1991-03-21

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 eight petitions.
[.Editor's Note: See Today's Votes and Proceedings.]
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CANADIAN NATO PARLIAMENTARY ASSOCIATION


Mr. Bob Hicks (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34, I have the honour to present to the House this morning, in both official languages, the 22nd report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association.


PETITIONS
Mr. Ross Harvey (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of Standing Order 36 to present a petition, signed by 135 citizens of Edmonton who note that Air Canada intends to yank 200 jobs from the Edmonton International Airport and the Edmonton
reservation office. I believe this is a proposal that has since been implemented. They call upon Parliament to express its profound opposition to the further centralization and retrenchment of its regional services by Air Canada, our former national air carrier, and urge the federal government to request Air Canada to revoke the proposed lay-offs.
It is obvious that these 135 citizens are joining with millions across the country to express their dismay at the ongoing dismantling of national institutions by this government.


Mr. Len Taylor (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: am proud to present this armful of petitions today during Rural Revitalization Week 1991, a week in which we celebrate the organization Rural Dignity and oppose government cutbacks in rural services.
These petitions are signed by the residents of rural Saskatchewan who live in The Battlefords-Meadow Lake constituency. The petitioners claim that the GST, cuts to VTA Rail, rail line abandonments, farm support program erosions, cuts to the CBC, and the closure of rural post offices constitute an attack on the rural way of life, and they call on Parliament to support, not attack, that rural way of life, including the maintenance of rural post offices and postal services.
The petitioners say they want Parliament to reject any more cuts or closures.
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QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all questions stand?

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Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I am sure the parliamentary secretary is aware that question No. 410 standing in my name has been there since November 29, 1990. It is a 45 day rule, as I understand it, for response to such questions. It is simply seeking information about the government's green plan on the costs of polling and contracts, public relations advertising and promotion.
I wonder if the parliamentary secretary can explain why in four months there has not been an answer produced. I thought that 45 days would have been more than adequate.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have been watching the hon. member's question with some interest and concern, and I do recognize that it is late. It is my understanding that it is in the minister's office now, with some final drafting to be done. Certainly I will deliver an answer to him as quickly as possible.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-98, an act authorizing agreements between the Government of Canada and the provinces to provide for protection for the income of producers of agricultural products and to enable the Government of Canada to take additional measures for that purpose, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Agriculture.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There are 11 report stage motions on today's notice paper in amendment to Bill C-98, an act authorizing agreements between the Government of Canada and the provinces to provide for protection for the income of producers of agricultural products and to enable the Government of Canada to take additional measures for that purpose.
Motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3, standing in the name of the hon. member for Mackenzie, caused the Chair to examine at length the procedural acceptability of the motions. But, after careful reflection, I have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to the member.
Motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3 will be grouped for debate and a vote on motion No. 1 will apply to motions Nos. 2 and 3.
Motion No. 4, standing in the name of the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, motion No. 5, standing in the name of the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings, and motions Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9 standing in the name of the hon. member for Algoma, are all procedurally acceptable. They will be debated and voted on separately.
Motion No. 10, standing in the name of the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings, and motion No. 11 standing in the name of the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, both deal with reports to Parliament, more specifically review of act. Both motions are in order. They will be grouped for debate and an affirmative vote on motion No. 10 obviates the need for a vote on motion No. 11. A negative vote on motion No. 10 will require the question being put on motion No. 11.
I will now propose motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3 to the House.


MEASURE TO ENACT
Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie) moved:: Motion No. 1
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 4 by striking out line 37 at page 2 and substituting the following therefor:
"program provided the maximum account built up by any one producer does not exceed $100,000 in 1991 dollars;".
Motion No. 2
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 4 by striking out line 38 at page 2 and substituting the following therefor:
"(b) a gross revenue insurance program provided maximum payments to anyone producer do not exceed $ 100,000 per annum in 1991 dollars;".
Motion No. 3
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 4 by striking out line 39 at page 2 and substituting the following therefor:
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"(c) a revenue insurance program provided maximum payments to any one producer do not exceed $100,000 per annum in 1991 dollars; and".
He said: Mr. Speaker, the basic reasoning behind these particular amendments is one of permitting Parliament to exert its normal influences. This particular piece of legislation is one of the most wide open chunks of parliamentary business that I have seen in my 11 years in the House. There is no recourse to the normal role of parliamentarians to set limits to the amount of money being expended, to have any control over expenditures, which is one of the basic roles that Parliament plays in our system, or is supposed to play in our system.
Because we are representing taxpayers in this bill, as well as farmers, I felt that it was incumbent upon us in the House to decide what the maximum limits, liabilities if you will, to the public purse should be with some clarity. I have proposed that the maximum limits of liability from the public purse in each of the programs be set at $100,000. The GRIP program, which is motion No. 2, is a gross revenue insurance program. The maximum liability from the public purse, from the GRIP payment fund would be $100,000 per producer.
What does that mean? By my admittedly rough calculations, but all of the calculations I hasten to add having to do with GRIP are rough, this would catch farmers in the open plains with farms where they are seeding above 5,000 acres. In the higher producing areas of the country, it would perhaps catch people over 4,000 acres of seeded crop. When we get into the heavy com producing part of the country, that acreage might be reduced to 1,500 or 1,800 acres as a rough guess.
At any rate, it cuts out very few people at the present time who would not extract the maximum possible payment on any particular year. The coming year is considered to be a year with a very large payment probability. Even under these expected high pay-outs, it would take a very large seeded acreage before the $100,000 ceiling would reduce the amount of payment under the price support part of this program.
You will notice, Mr. Speaker, being very observant, that I did not propose to put any ceiling on the pay-outs under crop insurance. There is a very good reason for that.
Crop insurance is a more direct insurance program which insures against production at current market prices. There is no perceived rip-off of taxpayers' money, to use the kind of wording I am already hearing in my towns and villages, to maintain very large farms.
However, when taxpayers are putting up 42 and one-third per cent of their tax dollars into this maximum pay-out of $100,000 on an annual basis and an additional 25 per cent of their provincial tax dollars into this pay-out, they are starting to think that that is quite a lot of money to go to one farmer. Therefore, I think we should be putting some ceilings on it at this stage.
The numbers that I have already put on the record sound very high and very scary to most taxpayers who perhaps are not as well inculcated into farm economics and who probably do not realize that this is still unlikely to give a net income to most of those farmers, even so.
Once we get into the sizes of operation where this ceiling will apply, I think there can be a justifiable public policy reason for putting these ceilings in place. I do regret that the three proposals were put under one set of debating points, because the first one is considerably different than Motions Nos. 2 and 3. It would have been easier to debate the concept and the principle, had Motion No. 1 been separated from Motions Nos. 2 or 3.1 accept your ruling and your wisdom, Mr. Speaker, and will attempt to present the arguments in a series, even though some of the economic and accounting principles involved in Motion No. 1 are quite different from those in Motions Nos. 2 and 3.
Motion No. 3 places $100,000 a ceiling on the pay-out to be received by any one producer under those commodities now covered by the Agricultural Stabilization Act. That act did have some ceilings as did the old Western Grain Stabilization Act, which to a certain extent GRIP replaces.
The concept or idea of ceilings is certainly not new. The ceilings that are being placed here are very adequate. They will not offend very many people and will only trigger a reduction in a pay-out to a very minor

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groups of individuals. I think it is the role of this Parliament and the role of parliamentarians to set some limits, even though they are not particularly stringent limits, on the expenditures of this and future governments and on the ability to sign federal-provincial agreements which have absolutely no upper limit on the public purse.
Therefore I put these forward for consideration in the Elouse. There is very little more to say on this issue. It does not assist in public policy, in economic policy, or in rural development for extended amounts of public money to be put into one particular economic group in rural areas.
It creates some economic problems, some economic disruptions, yes; but it also creates great social and political unrest when ordinary taxpayers, who are perhaps under current conditions sitting on an unemployment insurance cheque as their only source of income which is capped and cannot go above a certain limit, watch their farm neighbours reportedly getting pay-outs to address their particular economic difficulties which go even beyond $100,000 per year.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister, President of the Privy Council and Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few comments. I certainly understand the hon. member's well-taken points.
I want to remind this House and all hon. members that this legislation was developed in close collaboration with Canadian farmers. We relied on the grains and oilseeds safety net committee, a majority of whom were producers. That committee, in its report presented to ministers of agriculture last August, did not call for caps on farm size or for payments. In its report, the committee indicated that "GRIP participation is open to all economic units" and "there should be no maximum on payments from GRIP".
This view was echoed by other farm leaders who appeared before the agriculture standing committee. Mr. Terry Daynard, speaking on behalf of the Ontario Corn Producers Association, indicated his group's policy was to oppose caps. Mr. Owen Mcauley of Keystone Agricultural Producers indicated: "I know our organization is opposed to caps".
Farm leaders, quite apart from anything else, know that once caps are put on any program administrative problems are created, as large farmers are virtually forced to split their enterprise into smaller units to avoid the maximum set by the program.
We do not feel that these motions would enhance the legislation. It could create problems, as I have just indicated. Therefore the government is not prepared to accept these three amendments.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, the amendments put before the House today did not receive a lot of discussion in committee, although some farm groups did recommend that there be no cap. We believe there should be a review of the legislation within two years.
If we look at the government's program for interest assistance, it is providing for a maximum of interest-free support of $50,000. The western grain stabilization fund at the present time has a cap of $50,000 per year. There is a lot of uncertainties in this legislation as to exactly how it is going to work.
We in the House of Commons, and I am sure the provincial legislatures, feel rather outside the deals that are going on between the governments involved. This is part of the new executive federalism which has really replaced the parliamentary system in this country. Our ability actually to spell out what the GRIP program is going to be and what the NISA program is going to be is sharply circumscribed.
I can see problems with sharply circumscribing what those agreements can be. For instance, in the horticultural industry we are dealing with a high value crop per acre. This is all based on gross revenue not on the price of individual commodities, although that is a factor in what the gross revenue would be per acre. At the same time, when we are dealing with the NISA program, it is inconceivable that it will reach the cap until after the review takes place, if that review takes place as we have recommended in 1993.
If we are dealing with a legislation which is going to be reviewed in two years' time, the concept would be acceptable to our side of the House although the government has already indicated that it is not acceptable to it.
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If there is any overriding situation in this whole thing, certainly for western fanners it is just not knowing what the limits are or what the premiums are. They received the estimates of premiums several days after the legislation was actually brought in. They really do not know what to do, whether to farm the program in order to maximize revenues or whether to go strictly on the market forces. The market signals of course are very limited as far as the price of commodities.
There was a report this morning by a forecasting group in the United States which projects a very marked increase in the number of acres being planted for grain crops in Canada. It associates this in some way with the implementation of the GRIP.
I think there are arguments on both sides. We certainly do not have any high value horticultural crops coming under NISA and GRIP at this stage because they have not been developed. They may be at a later stage, but we would hope the government would agree at a later stage in discussion of the bill today to accept an earlier review, rather that five years, in which case the cap of $100,000 as proposed probably would not cause any great hardship even to those high value crops such as the grains and oilseeds. In any event, this limit would increase the value, the pay-out or the benefit by 100 per cent from the existing western grain stabilization fund.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to some of these amendments today to Bill C-98, the legislation that allows the government to enter into agreements on the GRIP and NISA programs.
One matter that concerns me a lot about this process was brought home to me when the parliamentary secretary talked about the consultation process, the producers being involved in the process which led to this program being developed and now this legislation in front of us to enter into these agreements.
The parliamentary secretary said that this consultation process had occurred. What he neglected to say was that the consultation process involved general discussions about the need for safety net and some specifics about how we should go about it.
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However, the consultation process with the farm community not only since the program has been developed, but this legislation has been entered into in this Chamber, has been very poor. The consultation process with people who at this point on the farm are still very confused about what the GRIP and NISA programs mean to them is something that should be examined in much greater detail.
I am quite concerned that the confusion out there and the need for an immediate infusion of cash are driving individuals both in this Chamber and in the provincial legislatures to reach agreements more quickly than they should otherwise be prepared to enter into them. That is why I believe this amending process in the Chamber today is so very important.
This legislation simply allows for agreements to be entered into. The bill calls for an April 1 implementation date, April 1 being of course just the end of next week, April 1 being a very close deadline to be working with.
The provincial legislature of Saskatchewan is not in session to pass similar legislation allowing the province of Saskatchewan to enter into an agreement with the federal government on this program. The provincial legislature has said that it will not even begin sitting until the end of the first or the second week of April.
As a result, the mandate from the provincial legislature of the province of Saskatchewan to allow that government to enter into agreement with the federal government cannot even begin to take place until several days after the legislation is supposed to come into force.
The farm community is certainly desperately in need of cash. This is one reason why I stood last week and called for the application of the finance minister's $1.3 million budgeted for farmers in need to be applied immediately for spring seeding. That would bridge the gap and allow for better understanding and the creation of a stronger safety net program so that not only those of us in the House understood completely, but that the farm community, farm producers and individuals operating on farms throughout Saskatchewan, western Canada and elsewhere, would have an understanding of what this program meant to them and could assess it properly.
My biggest concern in all of this is that in the long term we may have a very deficient program. The provincial leader in Saskatchewan, Roy Romanow, has said that this might be the shortest long-term program in the history of agriculture programs. What he meant by that was that

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farmers will be in it for the first couple of years to get the pay-outs that are predicted and will then withdraw from the program, leaving the program with a huge deficit and still no solution to the farm income crisis of producers.
The three amendments before us were put forward by my colleague from Mackenzie, a long-time New Democratic agriculture critic. He is someone who is respected throughout the agricultural community, particularly by producers in the province of Saskatchewan. The amendments try to put some reason to the carte blanche blank cheque legislation that is in front of us until such time as we can properly assess some of the long-term implications.
We cannot accept a blank cheque for the government simply to enter agreements with the provinces on legislation which may in fact over the long term completely alter the way in which agricultural support programs are delivered in Canada.
When we look at the pieces of that legislation that have to amend, we see that some of these deficiencies can be corrected in the short term. For example, putting a cap on the amounts of funds available in NISA, as this particular amendment proposes, prevents the government from doing in farming what it is already doing in banking, in business, and in running our economy, that is helping to reward those who already have a lot, the wealthy large farmers who are not part of the serious debt and income crisis on the prairies and allowing the government to match dollar for dollar farmers who are capable and able to put large amounts of money into the Net Income Stabilization Account.
By matching those dollars the government gives tremendous benefit to those who have the wealth and prevents those who do not have the wealth from getting into it. As we have heard in committee, in this House, and around the country, NISA does nothing to support the poorer farmers, the marginal farmers, the farmers who are in debt both to the banks and to the government's financial institutions. This bill does nothing to address that long-term debt problem. Therefore, if we can do anything at all to ensure that the discrimination in favour of the wealthy producers in this country can be held in check somewhat until we can address the debt
and income problems in the long term, we are accomplishing something. This blank cheque legislation allows for agreements of almost any kind, and is contrary to the development of long-term success of income stabilization on the prairies. I would remind the House that we have not seen those agreements.
I urge the government to accept these few amendments put forward by the hon. member for Mackenzie. I am pleased to hear that members of the opposition are prepared to accept these amendments. If the government can accept these amendments as well, we can achieve some small sense of fairness in a bill which does provide for quite a bit of unfairness if left to stand unchecked.
I will have other things to say on other amendments throughout the day. With that, I will provide the floor to other members.


Mr. John Harvard (Winnipeg St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I want to give my support to the position put forward by my good colleague from Algoma. I will restrict my few remarks to the matter of caps.
Farmers are very responsible people. They expect us to be responsible people. While in the eyes of some people, caps may be construed as being discriminatory, we do have to exercise some caution and certainly exercise responsibility.
The safety net programs which we are embarking upon are something very new to us. They are new to the country and new to the producers. We are, in a sense, going through uncharted waters. All the more reason, in my mind, why we have to be super-responsible. That is why I, and the rest of us on this side, favour caps at least for this particular time, and want a thorough review of this legislation two years down the road.
We want to be responsible. We do not want to hurt anyone. We do not want to discriminate against anyone. We are up against something which is new and we do not know exactly how these things are going to develop. For example, arriving on my desk just this morning is a report from a group in the United States called the Wharton Economic Forecasting Association. It claims that wheat acreage in western Canada is going to jump over a
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million acres this spring. I do not know whether it is going to be right or wrong.
This is one of the unknowns that we face. It combines two things; first, that we want to be responsible about this, and second, that we want to have a thorough review a couple of years down the road when we have the benefit of some experience and the benefit of some facts that may be not available to us now. I think it would be very, very prudent to go along with these caps, certainly on the NISA program. Prudence also demands that we place a cap on GRIP, at least for the next couple of years.
I simply want to put this on the record.


Hon. Charles Mayer (Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State (Grains and Oilseeds)):: Mr. Speaker, I have two or three very brief comments with respect to the amendments we have in front of the House.
Somebody mentioned the Western Grain Stabilization Act. I should point out that the act provides for coverage of 90 per cent of eligible income in the prairie region. In one sense, it provides a cap, but it is up to 90 per cent of the aggregate income in the prairie region. That has been adjusted, I believe, three times. It started out at 25 per cent, it went to 40 per cent and it is now at 60 per cent.
We came close to raising it to 90 per cent; $1,000 per farmer, $25,000 to $40,000 per farm to $60,000. We came close to raising it to $90,000 when we saw an increase in income as a result of some fairly favourable grain prices about four or five years ago. So in one sense there is a cap and in another sense there is not a cap.
Members should also know that within that legislation it is possible to apply for multiples. If a farmer has more than one or two people in his permit book, he can apply for multiples of up to three of whatever the coverage is. Currently, someone operating as a family farmer or as a limited corporation with more than one shareholder could be eligible for multiples of up to three. There is a case where in fact the cap, if you want to call it that, is certainly higher than $100,000.
I would also suggest it is very difficult in this type of legislation to enforce anything like this. I think the hon. member for Algoma made a very good point when he talked about some of the high value crops in the
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horticultural industry for instance, where literally with four or five acres of crop, one could be very close to the $100,000 cap because of the value of the crops on that acre. Some horticultural crops not only have veiy high input costs but returns per acre. It is very difficult when we get into some of these things just to pick a number and say we want to stay with this.
I have one last point I want to make. A pretty strong argument against the cap is that we would find very quickly that producers-to the extent that they would want to participate in this program, and we think the interest is quite high-would very easily find ways of getting around this by simply organizing their affairs in such a way they had operating units that could each qualify for $100,000. They would make those kind of arrangements so that they could very quickly have a cap that is higher.
On a procedural or on a performance basis, I do not think that this type of a cap in legislation works very well. Whether we farm big or small in this country, we have freedom to own property. Whether the farm is 10 acres or 1,000 acres, the cost per acre is the same. I do not think we want to get into the business of telling people, either directly or indirectly, what size of farm they should have. It should be up to their own ability, their own management skills and their own ambition.
I think, for those reasons, that this type of motion is not the right regulation to have in this bill.


Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Saskatoon-Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, there is considerable concern, not only in the agricultural committee but right across the country, relative to the actual responsibility of this legislation, because it is open legislation which does not, in any way, restrict the amount of money that can be spent or called on by the government after the agreements are signed.
I suppose these three motions are an attempt to put into the legislation some kind of responsibility to the taxpayers and recognize that certain farmers would benefit from the cap not being in place.
Let us take a look at the three motions. The argument concerning Motion No. 1 has been made often enough and long enough so there is no need to go further on it. Motion No. 3 deals with the ASA tripartite, hogs and cattle and so on. It would limit very large operators such as feedlots controlled by large multinationals from

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receiving more than $100,000 per year of payments. If they received $100,000 per year, $67,333 of that would come out of the taxpayers' pockets. In other words, a $100,000 payment to a multinational which had afeedlot would get $67,333 from the taxpayers under the tripartite agreement. Is that what the taxpayers want?
Let us take a look at Motion No. 2. It deals with GRIP. This particular cap would have no effect on 95 per cent of the people who are likely to be in GRIP. I disagree with what the minister and the parliamentary secretary suggest. Large farms are not likely to divide in the short term. They might over a long period of time. To do so they would lower their coverage levels which they had accumulated over the last 10 years or so. That coverage comes from the good experience of crop insurance.
Only large farms operating below the production levels for their areas would divide their operations to take advantage of this sort of a situation. Other sections of the agreement are supposed to work against this kind of low productivity. It is not in the end a major effect even on that. It is unlikely that very many, if any, farms would divide to get more out of the program.
Many organizations which originally looked at this and suggested that there not be limits are now very concerned that there are not limits. They are concerned because they recognize that the danger to this program to a great extent is the fact it is uncapped. The danger to the stability of the program is the possibility that huge sums will be taken out.
We do not want to find ourselves in the situation in which the U.S. finds itself. In some of their programs 85 per cent of the payments go to less than 10 per cent of the farmers. That does not make farming a stable industry. This legislation is intended to bring stability to the farming community, to the industry. It should not have within it seeds for the actual instability which will eventually take place if there is a large extra payment for those of a particular size.
We are moving these motions for two reasons. First of all, the taxpayers deserve to have some responsibility in this legislation. I am sure the finance ministers would agree with that. Second, the seeds of its own instability should not be sown in the legislation so that eventually
the legislation will become less effective because of an action that we should have been able to change.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I will recognize the hon. member for Lethbridge and then I will recognize the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I really just had some questions. Perhaps my friend from Prince Albert could respond. I was trying to follow his argument-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: There is no time for questions or comments. Is the hon. member going to take his 10 minutes?


