know that as parliamentarians. We can have all the rules and regulations of the House, but unless there is a will to make this place work properly, it will not work properly. We know that as parents. You can have all the rules for your children that you want, but unless there is a will, if you like, to do the appropriate thing, to act appropriately, to conduct your business in ways according to accepted traditions, it does not take place.
That is why I say, if the government is hoping that this type of parliamentary reform they are now introducing, and will eventually jam through the House of Commons, because again they will have to use the heavy hand of closure to get their way.

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This is not going to change the situation if the government continues to ignore the people of Canada. What we see month after month and year after year, we hear people speaking out. Why is it so critical that we have an opportunity to discuss these issues in depth?
I want to use one example. When the government brought in the idea that we should de-index pensions, it said: "We should de-index the pensions of all those people who collect old age security." In other words, we should erode those pensions over time.
The opposition said: "We have got to let the people of Canada know what this is going to do. We have to let pensioners and future pensioners know what the impact of this legislation is all about." We debated the issue day after day, and slowly the people of Canada recognized what the government was attempting to do. It was going to erode the pension system of Canada, and the people spoke out.
The Prime Minister, to give him credit, said that the government was wrong, that it should not have done that. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, under these new rules with the government's ability to move legislation through quickly, the people of Canada would not have a chance to react, those pensions would have been de-indexed and the pensioners of this country would see their pensions erode.
That is why we say we want the opportunity to examine legislation, to study it and to invite experts and other people from the outside to come in and look at the government's plans.
I do not think the government is reforming the parliamentary system. It is deforming the parliamentary system to allow it to impose its political agenda on the people of Canada that much more quickly. That is what it is doing.
The government wants to turn this into some sort of sausage factory, not a legislative assembly but a legislative assembly line that just moves legislation through and does not give people a chance to examine it. It does not want to give the opposition a chance to study it. It does not want to provide the same opportunities to hold the government accountable during Question Period.
It is no mistake that it is called Question Period. All we hear are the questions. We never get any answers back. This is one way we have of bringing to the people's attention what the government is doing. I hate to say it, but as a result of questioning in this House of Commons, one after another, cabinet ministers have had to resign their seats: One, two, three, four, five, six. It goes on and on.
It would not have happened if we had not had a chance to raise questions during Question Period concerning a minister's behaviour. Now we are going to see that erode as the government attempts to do away with Question Period for certain times of the year.
The government House leader went on at some length to explain why it is appropriate that members of Parliament get home to listen to their constituents. I pointed that that argument is rather hollow. Obviously the track record would speak for itself that this government does not listen to people. The members can go home every day of the year and nothing will change.
The point is that when their constituents tell them what to do or what not to do, the constituents know they will be totally and simply ignored.
There is another aspect of this. It was pointed out to me by my colleague from Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing, who I want to say at this point has been extremely helpful. His wisdom and the thought that went into this process has to be recognized by all as leading to some very meaningful discussion inside and outside our caucus in terms of the changes being proposed to the government and essentially what they will do. He pointed out to me the other day that the political landscape of this country is changing.
What this government does through these changes is perpetuate the two-party system. We tried to make the case during our so-called negotiations that there are now other viable parties in the House of Commons. The New Democratic Party, a newly elected party, ought to have some recognition in terms of the rule changes, but that was essentially ignored.
We have seen changes introduced to attempt to block small political parties from playing a role in the House of Commons. I refer to the new definition that the government House leader has of unanimous consent. Until
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now, we had to seek unanimous consent to change the rules at will, virtually.
Sometimes, and as a matter of fact often, it was to the benefit of the House that we alter a rule for a particular afternoon or we change a way of doing business to facilitate a piece of legislation or to assist members in the performance of their duties. The government has changed that. What unanimous consent means is unanimous all but 25 members, so that during Routine Proceedings the government can introduce a motion to pass a bill at all stages or to change the Constitution or to carry out all sorts of what could be termed Draconian changes. Unless 25 members leap to their feet immediately, it is done, just like that. It can be used and abused so easily, but again it will enable the government to facilitate introducing its political agenda through the House of Commons.
I know the government always says: "We have to become more efficient. We have to become more effective". It was very frustrated when the opposition spoke against the goods and services tax and tried to point out why this was the wrong tax. The government was very frustrated when we spoke out against the major changes to the unemployment insurance legislation that would do irreparable harm to families, particularly in the regions of the country. The government was frustrated when we spoke out against the free trade agreement. It said we take too much time talking in the House of Commons.
We appreciate that democracy is not always the most efficient way of doing business. The parliamentary system is not the most effective and efficient way of conducting government business. The most effective way is a dictatorship. That is the most effective way. That is the most business-like way; simply impose the legislation and Parliament is nothing but a rubber stamp if it exists at all.
That is why some of us have felt so strongly about these changes, because that is the direction in which we are moving, where the government simply says: "Here is our agenda". There will be no vote at first reading of a bill. We are going to pass this in principle and put it into a legislative committee where we cannot take time to discuss the bill in any sort of depth. We can only discuss technical aspects.
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Mr. Speaker, that would mean that the GST legislation would be introduced, sent off to a committee and unless you were a tax accountant or a tax lawyer, you would not be welcome. You could not call witnesses to say how is this going to affect the farm community, the fishing community; how this is going to affect various sectors of the economy or other elements of society. Oh, no, Mr. Speaker, you could not talk about that. You have to talk about specific details of the legislation.
This is something that we do not support. We think this is wrong. What it means is that rather than the people of Canada, through their organizations, groups or individuals having input into legislation, lobbyists will have input into legislation. They will be the ones who are able to advise the government members and their officials. The people of Canada will be frozen out of the process. That is one of the many reasons why we say we cannot support this package.
The government House leader said that we consented in some way to these rule changes, that he felt that somehow we had agreed during the process that these were acceptable. I think my hon. friend who spoke on behalf of the Official Opposition indicated that that was not the case. It is a bit like being sentenced to death and saying: "Let us negotiate how this is done". We could determine that it could be done by hanging, it could be done by injection or there are a variety of ways to do this.
That is essentially what happened. The government said: "Here are all the changes we want to make so that this place will be more effective, more efficient and more business-like", to run more like a corporate boardroom as opposed to a parliamentary democracy. We said: "We cannot accept these". There are some changes that we can accept. There are some that are rather trivial and simply reflect a changing House of Commons, but there are some measures that we simply cannot accept.
For example, supply days are one of the most important aspects of our work here. Supply days go back to when the king wanted money, he had to set aside certain days to discuss on the part of the duly elected people whether this was an appropriate expenditure or not. We have those days. We have 25 of those each year. We are required to have at least 25 days where the government schedules a day for debate on whether the government is using taxpayers' money adequately and whether their plans are appropriate in terms of more expenditures.

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It is a long-stated tradition that 25 days during every calendar year be set aside to discuss how the government is spending our money. Now I know the government is doing away with days to debate the budget and the throne speech, and so on. We could talk about those. However, what this one measure does is that it enables the government, if it ever wished, to have the Parliament of Canada sit for only one day a year. What it says is that when we do not sit, those normal supply days will be eroded, will be just ignored. If the government chose not to sit, other than for just one or two days of the year, that is it. There is nothing in the Standing Orders that could change that.
Mr. Speaker, you have signalled that I have one minute left. This is part of the problem. I notice that the government House leader spoke for an hour. The representative of the Official Opposition spoke for an hour and a half, and the New Democratic Party speaks for 20 minutes. That is it.
Does this reflect the true nature of the House of Commons? No, it does not. It reflects an old-fashioned view of the House of Commons where there are two political parties. Mr. Speaker, does this reflect the emerging political reality in the country where we might have four or five or six political parties represented in this House after the next federal election? No. It is just going back in time. That is why we feel this is inappropriate and I simply want to conclude by saying the following.
The government believes that by introducing these changes, which I say tend towards fascism, and I use that term consciously, where the government House leader and the Prime Minister will have the tools now to more effectively muzzle the opposition, to more effectively muzzle the free press, because they too depend on Question Period. That is the only time they have access to the Prime Minister when he dashes up the stairs. He does not call press conferences, and so on.
If the government believes that by imposing these new changes that will severely restrict the opposition members of the House of Commons from doing what they are expected to do on behalf of their constituents, that this is going to allow them to fool the Canadian people sufficiently so that it will be re-elected, it will not work. It will not work. The people of Canada know that this government is not operating with their best interests at heart. They know that this government, after years and years of experience ignores their calls, their pleas. I would say
this is a dark day for the democratic system in this country. It is a dark day for the Parliament of Canada, and that is why we in the New Democratic Party feel that these rules cannot be approved and supported in this House.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, we have been listening to a rather familiar refrain about dark days. For somebody with such a light head, that is really quite a comment to make.
The hon. member was speaking of muzzling and the high-falutin, high-sounding words on the other side, how all members of Parliament are important and it is important for each one of us to have our opportunity in the House. Then he condemns a package which says that more members will have more opportunities to speak in this House, and that is what the package says.
Let us come to the guts of a test for the member opposite. The members in this House who are muzzled during Question Period sit on this side of the House. Of the 158 of them, 120 do not sit in the cabinet. They get an average of five or six questions a week, to 60 on the other side, for a group that is smaller. If he believes in the principles he has been espousing, will he stand up in this House at this time and adopt the system that exists in Australia, the system that exists in England, where questions go back and forth across the House and all members are treated equally and one side is not expected to be muzzled. Will he agree to that principle?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it seems odd that we are now getting into a discussion of what the Standing Orders ought to be. May I suggest, Mr. Speaker, as has already been proposed, that this be referred to the appropriate standing committee before it is closured off and jammed through the House of Commons. This is the kind of situation that ought to be discussed. My hon. friend is sitting there screaming at me now. That is the appropriate response, presumably, in terms of the government. It cannot handle any kind of criticism.
The point is the following: So-called negotiations never did take place. The member is now suggesting that there are all sorts of changes that we ought to be discussing. I could not agree more. He also knows that the idea was that standing committees ought to be spending more time in pre-study of proposed legislation. That is not in the Standing Orders. These are simply discussions that we have heard.
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If we were doing the correct thing, and if he really believes that these changes were to make this institution more effective, it would be appropriate then to have more people brought into the process, but the process that was followed was in secret. People were not involved in an open way. This is why I say some of us have offered to the government the suggestion that this be referred to the appropriate standing committee where all the committees are represented in the open, with nothing to hide, and to discuss ways and means of making this more effective.
Again, the old approach, a handful of people in a back room operating in secret is somehow the best way to proceed. I say it is not.
I should use this opportunity, while I am on my feet, to move a subamendment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order please. If I am not mistaken, the Standing Orders do not allow a member to move an amendment during the period for questions and comments.
I therefore remind the hon. member that we are still in that period.