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, my comments are directed to members of the NDP. Maybe they can through another member to respond to these points. The hon. member talked about multinational feed lots.
I am from the Lethbridge area and I am not aware of any multinational feed lots in southern Alberta. I am not aware of any in southern Saskatchewan. I wonder if the hon. member could tell us to whom he was referring. I did not think they were even covered by this statute because they have a tripartite program. We are debating the farm income protection act. How do his comments relate to this?
Second, the hon. member seemed to be saying with this cap that it would apply to a farm, but what about all of the communal farmers and people who operate in partnerships and so on, if we are going to have caps? If there are 20 families living on a communal farm or there is a partnership, would it not be limiting? Surely the hon. member does not intend that.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Mackenzie can answer and I will then recognize the member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, with the permission of the House I will outline some of this for the member. First, this legislation does include ASA. It is rescinding the Agriculture Stabilization Act under which this tripartite agreement is written. It integrates it into this bill. Section 41(c), dealing with revenue insurance programs deals specifically with it. That is what Motion No. 3 is amending.
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It is already in there. It is a tripartite thing, so that two-thirds of the pay-out comes from federal or provincial taxpayers. Bill C-98 rescinds the Agriculture Stabilization Act and integrates it into this bill.
The proposal of a multinational feedlot was simply a proposal. It was an example of what can happen and what has, indeed, happened in the United States.
The $100,000 cap does not apply other than to GRIP or tripartite pay-outs or to the NISA maximum account.
Crop insurance stays as it always has been, covered yield times market price, so that the example previous speakers from that side have horrified themselves with could not happen. The horticultural crops would be covered for most of the $1,000 an acre that was proposed. It would only be the price differential which is in GRIP that would be limited to payments of $100,000 maximum per year.
I think it is important to get that straight so that government members, at least, know what it is they are voting on. I regret that they were not able to follow it closely in committee. That is partly why we have report stage in the House, so that all members can get more acquainted with the bills.
These proposals do not apply to crop insurance coverage. They apply only on those programs that are on top of that which are effectively price insurance programs, such as GRIP, the tripartite programs and the income account under the proposed NISA. A 4,000 or 5,000 acre wheat farm that lost all of its crop would be largely covered by crop insurance. The GRIP portion for most
4,000	and 5,000 seeded acre farms would not be limited in the receipts by the $100,000 cap.
I have done the calculations for the coming year and there is virtually no wheat farm in western Canada that would have its payments reduced if they seeded 5,000 acres of wheat and had a 30 bushel coverage level.
The levels we are talking about reducing payments to are farms that are veiy large indeed. It is still possible, even if these amendments were put in, from my checking, for a integrated farm or a mixed farm that is in the feedlot business or hog business, as well as in crops, to receive maximum payments to $100,000 under the crop side and $100,000 under the tripartite side. In fact, the real limit is something more than $200,000, because that kind of an operation might be drawing out of its NISA
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account that year as well. So these are veiy large sums of money coming from the public purse.
I think the government should reconsider whether to put some caps on this so that the tax paying public has some assurance that we have not all gone completely bonkers, even though it will not limit very many payments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: I do not want to set a precedent here.
We are into report stage. The parliamentary secretary started a question and comment period and the minister wants to reply. I would hope that maybe at the next motion, the hon. minister will have another opportunity. Otherwise, we will never get this done.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I think the amendments proposed the hon. colleague for Mackenzie are very important, indeed. He has very eloquently outlined the reasons why.
There is a problem in the agricultural community these days with the future it is facing. Rural communities and family farms in this country are disappearing. They have been disappearing at an alarming rate for a long time.
The purpose of this amendment is to begin to change the attitude that this government and past Liberal governments have had to the future of family farms. If we are going to maintain a strong family farming structure, we need to keep that in mind when dealing with legislation.
The $100,000 cap is going to include most farmers who exist today in this country. The concern is that as agriculture becomes bigger and bigger business and corporate enterprises become more and more involved, there is increased vertical integration in the agricultural industry.
Cargill, for example, is a tremendous interest in the U.S. It is expanding every day in Canada. It is important that we place some limits. A $100,000 cap is, for most people, not a limit.
As the hon. member for Mackenzie pointed out, very few farms would be affected. Those would be only the very large farms.

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The point that the hon. minister and other members have made in the past is that people will abuse the system, that they will be dividing their farms and so on. There is no program that is perfect. That is for sure. Certainly, this will not be either, but there are ways and means of putting in safeguards to keep that to an absolute minimum.
With respect to the program that is before us, many of the witnesses who appeared before us in committee agreed that there were ways to work the program. That is possible regardless of what type of program we have.
We have an unemployment insurance program and there are certain people who try to take advantage of it. We have a whole list of programs in this country that people attempt to take advantage of, but by and large most Canadians are honest and try and do comply with the rules.
The argument of not being able to put a cap in place simply because people will take advantage of the program is not a valid one. It is one the government should quit throwing out.
The other aspect is that this program is not a cost of production program. The smaller family farm is not getting full advantage of a cost of production program. In fact, it is going to lose out in the end. This program will be a very rich program, but it has been predicted that GRIP will go tremendously in the hole in the next two or three years. We are going to have a program in which we may find ourselves with some very serious problems in a few years.
The difficulty is that as the 15-year average goes down, we are going to find that farmers are paying a higher percentage of their average crop production, of their average income, and receiving less and less for it. That certainly is a problem. One of the fundamental flaws with this program is that it does not recognize that fact.
If we had a cap on this program and geared the program to the family type farm, the more average size farms in this countiy, we would all be better off. Certainly those farmers would be better off because it would be possible down the road, as this program is reviewed and re-evaluated, and perhaps changed to reflect that, to bring in a true cost of production up to a set level.
That is why these amendments are important. They are important because they set a new direction. As New Democrats, we applaud that type of direction. We cannot understand why the government and the Liberal Party would not support such an amendment. To us, it is an important factor in maintaining viable farming families. I hope the government will reconsider and place that proposal before the House and be willing to support it.
The other point that has to be included in this amendment is to keep in mind that as this program goes into the hole, as it goes further into debt and is reviewed down the road, there may well be changes to it in five years. As the government has said, it is going to enter into a review process so that farmers who have a program for five years may find that, because of the richness of this program, because of the fact that a few very large producers have received the full advantage of this program, all producers will suffer. Surely that is not the objective of this program. Surely the goal of this program is not to reduce the number of farms. It certainly seems to be the effect.
The way this government has manoeuvred agriculture in this country over the last six or seven years bears that out. This government set up an environment which will hurt average farms and rural communities. With the changes to the Wheat Board Act, this government's attitude and actions do not bode well for the future of farming in this country as we know it today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?
The question is on motion No. 1. A vote on No. 1 will include the same on motion Nos. 2 and 3.
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
.
il
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And more than jive members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Motion No. 4
That Bill C-98 be amended in clause 4 by adding immediately after
line 21 at page 3 the following:
"(b.l) the program should encourage the long-term social and economic sustainability of farm families and communities;"
He said: Mr. Speaker, since I was elected in 1988, I have had the opportunity to travel across this country. One thing I have noticed is that geographically, Canada is really a rural nation. We have pockets of population in various parts of the country. We have this so-called golden triangle in the Toronto area. We have the lower mainland of British Columbia. We have, I suppose, a population base in the Ottawa area. Outside of that we have largely a rural nation.
Even areas that Statistics Canada would include as urban are in fact rural. In my riding, for example, the riding of Moose Jaw-Lake Centre, half the population lives in the city of Moose Jaw, which is considered urban by Statistics Canada, but in fact, it is a rural city. It depends on the rural infrastructure that exists around it, the economic infrastructure, the farmers and others who do business in Moose Jaw. There is an area which the city of Moose Jaw services.
There are many urban communities in this country which depend on rural Canada. This country was developed on a regional policy. Western Canada was settled because the government of the day desired that people should move to the rural areas of this country. In fact, that is why the west was settled. That is why people moved there. It is important to keep in mind that this country has largely developed on policies of government focused on regional development.
As I mentioned earlier, the problem we have today in this country is that we have a government that seems to have lost sight of that objective; I suggest it has clearly lost sight of that objective and that goal. We have a government now that is considered a bottom-line government, an open-for-business government. Tending to move toward a so-called free enterprise government is
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really putting us back into the 19th century. We have a situation where rural Canada has suffered.
As I said, I have had the opportunity to travel around this country. I can go out to rural Nova Scotia, a rural community there, sit in a cafe and have coffee with some of the local folks, and I can have virtually the same conversation there that I can have in my home riding in rural Saskatchewan. People talk about VIA Rail being lost; they talk about post office closures; services closing up; seniors who do not want to stay in those communities because they do not have the services; young people who do not want to move there because there are not the amenities or jobs. The only difference that I find between rural Nova Scotia and rural Saskatchewan in many ways is the economic base. In Nova Scotia it is fishing or it may be a different type of agriculture, fruit and so on. In Saskatchewan, in my area at least, it is largely grain farming. The economic base in all those areas is suffering.
We have a situation where the infrastructure of rural Canada is in a very bad state. Rural Canada has been shrinking since the end of World War II. Now it is starting to collapse.
Unless we have a commitment by Canada and by this government to work toward maintaining viable farming families, viable rural communities and a viable rural infrastructure, that trend is going to continue. It is continuing at a disastrous rate that is going to have a devastating impact on this country.
In the province of Saskatchewan we have lost over
60.000	people, a net loss in the last four or five years. People have been predicting that Saskatchewan in the next 15 years is going to lose somewhere between
150.000	and 200,000 people. If anything anywhere near that actually occurs, the province of Saskatchewan will be in real trouble.
What do we have? We have had deregulation in transportation that has affected transportation in Saskatchewan. We have had a loss of railways. We have had rail line abandonment. We now have UNITEL which wants to come forth and change the whole communications system, which is going to have effects on rural Canada.
This amendment that is being proposed here simply requires the government to keep in mind, to take into account the long-term social and economic sustainability of farm families and communities. That is a statement I

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would defy anybody in this House to get up and say is not a valid principle. It is a valid principle. Any member who does not support that principle really cannot say that they have the interest of rural Canada at heart. It is a fundamental principle that should have been in the legislation from the very beginning. It is a principle that so far this government has rejected. I do not know why. I find it extraordinary that it has rejected that principle. It should be in the legislation and it should be supported.
If we are going to maintain rural communities, if we are going to maintain farm families, then we have to be taking some direction to allow that situation to exist. I am not saying, to use the Saskatchewan example, that we need towns every eight miles and everybody living on a half section; that is not what I am saying. What I am saying is that we should be able to provide an environment whereby a family which wants to either live in a rural community or on a farm simply has the opportunity to do so. It is becoming more and more difficult all the time.
This legislation is going to be reviewed. This legislation we all agree has many problems with it, and we are going to find many other problems as we begin to work with it. It is important that when this legislation is reviewed, and as we change the legislation over time, and I hope to make some changes here at the report stage, or even if we do not, that this principle is kept in mind. What this does is require the minister and reviewers of this legislation to keep that basic principle in mind.
I simply conclude by saying that I hope the government can find its way clear to vote on this basic, fundamental and, dare I say, motherhood issue that we all deem, I would suggest, important.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the amendment before us, put by the hon. member who just spoke, talks about the long-term social and economic sustainability of farm families. Clearly, nobody has ever seen the kind of ravages that have taken place in western Canada since the present government came to power. I believe that this amendment would be useful because it might remind the government of what has happened to small towns.
Last spring I had the opportunity to go back to the community in which I practised as a veterinarian in the late 1950s for several years. I could not believe the kind of displacement which had occurred in that community, which I had not visited for about seven or eight years.
During the last eight or ten years when the Prime Minister talked about being open for business, it certainly has not been open for business to assist those small prairie communities which have been ravaged so drastically in the last four or five years.
Even though this legislation does give some long-term hope to those prairie communities, initially it is not great, because we put down the motion on Monday calling on the government to immediately implement a third line of defence, a deficiency payment, cash to producers this spring for the current crop year 1990-91. The government has given no commitment. All it has talked about is how much deficit there is in each of the three major accounts: the Western Grain Stabilization Program, the Canadian Wheat Board account and the demand for a premium.
To that extent, the provisions in this bill for special circumstances, Committees Special Assistance, at this time, are a failure.
I guess one could say that the NISA program is a failure also, because none of the provinces, with the exception of Saskatchewan, are able to participate in it. The problem with NISA is that most farmers do not have the resources to put money into the account in order to qualify for assistance this year. Clearly the GRIP program does not really provide much benefit this year. There may be an initial payment this fall, but there may not be. It is totally a decision of the Government of Canada and the signatory committees.
As the hon. member has said, to some extent this is a motherhood issue. We feel it would be useful to put it into the bill. We want to support it because perhaps it would make the government more conscious of the fact that we are not just talking about producers of wheat, canola, other grains and oilseeds, but we are talking about stabilizing the whole rural economy so that there are stores, businesses and other people existing in these communities.
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We always felt that Canada had that special ability. That is why we have had programs like the western grain stabilization fund. That is why we have a Wheat Board, because we want to bring stability. That is why we have marketing boards.
This government is hell-bent on cloning the whole great American dream. That system has not been great for those states like North Dakota and Montana and the northern tier of the states. I do not think that cloning of the American system is going to be great for Canada and for our western prairie producers. We think this amendment would be useful, because it reminds the government of its responsibility not only to individual producers, but also to the over-all viability of the rural communities and the rural way of life.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, when Bill C-98 was presented, it made an unusual but maybe a very acceptable difference in its approach to the whole program of safety nets and a considerable amount of legislation in that the bill contained a definition of what the government thinks or what the legislature thinks should be the aims of the programs being discussed today.
In that series of principles which it has placed before the House through this bill, the government has indicated a certain structure at which it feels agriculture should be aimed. Basically we as legislators should be keeping that in mind when we deal with agricultural legislation and when we deal with safety nets.
As I said earlier, this particular legislation provides or allows agreements between the provinces and the federal government to keep the structure of safety nets in place for the foreseeable future. It is very important, under those circumstances, to make sure that in the processes of review and of making decisions relative to this bill and to the agricultural industry we keep in mind the most important people as far as this matter is concerned. Those are the farmers out there who have managed to survive the ravages of the past few years and are hoping to be farmers 10 years from now or 5 years from now when the initial review happens.
In making those kinds of review, it is important that we have in place principles which do exactly what this amendment does. The program should encourage the long-term social and economic sustainability of farm families and communities.
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If we were allowed to go back to the previous three amendments, we would say that they in themselves also contribute to the sustainability of long-term and effective farm communities, because they suggest that the massive consolidation of farm production should not be allowed to end up in the hands of multinational corporations.
Anything that encourages larger and larger developments should not be paid for by the taxpayers of Canada. If we allow the taxpayers of Canada to subsidize the large operations, we indirectly empty the rural areas of population. If the population is not there, the services disappear and eventually the communities themselves disappear.
That is why we think we should make sure by this legislation and subsequent legislation and by the agreements that are to be signed between the federal and provincial governments that farm communities and farmers themselves are the central figures in the thinking; not the production, not the export sales, but the life and survival of the farm family and the farm community.


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, it is very tempting to respond to some of the comments of my hon. friend from Algoma when he talked about the ravages of this government.
We have had to do many things since we formed the government to deal with the shortfalls or the lack of support to agriculture when the Liberals were in government. We know that it is easy to slip down the slippery road to heavy deficits and interim programs which do not have a long-term meaning. It takes years to correct some of the things that have happened, and this is one of them.
With this legislation what we have done is provide a format for farmers or producers, the grassroots people, to formulate their feelings and to extend them beyond to this House of Commons for legislation. We are endeavouring to provide the most adequate legislation to meet and give agricultural communities the long-term security that is so necessary.
That has been lacking for years, but we are addressing it. I believe that the farmers and producers of this country are very satisfied and that we will all benefit from this legislation.

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Most of our farm enterprises are family owned farms. It is a given that a family farm is a very important part of the whole agricultural industry in this country. This bill provides for programs that will ensure economic and environmental sustainability of our agricultural sector. If we do not implement these initiatives, we will be threatening the very fabric of our farming industry.
I would like to quote Mr. Geddes of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture who was a witness at the Standing Committee on Agriculture on March 13: He stated: "The safety net program was designed to solve one of the situations in the rural economy for grains and oilseeds at this time, and that is income stability".
When we start to talk about the family farm, I am sure that if we polled everyone in this House of Commons or wherever, we would get a different interpretation of what is a family farm. Sometimes that creates difficulties. When I look at my own farming operations, I say that it is a family farm operation. I am sure that would apply to many of us in this House. It is a view that we can hold and share with others, that it is difficult to determine what is a family farm.
We believe that the motion presented by the hon. member identifies in particular the family farm and the importance of the family farm to the whole fabric of Canada. Because of that, we feel that it does not change the legislation but it identifies the family farm. We feel that is very important and would be prepared to accept this motion.
Before I sit down, I would like to move under Standing Order 26(1):
That we continue the sitting through the lunch hour.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, I will just speak very briefly to this very interesting motion.
Most of us who are connected intimately with agriculture would agree that the family farm is one of the
reasons we in this country and in other parts of the world have been as successful as we have in agriculture.
There are three brief reasons why I think this motion has some merit. First, any time somebody else pays 60 per cent of a premium and the farmer pays 40 per cent indicates support for farmers and for family farms. That is the situation here: the farmer himself will pay on average 40 per cent of the premium, the provincial governments will pay 25 per cent, and the federal government will pay 35 per cent. That in itself is support for the motion.
Second, the safety net programs are designed to make the assistance that is available more predictable. We have heard many times in the past that if farmers knew ahead of time how much money they were to receive from various programs, even though they received the same amount of money later on, that knowledge of the exact amount of money they were eligible for would have been of more use to them ahead of time for planning what types of crops to seed and the type of financial arrangements they make with their financial institutions. That provides some support and stability for farmers and for family farms.
The third point I would make very briefly is simply that once this bill is up and running, once the subsequent agreements are signed with the provinces, and farmers begin making use of these programs available under this legislation, the type of coverage and support an individual farmer will receive is going to be very much tailored to his own capacity to produce on that piece of land. If he wants to work harder, use more chemicals or use better weed control, put in some irrigation, intensify his cropping practices so that he can earn more off that piece of land, he will then have that extra income and capacity to produce reflected in the way the program operates.
To summarize very briefly, the very fact that the producer will be paying 40 per cent of the premiums and governments will be looking after 60 per cent, the fact that the program is predictable, more so than anything we have had to date, and the fact that it will be tailored to an individual farmer's capacity to produce on that piece of land indicate some pretty strong support for the individual farmer and for the way family farms operate in this country.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on Motion No. 4, coming as it does in the section which sets out the principles the minister shall take into consideration in respect to any program he is
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establishing in conjunction with the provinces. We had four principles outlined in the original bill and none of them mentioned anything about farmers. It talked about levels of protection and it talked about being compatible with Canada's international obligations. It talked about not unduly influencing the decisions of producers of agricultural products with respect to production or marketing, and it talked about encouraging long-term environmental and economic sustainability.
However, it did not mention farmers and it did not mention communities. It was a little uncertain as to whether government members when drafting this bill really considered farmers and small communities to be a natural part of the economic environment in the countryside at the moment.
This will help to clarify that. It may not change the kinds of agreements arrived at, we realize that. This bill will simply require that the minister take these principles into consideration. It does not say he has to follow them.
For that reason, I choose to spend a couple of minutes urging the minister to give fairly high priority to this business of making agreements that will be cognizant of the needs of both farmers and the people who live in villages and towns in rural Canada.
I am from Saskatchewan, the more settled part of the prairies which was part of the forest belt at one time. It is more heavily settled than the wide open plains, but we are still fighting the same enemies as rural people elsewhere on the prairies. Our enemy is distance. Distance creates problems for people whether they are living in a small village, in a town or in the countryside on a farm. It creates problems as to our ability to sustain basic services that we all need, whether we live in the countryside or whether we live in metropolitan Toronto.
Turning to health and medical care, when we have to go more than 30 or 40 miles to find a doctor, a nurse or even a drugstore, it creates some problems for raising families. It creates problems when we are old. It is not a situation that leads to people staying where they are. They tend to shift away from that area to where those services are more readily available.
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There is the question of educational services. It is the same thing. Younger families look at how long their kids will have to be on the school bus. They have to consider whether the roads the school bus travels over are going to be open year round and make the decision whether to stay in the countryside, in the small village or to move to a larger centre.
For people who are operating farms, distance is our enemy when we seek repairs or marketing services. The last decade has virtually decimated farm equipment suppliers. In order to get parts for our ever aging machines, we have to go farther and farther afield. The suppliers have kept up to date as much as economic conditions will permit. They are hooked into computerized networks and can tell us on the phone whether they have the part, whether it is in Flint, Michigan or wherever it might be in North America or even in Europe, and how long it will take to arrive. When it comes we will probably have to drive 50 or 80 miles to pick up a needed part, taking two and a half or three hours not counting the delay for shipping. Given the current financial situation, most dealers cannot keep in stock every part we might want. It has to be brought in from a central depot or from the factory.
These tough economic times and to some extent policies which are encouraging consolidation of towns and villages are creating double costs for people who live in rural Canada.
We have to pay for the services that we built in the recent past. Most of those hospitals, schools and roads are still in the process of being paid for. Most of the roads are built on a pay as you go basis, but the water and sewer systems are not. As people leave for other provinces or to big cities in search of jobs or better service for their aged parents, or their young children, they abandon those capital investments and force the new communities to invest in new schools, new hospitals, new homes, more water and sewage systems, to accommodate the new populations while the already produced accommodations out in the towns and villages go under-utilized. It is not good economics. It makes for very poor social conditions now and in the future.
We think that the provinces and the federal government should be much more cognizant of these very real issues which are occurring in rural Canada, whether it is in Newfoundland, Vancouver Island, the prairies, rural

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Ontario, Quebec, or the maritimes. This has to be part of the consideration in any of these agreements. We are therefore pleased to see that the government members and all parties seem to be willing to include this forgotten element in the final form of this bill.