Ross Harvey: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.


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


Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, might I suggest you inquire of the House as to whether or not there is unanimous consent to allow the House leader to propose his amendment and, in the spirit of the proposed amendments to Standing Orders, see if there are fewer than 25 members who object.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up with a brief supplementary and we will follow another one of his suggestions. The first principle was muzzling, the second principle was freedom of expression in the Chamber. It is so easy to follow through on his principles
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that I simply say to the member, let us have unanimous consent to continue this debate until midnight tonight so that we could all have a better chance to talk about it. I am asking for unanimous consent to continue the debate until midnight, to follow through on his principles. Does he want freedom of speech or does he not?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the House give unanimous consent to extend the-


Some hon. members:: No.


Guy St-Julien: Mr. Speaker, further to the amendments on the changes to the Standing Orders of the House, I would like to make a comment to the hon. member. We must not forget, Mr. Speaker, that the government worked for months on this with the opposition; there are no surprises for anyone in this House. The opposition can hardly be surprised by anything in this package. What we see is its biased reaction to what is a good reform that will make Parliament more effective and bring it closer to the people. That is what Canadians want.
I think that it is important for a member from a large region like Abitibi, which is 555,000 square kilometres to be in Ottawa for three weeks and in my riding for one week. It is important for Northerners, for a member from a region like mine, to be in the riding at least one week a month. Earlier, the member said that the government wanted to do away with Question Period. The government wants nothing of the sort, because during the discussions that you had with the government, you never asked to extend this question period by an hour.
I will give you an example of what democracy is. Today, during Question Period, I was scheduled to ask the Hon. Minister Benoit Bouchard a question through the Speaker of the House of Commons.
I was unable to do so. You had the opportunity during that period to ask several questions. As a member of the government party from a large region like the Abitibi, it is important for members from large regions to be there one week a month. In this House, we often notice,

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although you are present a month at a time, that half your colleagues are never in Parliament.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I do want to make one comment. He referred to one of my colleagues who was asking a question. I said that he had to speak to him only in one language.
Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is necessary in the House of Commons. Here we are able to speak whichever of the two official languages we choose. I do not think I have to feel obligated to speak one language or the other.
But Mr. Speaker, you will recognize in your position as Speaker today that-


Guy St-Julien: Je n'ai rien compris en anglais. C'est pour cela.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, earlier I made the case that proceeding with this particular motion was inappropriate and the Speaker indicated that he would be rendering a decision on that argument some time soon. I would seek the right to be able to move an amendment after the Speaker has rendered his decision. I do not think, at the moment, that either the amendment that has been moved or my proposed subamendment would be in order in light of what I hope the Speaker will say when he renders his judgment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Just a word to say that the Chair will certainly note the comment by the hon. member for Kamloops and will make its decision as soon as possible.
The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley has the floor.


Mr. Benno Friesen (Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I have been following this debate not simply for the two or three hours just passed, but over the many years that I have been in the House along with some of my colleagues here from Newfoundland and so forth. We have taken a great deal of interest over the years.
When I first came here in 1974 I remember very clearly the attitude that some of the members at that time still had about the revised rules of the House brought in in 1969,1 believe it was, which varied the rules
considerably. To them it was still convulsive to think about the radical changes that were brought in such as having opposition days instead of committee of the whole for a lot of the bills, especially the money bills.
Change is always very difficult, but I want to begin by complimenting the House leader for the Liberal Party on the contribution he has made to the debate today. I thought he spoke and contributed very well to an understanding of the issues that are before us. He did it dispassionately and as much as it can be done in the Chamber like this, and we cannot always absent ourselves from partisanship, he did it at a very high level. I want to compliment him for that. I cannot say the same thing for the House leader of the New Democratic Party.
I think we ought to assign someone here to keep a box score of the number of cliches the member for Kamloops can throw about in one of his 10 or 20-minute speeches. The degree to which he banters them about is almost beyond counting. It is worthy to note that while he spoke in his address about the need for further debate, the muzzling of Parliament, and all of those cliches that roll so quickly off his tongue, when we gave him the opportunity to extend the debate so that his members could take part, he said: "No, we don't want to extend the debate. We just want to talk about the way Parliament has been muzzled". Give them a chance to talk and they say "no".
We have had a further display of this. I noted that one of the things that the New Democratic Party is opposed to is the fact that we want to change the times when the House is sitting. We would have one week a month away from the House when we could do constituency work. They do not like that idea. The fact is that in reality, they are already on a platoon system. They are already doing it. They are off in their ridings one week out of the month.


Benno Friesen: They do not want to give that privilege any kind of official endorsement. They want to do it quietly so that nobody notices.
I noticed, particularly this morning, when that party which is so interested in developing countries had an opportunity to support the president of a developing country like Mexico, it had 15 members here this morning, I counted; 35 per cent of its caucus was here, 65 per cent was somewhere else. Yet, when that party ran


An hon. member:: That is right.
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for election it said: "We want to represent you in Ottawa".


Mr. Keyes:: Do not throw stones in a glass house. How many were you missing?


Benno Friesen: That brings me to the real dilemma which all members of Parliament confront. All of us, when we stand for election, when we go through an election campaign, face this dilemma. In one way or another we are saying to our constituents: "I want to represent you in Ottawa". We say it regardless of party. We say it with all sincerity, and we want to do this. We want to go to Ottawa and take the needs and the concerns and the issues of our people and give them voice here in this Chamber.
I remember toward the end of my first campaign, an elector, an elderly gentleman said to me, talking about all of the candidates: "The trouble with you guys is that once we elect you, we never see you again". Prior to, and in the 1950s and 1960s that was almost unavoidable. Travel was by train. The person elected took the train from Vancouver to Ottawa, spent three months in Ottawa and then came. Obviously, the geography of the country determines that once they are elected it is not going to be very often that you will see that member again. Geography is one of the difficulties of representing a constituency in Canada. That is a dilemma we all face. It has nothing to do with party affiliation. It has nothing to do with ideology. It has entirely to do with geography.
So, we are caught in that dilemma. We want to represent our people in Ottawa and yet we also want to be with our people in the constituency.
I want to say to members opposite that this formula was dear to my heart when I sat on opposition benches, because it is important for us to speak out for our constituencies in Ottawa and represent them well here. At the same time, it is also important for us to be back home to get an understanding and a feel for what our constituents are saying.
One of the truisms of life is that the longer you spend in Ottawa, the more unrealistic the world becomes to you. It is only as we go back to our constituencies and only as we spend time with people who elected us, that we maintain a realistic view of what Canada is all about, what life is all about. The longer we stay in this city consistently, without any break, the surer we are of getting an unrealistic perspective of issues here and in
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our constituencies, and of our responsibilities. It is only as we go back home that we become reconnected to reality and understand the issues.
When I was in opposition, I was already in favour of this kind of reform. Added to that, I could see that the ministers of the Crown sitting in the treasury benches had an additional responsibility. They had an administrative responsibility that I, as a backbencher did not have. Yet management is a very important facet of government business.
Here are the ministers of the Crown-and again it does not matter which party is in office. Here is a minister of the Crown who has to be at Question Period every day and has to spend time being briefed for Question Period. At the same time he is concerned about his department, how it is being managed. The more time he spends here for Question Period, the more he is turning over to bureaucrats the management of the department. He has less time to examine what the bureaucrats are doing.
I heard recently that one of the ministers of the Crown had the highest compliment given to him when his department said "he is the best deputy minister we have ever had". By that it meant that this person is involved with every concern in his department. That is not always possible if you are trying to divide your time between the House and, as the opposition rightly demands, accounting for the administration which, in fact, includes administering and managing the department.
The opposition says that if you reduce the time you spend in the chamber you reduce the amount of democracy. Now, I think that deserves a little bit of examination:
I would contend that this is certainly an important forum for democracy but it does not begin here. Democracy really begins on the campaign trail, on the election trail, when we are elected to office. During that time we espouse the platforms we would promote if we were elected to office. I have said this on a number of occasions here. This is an idea that comes from the parties of the mother of Parliaments over in the United Kingdom. The platform, what they call the party manifesto, is all important. When they are campaigning they have a very carefully structured party manifesto and a platform which they enunciate during the campaign, and when they are elected they are accountable for making

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sure that the legislative program that they introduce as a government follows their party manifesto.
Now that is the first step of democracy.


Mr. Fisher:: So when are you going to start using it?


Benno Friesen: I will come to that.


Ron Fisher: Never.


Benno Friesen: If we allow campaigning, as we have in the past, to be nothing but sloganeering, like "the land is strong" or "zap, you are frozen", if slogans which have very little to do with your legislative program once you are elected dominate your campaign, you will diminish the level of democracy right at the threshold where it ought to begin. When we diminish it there, naturally when we get into the Chamber here we have a free rein. If there is no structure in the campaign it is no wonder then that when you get to the Chamber opposition parties will object to the program that the government is presenting; it has had no forerunner, it has had no foundation.
Democracy begins on the campaign trail, and then it is developed here in, as someone said, "the crucible of democracy".
Therefore, to reduce the number of sitting days but lengthen the hours so that you have an aggregate number of increased hours is not a reduction of democracy. That is making democracy work.
I remember in the campaign of 1984 our party very clearly talked about wanting to dismantle the national energy program, and yet as soon as we were elected and we started doing that we were opposed. I mean, this is something we promised to do and yet the opposition said "you don't have a right to do what you promised to do".
Then we proposed, during the election campaign, privatization of the government corporations and the opposition said "no, no, you can't do that", but we had promised to do it.
It seems to me that is what an election campaign is all about. I come back to the United Kingdom experience. There is a saying over there among the two or three opposing parties-whatever the year happens to be- that the government is entitled to its legislation. It does,
it gets it as it ought to. The opposition is entitled to debate what it sees as the flaws of that concept, of that ideology. That is true. That is the opposition's right and it ought to be exercised.
In the United Kingdom-and my friend from Newfoundland walks out-they debate an issue like that for five, six or seven not weeks, not days, but hours for a bill of some magnitude. They have concluded that if the government has campaigned on a platform and it was elected to introduce its platform and to legislate it into being, it is entitled to do that.
I remember sitting here for hours at night debating a bill on which we had campaigned, and we were being told withdraw the bill after we had campaigned on it. Somehow that to me sounds like a contradiction to democracy.
In the 1984 campaign we had over 50 per cent of the vote. Presumably we had a right to do it. That did not stop the opposition. Now the leader of the government says 53 per cent voted against us in the 1988 campaign. Well I do not remember any time when the Liberals were elected when they had 50 per cent of the vote. That did not stop them from introducing their election campaign platform, their legislation. They did what they wanted even though they had less than 50 per cent of the vote.
I want to point out that the beginning of democracy having a clearly defined campaign, that the crucible of democracy is here and we are entitled to legislate the campaign promises that we introduced and we go on from there.
I would like to underline another concept and that is the myth that by reducing the number of days we are introducing a radical new reduction of democracy when, as the government House leader pointed out this morning, Australia with a geography somewhat problematic to them, like we have here, has 66 sitting days a year. It passes 89 per cent of the bills introduced. Canada sits 155 days, two and a half times as long, and passes 56 per cent of the bills introduced.
I am asking members opposite: is that an efficient use of parliamentary time? If we have campaigned on a platform and the legislation flows from it, are we not
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entitled as an efficient democratic body to introduce and receive passage of that legislation?
West Germany sits on the average of 17 days a year. It passes 90 per cent of its legislation. Japan sits 43 days a year and passes 76 per cent of its bills. Even the United States, which has a little bit of a problem of geography and population, sits only 144 days a year and passes the majority of its legislation.
It is a little bit of a ruse to say that by reducing the number of days we sit so that we can spend time in our constituencies but increasing the number of hours in the days we sit so that we maintain the same amount of time in the chamber, is somehow a reduction in democracy.
I want to make one other point and that has to do with Question Period. If members opposite are interested in improving the efficiency of Question Period, I would simply point out to them that they have the same bothersome, meddlesome worries I had when I sat over there: The prima donnas who sit on the front benches hog all the camera time.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Benno Friesen: I have their attention, Mr. Speaker. The man who is best at it is laughing. When you have members sitting in the front and asking questions that take two and three minutes, that inspire answers that are just as long, two or three minutes, give me a break, you cannot have many questions answered in a 45 minute question period. What each caucus needs to do is put the boots to those guys who hog the camera and the time, limit them and get rid of the speeches and ask short, pertinent questions that require short, pertinent answers. We will improve Question Period far more than adding a few days of Question Period to the calendar of the House of Commons.
I invite each caucus, including ours, to do that, then we will improve the procedure of the House of Commons.
Third, I want to talk about committees. Can I speak as long as the opposition House leader did? The third point I want to make is regarding committees. It is important that we start invoking the principle of approval in principle in the House and make committees do the work of technical improvement of the bills.
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I remember when we were debating C-55 and C-84. We had an immigration lawyer before us who opposed the bill. He was not in favour of the bill. He came before the committee, not to say withdraw the bill. He said: "You have improved it in principle, now here are ways I think that you can improve it". That is what we need to do.


Mr. Heap:: And you ignored him.


Benno Friesen: We did not. My friend from Spadina said we ignored him. No, we did not. As a matter of fact, he gave us very good consultative advice that we used.
I am sorry I do not have as much time as the opposition House leader. I know the members of the opposition would love to hear me speak longer, but I heed your advice.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Mr. Speaker, speaking for this side of the House, the only ruse in this place is the one being regurgitated by the government here tonight and being roasted by us on this side.
The hon. member speaks well of reality if the reality was that this was the year 1969, because today, in 1991, we have had advancements in communications and the tools of communication, the likes of which this member has not seen in 15 to 20 years. We have the parliamentary reports which we can put out quarterly. Every three months you can send one out. We have access to distribute information in lots of 4,000 pieces, as many times a week as you care to. We have free mailing privileges that go out to all your constituents in your riding.


Mr. Gagliano:: Community television.


Benno Friesen: Community television, the Whip for the opposition party states. Community television where you can go and take a member of the government if you want to, if he or she is obliging, and go across the street to a cable organization, sit down with that person, spend 28 minutes discussing the issues of the day and mail it to your riding. Free mailing privileges and telephone privileges. If someone calls or someone expresses a problem to your constituency, you can get on that phone immediately from your constituency office and call that constituent back immediately.

April 8, 1991
Government Orders
I am available to my constituents. All they have to do is call the office and make it a point to tell my office that they want to see me. I say terrific. I am in the House Monday through Friday doing the job in the highest court of the land, the privilege that we have to be here on behalf of our constituents. This is the place of work. If we could move it to Hamilton West we would be more than happy to, but unfortunately there are 295 members with the same opinion. We cannot even convince the government to get an airport there, never mind the House of Commons. They can make it a point to request that they would like to see me on Saturday.
The constituency office is open Saturdays for that express purpose. If we really love this job, if we are really here because we believe in our country and we want to do the right thing for our constituents, if we want to stand up for our home town no matter where it is in this country, we are going to make ourselves available to the people who put us here.
That is what we are being paid for, and that is the job that we are here for.


Some hon. members:: Right on.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: I do not want to test the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley but I want to ask him: "When did the sun rise-"
I will come to my question.


Benno Friesen: Oh, you've got a question?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: This is question and comments. I will give my comment, and I will ask the member a question.
This member has been in the House for how many years?


An hon. member:: Too long.


Benno Friesen: Sixteen: it does not matter.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: The member has been in the House for 16 years. When did the sun finally rise-


Rodney Edward Laporte: Order, let someone else ask a question.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: I am asking a question. When did the sun finally rise on this member that after 16 years, he finds it important that he must be back to his constituency for one week out of four.
It seems that for the last 16 years he has managed to do that quite capably. Did he rise in this House ever in the past 16 years and say: "By golly, Mr. Speaker, I have to get back to my riding association at least one week in four because I cannot seem to get the job done otherwise." No. Sixteen years he sat in this House, and there was no problem.
Now the government comes through with this new edict, this new magic for parliamentary reform which is complete nonsense. It is an appendage like an arm that should be cut off.


Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, here is a man from Hamilton who leaves his office at nine o'clock and can be here at 10.30 a.m. He has no time zone changes.
I will tell you that it is speeches like his that make western Canadians despise central Canada. They hate it with a vengeance.
He can vote here on a Wednesday and be at a meeting Wednesday night in his riding.
I will tell you: I get up and leave Vancouver at 9 a.m. and land here at 4.30 p.m. The day is gone. He can leave his office at 9 a.m. and get here at 10.30 a.m.
Smart aleck, that will never sell. He talks about all the brochures and what have you that he sends to his riding. Fine. So do I. That is why I have been here for 16 years. I do not think he will be here next time with that kind of an attitude.
For all the letters, parliamentary reviews and householders that we send out, the reality is that the people still want to talk to us personally. They want to meet with us personally. It is not easy to do when we have a six-hour flight on a Thursday or Friday. It is not easy to do six hours after a days' work and then meet constituents.
Wake up, smell the coffee and see how big Canada is. I want this member to know, Sir, it is one thing to send out householders and it is another thing to see them in flesh and blood. Maybe his wife is satisfied with a phone call, but I think she would rather see him in person. That is the way constituents feel, too.
It is not enough to get a letter. It is not enough to get a householder that your staff printed. They want to see us. They want to meet with us. For once, I would like to find a central Canadian from that party who would travel to the west often enough to see what it is like to represent a
April 8, 1991