Mr. Geoff Wilson (Swift Current-Maple Creek-As-siniboia):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words in regard to Motion No. 4 and the theme that has been put forward.
It is important that we on this side respond and indicate that, contrary to the implication from the other side, this government does care about rural Canada and does care about the farm community. I think most people in the farm community are well aware of that, given the long string of initiatives which this government has put forward over the past six years.
Frankly, I find some of the rhetoric I have heard this morning a little bit disconcerting because there is a suggestion that somehow we can wish away reality. We have very difficult international circumstances. Over 80 per cent of the wheat grown on the prairies is destined for export. The world price has been decimated owing to the grain subsidy wars that have been going on between the United States and Europe. They have been mentioned before in this House many times and I am not going to go into the detail again. Suffice it to say that the world price is at a point where there simply is no return. That is why we have this enabling legislation to bring forward a new generation of safety nets which have been largely developed by producers themselves.
I do not think it is good enough to have a long litany of what is wrong from opposition members. What we would like to have is a little bit of co-operation from them in terms of saying what can be done. So far all I have heard is the suggestion of capping potential pay-out under these programs at $100,000 which the opposition already admits is meaningless.
What we need is something concrete. When the Liberal Party was in power in this country between 1968 and 1984, it did not do a whole lot for western agriculture. All I remember was the imposition of the capital gains tax which hung like a cloud over the farm community all through the 1970s and the early part of the 1980s.
This government, in living up to its election promise, got rid of that capital gains tax.
I remember the LIFT program that the former government brought forward. Perhaps the greatest legacy of all was a national debt in excess of $200 billion in March 1985. The requirement to pay interest on that debt at the present time would constrain any government in trying to bring forward the necessary programs and to sustain the kind of support that Canadians would want and, indeed, became very much accustomed to under previous administrations.
There is no magic in the movement of people from rural areas toward the urban areas. This is going on in every country in the world. It has gone on in this country since the rural population peaked back in the 1920s.
We are largely talking about the prairies this morning because that is where the dire consequences of this international grain subsidy war are being felt. The prairies were laid out under the Torrens land title system before many people moved west. The land title system was laid out in square miles before people came. It was laid out on the basis of the steam engine and the horse and wagon. Every five or six miles there was a stop for the trains to take on water. It was based on hauling 15 or 20 bushels of wheat a few miles from the farm to the elevator by horse and wagon. We have progressed a long way over the last 60 or 70 years.
As the member for Mackenzie rightly pointed out, we are gravitating towards a system where there are service centres every 30 or 40 miles that have the amenities that people want. That is because the people are already doing that. They are driving past the small towns, the villages-some of which never did amount to much; others which have declined over the years-in large trucks and semi-trailers. They are going to the larger places. The end result is that in a sense they are voting with their feet. They are causing a reality out there.
As the member for Mackenzie indicates, there has been a gravitation from having these communities every five or six miles, based on the horse and wagon, and based on the steam engine to the kind of system that we see evolving today. Indeed, if there were no people on the prairies right now, and we were laying out a grid system with towns and communities based on the technology, the communications, the road systems and all of the things that we know are possible today, these centres
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would be laid out every 30 or 40 miles. It is exactly in accordance with the technology and with the wishes and decisions of people.
Having said that, yes, there is a need out there. The best thing that this government, or any government can do in terms of encouraging economic sustainability in rural areas and rural communities, is diversification. When I use that term diversification, it is not just in the sense of agricultural diversification. I am speaking about it in terms of things that are unrelated to agriculture, preferably completely unrelated.
That is where I would like to briefly touch on western economic diversification, because that is a $1.2 billion fund which was established by this government to encourage diversification in western Canada and on the prairies.
It makes loans, repayable loans to enterprises which have ideas, some technology, some innovation, some new products, some new markets which can replace imports. What it does is provide some much needed payroll jobs out there. Many of them are related to agriculture, it is true, but there are plenty of others that are not.
What that does is provide opportunity for people. It provides payroll. It enables them to stay in the smaller towns and in the prairie cities which have been so dependent upon agriculture.
It is important to recognize that significant contribution by this government through western economic diversification. It lends itself very well to the sentiment that has been expressed here and which we are all talking about and supporting. More important, it is not a matter of complaining, not a matter of a long list of problems.
We cannot do much about the world situation. We are at GATT. We are talking with the Cairns Group. I believe our people are doing all they can, but they are up against a couple of superpowers in the United States and the European Economic Community. We cannot wish that away.
What we can do, instead of whining and complaining, is come forward with initiatives like western economic diversification, which provides some much-needed variety in those areas. We can come forward with this enabling legislation, which is the subject of the debate
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today. The farm income protection act legislation will enable the entering into of agreements for GRIP and NISA for the participating provinces and will provide the kind of long-term permanent safety net which is required out there. This will provide some much needed certainty and predictability for Canadians producers. That is something that is real and concrete. It is not a matter of wishes, it responds to a need and I encourage all members to support it.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak for a few minutes on Bill C-98, and particularly to Motion No. 4 which stands in the name of my colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.
I understand the minister and the government side are encouraged enough by the committee hearings and by the debate to accept my colleague's amendment which will at line 23 on page 3 of C-98, the words: "the program should encourage the long-term social and economic sustainability of farm families and communities."
It is obviously the kind of wording that is important in this kind of enabling legislation because enabling legislation is a process that allows for an agreement to be developed and to come afterwards. We do not really know what the final nature of the agreement will be that comes from Bill C-98, and that is one of the chronic problems with this kind of enabling legislation.
The government members keep saying that there is going to be certainty and predictability for those farmers and those farm families who make use of this legislation and these programs in the years to come. However, when one takes a close look at C-98 one does not find that kind of certainty and predictability and accuracy to which farmers are looking with increasing interest and need.
Other members have touched on the problems being faced in the grains and seeds sector particularly. We all recognize that the ongoing subsidy wars between Europe and the United States and others is making it very difficult for the sustainability of the Canadian farm as we know it. But there is another issue we have to address on the floor of the House today, that is adding the kind of wording suggested by my colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre. It gives some direction to this enabling legislation so that those ministers, bureaucrats and others who will be negotiating future instruments and

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future amendments have some idea of what the intention of the House was.
As I understand it, members on both sides are going to be supporting this. It is important to have some idea of why this kind of wording is so important because we have seen in recent years, not only what my colleague touched on, but also the galloping nature of our national debt. It was less than $200 billion when the present Prime Minister came to office and, in June of this year it is going to exceed $400 billion. We see the time clock ticking away. The growth rate of the debt is on television regularly.
There are very few farm families in this country who also do not know the nature of debt and what kinds of problems come with it. My colleagues from Saskatchewan have touched on a number of both young and old who are being forced to leave the farms, not just on the prairies but also in areas such as the constituency that I represent, which is about one-quarter of British Columbia. It does not have the huge grains and seed acreages that one finds in the Peace, or in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Manitoba or other areas of the country, but there are farms and there are significant cattle producers and others in the area.
Don Rnoerr, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has appeared many times before the committee studying this legislation. I think it it is fair to say that he, like I, is concerned about giving the government carte blanche to do what it likes without really knowing what the final plan is going to be like and whether or not it will provide, what all members of this House would like to see, legislation and farm programs with long-term social and economic sustainability.
We have seen in recent years the closing down and the loss of a lot of federal institutions that have long been an important part of both rural and farm communities: the post office, train stations, branch lines and community grain elevators. We have seen a loss of much of the infrastructure which people who live in larger towns and cities take for granted, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker disappear. All the different shops that were traditionally part of all of those small, rural communities have disappeared.
To an enormous extent, it has been as a result of uninterest and inactivity by federal governments year after year, government after government. They have not provided that little bit of additional financial and economic input that is required in a rural farm community to keep all those things going.
Once we lose a certain number of local enterprises, whether it is the person who provides seed or farm machinery or who fixes equipment or maybe does all those various things, we lose the critical mass.
Increasingly, on the prairies and in farm communities we are seeing a ghostly veil as more businesses close and more of these small communities wither on the vine.
As we see the problems on the international scale with the value that we are getting for our international commodity sales, we recognize as previous speakers have said that about 80 per cent of our grain sales are to offshore markets.
If we are not getting enough in terms of the costs of production, it means that those farms become less and less competitive and viable. The debt grows. More and more local businesses do not get paid, and it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy.
That is why wording such as (b.l) proposed by the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre is so important as a guiding principle. If there are going to be certain things built into the agreements and amendments made in this five-year period before the Minister of Agriculture has promised that there would be another review, here is a guiding principle.
The bureaucrats, in particular, will be asking: What if we change this for this part of Saskatchewan? What if we changed it for this particular aspect? What would it mean in terms of the long-term social and economic sustainability? It is a very important principle to have in there.
As I said earlier, I am very pleased that it is going to be in the bill because there are many other problems which are threatening the long-term sustainability of the family farm in this country. Even the recent problems emanating from game farming, as you would know, Mr. Speaker, are a very serious threat not only to our existing cattle
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operations but also to our wildlife populations in our national parks.
I have seen in recent days, for example, that a bred cow elk which had to be slaughtered because of a positive test for TB can bring a game farmer $7,000 under the federal pay-out scheme. The most one can get in this whole country for a cow, regardless of whether it is a Sementhal, a pure bred Angus or whatever breed that has to be slaughtered because of a positive test, is $1,500.
It does not matter whether the cow is worth $10,000 or $20,000. That is all you can get for a cow. There are special arrangements and agreements being made in relation to the game farming industry that also need to be looked at. They have not been looked at very carefully by this government.
All over the country, there are issues such as this cropping up for either the federal Crown or the provincial Crown. They have not been doing an adequate job of evaluating the impact and the problems of imports.
The hon. member for Mackenzie very recently raised the possible problems that could come from bringing in honey queens from Hawaii. We heard from the Minister of Agriculture that a group of investigators went to Hawaii to check and make sure that there were not mites and other problems with the honey queens coming.
How come you are wiggling your finger like that, Mr. Speaker? You are interested in knowing about Hawaiian honey queens. I recognize in the Peace district near where you live in Edmonton there is a need for additional bees. Many of them come from New Zealand and other areas. We are facing a shortage of bee queens.
As the hon. member for Mackenzie pointed out, the government seems very quick in wanting to bring in bees from Hawaii. We are facing chronic problems with infections in buffalo and elk. All of these things are threatening the traditional and important livelihood of our the farm economies, whether it is beef, grain, seed or dairy.
These are important things that the federal government should be doing to both monitor and evaluate before the problems become too severe.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 4 agreed to.


Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward -Hastings):: moved:
Motion No. 5
That Bill C-98 be amended in clause 5 by striking out line 48 at
page 4 and substituting the following therefor:
"be considered appropriate to carry out continuing review of the operation of this act and the agreements and report to the minister periodically and at least once a year on its recommendations on the administration of the agreements this act and any amendments it considers advisable;"
He said: Mr. Speaker, I believe there will be agreement to change this a bit at line 2 on page 5. We do not have the reprinted bill with the amendments that were made at committee. We therefore are referring to the pages on the bill as it was originally printed for the original reading.
It would then change paragraph (b) on page 5 to read:
(b) the powers and duties of the committees, including a continuing review;
The remainder of the amendment would follow on from there.
I would like to make some comments, but I assume you, Sir, have to get agreement first.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there agreement of the House?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: So carried.


Lyle Vanclief: Mr. Speaker, this is a very important amendment to the bill. From the witnesses who appeared before the committee, there was almost unanimous consent that this type of review committee be put in place a little more clearly than the bill originally had

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stated. All parties that have discussed this bill understand that it is very complicated and very important. Since we are dealing with a complicated industry such as agriculture, it will be necessary to continually review this at all times so that it can, when and if necessary, be changed in order to hopefully improve it.
The Prairie Pools and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture were two groups in particular that felt very strongly on this, as did many of us from this side of the House. I stress this to the government today and urge that it accept this amendment to the bill, which I think will strengthen it. It will strengthen the confidence that the producers and the agrifood industry will have in this bill in assuring that there will be a committee appointed and assuring that there will be ongoing continuous review with an opportunity for the committee to make recommendations and recommended amendments to the minister and therefore to the House at any time in order to help make this bill a stronger one than ever.
I will leave my comments at that and hope that the government will approve this amendment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 5 agreed to.


Maurice Brydon Foster: moved:
Motion No. 6
That Bill C-98 be amended by adding immediately after line 19 at
page 5 the following new clause:
"5.1(1) The minister shall cause to be laid before Parliament every agreement made pursuant to section 4 within thirty days of it being made, or, if Parliament is not then sitting, not later than the thirtieth day thereafter that either House of Parliament is sitting.
(2) An agreement laid before Parliament pursuant to subsection (1) shall be automatically referred to the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Agriculture."
He said: Mr. Speaker, this amendment has been modified by adding words before that printed on the Order Paper today. Before the paragraph that starts "5.1(1) The Minister shall", we would add the words "with the concurrence of provinces party to the agreement".
I wonder if I could just propose that.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Maurice Brydon Foster: This amendment proposes to amend the subclause 5.1 by making a provision for the Minister of Agriculture to table agreements within 30 days of when they are signed and when there is agreement from the participating parties, that is the provinces that are party to the agreement.
The original amendment was that it would simply be tabled in the House and then stand referred to the parliamentary committee. Well, of course, if there was no agreement from the provinces, there could be legal repercussions in that regard.
Even though everybody in the agricultural community thinks that we are somehow or other approving the GRIP and NISA agreements and setting out what the premiums and benefits will be, in fact all we are doing is passing legislation which allows for these agreements. To that extent, legislators in this whole process are at least one step, and maybe more than that, removed from the actual program that has been offered to producers, certainly corn producers in Ontario and wheat producers in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, and so on.
At least this places the whole arrangement for GRIP and NISA back in the agreements as they are made with the participating provinces. It allows them back on the floor of the House of Commons, allows them to be referred to the standing committee for their consideration. Otherwise, we would not only be passing legislation which enables these kinds of deals to take place, but there would be no requirement that the government ever table them, ever have anything to do with the Parliament of Canada. I suppose you could always say there is provision, the estimates have to provide for the funding, and so on, but the actual details would not be there.
This amendment really provides for that. The agreements will be tabled within 30 days of the concurrence of the provinces concerned, and will be referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture for its consideration and advice.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, this proposed amendment requires the minister to place the federal-provincial agreements that are signed before the House within 30 days of being signed so that Parliament will have a chance to oversee what those agreements contain.
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This is a second-best choice in terms of parliamentary overview of what is going on in the country. This body has the responsibility by tradition and by law to be responsible for the expenditures and the final decisions on how we tax ourselves.
Those decisions have gradually been eroded by practice over the last decade or so. Sometimes I fear we are getting almost to the point where responsible parliamentary government started, when parliament in the United Kingdom wrested power from the absolute monarch and began to take power unto itself so the people could decide where their tax dollars were coming from and where the money was to be spent.
We are coming perilously close to going back to those days with the very strong prime minister's offices that have developed over the past two or three administrations. This is definitely a second or third best option. It is only a requirement to have the government of the day report the agreements it has made beyond this Chamber back to the House. It would be much better if Parliament could pass legislation that would provide much clearer guidelines as to how those agreements should be made and what would be required, but that is not the choice of action in this particular era.
I would like to put on the record that I still find this reprehensible in terms of responsible government. It makes the job of all backbenchers and parliamentarians extremely difficult and frustrates the role they have traditionally had to play by having such open-ended kinds of legislation to deal with where, in effect, Parliament says to the executive branch of government: "Here, do whatever you like. Come back and report to us 30 days after you have done it".
I do not like that particular principle, but having the government report is better than not having it report, and that is basically what we are down to with this particular amendment. If this is passed, at least the government today and future governments will have to eventually report what agreements they have signed behind closed doors with the various provinces that will affect producers right across the country and will affect all taxpayers at both the federal and provincial levels. It will force those facts to come out eventually.
As I have said, I deplore the principle we are establishing with these kinds of legislative proposals, but they
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have been around now for eight or ten years and it is going to be a great struggle on the part of all parliamentarians and the people of Canada to bring those powers back into this Chamber, instead of leaving them in the cabinet room.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley, I believe, wants to say a few words.


Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, I will try and keep it to a few words.
I am pleased to make a few brief comments on Bill C-98, legislation that allows the government and, in this particular case the Minister of Agriculture primarily, to enter into agreements between the federal and provincial governments regarding agriculture support programs, in particular GRIP and NISA, which we have heard a great deal about already.
I want to support Motion No. 6. It is a very straight forward amendment and most definitely one that will continue to enable and open up the legislative process and opportunities for parliamentarians and in so doing for all Canadians to participate and learn a great deal more about how we govern ourselves. That is what we are talking about here, an opportunity to learn how the Government of Canada works with the provinces in administering these programs.
I would like to give two examples where we did get support from the government for an initiative like this and in another case where we have had some difficulty and likely there could be more improvement.
Let us do the good news first. The good news was legislation called Bill C-74, fisheries legislation we had before this House prior to Christmas. There was generally support from all parties for that legislation because its job was, among other things, to increase penalties for destruction of our fisheries habitat, east and west coasts and also in fresh water situations.
The argument we put to the government in committee, to which it eventually agreed in this Chamber-although opposed to the proposal in committee it did come to an agreement in this Chamber-was for a very specific section of that legislation that called upon the government to issue an annual report, to table in this House a report on one particular aspect of the legislation. That was with respect to habitat protection, the number of

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fines assessed and the progress that those charges have made.
That is not a federal-provincial agreement, but it is a pretty clear example, in this particular case, of the government supporting an initiative that certainly will go some distance toward giving us a clearer indication of where we are with regard to that most important matter of habitat protection.
That is some good news, and I hope that the government would see the logic it accepted in this Chamber for that particular amendment to Bill C-74 and to agree to that logic in this particular case, which is all it is calling for, for any agreements signed to be tabled in this House, and-the second part of the amendment-to be referred to the standing committee.
You know as I do, what that does for us. If we see that particular report, we then have the information in front of us on this particular program. Then it is our obligation and duty, if we have questions and want to pursue that information further, to raise that matter here or in committee.
I think the important thing is that the information is made available. We have had some difficulty with the government in another particular section of legislation. It has to do with forest agreements. The government has been less than co-operative in providing a lot of information on forest agreements between the federal and provincial governments. We have tried to make some efforts in that regard in terms of Bill C-29, now passed.
There has been debate in this Chamber and elsewhere about just how effective this government, and in some cases other governments-particularly provincial governments-have been at trying to negotiate those agreements. It has been difficult at times to get information from governments on just how we have progressed in that area.
I cite those two examples, the latter one being an example of why we need an amendment like this, and the first example being an example of some good news where the government accepted, to a certain degree, the logic of providing more information.
I hope that the members opposite will support this amendment. I think it is a good one. I know that in attempting to have a better Parliament and more open government, they will support this amendment.


Mr. Ken Monteith (Elgin-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the mover of the motion would agree that perhaps there is some concern with the numbering on 5.(1), that perhaps it should be 5.(5).


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Algoma, is it 5.(1) or 5.(5)?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, when I put the amendment, I stated that it would be the page number referred to in the original printing of the bill for the numbering now, and that should be carried over. It may change because we have moved by consent yesterday afternoon to report stage of the bill before we actually had the reprint of it. I think that covers it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: It is 5.(1). It will be changed.


Ken Monteith: Mr. Speaker, it should be the bill reported to the House by the chairman of the standing committee. It would amend that particular version of the bill and perhaps that would change the number. I see the hon. member opposite nodding in agreement. Perhaps that will be checked by the Table.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All right, the Table will check it to make sure that it is right.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Motion No. 6. As it is laid out, it is an important motion because it once again gives Parliament an opportunity to have a review process and to look at this legislation.
I think that this is aveiy important and very fundamental motion, in that it is a fundamental nature of Parliament. There is a real problem these days-certainly it is a perceived problem-that Parliament is becoming irrelevant due to the fact that we seem to be governed as much by executive as by the legislative body of government. This is particularly true in situations of majority governments. When we have majority governments as we have had for the last two terms, it sometimes becomes quite frustrating for parliamentarians on both sides of the House in that they sometimes feel that they do not have as much input as they might have.
Certainly the perception in the rest of the country is exactly that. It is important that Parliament indeed progresses. It does not always progress in these matters; it sometimes in fact regresses. That is the ongoing debate these days with respect to the Standing Orders. The government wishes to make changes to the Standing
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Orders which many members in the House feel is going to detract from the ability of parliamentarians to perform their legislative duties.
Motion No. 6 is in the same line or the same tenor. It would require the minister to place before Parliament any agreement made pursuant to clause 4, and of course clause 4 is one of the key clauses in Bill C-98. It is the clause under which the government is given authority actually to enter into agreements with the provinces. With Bill C-98 being only enabling legislation, it authorizes the government to enter into agreements with the various provinces. That is outlined in clause 4, that is the authority given. It also sets out some of the principles and so on the government must comply with.
Once the agreement is entered into, once the agreement has been signed and so on, then clause 5.(1) or 5.(5) is important because it will require the minister to lay before Parliament every agreement made pursuant to that clause within 30 days of it being made or, if Parliament is not sitting, the thirtieth day thereafter that Parliament is sitting. That is fundamental. Some other motions will be coming up later on dealing with the same idea of making sure that Parliament has a role to play in this agreement.
We must not forget that this bill is dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars. Canadians today are concerned with how Parliament is spending that money. When we only have an executive controlling a majority government and ruling from its executive position, that causes concern. When we are dealing with a bill such as this one-and, as I say, it is about hundreds of millions of dollars-it is very important, and I think most Canadians would agree that it is important, that Parliament should have some role. In fact the historical reason for Parliament in the first place was to deal with the control of money. We seem to have lost that completely.
I think all Canadians would certainly agree with the direction of a motion that causes Parliament to have more input and certainly more knowledge into exactly how the government is spending its money.
The motion, as other members have said on this side of the House, is fundamental. We would certainly hope and be pleased if government members would support it. I am sure some of its members would agree with it. I
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would hope that the government sees fit to let the motion stand because it is an important, integral part of the bill.
The motion will allow the bill to be more fully developed, will allow fuller input and a more rational, logical review, understanding, and knowledge of this particular piece of legislation and the agreements with the provinces that flow from it.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, I support the motion of my hon. friend, the member for Algoma. The motion before us poses something that is really fundamental to this institution. I think we all recognize that much has to be done and certainly much can be done to improve the public perception and the relevance of the Parliament of Canada and, more specifically, the House of Commons itself.
This motion, which is a very thoughtful motion, simply reads:
The Minister shall cause to be laid before Parliament every agreement made pursuant to section 4 within thirty days of it being made, or, if Parliament is not sitting, not later than the thirtieth day thereafter that the either the House of Parliament is sitting.
It continues with what I think is a most thoughtful initiative:
An agreement laid before Parliament pursuant to subsection (1) shall be automatically referred to the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Agriculture.
We recognize that the bill itself requires almost exclusive decision making when it comes to these agreements in support of agriculture being made by the executive and, in a sense, being made by the minister and not before Parliament.
This motion suggests that members of Parliament, at least after the fact, bring in these agreements when they are in fact signed and lay them before the House. Ideally I suppose we would like it to be before the fact, but it sort of makes a small gain in terms of requiring the minister and the government to be accountable to the people of Canada for their actions. That automatically enables all members of Parliament representing all people of Canada to have access to the details of the agreement.
Not only does it do that, but in a sense it provides an element of accountability. The government is saying that it is quite prepared to recognize that these agreements

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are legitimate, that they have been thoughtfully negotiated and prepared by the various provincial governments and that it has confidence that they will withstand this scrutiny of members of Parliament. That in itself would justify this initiative.
The second part of the motion would then automatically have the agreement laid before the House transferred for examination, analysis, and consideration by the Standing Committee on Agriculture. This makes even more sense because we have members of Parliament who are involved personally in the pursuit of agriculture, who are certainly knowledgeable of the agricultural sector, and more often than not who tend to represent agricultural areas. I look across the way at my hon. friend from Swift Current who for years has played an active role in agricultural issues. I look to my hon. friend from Humboldt. We could go around the House. These are people we all appreciate and recognize to be not only interested but on the whole very knowledgeable about the agricultural sector and the various initiatives that the government brings forward. They bring that special expertise.
What this motion says is that these special agreements will simply be tabled in the House and referred on to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture. There they can be examined.
In the event there was a problem that perhaps the negotiators had not considered or perhaps the provincial negotiators had overlooked in terms of an implication for the country as a whole or for the national government, we would expect members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture to identify those problems. While it may be after the fact, it would be at least a chance to rectify a serious error or problem which might be implicit or inherent in the agreement being considered.
I speak not only in support of but quite frankly enthusiastically in favour of this motion. I would simply like to thank the member for initiating this. I look forward to, again a small step, the House of Commons being relevant in terms of examining important negotiated settlements among provincial and federal governments.
This is agriculture. My hon. friend who represents Prince George-Bulkley Valley has made equal observations in other resource sectors, primarily in his particular areas of interest: forestry and fisheries. Whenever possible we have to ask the government, even after the fact, to be accountable, be up-front, not be afraid to reveal all elements of an agreement, and be able to explain in the standing committee the reasons for particular provisions and so on.
Therefore, with enthusiasm, I support Motion No. 6.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
Motion No. 6 agreed to.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Motion No. 7
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 7 by adding immediately
after line 27 at page 7 the following:
"(1.1) A producer participating in a net income stabilization account program must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident."
He said: Mr. Speaker, Motion No. 7 makes a provision in the NISA agreements that require that the producer participating in a Net Income Stabilization Account program must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada.
This is a program that would be judged by some people outside agriculture to be a very generous program. It is designed, I believe, to be a rainy day fund for producers who have a reasonable level of income, are able to put money into the Net Income Stabilization Account, and to receive support from the government not only in matching that contribution but in allowing them to put in a certain amount of funds over and above it to the extent of 20 per cent.
If we take the example of a farmer who has $500,000 worth of eligible production and there were two parties to that production, a husband and wife, then they would be eligible under the NISA program as I understand it. We do not actually have the agreements in front of us, but we have seen some of the publicity and the planning for it. Each one of those would be able to put into that account some $5,000, which would be matched by the government. Then the government would pay prime of
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commercial rates on the portion that the government puts in and would provide prime or a commercial rate of interest plus 3 per cent on the $5,000 that each spouse put into NISA. This is assuming that they have eligible production costs of $500,000.
On top of that, producers can put in an additional 20 per cent. That means if they had the money-and not many farmers today would have it-they would be eligible. As the hon. member from south western Ontario said, they could borrow the money. They could put in an additional $100,000 and invest it in NISA at prime.
Let us assume that prime right now is 12 per cent. They would be paid 15 per cent by the government. On a $100,000 NISA, over and above the regular 2 per cent that they can contribute, they would be able to contribute another 20 per cent. If commercial or prime rates were 12 per cent or 15 per cent, they would be earning $15,000.
This is designed to provide stability over the long haul combined with the Gross Revenue Insurance Program. For many of the horticultural crops it will probably be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to develop a plan that will qualify for GRIP. NISA has that advantage.
The other advantage is that even though the government says in its preamble to the objectives of the legislation that it is going to be acceptable in international fora, I do not know of anybody who really believes that the revenue guarantee part of GRIP will not be subject to attack by the Americans.
We have already seen this morning a report from one group, Wharton Economics Forecasting Associates. It is projecting a 10 per cent increase in cropping. Of course it is always a sore point with the Americans that we have support programs but we do not reduce our acreage.
The revenue guarantee side of GRIP, I believe in the long haul, will be subject to attack by the Americans. They attack everything that we do, whether countervail or some other activity, especially if it threatens their producers. That is one of the advantages of NISA. It probably would not be subject to that because it is neutral with regard to production and so on.
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Mr. Speaker, I just walked you through a program that can be veiy beneficial in stabilizing producers' incomes. Some would say very stable. Flowever, the question is: Do we want to extend that benefit to non-citizens and non-residents of Canada?
If we have a couple farming in North Dakota and farming in Saskatchewan, are they to be given this program which can be very beneficial to Canadian farmers and paid for from the Consolidated Revenue Fund? Do we want to extend that to non-residents and non-citizens of the country?
It seems to me that many Canadians would say this is a program that is very beneficial, it provides prime plus 3 per cent, it provides a fund where a farmer can put 20 per cent, plus 5 per cent if the funds are available, that this kind of program should not be extended beyond permanent residents or citizens of Canada.
I hope that the government sees the wisdom of trying to keep this support and assistance available primarily to permanent residents and/or citizens of Canada, as my motion proposes.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: I rise to support the motion proposed by the member for Algoma. It applies to the NISA or Net Income Stabilization Account, and it would add a new subclause to clause 7. With the new numbering system that would become 7.(2).
This particular proposal would require that a producer participating in the Net Income Stabilization Account program must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
It seems to me that this makes eminent sense, not only for the reasons spelled out by my hon. friend who just completed speaking, but it would reduce the liability of the taxpayers of Canada for making viable the incomes of farmers who may not even live in Canada but in fact operate south of the border, or perhaps other combinations. We are aware of some of these kinds of situations.
The other thing it does is assure Canadian taxpayers, who are going to be financing this particular program quite substantially, that their dollars are being recycled to Canadian citizens or permanent residents of this country.

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The program at issue here sets up two accounts, an A account and a B account. At the end of each tax year a producer has the option of contributing up to 2 per cent of his net revenue for that year into an A account. The government will match those funds in the B account. The producer has an additional option, if he so chooses, to put an additional 20 per cent of his net revenue for that year into his A account; however, the Government of Canada will not match that contribution in the B account.
For purposes of administration, these two accounts are then effectively combined and any interest accruing to that account becomes the property of the participating farmer. That interest is guaranteed by the agreements to be prime plus 3 per cent. So it is a fairly enticing rate of interest that this combined account will bear, and that interest will be paid by the Government of Canada out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
In this program, from what we understand of the agreements that are being reached, it would be possible, according to the witnesses we had from the department, for a married couple to set up two NISA accounts for their farm-one for each, husband and wife.
In a multiple ownership operation, either incorporated or organized under a co-op charter or under a communal charter, as some of the Hutterite colonies and church organizations are, there could be up to five participants for GRIP and other stabilization purposes. As I recall, this applied as well to the NISA account. I do not recall if five couples were involved whether they could divide the NISA account twice at the family level for each couple, but I believe that would be possible.
The amount of funds Canada is guaranteeing under this particular part of the program, which is only a third or a quarter of the total bill as the rest of the bill deals with a GRIP account which is the Gross Revenue Insurance Program, whereby farmers purchase insurance subsidized by both provincial and federal taxpayers, to guarantee a 15-year moving average price for products or, we are led to believe, a price guarantee that is based on some formula for cost of production, using a Quebec or British Columbia model. There has been no apparent agreement under that particular part of the proposal, so
we have nothing we can talk about under that particular option.
The third option is for those products covered under tripartite, such as beef, pork and, I believe, mutton. A few field crops will eventually be transferred under GRIP, but at the moment that particular group of producers is getting two-thirds of their premiums paid by federal and provincial governments combined.
There is a considerable amount of liability on provincial and federal taxpayers and I think it only makes sense, and the people of Canada would consider that it made sense, to only give that kind of assistance to people who are permanent residents of the country and/or Canadian citizens.
I commend this to the House and hope that we will get passage of this particular motion.


John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, previous speakers have already explained in detail how the NISA account works, so I am not going to go into that.
As I understand this motion, it was introduced out of respect to taxpayers, both at the provincial level and at the federal level.
Remember, when it comes to NISA and to GRIP, there are three separate partners. There is the federal taxpayer, the provincial taxpayer and the producer. When it comes to NISA, I think it would be fair to say that it is a fairly generous plan and those producers who can use it will get a reasonable return. But we do have to be responsible. We have to show respect for the other players in this arrangement, the provincial taxpayers and the federal taxpayers. I think they would be saying something like this: "Yes, we want to help farmers. We want to go to the limit in helping farmers, but there is a limit and we would draw the line"-and I am now alluding to these taxpayers-"at Canadian citizens or residents. In other words, if you are not a resident of this country, sony, but this NISA account will not be available".
As the previous speaker said, this makes a lot of sense and again, I think it shows prudence on this side of the House. That is all I have to say.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise this afternoon to speak to
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this motion. This is a good motion put forward by my colleague from Algoma, which calls upon this House to place some limitations on the possible spending that may occur under this bill.
A number of motions have been put forward dealing with that very issue. It is an issue which is of concern to Canadians, the idea of taxation, the idea of a deficit and the idea of the national debt. We must remind Canadians and we must remind our colleagues on the other side of the House that we are dealing with a very large program which deals with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars.
The very last thing we would want to do, I would suggest, is to allow a non-Canadian citizen or someone who is not a resident of Canada to somehow take advantage of this program. That would not be useful or serve the purpose of any Canadian anywhere in this country. This motion is an attempt to limit this.
The motion is particularly concerned with the NISA account. As we know, the NISA account is designed as an individual account for the individual producer, so that in years when his or her income drops below a given level, the producer will be able to access the account.
The idea behind this account is that the government will provide matching grants up to a given level. That is encouraging for a producer in itself, but an even more encouraging factor is that producers will receive interest 3 per cent above the going rate. It will give the producer an extra incentive to put money into this account. It will end up being a savings account for the producer and an account that the producer can access at any time.
As the government puts money into the individual producer's account, that is the producer's own money, in essence. He or she is restricted in their access to that fund by a number of factors. As I said, the annual income of the farmer must be below a given level before they can access the account. They also have access if they quit farming or if they retire. They have access to that account which can help with respect to retirement.
It would be most unfortunate if non-residents or non-Canadian citizens were able to acquire that type of fund for their own purposes. In fact, there are ways potentially that this could be taken advantage of in a unfortunate fashion. Under this account, if a farm is incorporated, for example, and the company has shares
Government Orders
owned by various individuals, that company will have a NISA account. It is veiy easy for a company to simply dissolve itself. Of course, if the company dissolved itself, the money in that NISA account would then be divided among the shareholders of the particular company.
If that should happen, then that account is dispersed among the shareholders. Certainly if there are shareholders who are non-Canadians, they will be able to take advantage of that program.
There is also another possibility. Most people are honest people, but there are those who are not.
There are ways to take advantage of it. If there is a way for non-Canadians to take advantage of it that would be especially tragic. An individual producer cannot access that fund unless their income drops below a certain level or, they simply get out of farming. That is the only way they can access that account.
A corporation has a much bigger advantage, which is, as I said, that it can dissolve itself. Therefore, a farming corporation can acquire money into the NISA account, simply dissolve, take the money out, pay it to the shareholders and then turn around and form another company. There is a potential for some unfortunate advantages to take place in this. It is something that the government, I hope, is going to do something about. Certainly if there are non-residents who are involved in that company, this motion would certainly address that concern.
I think this is part of the larger concern of the need to have reasonable taxation and reasonable spending by the government. What we want is a government that is going to deal with the people's money with some care. Certainly the government is always making much of the fact that it is very fiscally responsible and a good financial manager. Well, this is a motion that the government would want to accept and adopt because it formally puts in place legislation that is going to block that particular loophole.
In various provinces throughout this country there have been concerns with foreign residents and non-Canadians involved in agriculture. It is an important principle that we try to keep agriculture for Canadians. In supporting and promoting rural communities and farm families, which the government agrees is important, it is

March 21, 1991
certainly important it excludes support and promotion of foreign residents or non-residents and non-Canadians.
I would like to say that I support this motion. I do hope that the government can also support it. I think it is commendable that the member for Algoma has brought it forward. It is a good motion and I would certainly urge the government to support it because if we are going to maintain some credibility in this country it is motions like this that must be passed. It is important that we keep that in mind, after all we are the servants of the Canadian public and if we are going to do service to the Canadian public we have to certainly keep account of proper spending and proper policies.
I think my time goes to two o'clock, Mr. Speaker. I am wondering how much time I have before two o'clock. I see Mr. Speaker holding his hand up. I do have more comments to make, but-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: If you would like me to put the motion you have about 30 seconds.


Rodney Edward Laporte: I would just like to conclude by saying that this is an important motion and should not be taken lightly. I have noticed that there have been no government speakers on this motion. I would like to see someone speak on it and indicate the importance of it and the fact that it is a valuable addition to this piece of legislation.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Yes.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt will have the floor after three o'clock.


STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 31
[Stage Direction]


Hon. Bob Layton (Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to recognize the special efforts of Transport Canada and
the Minister of State, my colleague from Anjou-Ri-viere-Des-Prairies.
On Monday, March 18,1991, the minister announced a $10 million environmental protection project at Dorval's international airport. The airport has experienced some problems relating to the contamination of run-off water containing glycol. This substance, which is used to de-ice the aircraft before take-off, is necessary for aviation safety.
Unfortunately, it can have an impact on the environment, in this instance involving the Bouchard Creek, which drains into Lac St-Louis. The solution announced by the minister calls for the construction of a catchment basin for the surface water and a pumping station for drainage infrastructure. This project is concrete proof of our government's commitment to improving Canada's environment in Dorval and on the shoreline of Lac St-Louis in Lachine. Bravo, Department of Transport.


RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, today we join with the Canadian Ethnocultural Council to mark United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which commemorates the 1960 Sharpville massacre in South Africa, when peaceful demonstrators against apartheid were wounded and killed.
To promote greater racial harmony, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has launched a massive national campaign under the slogan "On Air for Racial Harmony." The many faces and voices that are our reality must be seen and heard on the airwaves and behind the scenes if the richness of Canada's true multicultural and multiracial population is to be reflected.
The campaign revolved around a series of dramatic radio and TV spots in both official languages, that asks the question: Racism, if you do not stop it, who will? The British Columbia Association of Broadcasters created this vital project, which has won the Media Human Rights Award from B'Nai Brith Canada and today the government's highest honour for initiatives of excellence to promote race relations.
Canada's diversity is its strength and by respecting and appreciating the expression of many cultures, our vision
March 21, 1991

for a strong, united Canada, capable of leading the world toward a more human global village, can and shall be achieved.


RURAL REVITALIZATION DAY
Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, today, on the third anniversary of Rural Revitalization Day, a day proclaimed by Rural Dignity of Canada, I rise to reaffirm the commitment of my caucus to the revitalization of our rural communities.
Rural Canadians from across this country, whether in Saskatchewan or Nova Scotia, are losing their communities, their services, their livelihood and their way of life. Rural communities have lost transportation services, education facilities, health care services, post offices and economic opportunities. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have turned their backs on rural communities and have placed fishing, farming, forestry and single industry towns at great risk.
The gutting of Via Rail, post office closures, cuts to the CBC and removal of support to community newspapers have had a negative impact upon rural communities.
I call upon this government to recognize the negative impact its policies are having on rural Canada, and to reverse those policies before they completely destroy our rural communities. I further call upon this government to treat rural Canadians with the respect and dignity they deserve.


NATIONAL UNITY
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, we live in a country that is the envy of most of the world, but today, in spite of that, we are risking it all by telling each other that it has to be our way or the doorway.
Who speaks for Canada in this debate? Mr. Speaker, that is your job, that is my job, that is the job of every Canadian who truly loves this country. I believe that real unity is not going to be found in reason, or in logic, or in a new constitutional arrangement or even, for that matter, in a break-through in understanding. Rather, it is going to be found in the hearts of Canadians themselves, especially in a return to our traditional Canadian
attitude, an attitude that some describe as disinterested tolerance and benevolent ignorance, but otherwise known as live and let live.


CANADIAN COAST GUARD
Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in this House to urge a full public and comprehensive investigation into Monday's tragic collision of a Canadian Coast Guard ice-breaker, the Griffon and a local fishing trawler, The Captain K near Port Dover in my riding.
Further, I urge that if a criminal investigation is required, it be undertaken by a group outside the purview of the Canadian Coast Guard. People in my riding feel that there is a perceived conflict of interest in this case by having the Canadian Coast Guard undertake a criminal investigation into an accident to which they were a party.
I urge today that the Minister of Transport take this under investigation, come back to this House at his earliest convenience and explain what procedures he is going to take in this investigation.


INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, March 21 is no longer a day like any other. Here and in other countries, it has become the International Day for the Elimination of Discrimination, to commemorate the tragic incident in which so many people were killed 31 years ago.
Just because this incident is now history and took place thousands of kilometres away does not mean we should not feel concerned, every one of us.
Although Canada enjoys a reputation for openness and tolerance, we are not immune to racism, far from it.
We must look at the facts. There are Canadians who do not enjoy the same opportunities as everyone else for the simple reason that their skin is not white. This is nothing new.	.

March 21, 1991
We cannot undo mistakes made in the past, but we can do something about the future. It is up to each and everyone of us to do what is necessary to banish racism from our society. We must learn to know and understand each other, and we must deal with this problem together.


NATIONAL SUMMIT CONFERENCE ON TRANSLATION
Mr. Eugene Bellemare (Carleton - Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, a National Summit Conference on Translation in Canada which was to have been held in Ottawa in May has been abruptly scrapped by the Secretary of State.
Budgetary restraint has been given as the excuse. Elowever, tens of thousands of tax dollars have been wasted in cancellation costs. A rescheduled date for the conference remains in limbo.
This conference was to have brought together the leading figures in the field of translation in order to help the profession prepare to address the problems of fiscal restraint and to plan for a future where spending cuts, lack of graduates and increased demand are the reality.

Mr. Speaker, I therefore join the Canadian Union of Professional and Technical Employees in asking the minister to reconsider his decision and defend official bilingualism. I ask him to allow the summit to proceed as scheduled.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. John Reimer (Kitchener):: Mr. Speaker, it has been said that in politics, perception is reality. That being said, the words from the CBC Journal of March 19 are inexcusable.
The CBC created the impression that the United States is pressuring Saddam Hussein into humiliating ceasefire conditions.
It is time to clear the air.
First, it was the United Nations Security Council that drew up the conditions of the ceasefire, and not the United States. It was the United Nations resolution 686
of March 2 that called on Iraq to comply with the terms of the ceasefire.
Second, surely the terms are not humiliating nor are they inappropriate considering the actions of Hussein. It was Saddam Hussein's aggression that caused the loss of innocent life and destruction of property in Kuwait and Israel. It was Saddam Hussein who senselessly set aflame over 500 oil wells and poured millions of barrels of crude into the gulf.
Therefore, the CBC should be ashamed of its careless journalism and misleading statements.


RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the House has already been informed that today, March 21, is a special day. It is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and an occasion to recognize positive accomplishments in the campaign against racism.
Last year, the minister's awards for excellence in race relations were established to pay tribute to individuals, organizations and corporations which have demonstrated innovative and exceptional achievements in combating racism. On behalf of the Government of Canada and indeed the people of Canada, I want to say how proud I am to recognize this year's award recipients: The British Columbia Association of Broadcasters; The Canadore College of Applied Arts and Technology; The Halton Regional Police Service; Dr. Frances Henry; The Vancouver Youth Theatre; Mrs. Dorothy Abike Wills; Dr. Fred Wien; and La Commission Scolaire Sainte-Croix.
I want to express my thanks to these individuals and organizations and to the many hundreds of others whose achievements all too often go without recognition. Their efforts represent a profound commitment to the values of our society. Together we can stop racism.


CORPORATE TAXATION
Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I have been in this House for along time and I never thought I would live to see this: Canadian children giving their piggy bank savings to the finance minister to reduce the deficit while Canada's biggest and richest corporations looked on. Bay Street speculators, corporate free
March 21, 1991

loaders and their sponsors in Ottawa have transformed Canada into a corporate welfare state by not paying their fair share of taxes.
Yesterday on the same platform as the children was Tom D'Aquino, chairman of the organization representing Canada's largest and richest corporations. His membership includes those who are paid up to $60 million in government commissions to sell government bonds. Also on the platform was the president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, and this is what he said yesterday: "Ever thought why a new bom baby cries? They're cold, they're wet, they're hungry", and I might add they cry because they are born in Brian Mulroney's Canada.


KELOWNA, BRITISH COLUMBIA
Mr. Al Horning (Okanagan Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to thank Chatelaine magazine which in this month's issue has proclaimed what constituents in Okanagan Centre have known for many years. It has declared Kelowna, British Columbia, as the best city in Canada to live in. It cited the balmy weather, great recreational activities and community festivals as the main attractions and there is certainly much more.
It is also interesting to note that the top six most desired cities to live in are all represented by government members.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite all Canadians, and especially all hon. members, to come and visit us in Kelowna and find out why Chatelaine has declared us number one.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, Poland is grateful to the United States and the Paris Club of Nations to forgive large portions of her international debt.
Yesterday, Lech Walesa was told by the U.S. President that 70 per cent of the Polish debt owed to the United States would be forgiven. Canada, on the other hand, stands firm on its own Polish debt plan. The federal government will not write off any of the Polish debt owed
to Canada outright, but will window dress by adjusting interest rates.
Since the Nazi occupation of Poland, followed by the oppressive occupation of the country by the communist regime, Polish citizens and their economy continue to suffer. As other defeated nations received aid after the Second World War through reconstruction funding under the Marshall Plan, Poland was left out in the cold.
Surely, Poland, our faithful ally and the first country to overthrow the communist regime in eastern Europe, is owed a debt for its long and hard struggle for democracy.
I say Canada should be doing a better job in helping Poland adjust to its new-found freedom. Poland does not want a hand-out. Poland needs a helping hand.


EDUCATION
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, very few Canadians would disagree that education is the foundation for a civilized and prosperous society. In our search for national strategies to address social and economic goals, it seems compelling that we should also have a national strategy on education to help us reach those goals.
There can be no doubt that education is a provincial responsibility. Yet there is a national strategic interest. Already the federal government makes large contributions to Canada's educational system in a number of ways. More recently, in fact, the federal government has received increasing criticism that its contributions are insufficient.
In the context of these considerations, I intend to encourage our federal government to seriously examine the prospect of consolidating its present educational activities and budgets into a new department, one that will also develop and nurture a national strategy for education.
Existing commitments in areas such as science, technology, manpower training and minority languages would hopefully be enhanced in such a specialized milieu and more important, there would be a new national dimension to Canada's quest for education.