constituency out there and still meet the needs, aspirations and the feelings of those people out there.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: The question of the proposal with respect to three weeks on, one week off, has been around for a long time. It was looked at by the McGrath committee. It was not rejected at that time on its merits. It seems to me there are good arguments on both sides, and that is not the debate I am here to enter at this point.
I want to speak to what the member actually had to say and some of the things he did not say. He talked about governments having the right to implement their mandates. I agree with him. There is often irony in the questions that opposition members pose, but there are also examples of when governments bring forward things that they did not promise. All governments are guilty of this, and your government has been guilty of this as well, with respect. In my judgement, the GST and the free trade agreement, at least after 1984, are examples. There are times when the opposition feels that the government did not make point of saying it was going to do that, and I think it is legitimate at that point for people to make that part of the debate.
The member mentioned Question Period, which I think has deteriorated seriously in the time that I have been here. I remember when I first came here. Speaker Jerome was in the Chair. People were cut off if they had long preambles or were not permitted supplementaries. I think part of the deterioration of Question Period owes itself to the lack of discipline, with respect, that the Chair is unwilling to impose on the House, and also to the discipline of television, which looks for those 15 or 30-second sound bites which the old Question Period did not provide as easily. We have conformed ourselves to that medium and perhaps we need to take a second look at that.
The member made a point with respect to committees. He knows that when we considered these kinds of things during the McGrath committee, we also considered a process whereby the principle and the substance of bills would be considered beforehand in a way that this particular reform that he is now defending, does not introduce. That is one of the reasons why we are critical of it.
Government Orders
Finally, with respect to the whole question of efficiency, I think you could stand to introduce new efficiencies into this system if you at the same time introduced new meaning into those more efficient processes. This reform has failed to do that. You have not given real meaning and power to the participation of opposition members at the same time as you have introduced new efficiencies. That is where you fall down.
I wonder if the member could tell me why, in his defence, he did not mention the four areas where this reform-or deform, as we have called it-specifically goes back on recommendations made by the McGrath committee of which he was a part. The re-introduction of parliamentary secretaries into the standing committees is a case in point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The time for questions and comments is over. Does the House give its unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Then there is the question of limited rooms for committees meeting within these envelopes, which will, as sure as I am standing here, have the effect of not permitting all committees to work when they want to work. That will take away the self-initiating power which the McGrath committee recommended. There is the question of legislative versus standing committees and the power which this reform would give to the government to decide whether or not a matter went to a legislative committee or a standing committee. Again, eroding the McGrath reforms. Finally, putting the whole matter of substitution even more under the Whips than it is now, when the spirit of the McGrath committee was to take power away from the Whips and invest it in the private members. The Whips have too much power over this place already. They are a scourge on this place. The essence of the McGrath report was to give more power to the private member, more power to committees, and that is exactly what this reform is not doing. In fact, the reform is going in the opposite direction.
I know I am not being fair in the sense that I have not given him the time to do so, but the member was a member of the McGrath committee and it would have been interesting to hear how he can justify these changes, knowing as I do, the position he held collective-

Adjournment Debate
ly with me and other members in 1985 on these same matters.


Benno Friesen: First of all, the member has given me a very lengthy list and I would like to deal with them with the thoroughness that I think they deserve, because he is a serious member on this subject. This is no gadfly, he is not a fly-by-nighter on this. He has been in on this subject for many, many years, and I would propose to deal with only two of them and then if the members will give me permission, pick it up at 11 a.m. tomorrow and then I can look at this list.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, on March 25, the Commissioner of Official Languages submitted his annual report to the House of Commons. Given the social and political, or rather linguistic, climate, this report showed very encouraging signs of the rise of bilingualism in the country. It thus counterbalanced a more negative interim report, in my humble opinion, Mr. Speaker, made public five days earlier by the Spicer Commission on March 20.
In his report, the Commissioner of Official Languages says that four out of five Canadipans accept official bilingualism. Another encouraging fact: three out of four parents want their children to learn the second official language in immersion courses. Mr. Speaker, although this report mentions rising support for bilingualism in Canada, it also denounces the inertia of Treasury Board. The Commissioner says on page 36 and I quote:
The list of what the Treasury Board Secretariat did in 1990 is not half as interesting as the catalogue of what it did not do.
The Commissioner says on page 83:
The Heasury Board should be the engine of the renewal decreed by Parliament. We do not ask that it display zealousness; in future, we would merely ask that it discharge more effectively all its language policy responsibilities.
Mr. Speaker, that is why on March 25 I asked the President of the Treasury Board in this House how he could explain the 22 per cent reduction in staff at the Official Languages Division of Treasury Board, his own department. I asked him how he could reduce staff from 64 to 50 in this division which, as we know, is responsible for applying in his department and federal departments a law that is sometimes misunderstood, sometimes mismanaged and often misapplied.
The President of the Treasury Board replied-obviously evading the issue-that this division's budget had increased rather than decreased. Treasury Board is to check on what is being done in the departments and to take corrective action where required. How can the President of the Treasury Board dismiss 14 employees when the workload is going up rather than down? In so doing, he is shirking his responsibilities for fully and effectively applying the Official Languages Act.
Mr. Speaker, the Official Languages Act was adopted, as we know, in July 1988. However, nearly three years later, we are still without regulations on language of work-I stress language of work-and also without regulations on the need to have criteria for equitable participation. So we still lack two parts to go with the Official Languages Act.
Mr. Speaker, I asked the President of the Treasury Board to tell me when we could expect to receive regulations on the language of work from his department. He answered me, and I again quote his answer of March 25:
With respect to the language of work, outside if you will, I believe the official language is already precise enough. As far as I know, there has been no major problem. Should one ever arise, we would be glad to deal with it at the appropriate time and place.
Mr. Speaker, either the President of the Treasury Board does not know what language of work means, which would surprise me, because he is an intelligent man, or his mind was on something other than the House of Commons or he has amnesia. A few days before, in a press release from a public service union, we learned that public servants had difficulty obtaining documentation and the right to communicate with their supervisor in their own language.
By language of work, Mr. Speaker, I mean the ability of public servants to work in either official language. I mean their ability to speak to their supervisor and receive personal services in their own language. I mean their ability to obtain ordinary, everyday material like forms and manuals in the language of their choice. Now,
April 8, 1991

the Commissioner of Official Languages reports on page 135, and I quote:
A large number of supervisors, 25.6 per cent, are still unable to carry out this function in both official languages. As well, there are many others who, having passed a language test and qualified for the bilingualism bonus, make no effort to give their employees freedom of choice in language of work.
So there are no standards, Mr. Speaker. Nearly three years after the passage of the Act, the Commissioner still concludes, on page 132, and I quote:
- that progress towards the language of work objective in federal institutions has stagnated both as a result of the vagueness of current policies and because many senior managers attached no priority to meeting the objective.
And further on, page 136:
It seems clear that the language of work provisions of the 1988 Act will remain a dead letter unless the Governor in Council adopts regulations clarifying the rights of federal employees.
Furthermore, the Professional Institute of the Public Service, a rather well known union, said in a research report that 32.9 per cent of francophones cannot communicate in their language with their supervisor. The Official Languages Commissioner had to report, page 132, that his "words fell on deaf ears" in 1988 and 1989, for his recommendations regarding the establishment of a master plan to ensure implementation of the new Act were not retained.
The President of the Treasury Board answered that question last March 25 when he told me in this House that there was no problem. But there are problems, Mr. Speaker, and the government has to solve them. I feel it is high time for them, the Minister and his government, to remove their blinkers, to realize that regulations are needed. The need is urgent and imperative to ensure respect of both official languages in the workplace. I therefore ask this to the parliamentary secretary: When can we expect regulations about language of work? When can we expect regulations about fair representation?


Mr. Bill Kempling (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply to the question
Adjournment Debate
posed by the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier regarding official language regulations and the regulations on the language of work.
As hon. members are aware, the first priority of this government was to propose regulations on service to the public in English and in French. The President of the Treasury Board tabled such regulations in the House of Commons on November 8, 1990. These proposed regulations have been prepublished in The Canada Gazette, Part I, March 23, 1991.
The Parliamentary Committee on Official Languages is currently studying these proposals. I understand they will shortly be making their recommendations to the President of the Treasury Board.
As the President has already indicated on a number of occasions in this House, these regulatory proposals on serving the public were necessary to complete some key aspects of the Official Languages Act of 1988.
With regard to language of work matters, the Official Languages Act is already quite specific regarding the obligations of federal institutions. The act sets out a number of concrete requirements based on long-standing government policies that remain in place.
Let me just cite a few examples such as the provision of personal and job-related services to employees and work instruments in bilingual districts.
I understand that there were more detailed instructions as required. Treasuiy Board may issue policies or directives according to its mandate under the Official Languages Act.
It is indeed not necessary to regulate all matters. For instance, initiatives to create environments conducive to the effective use of both official languages may be taken without actually issuing regulations. These initiatives could range from federal institutions making special efforts to assist employees returning from language training to use their newly acquired skills in meetings and supervision to develop the bilingual lexicons in special areas. It goes without saying that Treasury Board will continue to carefully examine all matters related to language of work and will strive to ensure that all obligations under the Official Languages Act are met.

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Adjournment Debate
As for regulations on equitable participation, the Official Languages Act already sets out the government's long standing commitment in this area. I can tell hon. members that we are committed to ensure that English speaking and French speaking Canadians have equal opportunities to obtain employment and advancement in federal institutions. Current government policies are clear and explicit on this matter. In fact, participation levels in the Public Service broadly reflect those found in the appropriate sectors of the national labour force.
Any specific imbalances, such as anglophone participation in federal institutions in Quebec for example, are being dealt with by Treasury Board and the institutions concerned. Issuing regulations on language of work and equitable participation do not appear to be necessary at this time.
Moreover, I can assure hon. members that this government will continue to actively meet its obligations and commitments to the Canadian public and to its employees in accordance with the Official Languages Act.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Ross Harvey: Mr. Speaker, do you remember the green plan? Do you remember the government's promise of significant and real progress in tackling environmental problems? The minister and the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources seem to have forgotten. At least that is the message in the latest budget.
For the seventh year in a row the department's funding of energy efficiency, conservation and alternatives was cut. Last year's already pathetic $40 million was cut another 12 per cent down to $35 million. That is a whopping cut of $375 million, 91 per cent in this budget item since 1984 when the budget was $410 million, the first year of the Conservative government's reign.
By contrast, in 1991-92 the government will be spending $154.8 million as a loan for the Husky Oil upgrader at Lloydminster and $180.6 million in the Hibernia project. That is more than $335 million in two oil megaprojects in 1991-92 alone. That is almost 10 times the entire budget for all energy efficiency, conservation and alternatives.
In the case of Hibernia, the government will be giving over $1 billion of taxpayers' money-that's right, a $1 billion gift-to a consortium that is planning to ship virtually all Hibernia oil straight to the United States. It will not even be refined in Canada. That $1 billion give to Hibernia, a straight subsidy to American consumers, would have paid for this government's measly annual funding commitment to all energy efficiency, conservation and alternatives-remember, Mr. Speaker, $35 million-for over 28 years.
Again, by contrast, this year the government will funnel $215 million into nuclear power development through Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the Atomic Energy Control Board and there is more. According to a speech the minister gave June 5, 1990, to the Canadian Nuclear Association, Canada has invested a staggering $30 billion in nuclear facilities. Presumably this includes the $40 million per year that AECL spent over the last 10 years just to investigate sweeping its radioactive waste into a hole in the Canadian Shield.
One final contrast, even after just six months in power the New Democratic Government of Ontario has already left the Mulroney Conservatives far behind on environmentally responsible energy policy. As just one example, the Ontario government has ordered Ontario Hydro to divert $240 million-that is $60 million a year for four years-from nuclear energy development into reducing electricity demand through energy conservation and efficiency.
That diversion alone is worth more than one and a half times the total annual energy department spending on all federal programs for efficiency, conservation and alternate energy. Indeed that total federal budget of $35 million is only a little over twice what Ontario Hydro will spend each year merely on advertising its conservation and efficiency programs.
I should point out as well that Ontario Hydro is subsidizing the federal government in a pilot project to save energy in about 60 federal government buildings. That project, to install new lighting, motors and insulation, which reportedly will save the federal government $860,000 a year in energy costs, is being extended to all federal buildings in Ontario. I do hope that this program will demonstrate to the Mulroney Conservatives just what a little leadership can do.
April 8, 1991

Less than two weeks ago, on March 25, the all party House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment tabled its report on global warming. This unanimous report entitled Out of Balance-the Risks of Irreversible Climate Change warns that the phenomenon of global warming is a fact and it poses a severe threat to Canada and to the planet as a whole.
The report obviously supports what the minister stated in a speech he gave in Toronto on September 13, 1989, and I quote:
The greatest reductions in carbon dioxide can be obtained through energy efficiency and conservation.
Having made these remarks, the minister then cut the budget for energy efficiency and conservation by a two-year total of 28 per cent.
The minister still talks a good line. He was quoted in a Globe and Mail article of March 30, 1991 apparently qualifying remarks-laughable in a morbid sort of way when you consider this government's massive bias against energy efficiency and alternatives in favour of fossil fuel and nuclear megaprojects-that the Mulroney Conservatives have a "market based" approach to energy policy. Said Mr. Epp:
I think it is the role of an energy minister to get us into areas where the present infrastructure will not take us. If people argue that I am moving away from the marketplace, I will accept that charge.
Mr. Speaker, I pray for the day when I will be able honestly to level that charge.
Perhaps, just maybe, the minister is beginning to believe some of the good advice he has been receiving. For example, in March 1989, his department received a report entitled Energy Demand in Canada, 1973-1987, which included a series of proposals for future policies and programs. It says, and I quote:
To achieve the major economic and environmental benefits that energy efficiency still has to offer, government policies and programs for the future will need to emphasize a strategic combination of, energy efficient standards; improved information programs; financial incentives, and Research Development and Demonstration assistance.
To rely solely on energy prices and existing market mechanisms is a formula for failure. Active and constructive intervention in the marketplace is absolutely essential.
In Halifax last June 18, just 11 days after his bill to authorize the bill dollar gift to Hibernia passed second
Adjournment Debate
reading, the minister told members of the Solar Energy Society of Canada that, and again I quote:
It is clear that a safe, environmentally sound and economically viable energy path is imperative for this country. For this reason, we are firmly committed to the expansion of the efficiency and alternative energy sector. Like you, we want it to play a much larger role in Canada's energy economy.
The words and the evidence are clearly at odds. So my question to the parliamentary secretary is this. In view of this government's repeated funding cuts to energy conservation, efficiency and alternatives, what conclusion can Canadians draw other than that this government's actions, contrasted with its claim to be truly committed to energy conservation, efficiency and alternatives, merely demonstrates its stunning hypocrisy?


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada is committed to the goal of maintaining and enhancing the environmental quality and in the green plan as set out by a comprehensive framework for the achievement of this goal.
The green plan contains strategies for improving the quality of air, land and water. The green plan promises that as a part of the strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the government will take several specific actions. It will implement the National Action Strategy on global warming that will be a comprehensive approach, cast in the international context, emphasize flexibility to take account of new information and developments and recognize regional differences.
It will table a National Energy Efficiency Alternative Energy Act dealing with the regulation of energy efficiency levels in energy-using equipment, labelling of products to convey information on energy use, and collection of statistics on energy use.
It will set minimum energy efficiency standards for appliances and equipment.
It will improve and expand the present Energuide program for energy labelling of home appliances.
It will update and regionalize the federal Measures for Energy Conservation in new buildings, and encourage their incorporation in building codes.
It will improve the energy efficiency of transportation by setting new fuel efficiency standards, helping to inform fleet managers and drivers and working with the

April 8, 1991
Adjournment Debate
provinces and municipalities on improvements in the transportation system.
The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources will establish a National Advisory Council to promote government industry co-operation and to establish energy efficiency targets for each of Canada's industrial sectors. Alternative energy sources will be encouraged through accelerated development of market penetration of alternative transportation fuels, including expansion of natural gas markets, increased availability of alternative fuel vehicles and support for research and development.
This hon. member is incorrect in his statement that EMR has reduced funding for efficiency and alternative energy in the fiscal year 1991-92. The government's estimates tabled recently projected expenditures of $34.7 million, slightly higher than the level of expenditures for the fiscal year 1990-91.
While the hon. member chooses to criticize the government for its current spending levels on efficiency and alternative energy programs, he does so most selectively. What he fails to acknowledge is that for all intents and purposes, spending reductions on these programs were due to the government's commitment to erase the last vestiges of the National Energy Program. Moreover, spending on efficiency and alternative energy under the NEP provided for a cumbersome and ineffective manner.
Four years and millions of dollars later, taxpayers were shown little return on their investment.
This government and our department is committed to the green plan and committed, Sir, to ensure that all Canadians have an equal opportunity to work and also being able to ensure that we have an environment for the future.
[Translation}
MONTREAL^ ECONOMY


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on a subject of the utmost importance for the people of the Montreal area. I am referring to the disastrous job situation and economic conditions in Montreal.
Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I raise this question. I raised it over six times since February 25 and I have not yet received a satisfactory answer.
The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that this government has forgotten Montreal. On December 10,
1990.1	asked a question to the Minister of Employment and Immigration regarding the deplorable job situation in the province of Quebec. At that time, 87,000 jobs had been lost in Quebec just over a six month period.
The minister told me, at the time, that employment programs were available in Quebec and that I would be happy with the results they would produce.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I am still not satisfied with the efforts made by this government to create jobs in the Montreal area. That is why I raised the question again on March 18. So, Mr. Speaker, let us look at what results the employment initiatives of this government have produced.
In Montreal, today, one person out of four is living below the threshold of poverty. The unemployment rate for the region encompassing the Montreal area reached
15.1	per cent in February according to Statistics Canada.
These are the results of the employment policies of this government and the reason why I raise the subject again tonight.
Economic conditions in Montreal are so bad that the unemployment rate is higher there than in any other city in Canada. The situation is getting worse and we have no economic recovery programs in place.
Based on the report the SECOR counsulting group presented to the Quebec government, an estimated
615,000	people are living in poverty in the Montreal area. Nowadays, that is unacceptable!
On March 18, the Minister of Labour told me that his government had invested millions of dollars over the past two years to help stimulate the economy in Montreal.
Where has that money gone? The economic situation in Montreal only got worse. In the La Presse issue of March 28, we can read that 60 per cent of the welfare recipients in Montreal have been on welfare rolls for more than two years.
We must conclude, that this government's action does not improve in any way Montrealers' standard of living. Indeed, one would be wrong to say that because the
April 8, 1991

initiatives of this government have had one result: to throw Canada's economy and Montreal's in particular into a slump. They have destroyed families by depriving them of their income, of their jobs and of their salaries.
On March 18, the minister of Labour has stressed that in order to create jobs it was necessary to teach people new technologies. But, I told him that a new knowledge is useless if one is unable to put it into practice. A person will be able to put his newly acquired knowledge to good use only if we create new jobs and if Canadians have a renewed faith in their economy. Unfortunately, this government has managed to achieve exactly the opposite, since jobs are more difficult to find and Canadians in general have less confidence in the economy.
So, Mr. Speaker, when we look at the situation today, we see that in Quebec the bankruptcy rate has increased by 40 per cent in the first few months in 1991. According to Statistics Canada, 1,618 individuals have asked for the protection of the Bankruptcy Act. If the minister wants to increase confidence in the economy, these figures won't help. As for the government's effort to create jobs, I would say their record leaves much to be desired.
I have just mentioned to the minister that people need jobs in which they can use their new knowledge. However, by reducing funds for research and development, the government is not encouraging job creation. Between 1987 and 1990, government spending in that area decreased from 1.4 per cent to 1.28 per cent of the GNP. Mr. Speaker, again, I ask the government: How will they resolve the unemployment problem in greater Montreal and throughout the vast Montreal region? What will they do to help save the 1,800 jobs being threatened at General Motors, in Boisbriand, in the Sainte-Therese area? What measures will they introduce to put Montreal's economy back on track? What help will they provide to the 225,000 unemployed in the Montreal region to finally revitalize this economy the government seems to have forgotten?
Mr. Speaker, I know my time is almost up. I just wanted to explain how it feels to read articles such as there: Poverty gaining ground in the Montreal region;
615,000	people living in poor households, 50 per cent in Montreal. Montreal, once the biggest city in Canada, has
Adjournment Debate
become the unemployment capital of Canada, the welfare capital of our country. The time has come for this government to assume its responsibilities and stop the dramatic loss of our country's very valuable human resources.