March 21, 1991
Oral Questions THE ENVIRONMENT


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, two years ago 44,000 tonnes of crude oil spewed into the environment from the Exxon Valdez, creating North America's worst oil spill.
There was never any accounting of the death and devastation this caused to animal and plant life. No amount of money will ever bring them back.
Today in Vancouver, a citizens' group, "Call for Inquiry" is demanding the Prime Minister implement the recommendations of the government's own Public Review Panel on Tanker Safety.
The report calls for the double-hulling of oil tankers, upgrading Coast Guard operations, including tanker inspection and policing waters to enforce compliance.
The price tag for implementing all 107 recommendations in the report, after a levy on marine oil product transport is $600 million, less than half of what Exxon just said it would pay to avoid a criminal trial for just one spill.
The government said no to studying our coastal environment to understand the impact of spills, but is paying an American company to do exactly that off the Persian Gulf.
I call on the government to protect our future and bring forward a plan to implement the recommendations of the report.


CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION
Mr. Bob Wood (Nipissing):: Mr. Speaker, last year the Prime Minister said that the CBC would reach "new heights of accomplishments" under the guidance of Gerard Veilleux and Patrick Watson. Here is a comprehensive list of those so-called accomplishments.
Accomplishment No. 1-The elimination of the national unity clause from CBC's mandate during Canada's worst constitutional crisis.
Accomplishment No. 2-The closing of two television stations in Matane, Quebec, and in Goose Bay, Newfoundland.
Accomplishment No. 3-The elimination of eight local television broadcasts which include Sept lies, Rimouski, Toronto, Windsor, Calgary, Saskatoon, Sydney and Corner Brook, Newfoundland.
Accomplishment No. 4-Putting 1,100 employees of CBC out of work.
Accomplishment No. 5-Cutting the CBC budget by $108 million with the possibility of a further $50 million cut.
Accomplishment No. 6-The elimination of French local newscasts and programming for francophones in southern and northern Ontario.
It is indeed quite a list of accomplishments and the only that is left to complete is the resignation of Veilleux and Watson and the Prime Minister. But even if that was to happen, I am afraid there would be no media to broadcast it.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
Whatever the details of the Belanger-Campeau Commission's final report may be, the constitutional agenda will be a real challenge for Canada. The Allaire report has already been released, and the formula involving first ministers meeting behind closed doors has been discredited. From day to day, the Prime Minister seems to be improvising on issues as basic as a national referendum. Furthermore, the Special Joint Committee, the Beaudoin-Edwards Committee, does not have the right to examine anything beyond the amending formula. Throughout the country, people are beginning to despair of our ability to stay together.
When will the Prime Minister give Parliament a chance to examine thoroughly all our constitutional alternatives?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the government has appointed the Spicer Commission, and we also appointed Beaudoin-Edwards, the joint committee which is doing important work on a vital issue, namely the amending formula. It was also
March 21, 1991

agreed that we would wait for the Allaire report and the Belanger-Campeau Commission's report which will be released very shortly.
Meanwhile, the Liberal caucus is doing its homework. The Leader of the NDP has made some important speeches, I have made several myself, and we are getting ready for a broad debate on this question. We would greatly appreciate any specific ideas the hon. member might have.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, this is not an issue for political partisanship. This is an issue for Parliament.
Whatever their political stripe, Canadians could not help but to cry out last night and this morning when they heard the tones of desperation emanating from the Spicer commission. Canadians are losing hope in our ability to survive as a country. What they desperately want now is democratic elected national leadership. Canadians do not want a closed door process to replace the work of Parliament.
I ask the Prime Minister once again, cognizant of the limited mandate of Beaudoin-Edwards, which is only allowed to look at the amending formula, will he give the Parliament of Canada the right, the chance, and the responsibility to examine all constitutional avenues in a manner similar to that which has been adopted by many provincial legislatures?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, obviously there is concern and dismay in Canada as there often is in all industrialized democracies. No government ever gets it perfect. There are hills and valleys in the evolution of the life of a nation, and there are moments of great challenge and moments of great opportunity.
For not the first time Canada is facing an important constitutional crisis, which is why we began the process by trying to improve on the situation that governments had used in the past, namely quite intimate consultations with provincial premiers. To open up the process with the Spicer commission, that was point number one.
Oral Questions
Point number two was to deal with a fundamental flaw in the Constitution that we inherited, namely the amending process, which is why that important part of the work had to be done by Beaudoin-Edwards.
We indicated that we would be waiting for Belanger-Campeau and for the Allaire report. That period of time has not precluded the leader of the NDP or myself or a number of others from making what we believe are perhaps constructive contributions to the national debate.
I have already indicated, in response to the member on previous occasions, that when this is in we would look forward to an opportunity of providing Parliament with a greater and perhaps more structured opportunity to participate directly in this kind of a debate, which is a nation building exercise of the highest importance.
There were nine opposition days available to the opposition leading up to this where members of the Official Opposition could give us the benefit of their views on this, using some of these opposition days. I think that would be a major contribution to the process regarding the unity of Canada.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, with respect, we are not talking about the hills and valleys of the government; we are talking about the survival of the country. I think this is one area where all political parties can set aside their political labels and work for the survival of Canada.

The Prime Minister must realize that we do not have much time. The constitutional time bomb is already ticking. I would like to know when he intends to announce a specific policy here in Parliament that will give all elected representatives in the Parliament of Canada a chance to set a constitutional agenda for saving Canada. When will he table his plan for the Parliament of this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I have already asked the hon. member to provide her own ideas and suggestions, and I already said that following the Belanger-Campeau Commission's report, the Allaire report and other commissions' reports, we would find a parliamentary formula that would-


Some hon. members:: Answer the question!

March 21, 1991
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: The Liberals want an answer. I am trying to answer, Mr. Speaker, but they keep interrupting me. I am trying to answer an important question that was put by the Leader of the Opposition.
The hon. member should not let herself be traumatized by deadlines and agendas set by others. We have a country. That country is Canada. We are all Canadians, whether we are francophones or anglophones, and no legislature or national assembly, and certainly no political party of any stripe, is going to say that after such and such a date, Canada is finished. That is not true. Canada will survive because we are going to work together to make it survive.


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: My question is for the Minister of Finance.
Yesterday the minister of trade said that the inflated level of the Canadian dollar was largely the result of foreign investment in Canada. However, the Minister of Finance knows that four-fifths of the foreign capital flowing into Canada is simply seeking higher interest rates. Only one-fifth is direct investment.
Will the minister now recognize that the inflated level of the Canadian dollar, which is so damaging to Canadian exports, is a result of the government's own monetary policies, and that those policies, contrary to yesterday's claim by the minister of trade, have actually undermined real investment in Canada?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am not going to deny that the monetary policy of the country has an effect on the Canadian dollar, the level of the Canadian dollar.
However, I would point out to the member that in the last eight months there have been a number of changes in monetary policy which have resulted in a 4 per cent drop in interest rates, as well as a narrowing in the interest rate spread between the United States and Canada from a peak of 5.5 per cent to the current level of about 3.75 per cent on the 90-day commercial paper rate.
There have been significant changes in monetary conditions. These have been translated by the market into a drop in interest rates.
My hon. friend says that he would like to see a lower level of the Canadian dollar, but the market is operating in a way that is contrary to his wishes. Unfortunately his wishes cannot always be reflected in what the market does.


Roy MacLaren: I have to assume, Mr. Speaker, from the minister's answer that the market is not responding in the way that he would wish either.
It is really the government's high interest rate policy that has resulted in the situation Canada faces today. That is the real reason for the gap between U.S. and Canada interest rates which has led to the situation where a growing portion of our national debt is now held by foreigners. Canada, as a result, loses a degree of freedom in its interest rate policy.
How does the minister propose to close the interest rate gap with the United States and to achieve that export led growth that he spoke of in the budget when an increasing amount of our debt is held by foreigners?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take issue with the conclusion that my hon. friend just drew about what I said in my first response.
The point I was making is that there are many other factors affecting the level of the Canadian dollar than simply the interest rate spread between the United States and Canada or a certain level of in-flow of capital. Many other factors are taken into account here, and that is what sets the level of the Canadian dollar.
My hon. friend says that we have an increasing amount of foreign debt or debt to foreigners. The level of the federal government debt to foreigners is in around the 17 per cent to 18 per cent level. In fact, as the exchange reserves have built up in recent months, we have been paying down the level of foreign debt, debt to non-residents that is denominated in currencies other than the Canadian dollar.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
March 21, 1991

Because of a lack of leadership on the part of the Prime Minister and this government, the Belanger-Campeau Commission, the Parti Quebecois and the Quebec Liberals are setting the whole country's constitutional agenda with their deadline. This round of constitutional talks must succeed.
Could the Prime Minister tell the House today what he will do to reach a consensus that would include Quebec, the West, the Maritimes and all other regions of this country, before this deadline?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I already told my hon. friend that she should not make any hasty assumptions. On my way here, I was told that the "consensus" in the Quebec National Assembly remained fragile and uncertain.
So I don't know whether what we read in the newspapers yesterday and today will turn out to be a correct estimate. I have no idea. This is one commission of inquiiy among several that are going to report. It is an important commission, I agree, but there are commissions sitting in other provinces, for the same purpose.
So, how are we going to maintain the unity of this country? Well, we intend to involve parliamentarians and other Canadians in a vast dialogue and debate, while of course emphasizing the benefits that all francophone and anglophone Canadians have enjoyed by being part of Canada this wonderful country, as Mr. Bourassa said for 123 years. Canadians want to stay together. They also want changes, some of them sweeping, some less so. However, if you give Quebecers a real choice, a choice between independence and Canada, they will choose Canada, ten times out of ten!


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question.
I agree with the Prime Minister that what we want to do is to see the results of the many commissions that are going on across Canada. At the same time, it is the responsibility of the Prime Minister and of this government to create a Canada that people want to belong to, that people want to participate in. Clearly there has been a feeling of exclusion for many Canadians in various regions of this country.
Oral Questions
We know what the position of the Government of Quebec is. It has made it very clear. I ask the Prime Minister today to give us the position of the Government of Canada. Canadians have a right to know what the Prime Minister's thinking is on this issue and where the Prime Minister stands for bringing about national unity, given that the Government of Quebec seems to be supporting a date of 1992 for a referendum in Quebec.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, if I had a position that would satisfy all Canadians and guarantee the unity of the country, I would give it to my hon. friend and that hopefully would end the debate that has been going on for 123 years.
A hundred years ago, Sir Wilfrid Laurier stood in this House and predicted at that time that he feared that Canada would not last another month because of regional problems, linguistic tensions, and challenges to minorities of various kinds. Sir Wilfrid anticipated the early demise of Canada. It did not happen because of the will of Canadians to live together.
There are all kinds of Canadians-a couple in this House-predicting the end of Canada, and they are going to be as wrong as they were a hundred years ago.
There but for the grace of an indexed pension we would have a unanimous House.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker.
I think many of us in this House and all of us in this party are in agreement with the Prime Minister that we want to see this country stay together, that we want to make this country a home for everyone-anglophones, francophones, aboriginal people. Surely Canadian unity is more than just the Constitution. It is the kind of equality that people feel in the economy, in the social agenda, in the environmental agenda.
Yesterday the Prime Minister was talking about a possible referendum, but surely a vote on the future of this country is more than just a vote on the Constitution.
Can the Prime Minister commit today that Canadians will have a chance to vote in a national election before the Quebec deadline, because that is determining the future of the country?

March 21, 1991
Oral Questions


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP is urging me for an election. Could it possibly be because she is declining swiftly in the polls and would like me to get it over with before the decline is total?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Now I have to wait for a while before they change.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has made some very eloquent speeches in asking for a strong central government. Surely she would not want a strong central government and yet ask me to concede to the provincial legislature of Quebec the right of setting our next election date.


BANKRUPTCIES
Mr. Ron MacDonald (Dartmouth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday the government released devastating figures concerning business and personal bankruptcies for the month of February. As a direct result of this government's economic mismanagement, bankruptcies are up a record 68 per cent: in Ontario, Canada's economic heartland, 2,383 bankruptcies; in Quebec, a province already devastated by this recession, 2,061 bankruptcies.
Since the Minister of Finance continues to accept no sense of responsibility for these economic casualties, will the Prime Minister recognize the human tragedy behind these figures? What measures will he introduce to stop this tidal wave of bankruptcies, and stop it now?


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, that is precisely what the recent budget is designed to do. We have put in place a number of policies designed to get interest rates down, and down on an ongoing basis, whether it is the legislated spending caps, the wage policies that we are following, the policies to get the deficit down and to take pressure off interest rates, or the inflation targets which will lower the rate of inflation and, as the rate of inflation comes down, so will the rate of interest.
These are policies that all work in a very integrated fashion to address the precise problem my friend is raising in the House today, and that is to get interest rates down because that is the best way we can help people avoid a bankruptcy.


Ronald MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, those comments are cold comfort to the seven individuals or companies that will go bankrupt today during the hour in which we have Question Period.
My supplementary question is for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. In the 392 days since this minister was appointed over 64,000 companies and individuals have gone bankrupt. That is more than 165 bankruptcies per day. All of this is happening under an antiquated Bankruptcy Act that offers little or no protection for workers' wages, pensions, and benefits.
When will the minister stop paying lip service to this very, veiy, very serious problem and introduce in this House the much awaited, much heralded new bankruptcy legislation?


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)):: Mr. Speaker, I will ascribe this error to the hon. member's youth, but in fact his party tried three times to introduce a new Bankruptcy Act, and it failed every time. I may add that the last few months I was busy consulting with all-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Blais: Mr. Speaker, I spent enough time during the past few months, trying to obtain the broadest possible consensus-


Mr. Plamondon:: How much did it cost?


Pierre Blais: -in the business community and in labour circles. We met just about everyone in this country to ensure that the amendments we introduced would be in direct response to the needs of Canadians as they relate to the Bankruptcy Act. I hope that when I table a bill in the weeks to come, you will be the first to make a commitment, on behalf of your government, to support it, on behalf of-
March 21, 1991


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. It too concerns record bankruptcies, this time in the trucking industry.
The minister is well aware that the industry which employs over 600,000 Canadians is fighting for its very survival. Over 1,400 Canadian trucking companies have gone into bankruptcy since 1988, the year this government introduced deregulation of the trucking industry.
Will the minister now protect the remaining trucking companies and trucking jobs in Canada by completely rejecting American cabotage, thus allowing American trucks to operate freely and fully in Canada, something which would drive our Canadian trucks right off the road for good?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, the issue of cabotage by American truckers came up last spring. We conducted, along with Canada Employment and the province of Ontario, extensive blitzes on cabotage to see if it was in fact taking place. There were perhaps one dozen charges laid, but there was no evidence that cabotage was taking place in Ontario and Manitoba to any great extent.
I appreciate what my hon. friend says. There are difficulties in the trucking industry. We have a series of some eight or nine studies presently under way in conjunction with the trucking industry and the major stakeholders. They are all on the striking committee. I think it is well in hand and we are making every effort to address the problem.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister. He is considering the introduction of cabotage not only on the air side but also in the trucking industry. I return to the same minister. He will know that both the Canadian Trucking Association and Freight Carriers Association of Canada have stated to him very clearly and emphatically that Canadian trucks are unable to compete head on with American truck carriers.
Oral Questions
Given that Canadian trucking companies face higher labour, operating and tax costs compared to their American counterparts, why does the minister persist in putting our Canadian trucking industry on a fatal collision course? Have we not lost enough companies and enough Canadian jobs as it is?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend will know that trucking regulation is basically a provincial matter. We stepped into it last spring in an effort to assist the trucking industry. We are working in co-operation with the stakeholders in the industry to take a hard look at the issues facing the industry.
I have told my hon. friend that the studies are under way. When they are available in May, we will make them public. We will know what the issues are and how to address them.
My hon. friend hasn't any more better ways of fixing the trucking industry than he did in 1983 when he helped Maislin Transport.


VISIBLE MINORITIES
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
This government has no mandate to speak for ethnocultural groups who were completely excluded from past constitutional negotiations, so the Prime Minister perhaps should start thinking about an election.
On this International Day for the Elimination of Racism, in view of the inadequate representation and the inadequate promotion of visible minorities and native persons in government departments, including in the Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship where there are no managers and few permanent staff who are people of colour, I want to ask the Prime Minister if his government will now introduce mandatory employment equity legislation to end this systemic discrimination against persons of colour?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the TVeasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is aware that the government has had in place since 1983 a very full program. It is in operation and has been improved by us. We have set aside $90

March 21, 1991
Oral Questions
million and 2,115 person-years have been authorized to bolster employment equity for each of the four groups.
There are difficult problems, of course, but one decision we have taken within the administration, which I believe will have some impact, is to tell managers that their evaluations in the future will take this into account in a much greater way.


JAMES BAY AGREEMENT
Mr. Robert E. Skelly (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, in committee this morning Chief Billy Diamond served notice that the James Bay Cree Nation intends to separate from Quebec in the event that Quebec separates from Canada. It was a virtual declaration of independence.
Chief Diamond also gave notice that beginning this spring the Crees will dismantle Hydro Quebec's power poles and transmission lines if Canada and Quebec continue to refuse to respect their obligations to his people as spelled out in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
Will the Prime Minister now recognize the urgency and the seriousness of the aboriginal rights issue and take steps immediately to involve Canada's aboriginal peoples at the highest levels in Canada's constitutional discussions?


Hon. Shirley Martin (Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, we are quite aware of the concerns of the Cree and Quebec. I am proud that the Cree people want to stay within Canada, and believe in the future of Canada. We will continue to take their concerns into consideration.
He *	*


ENVIRONMENT CANADA
Mrs. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Twenty-eight of the thirty scientists now in training at Environment Canada will be declared redundant, just four weeks before they finish their nine-month course in meteorology.
When the government does not have enough money for health programs, education, research and development and social programs, how can it justify wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars and the precious time of these 30 young Canadians, when we don't even have the jobs for which they were trained?


Mr. Lee Clark (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, as all members of this House know, Canada today faces a national debt of nearly $400 billion and an annual deficit of some $30 billion. Unlike the member opposite, everyone in this country knows that the origin of this debt lies very clearly in the foolish and unnecessary spending of that party when they were in government in the 1970s.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: I would also like to indicate to the hon. member that the meteorologists in training to whom she has referred will not in fact be without employment when they graduate this spring. They will be given other employment opportunities within the Atmospheric Environment Services and they will be given opportunities as meteorologists as soon as vacancies occur.


Marlene Catterall: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. These 28 meteoroligists are only a few of thousands of employees for whom the only protection available against immediate termination is the personnel restructuring policy. Since this policy expires ten days from now, does the minister intend to extend the policy until a new policy is negotiated? Or does he intend to have no policy at all for employees whose employment will be terminated?


Gilles Loiselle: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member will be glad to hear that we are involved in intensive negotiations and that in a few days I will probably have some very good news for her.
  *


ABORIGINAL PEOPLES
Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
March 21, 1991

Earlier this week, the Canadian Human Rights Commission declared that our most pressing human rights problem was the plight of Canadian aboriginal people. Ironically, this week the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development cut $20 million of social services money destined for aboriginal people in Manitoba.
Will the Prime Minister stand up and stop this nonsense and show a commitment to the aboriginal people by reinstating that $20 million destined for Winnipeg's poorest people?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, the changes in the funding to Manitoba for Indian people off-reserve is something that has been under discussion now for some 18 months with the province of Manitoba. There is no intention to immediately cut the funding off. We are in negotiations with the province. The funding that will be taken from those dollars will go to aboriginal people on reserve, which is our responsibility and we intend to make sure that the money goes there for their welfare.


David Walker: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister.
That answer cuts comers in the most amazing way. First of all, the minister from the provincial government describes the so-called negotiations as "a heavy-handed approach to this issue", and finds it to be "totally inexcusable".
Second, the money is not to stay in Manitoba; the money can be spent anywhere across the country.
Manitoba has been under attack from this government for the last six years. It has lost money in the core area initiative, it has lost money in the northern development agreement. When is this government going to stop attacking native people in Manitoba and give them a chance to independence and dignity?


Shirley Martin: Mr. Speaker, we are not attacking the Indian people in Manitoba or anywhere else in this country. We are working very hard to ensure that there is an improvement in their living conditions.
Oral Questions
Moneys will go to the Indian people of Manitoba who live on reserve. It is not a heavy-handed approach. For 18 months the people in Manitoba knew this was going to happen. We have been asking them to discuss it further with us. We are still willing to sit down and talk with them about their concerns.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: My question, Mr. Speaker, is for the Prime Minister.
The Spicer commission reports that Canadians "have lost faith in the political system and its leadership". We can see why when economic equality has decreased under this government, 430,000 people have lost permanent jobs in the last year, and in Toronto the number of people needing to use food banks is up by 60 per cent.
Will the Prime Minister admit that the leadership crisis in Canada is in large part a result of his failed economic policies?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the federal government, I will certainly accept my share of responsibility. I know my hon. friend in fairness will want to impute the rest of the responsibility to the government of Ontario, because these are all shared joint approaches to these various problems. That is the way it works.
We have come through a recession. We are on our way out. Interest rates are down by 4 percentage points. In our first five and half years Canadians created in the environment created by this government 1.6 million new jobs. Of the new jobs-


Ross Harvey: Now gone.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. subsidized friend from the NDP from Edmonton says-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Martin Brian Mulroney: This, Mr. Speaker, is perfect sanctimony.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, it is somehow typical that the Prime Minister should start out trying to give us an answer in which he suggests the need for co-operation and then turns it into a partisan attack.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.

March 21, 1991
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member could put his question.


Steven W. Langdon: A partisan attack, I might say, Mr. Speaker, from somebody who is getting his housing for nothing.
Let me put my question for the Prime Minister. He suggested that interest rates are coming down. In fact, we see that the bank rate today has stayed virtually the same, moving one-tenth of a percentage point. No change is significant.
I ask this Prime Minister if he is prepared to stand up and say to the country that there will be a significant drop in interest rates in this country to get people back to work, to stop the bankruptcies across this country and to see to it that our economic problems start to reap some solution.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I cannot give the guarantee my hon. friend seeks.
The NDP campaign, for example, in another jurisdiction in Ontario with a whole fleet of promises, guaranteed they would be implemented in a matter of months. Now it says that cannot be done. Why would my hon. friend hold us to a standard of perfection when he lets NDP governments get off with something less?
Can I guarantee it? Of course, I cannot guarantee it. Interest rates have come down 4 percentage points. If the federal government contains its expenses, drives its deficit down and keeps it down, and if all provincial governments, particularly the large provincial governments, resist the urge to spend money and start to cut down on their deficits, they will contribute to low interest rates and my hon. friend will have the jobs he wants.