William James Kempling: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Employment and Immigration, I wish to respond in greater detail to the questions of March 13 by the member for Saint-Leonard.
Let me first say something about jobs. Between 1980 and 1984 when the Liberal government was in power,
4,000	jobs were lost in Montreal. Between March 1985 and March 1991, 96,000 net jobs were created in Montreal. We know that more needs to be done, but the hon. member belittles that great city if he paints a picture of unrelieved gloom.
We know assistance is necessary. The statistics make that clear. This government is taking a number of measures beneficial to the economy of Quebec, and Montreal in particular. Agreement has been signed with the province of Quebec to spend $440 million in federal funding over five years, between 1988 and 1993, on economic development in all regions of Quebec.
The government is very concerned about the challenges faced by certain neighbourhoods in Montreal, especially the southwest. In April 1989 the federal government responded to the Creesom report and announced that it would provide the following assistance in southwest Montreal:
Employment and Immigration Canada will allocate $32.5 million over the next five years on various labour market initiatives. The government intends to work with the local community to develop sustainable jobs and more qualified labour. For the last two years it has been working with RESO, an economic development corporation, to establish training priorities. For example, EIC is presently developing with RESO a special school where local residents can receive training assistance.
Industry, science and technology will provide $15 million to establish an industrial recovery program for southwest Montreal.
The federal government will also provide housing and financial assistance to southwest Montreal. Forty-eight million dollars in Federal Business Development Bank loans has been allocated over the next five years to promote economic activity in this area.

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Adjournment Debate
There are many more assistance projects that have been announced by this government:
In November 1990 the Department of Employment and Immigration allocated $2 million to establish in east Montreal a petrochemical training centre. This will respond to that industry's need for skilled workers.
The Canadian Jobs Strategy also helps. In 1990-91, $32 million in Canadian Jobs Strategy funding has enabled 7,925 Montrealers to participate in training programs. Furthermore, a total of 46 industrial adjustment committees are active in the Montreal region.
Finally, I understand the member's concern with the Montreal economy and the job market. This government was concerned with this particular issue long before the members opposite chose to focus on the unemployment statistics.
For example, the government fought for Bill C-22, the pharmaceuticals bill, which brought investment and jobs to this city. The members opposite did not want this legislation and delayed it for 17 months.
The government knew that a more innovative approach to labour market programs was needed in early
1989, and yet Bill C-21 came into force only in late 1990. Had we had Bill C-21 in place in January 1990, $800 million in UI training expenditures would have been spent last year in this country. Montreal would have benefited, but had to wait until the opposition made up its mind.
In conclusion, the government is helping the Montreal petrochemical industry, an industry which was all but completely abandoned by the former government.
This government is helping the Montreal and Quebec economy, and it did so long before the opposition woke up in March and chose to focus its attention for the first time on the state of the Montreal economy.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 7.33 p.m.

April 8, 1991

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HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBER, OTTAWA on
Monday, April 8, 1991
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April 8, 1991

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President and Mrs. Salinas were welcomed by the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada, by the Honourable Guy Charbonneau, Speaker of the Senate and Honourable John A. Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons
Hon. John A. Fraser (Speaker of the House of Commons):: The right hon. Prime Minister.


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. President, Madam Salinas, Mr. Speaker, cher collegues, mesdames et messieurs'.
During my visit to Mexico last year, Mr. President, we laid the foundation of a new beginning in relations between Mexico and Canada. Today with your visit here all of us build on that foundation, and on behalf of the people of Canada I extend to you, Mr. President, to Mrs. Salinas, your family, and all members of the Mexican delegation the warmest of welcomes to our country, Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Formal diplomatic relations between Canada and Mexico go back many decades. First contacts date to the days of Captain George Vancouver who gave Canada's largest Pacific island its original name, "Vancouver Y Quadra", after himself and the commander of the Spanish vessels, Mexicana and Sutil with whom he sailed.

If Canada and Mexico grew on the same continent, each tended to look elsewhere, however, for like-minded partners. But the world around us is changing dramatically and economic competition and opportunity are the hallmarks of our age. And so it is no coincidence that both of us have re-calibrated our global orientations and re-formulated our foreign policy priorities, at about the same time.
Since you came to office, Mexico has been focusing more northward to the United States, our common neighbour, and to Canada, to build new partnerships to improve the lives of your people. And Canada has begun to focus more southward, to consolidate our base in the hemisphere and to pursue new opportunities in the global economy.
Our first step in implementing this new policy direction was to conclude a free trade relationship with the United States. As you know, the decision to secure that free trade relationship was supported 100 per cent by all Canadians and all members of this House of Commons.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Well, give or take a few.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: The next step was to develop a comprehensive strategy for relations with Latin America. By the year 2000, 600 million people with a purchasing power of $1 trillion will live in Latin America. It will constitute a continent of enormous economic power and great political influence on the world stage.
As part of our strategy for relations with Latin America we have joined the Organization of American States, both to demonstrate our commitment to progress in this hemisphere and also to play our part in making it happen. A lynch pin of our strategy is our renewed relationship with Mexico.
April 8, 1991

During my visit to Mexico last year we concluded 10 agreements covering a wide range of public policy issues from law enforcement to environmental protection. Today, four more agreements are being signed; on film co-production, double taxation, and on commerce, including a $500 million line of credit between EDC and Pemex.
These agreements are further building blocks in the construction of our new relationship.
A North American free trade agreement is a logical next step. That is why, Mr. President, we have endorsed your proposal for such an agreement. We know that the road will be long and difficult. We know it is a courageous decision by you, Mr. President, and all parliamentarians wish you well.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: A North American free trade agreement would create a market of over 350 million people with a gross product of over $7 trillion, bigger than the European Community whose economic relationships will intensify greatly in 1992.

Trade in goods and service would exceed $300 billion per year. Canadian consumers would benefit from the lower prices that competition and comparative advantage can deliver. And Canadian producers would benefit competitively from the restructuring and modernization that access to a larger market makes possible.
We have no intention, however, of renegotiating the Canada-U.S.A., FTA. We want to build on the FTA and to expand trade liberalization to encompass all of North America.
The objective of all three governments is to negotiate an agreement that allows them to strengthen their economies through free trade, for the benefit of their people.

The advantages for Mexico are clear. If there is one lesson that globalization and interdependence have taught, it is that increased trade brings higher living standards and greater opportunities. Trade, not aid, has opened up the most effective avenues to prosperity and to social justice. Aid, while extremely helpful has not itself been able to deliver prosperity. But trade, by transforming developing nations into advanced economies, has done so.
Not so long ago Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan were considered to be underdeveloped centres of low-cost labour. But as a result of sound economic policies at home and increased trade abroad, the standard of living in these countries on a per capita basis, is on a track to parity with the western industrialized countries during this decade. This is an extraordinary achievement and I think it is one that Mexico is going to emulate.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Countries with strong economies can afford to provide their citizens with social benefits that others cannot. These same countries are also those that can afford to impose the most stringent environmental standards on their industries and on their citizens. They are also the countries that dominate international trade.
Mr. President, 87 per cent of Canadian imports now come from the United States, Europe and Japan, and not from, for example, countries with extremely low wage rates such as China or India or the Soviet Union. The argument that wage structures in less developed nations somehow fundamentally distort a free trade area, or provide substantially unfair advantages, does not stand up to serious scrutiny.
The reality is that in the knowledge age we live in, competitiveness depends not on one, but on many factors, including education, training, productivity, communications and transportation networks, proximity to markets, and the costs of capital as well as the costs of labour.

The Government of Canada believes that a Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement can prove to be in the best interests of all concerned-if it can be achieved on terms that are acceptable to all three sovereign nations.
But important as the trade issue is, there is much more on the agenda of our two countries. Cooperation is underway on environmental protection. Business links are growing between private enterprise on both sides. And 350,000 Canadian tourists and business people visited Mexico last year.

April 8, 1991
Talks between President Salinas and I will address the evolving situation in this hemisphere to which he, as President of Mexico, brings a unique perspective. And our talks will go beyond respective domestic and regional concerns to the ongoing challenges in the Persian Gulf, the evolving situation in the Soviet Union, the prospects for successful conclusion of multilateral trade negotiations and the urgent need to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction and to control the sale of arms.

Mr. Speaker, simply put, there would be no discussion today of a resurgent Mexico, much less of a North American free trade agreement, were it not for President Salinas. His confidence in Mexicans and their confidence in themselves, have made it possible to transform attitudes, to accomplish changes and to chart a course that even five years ago seemed unthinkable.
Canadians respect Mexico's dynamism, and all Canadians admire Mexico's culture. We welcome you today, Mr. President, as the visionary leader of a great people with an exciting future. Here in the House of Commons, this crucible of Canadian democracy, I invite you now, on behalf of all parliamentarians of all political parties, who value our association with Mexico-and all of us do-I invite you today to address the Parliament and the people of Canada.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
His Excellency Carlos Salinas de Gortari (President of Mexico):
[His Excellency spoke in Spanish.]

The Hon. John A. Fraser, Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada; the Hon. Guy Charbonneau, Speaker of the Senate of Canada; the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney, Prime Minister of Canada; hon. members of the House of Commons and Senate of Canada; Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen: I come here in respectful response to the invitation extended to me by this sovereign body, which so worthily represents the people of Canada. In this house of democracy resides the will of the great Canadian nation to find its own answers
to its needs and to forge its own path in the world. I bring to this rostrum the friendship of the Mexican people and speak with their voice in expressing our desire for Mexico and Canada to become better acquainted with their many coinciding aspects, as well as with the wealth of their differences, so that together we may embark on new relations of exchanges and co-operation for our mutual benefit.
Canada and Mexico are both the outcome of singular experiences, but both are genuine nations, soundly rooted in their history and solidly backing their national project. Here in this Parliament speaks the voice of a sensitive and vigorous country that jealously guards its linguistic and cultural traditions and cherishes peace and co-operation among nations. Mexico draws its identity from a synthesis of civilizations and cultures; the strength of our blending of races gradually built up a national character that is proud of its past, aware that it is the heir and custodian not only of universal values but also of its own way of life and profound communal solidarity.
Mexico has a robust identity and sufficient vitality to build its own sovereign future. We therefore do not fear an encounter with the world, rather we actively seek it. To be bent on autarky would not only be Utopian, but would mean condemning ourselves to backwardness and marginalization. Our homeland is able to look out at the world and open itself up to contact with other peoples, without thereby failing to be faithful to itself, to its traditions and culture, to its values and historical raison d'etre. We Mexicans today look towards the future and are determined to play a significant role in the coming century.
That is why I have come to Canada, an industrialized nation with a high export volume, a wealth of natural resources and a wide rate of freedoms, which will undoubtedly contribute to shaping the world of the third millennium. The Mexican people want to establish new continental relations that are more dynamic, more productive and more just. By doing so, our governments will be in a better position to carry out their tasks in a manner befitting the men and women of our countries and our times, who are doing their best to make our hemisphere an area of convergence and freedoms. We can take advantage of the goodwill and hard work of our peoples to guide our agreements and encounters to our mutual
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benefit and ensure that this new world will once again astonish humanity, just as it did 500 years ago.
Members of Parliament: Today, as we are just beginning to witness the end of the world's post-war structure, we recognize the crafty barriers and outworn dogmas that are designed to hinder the exchange of ideas, goods and people. The new co-operation between the great powers, the autumn revolution in central and eastern Europe, the new democracies here in the Americas, evinced, to our fascination, the global nature of the human condition, the flexibility of politics and the economic interdependence of nations. The Persian Gulf conflict was a painful reminder of the same global reality. Today, it is no longer possible to dream of an isolated social experience, impenetrable to coexistence or to alien conflicts. The hope and the challenge of building a world governed by international law are growing at a parallel rate. The true challenge of our times is to recognize the constructive force of the globalization of history, to face with responsibility and respect the variety of social experience and to avert the risk of new attempts at protagonism and new myths aimed at ignoring the sovereignty rights of states.
The world economy is the stage of a harsh and intense competition for markets. The revolution in knowledge and technology is transforming work habits and making social relations more fluid. New centres of innovation, resources and trade are at the forefront of economic activity and are forming into blocs to profit from then-comparative advantages. To have staying power in this new international arena demands changes in economic structures, openness to competition and innovation, and new forms of association both within and outside the borders of individual nations.
In view of those circumstances, Mexico has set out to make the changes needed to secure a new placement in the world economy and to play an active role in the political configuration of the future. Within our borders, Mexican society has undergone a significant transformation over the past 25 years. Our current population of 82 million will increase by a further 10 million during my administration. Every year, one million young people seek to join administration. Every year, one million young people seek to join the labour force. Then-demands are clear-cut. They want opportunities, services, and to participate in the decisions that concern
them as well as in national affairs. They now reflect the demands of a better-informed and therefore politically more active, mature society. That is why in Mexico development, democracy and, above all, solidarity with those who have the least are essential needs and not merely options for defining government policies. Our response has had to be commensurate with these legitimate demands and in keeping with the new global reality.
We have strengthened our democratic institutions by changing the customs and practices that hampered the indispensable modernization of our structures. Thus, we now have a more vigorous system of parties in which increased electoral competition is the distinctive characteristic of political contention. The progress of democracy in Mexico has been reflected in the establishment of a new juridical framework for electoral matters, the result of an agreement reached between the different and even opposing political forces in the country. This new electoral legislation ensures a framework agreed upon with a view to establishing mutual responsibilities and acceptance of electoral results. We Mexicans know that our greatest political challenge lies in renovating our democratic practices, organization and structures in unison, so as to respond to an increasingly demanding society.
Mexico has never lost its course on the road to democracy. However, if politics are to be constructive, favourable economic conditions need to be established- as many fledgling democracies are beginning to discover-to ensure that the aspirations and ideals of liberty are solidly founded in actual reality in order to be long-lasting. The democratic exercise of power therefore also involved building economic foundations that will give our people more and better opportunities to realize their hopes for a decent life.
In Mexico, it is through our modernization strategy that we have sought to regain the path to gradual, sustained growth. After two years of persevering joint efforts in that direction made by society and the government, we have succeeded in achieving a growth rate of 4 per cent of GNP in real terms, and in reducing the public deficit to just half a percentage point of our national product, the lowest level in a quarter of a century. Strict fiscal discipline and a successful, timely renegotiation of the foreign debt have provided the necessary stability. Moreover, the pact signed by all sectors of society to

April 8, 1991
reduce inflation remains in force, and this year we aim to cut it back to half the rate recorded in 1990.
During the past two years, Mexicans have seen inflation reduced more than it had been over the past 20 years. Our objective is to lower it to single-digit levels comparable to those of our main trading partners and to provide the greatest possible certainty regarding the development of our economy.
Economic stability has therefore been our highest priority. From the outset we viewed it as an essential condition for ensuring the continuity and viability of the structural measures that we have implemented in order to modernize our productive plant. The main objective is to make Mexico a major exporting country: hence the urgent need to ensure greater efficiency in productive processes and over-all quality of the end product. That is why we opened up our economy to international and domestic competition. In a brief period of time, we moved from being one of the most closed developing economies to being one of the most open. We have dismantled non-tariff barriers, removing them from over 85 per cent of imports; tariffs now average 10 per cent and the highest stands at 20 per cent. We needed to encourage innovation and competition, and to take advantage of the arbitrage of foreign prices on domestic prices.
That, in turn, meant broadening and stepping up the process of deregulating large sectors of our economy and establishing more attractive conditions to encourage greater flows of foreign direct investment, on which access to new technology largely depends. The fields of transportation, telecommunications and secondary petrochemicals are now more efficient and competitive; new regulations afford security and certainty to foreign investors who now have 100 per cent access to investment in activities that account for nearly two-thirds of our GNP. The Mexican Congress is currently studying bills to define clear, competitive rules for the protection of intellectual property rights. The climate for investment is attractive and dependable. This year Mexico has witnessed the arrival of nearly $4 billion in foreign investment and we expect more in the future.
Another important structural change has lain in the sale of public companies that are not of a strategic or priority nature. Our State has grown not only in terms of bureaucracy but also of property. The economic crisis of the past decade revealed the seriousness of the problem. More state-owned property and greater trade protectionism in Mexico simply did not lead to greater justice or greater economic strength that would allow us to deal with international contingencies and grow. The government has therefore privatized mining industries and companies, our airlines, and the telephone company, and soon to come are the commercial banks. The funds obtained from such sales have aided financial stability and have been invested in tackling extreme poverty. The Mexican people realize that government responsibility does not lie in owning a new fleet of aeroplanes or new bank offices, but in meeting demands for water and schools, and in providing opportunities for Indian, rural and urban communities. That is why Mexicans support the government's programs for change and thereby guarantee the continuity of such programs.
This shows the magnitude of the efforts made by the Mexican people. The strength of the nation and its increased capability to meet domestic needs and the demands resulting from globalization of the economy rest on a firm foundation. Consequently, we now intend to step up the process of diversifying our ties and bolstering trade relations with the various regional integration areas. We are aware of the potential of our geographic location, which makes us, like Canada, neighbours of the world's strongest economy and a link between the Orient and the Occident. We are also aware that Mexico is a bridge connecting the northern and southern parts of the hemisphere, which implies greater two-way trade with the countries of Latin America and therefore a secure link in shaping a continent-wide, free trade area.
Consequently, we have begun talks with Canada and the United States of America that will, in the near future, enable us to embark on negotiations leading to the signing of a trilateral free trade treaty. I am convinced that such a treaty is unquestionably the best option for the parties involved. It is an opportunity for our three nations to create a major economic zone that while respecting our cultural differences, will have the
April 8, 1991

vitality to compete successfully with the European market and the Asian Pacific Rim.
Within the framework of an agreement between sovereign nations that will do away with tariff and non-tariff barriers, increase the expand trade patterns and objectively and justly resolve differences, we can expect investment and the creation of jobs to benefit all three countries. We will also be able to find economies of scale that will not only increase the competitiveness of Canada and restore that of the United States, but also bring Mexico's competitiveness up to world levels. A new array of technological options may well open up as a result of greater specialization and diversification in production and exports. We have what is needed to translate efforts into well-being for the inhabitants of North America.
Particularly for a country such as Canada, where the export of goods and services accounts for one-fourth of the gross domestic product, Mexico's market, in full expansion with 82 million consumers, is a potential destination for Canadian products and investment. Correspondingly, Mexico is seeking free and reciprocal access for its products to Canada and the United States. Furthermore, we are convinced that such conditions will generate greater investment and more sources of well-paid jobs, which will dissuade our fellow countrymen from leaving Mexico in search of job opportunities in the north. Economic relations with the United States are already strong, but we now wish to ensure that they grow in an organized and equitable manner, taking into account differences in the levels of development achieved by the two economies.
Very broad opportunities truly exist, since the economies of Canada and Mexico are complementary. Mexico is seeking to gain from Canadian experience in the fields where Canada has consolidated advanced infrastructure and has leading-edge technology. Such fields include, for example, telecommunications and public transportation, advanced irrigation projects, and water and environmental sanitation. Efforts to modernize Mexico urgently call for access to different technological options that will give producers greater flexibility in meeting the expectations of modem consumers.
Freer trade between our nations is expected to enhance the well-being of our peoples. We must not blame free trade for the conditions imposed on the productive
situation by other factors. We have nothing to fear but barriers and obstacles that are intended to protect some parties from competition and, in doing so, end up destroying creativity and well-being. We must not forget that, sooner or later, such barriers have been demolished by the freedom-seeking vitality of peoples and by then-demands for justice.
Distinguished members of Parliament, a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America is already in force. Arduous and intense negotiations preceded the signing of this agreement and now serve as valuable experience of which Mexico hopes to take advantage. Although the debate was undoubtedly intense, it was finally shown that the economic prosperity of Canada, one of the world's most important exporting countries, is closely linked to access to new markets and consequently to plans for developing a free trade in goods and services. An economy that closes itself off loses competitiveness. An economy that is skilfully opened up gains new competitive vitality.
In Mexico we share this vocation. It is with the support of our culture and our history that we are opening up to the world and to the competition for markets. We know that the path that each nation pursues cannot be other than the result of its own historic experience, of the specific circumstances of its geography and even of the resources with which nature has endowed it. In the world of today, however, comparative advantages are not inflexible-they can be built up. The circumstances of today's world oblige us to make use of all the energy, imagination and determination of Canadians and Mexicans alike in working toward the convergence of our goals, so as to take full advantage of the complementary aspects of our economies. We can share a vision of the future, based on the long term, that will heed the needs of coming generations, who deserve to live in a better world.
We have embarked upon a new and vigorous stage in bilateral relations between Canada and Mexico. We are counting upon the spirit of our societies and the interest of our governments to strengthen our ties in the different areas of our agenda, both as regards our economies and in the fields of politics and culture. In particular, we in Mexico want to intensify the co-operation between our countries in two areas that the Mexican government and people regard as especially sensitive. These are: the