CITIZENS' FORUM ON CANADA'S FUTURE
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister.
In the interim report of the Spicer Commission today, despite the fact that everything in it is not good news, there are two statements that shine through to me and give me great encouragement.
The report says that there is very clear consensus in all parts of the country about the individual and social values which define Canadian society. The report also says that there is a widespread consensus inside Quebec and elsewhere on national values.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister if he expects the Spicer Report to be delivered on time so that its recommendations and observations can be incorporated into the draft of our constitutional proposals.


An hon. member:: There is a tough one.


Martin Brian Mulroney: That is a good question.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


An hon. member:: Is the answer written out?


Martin Brian Mulroney: In fact, I just happen to have-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the right hon. Prime Minister can tell us what he has and then send it over to his colleagues.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, I could go either way. I could quote them from here or they are etched in my memory.
In point of fact, my hon. friend makes an extremely valuable point that is shared by almost all members of this House. Canadians generally are bound together by some fundamental values and common principles, chief among which is the fact that most Canadians understand and fully appreciate the magnificence of what we have accomplished together over 123 years as a civilized, democratic and prosperous nation.
Most Canadians, understanding that, want to work together to build, not to destroy. Because in doing that, we can pass on the magnificence of our heritage to our children and grandchildren.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.
<e *	*


RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
On this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, this government says it is committed to cultural and ethnic diversity in Canada. At the same time that one government department increases
March 21, 1991

immigration targets, the Department of the Minister of State continues to underfund groups and programs which promote understanding among races.
Would the Prime Minister please explain this dichotomy in government policy?
Would he tell this House when his department will really begin to address the issue of racism in Canada?


Martin Brian Mulroney: I am
surprised at my hon. friend: when will the government begin to address the problem of racism in Canada? Racism in Canada is not a problem that can be solved only by governments. It is a problem that ought to preoccupy all citizens. Racism is an illness that must be driven from our society. It requires vigilance and constant attention, not only by governments, but also by all members of Parliament.
My friend, the Liberal member from Halifax, says pretty words. She was not here when this government rose in the House of Commons to propose to correct one of the ugliest incidents of racism in the history of Canada, namely, the blot against the citizenship of Japanese Canadians.
We rose, we received the unanimous support of the House of Commons, to correct something that had been neglected for over 40 years. This was done by this government and a prior House. We have begun to address another blot against society, namely, the treatment of Italian Canadians that went uncorrected for 40 years. This government is in the process of dealing with it.


Beryl Gaffney: My supplementary question is to the Minister of Justice. Yesterday the hon. minister told the House that work is proceeding on many changes to the Human Rights Act. Can the minister please tell us what her priority amendments are, and if the recommendations dealing with aboriginal peoples are on her short list.


Hon. Kim Campbell (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the review of the Human Rights Act to bring forward a comprehensive proposal of amendments, does not involve a set of priorities. It is a comprehensive approach that I hope will bring forward a very broad range of amendments to that act.
I cannot say I have set priorities in my amendments. I think they are all important. Each one goes in as a small
Business of the House
tile in the mosaic of a Canadian structure for a free and accessible society. Therefore, I would not wish to draw any priorities among the amendments that I will be proposing to the act.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, before I proceed with my point of privilege,
I wonder if I might ask the question of the Government House leader with regard to House business for tomorrow and next week.


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, as soon as we get to Government Orders this afternoon, we will proceed with report stage on-it seems a lot of Liberals need to clear their throats. Go ahead, I will wait for you.
As I was trying to say, we will proceed this afternoon with report stage of Bill C-98, the farm income bill, and hopefully get third reading so that that can be in place for the farmers of Canada by the start of the fiscal year, April 1.
I would like to declare tomorrow an allotted day, a supply day, and engage in discussions with my colleague as well as other colleagues in terms of other business.
If we were to proceed with Bill C-98 today, it would be my intention to have the last allotted day on Monday, followed by two days of discussion on the rule changes on which we have all been working co-operatively, I might add, for some time, which will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this House. Then I propose to have an adjournment, after which the government would return with a Throne Speech in the early part of May. That, of course, requires certain consents and agreements. I look forward to our productive discussions in that regard. Should these not come about, of course, we will be back on April 8.


Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I was going to give leeway to my House leader, but I am sure he will get up in a few minutes.
The government House leader indicated his plan to seek the adjournment of the House toward the end of next week and not have the House sit in April and for the early part of May.

March 21, 1991
Business of the House
I wonder if he can give some guarantee to those thousands of Canadian families who are waiting for legislation on the northern tax. I wonder if the government has any intention of introducing that legislation in the next three days.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I have just been talking to my seatmate who has informed me that the drafters of this legislation have several significant welts on their backs and will have the legislation in a position where through agreement we could take care of it within the time frame I have just mentioned.
Of course, this would require the approval of the opposition parties to do that, but I know the hon. member will have no difficulty at all convincing his very co-operative caucus to agree to quick passage of those.


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, perhaps while the government House leader is speaking to his seatmate, he could also ask that same seatmate if the legislation that the minister tabled and distributed before the House came back is ready to be presented to the House. He has distributed that legislation to thousands of Canadians. Presumably he could also distribute it to the House of Commons.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, on this point of the northern benefit legislation, the draft legislation is out. The Department of Revenue is administering the legislation on the basis of the draft legislation. There will be forms available for taxpayers in early April so that they will be able to take advantage of the changes that are proposed in the northern benefits legislation.
The point that my colleague has just made about passing the legislation is that we will be including this as part of another bill so that if we are going to have this available for the House to deal with at a time before we rise, then we need to have an indication from the opposition parties that that is the way we are going to deal with it. We cannot do this at the last minute.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Jim Edwards (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you
would want me to draw your attention and that of the House to the presence in the gallery of the distinguished theologian, Dr. Henri J. Nouwen, who was the speaker at this year's annual parliamentary prayer breakfast.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I should advise the House of the list I am looking at so that we can see the best way to go through it.
The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has a question of privilege, and his ranks ahead of others.
The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell has a question of privilege.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona has a point of order.
The hon. member for Churchill has a point of order.
The hon. member for Kamloops is rising. I will hear the hon. member for a moment.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Nelson Andrew Riis: I have two quick points before we get to hearing the points of order.
I think it is appropriate to indicate clearly that if the Minister of Finance brings forward a bill regarding northern benefits, he can certainly count on the expeditious movement of that legislation on behalf of this party.
Also, my hon. friend the government House leader indicated a certain sequence of events and that if those events occurred in that order, we would possibly rise next Wednesday until some time in May. The order of events that he laid out is something that at this point we cannot accept. Therefore, I think we will have to say that we will be back on April 8 to continue working.


Mr. Speaker:: Keeping in mind the way these matters have come to my attention, I will now hear the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.
March 21, 1991


PRIVILEGE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the question of privilege of which I have given you notice, given my colleague the Minister of Finance notice, as well as the opposition House leader for the New Democratic Party.
I wish to deal with a serious matter, contempt of this House, a matter which under our proceedings as described in Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, Chapter 12, is properly brought before the House as a question of privilege.
On October 10, 1989, you, Sir, stated in Hansard at page 4461:	[DOT]
I want the House to understand very clearly that if your Speaker
ever has to consider a situation like this again, the Chair will not be as
generous. This is a case which, in my opinion should never reoccur.
Well, I am saddened to say that this situation has recurred. On March 16, 1991, in newspapers across this country there appeared a government ad for "Canada's Plan For Economic Recovery". I have this ad here which I wish to table with the House and undoubtedly, Mr. Speaker, you will want to review it prior to making your adjudication.
I ask for the indulgence of the House as I outline some important historical points which I believe, and hopefully you too, Sir, are vital to the question I raise today.
On September 25, 1989, the then Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, rose on a point of privilege to protest the use of objectionable ads placed in newspapers across this country in late August 1989. In his able presentation, the then Leader of the Opposition made two substantive points. The first was that the ad prejudiced the proceedings of this House because the issue of the GST was still under debate in committee and the ad presumed the outcome of all parliamentary deliberations.
Privilege
The second important issue raised was that of contempt of Parliament based on the point that these ads diminished the authority and yes, Sir, the dignity of Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, you ruled that the arguments on prejudicing the proceedings of this House did not constitute a breach of privilege based on a thorough analysis and a definition of privilege found in Erskine May and other procedural authorities. However, Sir, on the question of contempt, the Chair stated on page 4460 that it was "in a quandary".
The claim that put the Chair in a quandary was, and I quote from Hansard again at page 4458:
-the advertisement is a contempt of Parliament because it infers that the House does not have any role to play in the passage of the tax and that it misrepresents to the Canadian public the procedures employed by Parliament in adopting legislation.
You, Sir, succinctly and precisely identified two items in the claim of contempt: namely, intent and content. As regards intent, your doubt was dispelled by the Minister of Justice at the time who at page 3821 of Hansard said that the ads were for informational purposes. This follows the tradition in this House that we accept the words of hon. members' explanations.
However, the Chair found that, with respect to content, and I quote from page 4461 of Hansard:
- the content was obviously drafted in a cavalier manner; there is an element of confidence, if not boldness-
The Chair concluded its remarks by sending a strong message to the Public Service and in particular, the Department of Finance. The message was that this country is a parliamentary democracy with the House of Commons at the centre of its deliberations. The ad was indeed ill-conceived and did a disservice to the "great traditions of this place".
With those five words "great traditions of this place", we on this side of the House certainly concur.
The responsibility of the Crown's ministers to inform the public, a long-standing convention of parliamentary democracy, ought to be practised on the floor of the House of Commons and not on the pages of national newspapers.
Today, I wish to raise several points as regards the latest ad campaign to sell the budget and, of course, to sell the Minister of Finance.

March 21, 1991
Privilege
I wish to present the arguments of the Minister of Justice in September 1989, which might be used today with the present application of contempt of the House. I do this because the situation is more serious procedurally today than it was in September 1989. The Minister of Justice argued in 1989:
The Finance Committee unanimously recommended to publicize details of the tax if the government were to proceed.
The budget had already been approved stating the government's intent to implement the GST by January 1, 1991.
That the Finance Committee was studying the issue and no case could be brought forward to show that it was being impeded.
That was in 1989. Those arguments cannot and ought not to be made in this particular case here today.
First, the finance committee has not unanimously agreed on the contents of the budget. Second, the budget has not been approved by the House and in point of fact, it is still under debate and we are not certain whether or not there will be a vote on the budget before we prorogue in May. Third, the finance committee is not dealing with any of the substance of the budget in this particular case.
The Department of Finance, in placing this advertisement in newspapers across the country, acted as if the House had already passed the budget. It is again a cavalier, deliberate approach contravening the proceedings of this House. Some would call it absolute arrogance in light of your ruling, Mr. Speaker. And not only did the ad presume that this House had passed the budget of February 26, it misrepresented the budget document tabled in the House of Commons by the Minister of Finance.
In September 1989, the then Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. member for Vancouver Quadra said, and I quote:
A government that wastes millions and millions of dollars on newspaper ads not even a canary would want to see on the floor of its cage, and keeps saying that it is trying to cut spending in order to reduce the deficit-that government is both hypocritical and utterly ridiculous.
Those words ring clearly today as we discuss this particular issue.
I refer the House to the 19th Edition of Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice, page 145 under the section of
Constructive Contempts, subsection of the Publication of False or Perverted Reports of Debates, and I quote:
Analogous to the publication of libels under either House is the publication of false or perverted, or of partial and injurious reports of debates or proceedings of either House of committees of either House or misrepresentations of the speeches of particular members.
In the ad, under bullet point no. 2, the government states that it will, and I quote: "channel all GST and privatization revenues to a Debt Servicing and Reduction Fund". I wish to refer you, Mr. Speaker, to the budget document itself tabled by the Minister of Finance, page 78 in the English version, the last two paragraphs, to show this House and Canadians how the Department of Finance and the Minister of Finance have misrepresented his own words in this particular ad, and I quote for you, Mr. Speaker, from page 78 of the budget document, the English translation:
The Prime Minister has given a commitment that any above-projected revenues from the GST will make a contribution to deficit reduction rather than provide the leeway for an expansion in discretionary government spending. To implement this commitment, the government will introduce legislation to establish a specified purpose account, to which will be credited net GST revenues and from which will be debited public debt charges.
Again, Mr. Speaker, I table that for your subsequent reflection in making your adjudication.
In the minister's speech on page 13 he did suggest that all the revenues from the GST would go to the new debt servicing and reduction fund, but it is on page 78 in the details of the budget that the minister says what he really plans to do. That is where we learn that only above projected GST revenues would go to the proposed fund.
At page 78 the Minister of Finance even cites the Prime Minister of Canada, his own words on the subject matter. The ad's assertion that all GST revenues will be committed to the proposed debit servicing and reduction fund is completely inconsistent with the details of the budget document. Further, this assertion leaves the distinct impression with the reader that this fund, whatever its precise nature, already exists.
This is simply not true. In fact the legislation that the Minister of Finance proposes in his budget has not only not been adopted by this House, not only not been debated, but it has not even been introduced by the government. In addition, the advertisements claim that
March 21, 1991

direct program spending increases to the unemployed will result from the budget is also not supported by the document tabled before this House. Not only is there no new program for the unemployed, there is in fact a cut in the Canadian Jobs Strategy, a program which supposedly benefits the unemployed.
Any increase in the federal government's spending on the unemployed this year will not be a result of the 1991 budget, but rather a requirement on the part of the Government of Canada under the Unemployment Insurance Act passed by this House some decades ago.
It is obvious, sir, the intent and content of the framers of this ad. The government did not take seriously, Mr. Speaker, your words, the protector of minority rights in this Chamber, on October 10, 1989. Perhaps they thought you would forget over time, Mr. Speaker, but the chair specifically asked the Department of Finance and other departments to study its ruling.
No member of the Crown can be taken seriously this time if he or she tries to sell the information argument. I can hear the Minister of Finance shaking his head over there. He of all people knows that this government is in big trouble. This government is responsible for eroding the dignity of the House of Commons.
You concluded your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on October 10, 1989 by saying the following: "This ad is objectionable and should never be repeated". Those, Sir, were your words on October 10, 1989. Unfortunately for all Canadians it has been repeated.
I am prepared to move a motion that the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections be empowered to examine the question of government advertising concerning budget and other legislative proposals prior to their enactment. This would give members a needed avenue to study in depth this recurring issue.
Although a precedent is not needed on the issue of contempt, you made an historic one on October 10, 1989, Mr. Speaker. That is the reason why I rise today to defend the fundamental principles of this, the highest court in the country, over which you, Sir, preside.
Privilege
Parliament is the heart of our democracy, but its very authority stems from the esteem in which it is held by the government, by the ministers of the Crown and, more important, by the people of Canada.
This government and this Minister of Finance are not only in contempt of this House, but they are in contempt of you and your ruling of October 1989, Mr. Speaker.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I want to respond directly to the statements that the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has made.
I might say, as an opening comment, that I fundamentally reject what he has said both in terms of the attitude of the government, as well as the specifics that he has set out in his far-fetched approach to trying to deal with this issue.
First of all, let me comment briefly on the purpose of the advertisement and the tabloid that is the subject of this question of privilege.
The purpose of the tabloid is to ensure that people right across this country have an opportunity to read and understand the directions that the budget has taken and get a better understanding of how this fits with the government's economic policy.
We know that budget documents are complex. They are lengthy and difficult to read. Canadians are not always going to take the time to read these documents. We felt that something that is condensed into eight pages of fairly direct language will help people gain that understanding. I might say that there is a very great demand for this information.
As an example, in the goods and services tax, the Consumer Information Office has sent out five million documents related to the goods and services tax. That gives us some sense as to the demand on the part of our voters for this type of information.
The advertisement that my hon. colleague refers to does make reference to this tabloid but it do so in a way, as it says, federal budget highlights. It is not intended to cariy the entire content of the tabloid document.
Let me first cover the specifics that my colleague has raised. First, he points to page 78 where it says the following about the commitment of the Prime Minister:

March 21, 1991
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To implement this commitment, the government will introduce
legislation to establish a specified purpose account, to which will be
credited net GST revenues and from which will be debited public debt
charges.
Mr. Speaker, if you refer to page 94, you will see the calculations of this. It shows that the GST revenues, privatization proceeds, et cetera, are in their entirety credited to this fund. The word "net" is used because the proceeds are net of the GST credit. But because the GST credit is an integral part of the GST system itself, it is those net revenues that are credited to the fund.
As my hon. friend has pointed out, in the budget speech on page 13 of this document I said that we will ensure that all GST revenues are allocated solely to this fund. I think it is quite clear revenues that will be directed to the fund are all of the GST revenues net of the GST credit, which is an integral part of the tax.
The accounting is clear. The words are there to state exactly what we are intending to do, and I believe there is no uncertainty about that.
Let me comment on the advertisement. As I indicated, the advertisement itself is a very succinct document. It refers to federal budget highlights, and those highlights are identical to the highlights that are on the second page of the tabloid document itself. Immediately next to the highlights is a short note from me as Minister of Finance, outlining what is in this document. I quote here, and this is a very important quote: "The budget proposes far-reaching initiatives."
The tabloid goes on to say on page 7, relating to the GST debt servicing reduction fund: "Legislation will be introduced to establish the debt servicing and reduction fund into which all GST revenues will go".
Mr. Speaker, I think we have followed very closely the directions that you gave us. I indicated that "the budget proposes" and that legislation in relation to this particular matter will be proposed. I believe that is quite clear and consistent with the ruling that you made some months back.
The final point that my colleague has referred to is on page 6 of this document. "The advertisement", he said, "directed program spending increases to the unemployed, the elderly and farmers in difficulty". This refers
specifically to an item in the tabloid which says: "Who will get extra help this year?" I will not give you all the words here, but it says: "That is why program spending will increase by 6.9 per cent this year. Nearly 80 per cent of the $7.5 billion increase will go to assist the elderly, the unemployed and farmers in difficulty". The point here is that this is a specific factual statement, not as my colleague tried to interpret it.
If you refer, Mr. Speaker, to that item on page 6, I think you will see that it is precisely that and not as the interpretation would suggest.
In conclusion, I do believe that what we have set out here in the advertising is highlights or headlines, if you will, to the specific items that are in the tabloid. The tabloid clearly says that 'the budget proposes" and "legislation will be introduced". These and all the aspects of the ruling that you made previously on the GST advertisement a year and a half ago do respect fully the directions that you wished us to take.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I must say I am grateful to my colleague, the House leader of the Official Opposition, for having brought to the attention of the House the contemptuous nature of the expensive and misleading advertising campaign which promotes the economic policy of the government, which misrepresents the budget that is before this House, which prejudices the decision of this House on the budget and which prejudices debate on this issue. Once again I compliment my hon. friend on his very thoughtful presentation to you, Mr. Speaker, on this very critical matter.
Before I begin, I want to say simply to my friend, the Minister of Finance, that I recall the GST mailings in terms of the evaluation that followed that, how effective that campaign was, and informing Canadians on the importance and the intricate nature of the GST. As to whether they understood it better as a result of receiving this documentation, I think the overwhelming evidence was that that was not the case. I suggest that the need to have sent out five million documents in response to inquiries simply points out the confusion that surrounds the implementation of this new form of taxation.
In light of the comments and arguments made by my hon. friend, the House leader of the Official Opposition, I have really only a few comments to make. With your
March 21, 1991

indulgence, I will focus on only two brief points: first, the wilful intent behind this advertising campaign and the fact that it exacerbates the contempt that we are presently discussing and, second, the attempt to deny this House its conventional and historic rights to pronounce itself on the budget.
I must say that this advertising campaign is not only part of a carefully designed media strategy but is part of a deliberate flaunting of the dignity of this House and its role and authority to permit the implementation of budgetary policy. I am afraid we have been reminded that this is not the first time members of this House have had to voice their concerns about zealous government administrations eager to put their spin on the matters before the House.
Fundamental to this whole issue is the question of why we are here. We are here because hundreds of years ago someone had the good sense to say no, to say that kings and other despots did not have the right to spend our money, to raise our taxes, unless and until we gave them that right. It does not matter whether it is a king or a prime minister or a deputy minister of finance who tries to usurp that right; this House and each of us in it must fight to defend that principle. You, Mr. Speaker, are of course the standard-bearer in that fight.
My colleagues have argued that the information distributed to every Canadian doorstep misrepresents the budget laid before this House. I support your arguments, Mr. Speaker, and the arguments we have heard earlier today. My concern is equally focused on the purpose behind this media campaign. Why did officials of the Department of Finance choose to give each Canadian household a copy of this flyer? Why did they choose to send it before the House had pronounced itself on the budget? Were they, as my hon. colleague has pointed out, not listening to you when you told them on October 10, 1989, and I quote:
I expect the Department of Finance and other departments to study this ruling carefully and remind everyone within the Public Service that we are a parliamentary democracy, not a so-called executive democracy, nor a so-called administrative democracy.
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Let us look at this recent history to which your comment refers. In the summer of 1989 the government launched an advertising campaign in support of the goods and services tax. When the House returned that fall, the former Leader of the Official Opposition raised with the Speaker the contemptuous nature of those advertisements. While you, Mr. Speaker, did not find that there was a prima facie case, you offered some very stern warning to those who implemented the campaign to which the opposition took offence. You said you had to ponder the intent of the offending advertisement as compared to its contents.
In light of the Minister of Finance's assurances that the intent was to inform Canadians and not to diminish the dignity of the House, you found that there was no contempt.
However, Mr. Speaker, you concluded with the comments:
I expect the Department of Finance and other departments to study this ruling carefully and remind everyone within the Public Service that we are a parliamentary democracy, not a so-called executive democracy, nor a so-called administrative democracy.
I emphasize that particular comment of yours, because it should be remembered that today's offensive advertisement was drafted by that same department that you had specifically warned in December 1989.
I submit that the publication of which we speak contains a number of errors. In terms of the goods and services tax it says:
All revenues from the goods and services tax will flow into a debt servicing and reduction fund.
I give creativity marks to my hon. friend, the Minister of Finance, who has tried to explain that. While the budget proposes to channel only net revenues, this certainly implies something contrary to that notion.
Also, the statements in this document say that the budget will cut the cost of government including salaries, and yet the government's own estimates show that it will actually spend more money this year than last.
It says that the budget will direct program spending increases to the unemployed. We all know that the unemployed can rely on the self-financing employment

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plan. Of course we see no new programs and have actually had the announcement that the Canadian Jobs Strategy will see $100 million cut from it.
In closing, I want to say that the Minister of Finance and his officials knew the rules, and they understood your ruling. They could only have been deliberately disregarding this House and the role that I, members opposite, members beside me and you, Mr. Speaker, play.
I might add that the Minister of Finance and his officials also knew that there is no obligation to bring a budget before the House at this time but, having done so, the House has many rights over that budget. This is my final point. These include the right to debate the budget, to decide on the budget, to defeat governments on the basis of the budget, and to withhold passage of legislation based on the budget until a decision has been made.
Why, then, did the Department of Finance not wait until the budget debate had been concluded and the final budget voted upon?
Why did they not correctly reflect the material in the budget? I say that this is a wilful contempt of the House, a wilful contempt of your ruling of October 10, and deliberate disregard for the dignity and authority of this House.
On examination of this issue a number of questions are raised. I submit that the officials in finance did not wait for the budget debate to be concluded because they knew it would not be concluded. They knew that this House would never have the opportunity to vote on the budget. What greater prejudice to the proceedings of this House can there be than to do away with these proceedings?
It would appear, even by comments made earlier today, that the government does not plan further debate on the budget motion.
I have not been able to find a single previous incident where the House has been denied the right to pronounce itself on budgetary policy once it had been introduced. Last week I asked the government House leader when he would be introducing a bill to legitimize the collection of the increased taxes on cigarettes and tobacco. He
ignored the fact that the tax is currently paid basically on a voluntary basis by Canadians and will be until the budget is approved, the ways and means motion approved, and the tax bill passed.
Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I ask you to review our arguments and the facts before you. I suggest you will find that there is a prima facie case of contempt based on the following: the clear and deliberate ignoring of your ruling of October 10, 1989; the clear intent to incorporate incorrect and misleading material contained in the advertisement; the clear intent to promote the budget policy before the policy had been approved by this House; the clear intent to deny the House the right to decide on the budget; the clear intent to degrade the rights of all members of this House by denying them the right to debate and to presume support where no vote had actually taken place.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, a veiy short reply. I have the points I think pretty well digested and I am very grateful to the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond in putting his points so succinctly. I will hear him shortly.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, just so there is no misunderstanding in my remarks I did not make reference to the tabloid. I made reference to the particular ad which I filed with the Clerk so that there would be no misunderstanding by yourself or by my colleagues across the way or to the left. It is not the tabloid I made reference to. It was the particular ad which has appeared in the newspapers across the country.