April 8, 1991
fight to definitively eradicate the scourge of drug trafficking, and the mutually respectful and concerted effort to improve the environment.
The international struggle against illegal traffic in narcotics is Mexico's struggle as well. Over the past two years, we have seized thousands of tons of cocaine and destroyed hundreds of hectares of marijuana and poppies; we have broken up over 100 criminal organizations and confiscated their goods and properties; we have substantially increased budgetary resources for combating drugs and raised penalties and sanctions against those proven to have a connection to this chain of terror; we have ratified the Vienna Convention and are playing an active role in international forums. We have carried out these and other actions because in Mexico we consider drug trafficking to be a basic threat to the security of our country and to the health of our young people. We know that this chain of criminal activity transcends the frontiers of any country-which means that co-operation among nations is essential. Nonetheless, for it to be truly effective, such co-operation must be respectful of the sovereignty of all the states involved.
In the protection of the environment, Mexico assumes its commitment along with the entire world, because it sees this as a humanitarian cause of universal scope. Mexico has gladly accepted its responsibility in this crusade that is incumbent upon us all, since all of us stand to benefit from its advances and its successes. We Mexicans are convinced that our growth need not lead to the ravaging and pollution of the environment; quite the contrary. Growth that damages the environment is not growth. Resources and technologies for cleaning it up are still needed, but with government and society working together we have made progress.
A few days ago the Mexican Government took the decision to definitively close down one of our country's five refineries, precisely the one that supplied Mexico City. This was done at great economic cost, but this action will prevent the release of 80 thousand tons of pollutants per year into the atmosphere. We are also going to make other heavy investments in improving the environment of Mexico City, but we realize that a great deal still remains to be done, not only in our capital city but also in other areas of our country, some of which
have been declared part of the patrimony of humanity. The initial and long-term efforts must be made by the Mexicans themselves, but we also propose to obtain more far-reaching international co-operation in this endeavour. I must acknowledge that our efforts have been supported by the invaluable technological and financial assistance of friendly countries, among them Canada, for which I hereby extend the sincere and fraternal gratitude of the people of Mexico.
Honourable Members of Parliament, Mexico has always based its foreign policy on strict observance of the principles that define harmonious coexistence among nations. By tradition and conviction, Mexico has displayed a clear vocation for peace and conduct consistent with respect for the self-determination of peoples, the peaceful settlement of controversies and co-operation for development. For that reason, and because of the strength of its history, Mexico has confidence in its future, in the deep-seated nationalism of its people, and in the vigour of an ancient culture, which is experiencing a renewal and renaissance, and which proudly offers to the world's surprised eyes the contributions stemming from the spirit of its men and its women to the vast cultural wealth of the west.
Today Mexico, proud of its past, looks to the future. In doing so, we have found in Canada a friendly and respectful nation, interested in becoming acquainted with our way of life. We Mexicans also want to gain a better knowledge of this country's way of life, to explore in depth the traditions and customs of the people of Canada, and to enrich ourselves with the value that they themselves place on their pluralistic society and the diversity of their ethnic groups and their languages.
In the spirit of a Canadian who so staunchly demonstrated the strength of his determination, Terry Fox, as in the impressive talent of men of science like Frederick Banting and the humanism of Stephen Leacock, we Mexicans have come to know of the greatness of your people. That is why we are certain that this new era of friendship can be positive and enduring. The people of Mexico make very good friends. They want to be, in the true sense of the word, friends of the people of Canada.


Hon. Guy Charbonneau (Speaker of the Senate):: Your Excellency, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Prime Minister, honor-ables collegues du Senat et de la Chambre des Communes, distinguished guests:
April 8, 1991

[Editor's Note: Speaker spoke in Spanish.]

Mr. President, we are honoured by your visit. Your stature as an economist and a humanist inspires us with trust borne of reason. The validity of your democratic convictions is testimony of mutually beneficial co-operation.

You embody our countries' hope to create organic ties on this North American continent which we share with a powerful neighbour.
A worthy representative of contemporary Mexico, in your writings and your political life, you have already shown that technology and human values are not opposed but, on the contrary, that they combine to enrich humanity.

It is entirely appropriate, Your Excellency, that you should visit our assembly at this historic juncture in Canadian-Mexican relations. Mexico is of immense importance to Canada.
Before today, - we knew you as a forward-looking leader determined to reshape your nation to meet the challenges of the future, while preserving the diversity of your cultural traditions and a deep sense of national pride in the achievements of previous civilizations.
Today, we have had the privilege of hearing you speak eloquently of your vision of the Mexico of today and tomorrow, and we feel that under your leadership the aspirations of your people are in good hands.
Your bold vision for the future of North America opens the door to new avenues of co-operation which promise to carry us well into the next century. Time strengthens friendship, and we look forward to expanding our ties in the months and years ahead.
In listening to you, Mr. President, we realized once again how the firmness of your ideological convictions is yet allied to a wise pragmatism, and your courage to a political wisdom which commands respect.
Mr. President, your mother is an economist and your father a senator; your inheritance was obviously the presidency.
We are proud to share our coming prospects with a neighbour who so profoundly grasps the interdependence of the modem world.
Your country is indebted to you for a new deal for its people. Your knowledge and experience fit you perfectly to play a prime role in the new deal that the three neighbouring countries in North America are contemplating. And we have the greatest confidence in the man who started the process, the President of Mexico, whom we have the honour to welcome here today.
On behalf of my colleagues in the Senate of Canada, your Excellency, allow me to thank you very warmly for your inspiring address to us today and for your moving expressions of friendship for the Canadian people.
We would ask you to carry back to Mexico a message of the deep friendship which all Canadians feel for the Mexican people.

I thank you, Mr. President, and wish you good luck.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: Your Excellency, Madam, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker of the Senate, Members of the House of Commons and Senate, honoured and distin-gued guests, ladies and gentlemen:
Today, I have the duty but also the immense pleasure to express on behalf of all members of the House of Commons and of all political parties represented here our great joy in having you among us in this historic Chamber.
Canada and Mexico have enjoyed an enduring friendship over many years. Since diplomatic relations were established in 1942, we have maintained positive and constructive contacts for our mutual benefit in numerous spheres of activity.
I should mention, Mr. President, the continual exchanges that have taken place between members of your Parliament and members of our Parliament over many years which have had a great effect in understanding both among your own people and among our colleagues that you meet with today.
I might say from a personal point of view that before I was elected to this House, I visited your country as part of a bidding delegation for the 1976 Winter Olympics,

April 8, 1991
when you were holding the Olympics in 1968. We were very well received by your representatives and they got us the Olympics. They got us the Summer Olympics though, not the Winter Olympics.
I have also had the privilege of being on a parliamentary delegation visiting your country. I want you to take back to your colleagues the very great importance that we place on these exchanges.
Today, we are facing new challenges arising from vast changes in our hemisphere and the world community, and you have spoken of them. In your address to us today, you have not ignored the difficult questions but rather with statements of courage and vision you have drawn attention to them.
As a true leader, you have reminded us that a challenge is also an opportunity. Since assuming office you have achieved great progress in moving Mexican society forward to realize its true potential.
Those of us who have had the opportunity to visit your country are impressed with the vast storehouse of resources, both material and human, with which your country is blessed. Culturally rich, economically dynamic, historically resplendent, politically self-assured, Mexico cannot help but succeed. These values and attitudes are reflected in the views you have expressed to us today.
The comments that you made, Sir, with respect to the drug problem and with respect to environment are timely and are of great importance to us. We know,
because we are not naive, that the terrible scourge of the drug problem is not just as a consequence of where the drugs are produced, but also as a consequence of those who use them. So your comments are timely and helpful.
Your comments with respect to the environment come at a time when at a global level and all around the earth people are more and more realizing that this may well be the great issue that we have to resolve. Your comments bring encouragement and help to your friends here.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker Fraser:: It means a great deal to us, who share the continent with you, to hear your comments because leadership is something that in this day and age must go beyond national boundaries and that when you make these statements, which are the statements of a true leader, they are an inspiration for all of us. We are deeply grateful for the message that you have brought to us from your country.
In closing, Mr. President and Madam, let me say on behalf of all who are here today, and many who are not able to be here, we value immensely our friendship with your country. We want to continue the relationship in a more and more effective way. We welcome you here today. We wish you could stay longer. We wish both you and Madam and your colleagues the very warmest best wishes from all Canadians. Thank you.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.

Tuesday, April 9,1991