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to consider carefully the arguments that have been put forward both by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, the hon. Minister of Finance, and the hon. member for Kamloops. I will, of course, keep in mind the comments that I had to make some time ago. I know the hon. member will be sure that I get a copy of the ad. The hon. Minister of Finance made reference to the tabloid and I would appreciate a copy of that too. I will try to report back to the House as quickly as possible.
We have, as I indicated, a number of matters and I would like to move on as fast as I can and I know that hon. members want to assist the Chair. The hon.
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member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell has a question of privilege and I ask him to address the Chair.


STANDING COMMITTEE ON CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege arising from the business of a committee. This occurred earlier this morning.
Of course, Mr. Speaker would be tempted perhaps to remind me that under our traditions committees are masters of their own business. While that is generally true I want to remind you of citation No. 569.(1) of Beauchesne's, fifth edition, which says:
Committees are regarded as creatures of the House and are governed for the most part in their proceedings by the same rules which prevail in the House with exception as to seconding of motions, limiting the number of times of speaking and the length of speeches.
It further says under 569.(2):
Committees receive their authority from the House itself and that authority of the House overrides that of any committee.
Mr. Speaker, I am bringing this issue to your attention for the following reason. The committee this morning was meeting under Standing Order 108(2). I bring to the attention of the House, and perhaps I could table the following, although it is available to officers of the House, the convocation asking members to attend the committee which states as follows: "Standing Committee on Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Government Operations, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) consideration of the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future." Very clearly, the committee was meeting under Standing Order 108(2) this morning to consider the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future as the notice published for us by the clerk indicated.
When the committee met this morning, it became aware of a certain report of the Citizen's Forum on Canada's Future. That report, which was made public last night, was later upon the motion of a member of the committee, duly moved and seconded. The report in question was tabled with the committee.
When hon. members immediately afterwards attempted to question the witness on the report itself, the chairman of the committee ruled that members could not ask a question about a public report, and at that a
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report which had already been tabled before the committee in question.
Mr. Speaker, the point I am making to you is that if that authority does not exist within the House itself, and I remind Mr. Speaker of what he has told us on several occasions in the past, that members in this House should be permitted to ask questions in a manner which is unhindered, providing of course that the Standing Orders and our rules and forms are adhered to. If that is the principle which guides us in this House, I fail to see how that principle can be overridden in one of our committees by a committee chairman.
Recognizing the authority the committee has to be master of its own business, nevertheless a committee or a member of a committee, in particular a chairman, cannot exceed an authority in the committee which Mr. Speaker cannot exercise in this House here, or does not exercise in this House here.
I am not expecting an immediate ruling on the issue. I conclude my remarks by asking Mr. Speaker to review the transcript of the committee in question and to rule on the issue in question.

Mr. Speaker, I think that after reviewing the information I just brought to your attention, you will agree that the customary procedure of this House, as indicated in Beauchesne's and in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, was not followed this morning. I think parliamentarians have a right to ask questions about a public report, a report that was tabled before our committee and that was under consideration by the committee, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2).


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Sherbrooke):: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order. In my capacity as chairman of this committee since last Monday, I am directly concerned by the question raised by the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.
Perhaps the following information will help clarify the situation. The committee met for the first time last Monday. It had not met for some time. That is when I was chosen to be chairman of the committee. The committee then went on to consider the Supplementary Estimates tabled by the government which we were to examine, preferably before Thursday this week, with

March 21, 1991
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emphasis on the item concerning the Citizens Forum, also known as the Spicer Commission.
From the outset, Mr. Speaker, we realized in committee that we were faced with a situation that was truly unique. The committee was asked to consider the votes allocated to a royal commission or a commission of inquiry via the Privy Council, a commission mandated by law or established by a constituent act, and a commission or forum, all of which basically have an arm's length relationship with the government.
Furthermore, by the very nature of this mandate, the commission or forum must enjoy a certain degree of independence vis-a-vis the government and thus Parliament and the committees of Parliament that bestow this mandate. This was and stil is an absolutely unique situation.
At our organization meeting on Monday, it became clear to members and the committee chairman that in our examination we had to make a distinction between substantive questions relating to the commission's mandate and questions arising from the commission's administration. That was the gist of the debate we had last Monday. In subsequent meetings, Mr. Speaker, which took place Tuesday, Wednesday and this morning, the Chair always stressed the fact that a distinction had to be made between these two issues. Although it may not always be apparent, Mr. Speaker, there is a distinction between the subject matter dealt with by a commission of inquiry and issues relating to the expenditure of public funds. That was more or less the situation.
This morning, the hon. member and his colleagues raised the following question: They said or claimed that since the Spicer Forum had produced an interim report, that altered the decision we made on Monday. This morning's decision, Mr. Speaker, was a matter of common sense. It was based on the fact that the forum as such had not interrupted its task since our committee had been considering their votes. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the forum continued its work on Monday and Tuesday and produced an interim report.
Perhaps I may add, Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of this House and of all Canadians, that I too regretted the fact that the Spicer Forum decided to produce an interim report the day before our meeting with Mr. Spicer. I
don't think it did so on purpose-Mr. Spicer gave us an explanation-but to be perfectly frank, as chairman I too felt that this was perhaps not the wisest thing to do in the circumstances.
In concluding, Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it if the Chair would examine the committee's proceedings, not only today's but also Tuesday's, Monday's and Wednesday's, to get a clear picture of a question that I believe, creates a precedent for this Parliament, so that in future, you could provide some guidance for hon. members when we are faced with a similar situation. I am sure this kind of situation will recur.
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I believe that this morning, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell could have done what is often done by members, which is to appeal the decision of the committee chairman. All he had to do was move a motion to reverse the decision made by the chairman of the committee.
However, Mr. Speaker, the hon. member did not move a motion to that effect this morning. He preferred to raise a question of privilege in the House. My point is that in any case, and further to my other arguments, the recourse available to the hon. member for Glengarry- Prescott-Russell was available to him this morning, but he chose not to use it, and therefore, his recourse has expired with respect to-


Don Boudria: Careful, Jean, that might backfire!


Jean J. Charest: -the proceedings of the committee. [English]


Mr. Speaker:: I have extended a great deal of patience to members on this matter. I do so reluctantly, but I wanted to listen carefully to the point. I have never said that there might not be an occasion when a Speaker might, depending on circumstances, have to intervene in a committee.
Whatever circumstances may eventually be, I have to accept for the argument that has been brought in front of me, the hon. member for Sherbrooke's position, which is that there are other things that can still be done in the committee with respect to the complaint that the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell brings. Certainly until all avenues within the committee are exhausted I do not think it is appropriate for me to intervene.
March 21, 1991

However, I thank hon. members for the careful way in which they brought the matter to the Chair. I think that at the moment my position is the right one. If circumstances change, of course, members may want to rise again.
The hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona on a point of order.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg TVanscona):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to seek a clarification from you of a matter which was raised in the House on Tuesday of this week and on which you ruled on March 19. At page 18684 of Hansard with respect to the point of order I brought up at that time having to do with the question of confidence as it pertained to opposition day motions, you said:
The question of confidence, of course, lies with the government. The hon. House leader has made the position of the government very clear.
The problem with the position of the government was that the matter of confidence did not lie with the government. The position of the government was that the matter of confidence resided in the Standing Orders. This was the argument made very clearly and repeatedly on that day by the government, not only by the Government House Leader in response to my point of order, but also by the hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare in his own speech to the House that day, in questions he put to the member for Winnipeg North and again in Question Period.
What I want to do is take the House through the two Standing Orders, the relevant ones prior to the McGrath reforms and the ones after. Those reforms came about as a result of the government, the same government which exists today, endorsing the recommendations of the McGrath report with respect to changing the rules of confidence in the Standing Orders. The government said on October 19, 1985, with respect to the confidence convention:
The government endorses the recommendations in principle. The government will seek to have a definition of confidence written into the Standing Orders to make it clear which votes are critical tests of a government's ability to maintain the confidence of the House: e.g., Speech from the Throne and Budget. The government will determine what legislation it will consider a matter of confidence.
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The government will also seek to have confirmed in the Standing Orders, the practice of votes independent of party position.
The Standing Orders as they existed prior to the government accepting that recommendation and prior to the implementations of the reforms, read as follows, and I am referring here to Standing Order 58(9):
In each of the periods described in section (5) of this Standing Order, not more than two opposition motions shall be-
And here is the key wording, Mr. Speaker,
-no-confidence motions against the government.
There, Mr. Speaker, is clearly the language of confidence in the Standing Orders with respect to opposition day motions. That was a problem that was identified by the committee as creating the context in which both opposition and government could hide behind the substance of motions.
After the McGrath reform, the Standing Order then read, and I read from that same Standing Order, section 9:
In each of the periods described in section (8) of this Standing Order, not more than four opposition motions shall be motions that shall come to a vote, provided that not more than eight opposition motions in total shall be motions that shall come to a vote during the three supply periods-
The difference is that in the Standing Orders after the 1985 reform, there was no longer the language of confidence with respect to opposition day motions. They were simply referred to as matters which would come to a vote, a vote which would be freer than the votes which used to take place in the context of opposition day motions, because the language of confidence was deliberately and self-consciously removed from those Standing Orders as a result of the reforms advocated by the McGrath committee, accepted by the government and incorporated into the new Standing Orders.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I take you back to your own ruling in which you said: "The question of confidence, of course, lies with the government." Exactly, because the question of confidence no longer lies in the Standing Orders. It lies with the government. Yet the argument that was being made the other day was directly contrary to your ruling and an argument which I suspect will continue to be made. The argument is that somehow or other the government is not permitted to vote for opposition day motions with which it happens to agree, such as the one the other day in which the government said it agreed that this House ought to reaffirm medicare, but it could not vote for the motion.

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One more minute and I will wrap up. The fact of the matter is that we have not only the facts as I have outlined them with respect to the language of confidence in the Standing Orders, but also precedent, one of which I cited the other day. I ask that you make it clear that the ruling that you made the other day with respect to the question of confidence lying with the government is clearly different than the position that the government itself took with respect to confidence, which of course was that confidence resided in the Standing Orders and not with the government.


Mr. Speaker:: I am very mindful of the debate that took place a few days ago. I understand the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona on this issue. I will consider it. It may well be that I will want to discuss the matter further with members. This perhaps should go to, and I am sure it could be arranged, it could be looked at by the privileges committee.
However, I am not, by saying that, changing what I said the other day. Notwithstanding the interesting argument put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona, I would have to be persuaded mightily to change what I said the other day, which was that it is the prerogative of the government to deal with any matter as a question of confidence, unless the rule very clearly states otherwise.
In any event, I will consider the matter, and I will discuss it with the hon. member.


COMMITTEE QUORUM
Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I rise briefly on a somewhat different point.
Rule 118 of our Chamber requires a quorum at committees and indicates that a special resolution can be passed to authorize printing when a quorum is not present. That is rule 118(2).
This morning in consumer and corporate affairs we did indeed have a very lively quorum and quite a few members beyond quorum through to the conclusion of Mr. Spicer's testimony at which point he was dismissed from the committee. Very soon thereafter I think the record will show that I called to the attention of the chair
the fact that a quorum was not present, and therefore no further meetings could occur.
People did indeed stay in the room, and a record was made from a sound point of view, I am sure. However, I just want assurance from the Chair that the moment the quorum was called, the power to print ended. We were not in a situation of hearing witnesses or any special motion. If indeed it is helpful to the House to go back into committee to resolve the issue of whether or not there should be printing beyond the point of calling of the quorum, we would be glad to call the committee back together to consider the matter.
I am just trying to be helpful to make sure that we do not get into a situation of printing beyond the point where printing should have occurred because the meeting was indeed private and informal once the quorum was called. If we were to print all of that, and then start to distribute it, we could get ourselves into a bit of a problem in the Chamber.


Mr. Speaker:: Again, the hon. member for Calgary West has raised a matter which I think is properly still a matter for the committee. If his position is well founded, I am sure that some discussion with those who do our printing for us would probably keep the situation under control.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of Bill C-98, an act authorizing agreements between the Government of Canada and the provinces to provide for protection for the income of producers of agricultural products and to enable the Government of Canada to take additional measures for that purpose, as reported (with amendments) from the Standing Committee on Agriculture; and the motion of Mr. Foster (p. 18780).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Before I recognize the hon. member, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows:
March 21, 1991

the hon. member for Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing-the Budget; the hon. member for St. Leonard-Employment; the hon. member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake-Northern benefits.
The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I believe you will recall that just before Question Period you had recognized the hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt to have the floor.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The hon. member for Saskatoon-Humboldt has the floor.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, the motion that we are debating is again an indication that obviously, but maybe surprisingly, it is the opposition members who are taking a responsible approach to this particular piece of legislation. Maybe this extends to their responsible approach to what we, as legislators, should be taking toward all movements within the government.
That is, this particular motion is limiting to some extent the possibility of advantage being taken by people or organizations beyond what would ordinarily be the intent of the bill.
The motion states:
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 7 by adding immediately
after line 27 on page 7 the following:
"(1.1) A producer participating in a net income stabilization account program must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident."
It seems that this is obviously reasonable and eminently logical because the intent of Bill C-98 is stabilization of the agricultural industry within Canada. It is not intended to be the stabilization of a particular farm by someone who owns that farm, but who lives outside the country.
We recognize that if he is a permanent resident, it is an acceptable part and recognition of the fact that he is contributing and paying in Canada. However, if he is not a citizen or a permanent resident, then he will not, in the event of taking advantage of these operations, be doing so to the advantage of Canada. We recognize and hope that this is not an extension. Most or all of the people who fall into this category are just south of the border and farm on the Canadian side.
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NISA, the Net Income Stabilization Account, is a surprising bit of legislation under any circumstances in that it is a glorified RRSP in some ways as far as farmers are concerned. It is glorified in the sense that no other RRSP across Canada has the government matching the contributions that the farmer makes into it. No other RRSP guarantees a certain level of interest return.
That is a very specific bit of ability on the part of the government if it is acceptable to the taxpayers generally of assisting a farmer who is in a situation where some place down the line he can use money that was maybe a little in excess a few years before. The contributions by the government increase it enough to make it a worthwhile operation.
We have to recognize that it is using taxpayers' money to match funds put into the specific account and that we are also guaranteeing a specific return, which I understand is 3 per cent above the prime rate. You, Mr. Speaker, would be happy with such an RRSP.
Why are we giving this kind of specific help in extending it to people who do not live in Canada and who are not citizens of Canada? The particular fund account is divided into two specific accounts, one of which is after tax: The producer part is after tax. The second fund, which is a specific section or will be kept separately, will be kept for the contributions by the government or governments-because the provincial government may also make contributions to this fund- and to the interest that is raised. In other words, it is set up in such a way that the farmer portion of it, which is put in after tax, and the government portion are kept separately. But both portions are going to be available to the farmer if he decides he needs them or if he qualifies for them.
If you are my age, Mr. Speaker, that qualification might be within a couple of years. So it is a particular situation which I think needs to be looked at. I compliment the member for Algoma in making sure that we in this legislature have taken a good look at limiting wherever possible the waste, the misuse that can come out of this.
It also relates back to the original three motions which were before this House that suggested that the total amount returned from any of the accounts here-NISA,

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GRIP or the income revenue account-all be limited so that there would not be the excesses that are possible under the present legislation.
There is no doubt that the legislation itself, the structure under which this legislation is developed, the direction that it goes in making sure there is some kind of a net for the farmer, is acceptable. But if you link these moves in such a way that specific people who do not qualify, do not need, then it quits being a safety net and it becomes a method of giving money to people who should not be getting it.
That is what this particular clause does and what the other clauses that we objected to earlier, or which we think should be put in, also do.


Lyle Vanclief: The
motion moved by my colleague from Algoma restricting the receipt of benefits from and participation in the NISA section of this Farm Income Stabilization bill I think is one worthy of serious consideration.
As has been pointed out by other members of the House, what we are doing is making this part of this program available to people who are not necessarily citizens of this country. This is a good part of the act, it is a very generous part of the act, and once in place will serve a very useful purpose, and hopefully will bring some more stability to the farm income situation that has gone on far too long in this country.
It is a part of the act that is going to require a considerable number of taxpayers' dollars to make it successful, with contributions from both the provincial and federal governments as well as from the participants themselves. I think we have to give some serious thought to this -not that we don't necessarily want foreign ownership of farms. If one wanted to be cynical, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if this is because of the benefit this would give to foreign owners as well as to Canadian ownership. I wonder if this is a message that the present government is sending to foreign owners, that if they get involved in the Canadian farming operations they can benefit from this type of program. I hope that is not the case, and I do not think that is the case, but it certainly would be looked upon and can be looked upon by potential or present foreign ownerships as a veiy beneficial way of bringing money, and it does allow them to bring money, from outside the country into the country to receive a basic interest plus a bit of a premium on that.
This could be very beneficial for them. This would be at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.
I do not think the Canadian taxpayer has any strong objection to this type of program being put in place to lend stability to Canadian producers. That, quite frankly, is the purpose of this bill. However, I do not think it should be available to those who are not Canadian citizens or are not permanent residents of Canada. I am not at all sure that we are doing ourselves or the industry justice if we leave this out. I feel this amendment is needed in the bill to make it proper and to make it fair for Canadian citizens and for Canadian taxpayers.


Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina-Qu'Appelle):: Mr. Speaker, I, too, wish to speak in support of Motion No. 7 introduced by my friends from the Liberal Party.
As my colleague from Saskatoon-Humboldt pointed out, while we support the broad outlines of the legislation before us, the draftsmanship of it is so wanting that we are very much afraid that within the legislation carries the seeds of its own destruction. There are so many loopholes and so many opportunities for abuse in the legislation that we are dearly afraid that the cost of this program is going to accelerate way beyond what the estimates now are and because of that, the program will self-destruct.
We expected and we hoped for good legislation. It is something that this government has promised western Canadian farmers for many years now. I remember well the former Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Wise, in 1985 promising us a comprehensive farm assistance type program. It has taken the government, through many droughts, price wars and political campaigns, to finally come to Parliament with certain proposals with its legislation. It is amazing to us, given all this time, how faulty this legislation is.
Of course the problem that Motion No. 7 addresses is a serious one. It might not be significant in terms of total dollars and cents, but it will certainly drain money from the public purse to benefit individuals whom I am certain no member of this House on either side of this Chamber would want to see money going to, namely some of those folks who live and are citizens south of the border who farm in Canada and would benefit under this program. Surely no member of this House on either side believe that this program is intended to benefit those types of individuals. Surely one has to be a Canadian citizen or a
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permanent resident of Canada to be able to seek the benefits of the legislation in front of us today.
It is this type of sloppiness that creates this type of government waste that the people back home are furious about. They expect something a little better from Parliament. They expect something a little better from our political system. They certainly expect something a little bit better from the Conservative government.
I think it astonish the farm folks back home, many of whom support the Conservative government, many of them who hoped that in 1984 with the defeat of the Liberal government that finally the concerns of western Canada would get a decent hearing in the Parliament of this nation. High on their priority list was some legislation that would introduce a permanent program to protect western agriculture from the ups and downs of the price wars that existed between the treasuries of Europe and the United States. As well, they would like some protection from the ups and downs of our weather and the uncertainty that this provides to western agriculture.
We know in the west that we can grow good products, products that the world needs. In the long term there will a market for those products. Those products can and should be sold at prices that would sustain an agricultural economy, that would sustain family farms back home.
What they were asking for generations from the national Parliament was some well thought out programs that would put into place some of the permanent guarantees, some of the permanent stability, to ensure that our farm families will be able to withstand the downturns and enjoy the upturns.
The legislation that we have in front of us today, Bill C-98, fails to do that. It is with deep and profound regret that the farmers in Saskatchewan-and dare I say farmers right across the country, many of whom were historic supporters of the Conservative Party-feel a tremendous sense of disappointment, disillusionment and betrayal by this party and this government.
When one gets back home, it is amazing to see the sense of hopelessness and the sense of cynicism that people have concerning our institutions, particularly our
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federal Parliament and our federal government. When we look at Bill C-98, at the loopholes that are incorporated in that bill and at the shoddy draftsmanship of that bill-I understand even the bureaucrats shudder when they look at the bill-we can begin to understand why the folks at home are becoming so cynical of the whole political process. They feel that they are not being listened to, that they have become marginalized.
On several occasions I have talked with farmers back home who have told me that they have voted for that party all of their lives, that their kids and their wives have voted for them. "But this is the last time", they tell me. They feel betrayed. They feel that we did not get a government in Ottawa that understood their needs and that was able to act on their needs.
It has taken a long time, from 1984 with the election of this government to now, almost seven years, for the government finally to get around to introducing the legislation the west has been wanting for such a long time. However, when it introduces the legislation, it is a piece of legislation that is totally unacceptable. It has within it its own seeds of destruction through the loopholes, the wastefulness and the exploitation that it would encourage. One wonders whether this party and this government really understand the needs of western agriculture.
My party has also introduced motions in this House. Motion Nos. 1, 2, and 3 attempt to put a cap on the program, to make certain that a few people will not get a large amount of the benefits from the public purse. I understand that up to 90-some per cent of the farmers who would be eligible for this program would fall under the cap of $100,000.
It is a means of ensuring that public moneys are well spent, that there will be the maximum benefit to the maximum number of people, rather than have it so open ended that there will be a few individuals who will be able to farm the system rather than farm in a manner that makes environmental and economic sense.
It is a piece of legislation that is full of loopholes, that has been sloppily designed and that deserves some major modifications. Therefore I also wish to indicate my support of Motion No. 7.

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Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I will keep ray remarks confined to Motion No. 7 wherein it indicates that it must be a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident.
It is very easy to diverge and respond to some of the comments that have been made. However I will not do that at this time.
Under the current legislation we have in place many programs in support of agriculture, such as the WGSA, the Crop Insurance Program, the Agricultural Stabilization Act, and so on. They recognize those producers who have farmed in Canada, regardless of their citizenship and/or the country of their residence. That has always been the case.
We have to recognize that we have a border which we share with the United States. It is probably the longest free-standing border in the world. We have several producers who live near the Canadian and American border on both sides and farm in both countries. Canadians are not excluded from U.S. programs, and we do not intend to start a system of cross-border exclusion.
For NISA, a producer must file a Canadian income tax form to be eligible to participate. In this case, a non-resident must report income earned in Canada and conversely become eligible under support programs.
To do anything different from this would not be consistent with other legislation we have. For this reason the government cannot accept this amendment.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if a member of the government was going to respond to this very favourable and positive amendment put forward by the member for Algoma.
I saw, as I rose in my place here, the member for Algoma rising as well. He probably had a few things to say to the hon. parliamentary secretary in response to his response. Therefore, I will try to keep my remarks brief as well, to allow the mover of this motion perhaps to respond briefly to the parliamentary secretary.
I want to say a couple of things. First of all, I find it quite astonishing that the government is quite prepared to put away funds through this legislation, through the
NISA account, for American citizens. As the parliamentary secretary indicated, this legislation is not any different from the Western Grain Stabilization Act or other acts. That does not necessarily mean that if they have made one mistake on one occasion they should compound it by continuing to make that mistake in other legislation.
As far as I am concerned, the NISA program has many faults and problems with it. I will deal with that in other circumstances. However, one of the faults with NISA is that it does not limit the matching accounts, government funding, taxpayers money, to Canadian citizens.
As I indicated earlier today in remarks in this House on the motions that have been put forward by a number of members, I feel very strongly that the NISA account is a reward for wealthy producers in this country and does not address the farm problems that are compounding the financial crisis at the farm gate.
I do not believe that the government has the intention of trying to solve the farm crisis in Canada, because the programs we see seem to continue to compound those problems. As I indicated earlier, the fact that there is a $22 billion debt in agriculture in this country is not being addressed by this legislation at all. In fact, no legislation since this government has come into power has addressed the growing farm debt problem.
There has been a number of attempts to address the income problems. Those obviously have been inadequate, just as the GRIP and NISA programs will prove to be inadequate because they are not addressing the long-term financial crisis that affects the individual farmers at the farm gate.
Certainly we have a world marketplace problem that must be addressed. The Americans are a big part of that. The fact that this legislation will allow Canadian taxpayers' money to go and sit in American accounts to exacerbate further our anger with the American farm bill is just atrocious.
The government opposite is refusing to accept what I think is a very simple, reasoned, and logical amendment. It simply restricts the payments on this account to Canadian citizens or permanent residents. It is perfectly logical. We in Saskatchewan have had a long history of
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trying to protect Saskatchewan farm land from foreign ownership, particularly American ownership. Not only are we now prepared to accept Americans farming our land. We are also prepared to help them retire in California, New Mexico, or Arizona by matching funds that they are able to put away. It just astounds me.
We fought prior to the 1988 general election the issue of free trade. Agricultural producers in Saskatchewan, for the most part, voted against the free trade deal. We did not like what was being proposed to us in terms of agricultural matters.
We felt that the American agricultural industry was putting too much pressure on the Canadian system to allow for long-term development of the agricultural sector in Canada. We felt that if Canadian producers were going to continue to be successful in the world market and to maintain our markets world-wide we somehow had to prevent the Americans from doing what they are continuing to do, despite all efforts to the contrary: to take our markets and move their products and obviously their people into our areas.
The Farmland Security Act in Saskatchewan was designed to protect Saskatchewan farmers farming on their own land. This government and its Conservative buddies in the Government of Saskatchewan who will be there for a short period of time longer, I suppose, are doing everything they can to ensure that Saskatchewan farmers get the short end of the stick. This simple amendment corrects a major problem with a major flaw in this legislation. It would be very simple for the government to say: "Okay, we are only going to pay money to Canadian citizens". That makes a tremendous amount of sense to me.
I did not have the opportunity to sit in on a lot of the standing committee testimony that was provided when the Standing Committee on Agriculture met. Therefore I was quite surprised when I saw this amendment brought forward on the Order Paper. Like most people I had reasoned, without having to look for it, that the government simply would not be providing funds to non-Canadians either in the NISA or in pay-outs to GRIP. I am very grateful to the hon. member for Algoma for discovering this in the legislation, recognizing that something was not there which to my mind should be. It just had to be there.
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For an act to allow Canadian taxpayers' money to be paid to anyone who is not a Canadian citizen in an industry which we consider so valuable and under threat from American interests is a matter which has to be addressed. I am obviously among many on this side of the House who will support this amendment when it is put to us. I hope the government will see fit to support it as well.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture is conferring with a Saskatchewan member of Parliament at this moment. I am hoping that the member for Swift Current-Maple Creek has managed to convince the parliamentary secretary to change his mind. I certainly appreciate any efforts that Saskatchewan members from all sides of this House can make to ensure that this act is amended properly.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question on Motion No. 7?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yes.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Motion No. 8
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 10 by striking out lines 3 to
9 at page 9 and substituting the following therefor:
"10. No information submitted by a producer for the purpose of administering a program established under an agreement may be communicated, disclosed or made available to an official of the Department of National Revenue without the prior written permission of the producer."

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He said: Mr. Speaker, the existing legislation provides that information can be passed from the Department of Agriculture, the programs running GRIP and NISA, to the Department of National Revenue. We do not necessarily agree that even that should happen. Surely, if it is going to happen, there should be the permission of the producer.
I know every member of Parliament in this House has had the experience of making representations on behalf of constituents and has had to get a waiver so that they could make those representations. If a member of Parliament has to get a waiver from his constituent to make representations, to get a tax refund or to get a reassessment, it seems to me the Department of Agriculture should have to do the same.
Yet, this legislation gives you carte blanche. You just push the computer and you get a spit-out of it. That would be bad enough if it was a federal public servant who was doing it, but it is not even being administered by a federal public servant. If it were a federal public servant, we could come into the House and give his minister hell here on the floor of the House Commons.
This program is all going to be administered by provincial civil servants. How does a federal member of Parliament get after a provincial civil servant who abuses the income tax confidentiality rules? Surely it is reasonable that the government has to get permission.
We had quite a debate in the committee itself. I do not want to relate what happens at the committee because that is not protocol here, but essentially the government says: "Oh, well, we do this. When you sign the form you have got to get permission". That is fine. Why not have it in the statutes if at some future time some public servant or government decides that it is not going to get the permission of the producer to get this information from the Department of National Revenue, that it will just go ahead and get it, and that it is authorized by Bill C-98 so why bother?
This amendment is a very simple one. It requires that if the government is going to call up information-and this is generally speaking a crop insurance commission of the provincial government from the Department of National Revenue-then it has to get permission from the producer.
I have talked to many Liberal senators. They have told me that if this thing comes to them like this, then there is going to be great difficulty.
I would suggest to the parliamentary secretary, who is usually a very reasonable person although not always today, that if he really wants to expedite the passage of this bill and does not want to have it bounce back from the Senate, then he should accept this amendment.
It is reasonable. It is fair. It is in line with what the government is already doing. I do not know why the government should not be prepared to simply accept the amendment which says:
"10. No information submitted by a producer for the purpose of administering a program established under an agreement may be communicated, disclosed or made available to an official of the Department of National Revenue without the prior written permission of the producer."
It is a very reasonable, understandable clause. I was surprised at the incredible weakness of the parliamentary secretary's defence of the fact that the Government of Canada was going to provide a NISA account for non-residents and non-Canadian citizens.
To hear him tell it, NISA is like contributing to the western grain stabilization or receiving a benefit under the Agricultural Stabilization Act. For that matter, it is like getting the benefit which is implied when a producer delivers wheat to the Canadian Wheat Board and gets the initial price which may turn out to be higher than the market price.
NISA is a very special kind of deal. The producer can put in up 2 per cent of his qualifying income from his crop which is automatically matched by the government. He receives 3 per cent on top of commercial rates of interest which, right now, are probably 15 per cent. He can top it up with another 20 per cent of qualifying crop income. He will receive 3 per cent above the commercial rates of interest on that.
It is a very special arrangement. In this day and age of restraint, when we are cutting back on everything, we should not be passing this off as if it was the payment under ASA or under western grain stabilization. It is a very special arrangement. We are not proposing this kind
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of arrangement for GRIP because it is a different kind of program.
The response of the minister was extremely weak on Motion No. 7. I would like to move Motion No. 8 which simply requires that the government gets permission from the producer whenever it is securing information from the Department of National Revenue.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this motion as well.
It is becoming very much of a communications world. The ability to move information and data from one place to another is becoming a great part of our life. Because of that, we are endangering, to a great extent, our privacy.
We have a tendency to say that we can trust Revenue Canada. If we have nothing to hide, Mr. Speaker, then we have nothing to worry about. However, that really is not the point.
The point is that what this clause gives in its present form is that:
Information submitted for the purposes of administering a program established under an agreement may be communicated, disclosed or made available to an official of the Department of National Revenue solely for the purposes of administering or enforcing the Income lax Act.
This assumes that the Department of National Revenue will ask for the agreement, but chances are it will ask for it on a broad basis and it will get a report from the program which will have listed everybody who has decided that he or she is going to be part of any of these programs.
Consequently, that is putting into the public domain information which we have always indicated in other programs is not available in the public domain.
As the former speaker suggested, even if we had a specific administrator whose responsibility it was to say yes or no to whether or not that information went to the Department of Revenue, that would limit it considerably.
But the real issue becomes whether any farmer who is part of this program wants this information to become part of the public record. The way it is worded at present, it can be. But I agree entirely with the position taken by the member for Algoma that agreements should be
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confidential and it is up to the producer to decide what is and is not private information. If the government wants this information, it should come to the farmer for it. It should not be able to go some place else for it. In that case, the farmer has no control, or even any knowledge of what information is being given out concerning the business.
I think it is time we started taking a harder line on that kind of approach and this motion is a good start. In other words, if we are a democratic nation that puts a great deal of value in the individual and in the privacy of each one of us, then we must put safeguards into our legislation rather than leaving it open to any kind of meddling or information which can, not necessarily be harmful but which we do not necessarily want to be broadly known.
I hope, Mr. Speaker, that we can gain support for this particular motion. It is a very small change, it just goes from "information being available without any consideration to the participant", to saying that the participant must be at least informed. If he has nothing to hide, there is going to be no problem; if he does have something to hide, it is going to be a little more difficult to get it, I suppose. But that is still his right.


Lyle Vanclief: Mr. Speaker, this motion by my colleague from Algoma shows the diligence with which he has reviewed this bill. This is absolutely necessary. We have discussed this with members on the opposite side of the House and their quick answer is that this permission will be given on the application form.
But there is nothing in the legislation saying that that request for permission must be on the application form. I think in this country it is necessary and it is assumed that this type of permission be asked for.
This motion amending the bill serves the purpose of keeping the government honest, in making sure that it asks for that permission and does not go after this information without asking the private individual for permission to do so.
Again, I ask the government to reconsider. It is only common sense that the legislation say what the agreements do at present. This is necessary in order to make it legal and right and proper, so that the producers can have the protection they are entitled to in Canada.

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John Harvard: Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my two cents worth-three cents?
I think the amendment is utterly reasonable. The government, in effect, is saying to us: "You have our word. You have our promise that before any information is passed along to Revenue Canada, we will seek the permission of the producer. We will seek the permission of farmers". In fact, it is telling us that the forms already contain that provision. Well, I do not think that is good enough. When it comes to enacting good legislation, we should do it in a business-like way. Let us not leave anything to doubt.
I know the government says: "Our word is good. Do not worry, we are going to be honourable about this". If that is the case, I think it is quite reasonable to ask the government to go just one more step. Put it in the legislation. Put it there in black and white. Before anything like this is done, it will be put in legislation. It removes all doubt.
I hope that members opposite will realize what we are asking for and pass this motion.


Geoff Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put forward a couple of thoughts relative to Motion No. 8. Certainly, one very similar had been dealt with in committee.
In any event, just before touching on that, there was some reference made to the previous Motion No. 7 by the member for Algoma and I am sure I will be allowed the same indulgence.
It is fairly evident that we have a long border between the United States and Canada, some 3,000 or 4,000 miles and that border is not one that is made out of stone, concrete or brick. It is not a Berlin wall, Mr. Speaker. It is one in which there are a number of natural occurrences such as rivers, streams and valleys. Along the length of a border like that, there would be people who farm, for no other reason than the terrain and the topography of the land on both sides of the border.
The understanding has always been that the rules apply equally to those people on both sides of the line. Therefore, it would seem inconsistent to exclude Americans or others, who farm on this side of the border from
participation in the Canadian programs when our people are accorded participation in like circumstances across the way.
The Western Grain Stabilization Act, I believe, was amended some time ago and among other things it allowed the privilege of participation to non-Canadians under these circumstances.
I think it was in that debate that the hon. member for Prince Albert at that time said, and I quote him, from the July 8, 1988 Hansard:
There is a concern that has been expressed about whether to extend this privilege of stabilization to non-Canadians. I know that that has to be dealt with within the Charter and it is something that we need to look at a little more closely, although I have no great concern about it myself.
He had no concern at all about extending stabilization to Americans a couple of years ago. It is hard to understand why there would be any concern today with the extension of that privilege of the farm income protection act benefits on a reciprocal basis.
Motion No. 8 is one which promotes a little bit of mischief, because if it was contained in the bill in the form which is proposed by the member for Algoma, it would, I believe, leave a false impression, an implication that a producer would have a choice as to whether to permit the exchange of information between Revenue Canada and the administrators of the program when in fact that is not the case at all.
With this wording, I believe that anyone reading it, such as a producer would assume that there was a choice involved. For that reason I have some concerns.
There are a couple of good reasons why the requirement is in the bill in clause 10 as written. I think the first is just a matter of audit purposes. There is a considerable amount of taxpayers' money going into these programs. It has always been the case that the taxpayers of this country expect prudent management of their money and they expect accountability. They would certainly expect that the program would be able to withstand audit. Then it becomes a question of the manner of enforcement.
At this point I would like to refer to the report of the Auditor General for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1990 in which the Auditor General had quite a bit to say in regard to the Department of National Revenue, and in particular, about the economies that could be affected
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through the use of computerization and through the use of matching. Indeed what he noted was among other things that most of the current matching process is highly automated and does not demand a great many human resources. He was saying that in the context of encouraging more use of computerization and more use of matching between sources of information in order to reduce the horrendous audit cost when you have people involved manually trying to track things down and to secure the information that they would require in the ordinary course, in the normal audit of any expenditure of taxpayers' money.
Again, the Auditor General mentions at page 566 of that report that the computer matching is highly productive and could be expanded:
Many new computer systems have been implemented in the last ten
years to improve taxpayer services, management information and
enforcement activities.
And so on. It indicates beyond any question and recommends that it would be wise for government in terms of economy to move toward more computerization and more matching and less reliance on person-years and the archaic and inefficient methods of the past.
Certainly, from the point of view of audit, which I think is inherent in any expenditure of taxpayers' money and there is a considerable amount of it here, it is not unreasonable to expect that if that is going to be done, and I think it has to be done, then it ought to be done in the most expeditious, most efficient way possible because I believe that all members of the House would want the administration of these programs done in the most effective and least costly way possible in order that the benefits can be paid out to producers rather than utilized in bureaucracy and that sort of thing.
The second point I want to make in regard to this is that I hope there is a potential, in regard to NISA, the Net Income Stabilization Account, that there could be some form of automatic triggering because one of the options is the taxable income. It might well be possible that there could be an automatic trigger through the exchange of information between the two programs.
It is quite clear that the information cannot be divulged in any event without the consent of the taxpayer or the program participant and the forms under the regulations have, as I understand it, that wording in
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them, wording which has been contained in every other application form for similar programs.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I am quite amazed when I read the legislation and listen to some of the objections of the government members. Is this the same government that was so concerned about Revenue Canada and the Draconian methods that Revenue Canada used? Is this the same government where the member for Welland-Grey- Dufferin-Simcoe introduced a taxpayers' bill of rights?
I would really encourage the member for Welland-Grey-Dufferin-Simcoe to have a look at this legislation rather than leaving the House because it is totally destroying the piece of legislation that he was so proud of, the document that was called "The Taxpayers' Bill of Rights". The taxpayer's bill of rights is being raped by Bill C-98, and the member for Welland-Grey-Dufferin-Simcoe walks out. What is going on here? Is this the same government? Are these the same people who were so concerned about the rights and the privacy and the legal rights of ordinary Canadians against Revenue Canada, against the big brother state? Yet, here they are willing to allow our farmers across the country to be totally open to Revenue Canada. Before they can participate in this program, they have to sign away their rights as individuals and allow Revenue Canada to go into their records at will for the purposes of this program.
Surely one has to draw the line somewhere. Surely we cannot accept that this is the Orwellian world of 1984. Certainly all members who are concerned about individual basic human rights, concerned about the encroachment of	government-particularly	the tax
department-are people who should be rising in their seats today to support the amendment that our friend from Algoma has introduced in the House today.
It is a good amendment. It is one really that the basic Conservative philosophy would be supporting. Dare I say that if those members were sitting on this side of the House, they would be leading a charge; they would be advancing on to the throne, on to you Mr. Speaker, as they so bravely did in years gone by. They would make a tremendous last-ditch stand on this issue of preserving the right to privacy of our farmers when it

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comes to government computers and particularly to Revenue Canada.
When I talk to the folks back home about the GRIP and the NISA, farmers are just shaking their heads; they cannot entirely understand the program and they have not been given all of the information. I think, as well, when they recognize the loss of personal freedom in sections like the one we are debating today that gives Revenue Canada such vast powers, it will feed their cynicism.
A number of the farmers in my district are not certain that they can sign up on this program. They are quite outraged at the prospect of tying short-term assistance on to the necessity of supporting this program. In essence, what they are saying is that the way the government has set up the NISA and the GRIP, while it does not address the needs of the farm community, it appears they have to sign up for NISA and GRIP before they can take advantage of any ad hoc payment and program. They are angry that when they sign up they also sign away their rights to privacy. They are afraid of the Draconian method the government is using; the government is saying this is it, take it or leave it. If you leave it you are not going to benefit from any of the ad hoc programs. If you take it you are going to have to sign away your rights to privacy as far as income tax is concerned.
This Draconian way, this way of using the big black boots on the farm community, is something that is totally unacceptable back home. The farmers in my district don't like the program; it is not addressing their needs. They become more outraged the more they learn about it.
No wonder the government is in such a hurry to push this legislation through. It has had almost eight years now, seven years, to come up with a program. It introduces the legislation in what we all expect to be the dying days of this session. It wants to jam this thing through. It doesn't want to give it the proper scrutiny it deserves. It commits to the treasury potentially billions of dollars.
It does not want to listen to the suggestions that the opposition has come up with by which this program could become a smart program by targeting those in greatest need in order to have the maximum benefit of helping
western agriculture. It is not interested in any of the suggestions. It just wants to jam it through with its boots. We find this to be totally unacceptable.
I too wish to indicate my support for the amendment that is in front of us today.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, The Battlefords-Meadow Lake is one of those constituencies that is very much involved in agriculture. It is a constituency which rests a few miles north of Saskatoon and runs all the way up into the forest land of Saskatchewan. I have within my constituency some of the best farmland, the highest-yielding farmland, in the province and I run right through to some of the poorest farmland, the most marginal farmland, in the province. Therefore, I have some of the farming community that has been intensively involved in grains production and, without diversification, has been very hard hit by the changes in grain prices in the world market.
I also have those people who have had to all their lives carve out a little piece of land with a couple of cows, some chickens and hogs, and a small piece of grain land. Those people are the ones who are on the edge, who have no funds whatsoever to put into a NISA program. They have nothing in the bank; they are going from day to day. They are heavily in debt, making up a large percentage of the debt. They have not been involved in crop insurance or western grain stabilization. Therefore, any premiums that are going to be paid for a GRIP or NISA program are brand new expenses for a good part of the people who farm in the north-central part of my constituency.
For that cross-section of Saskatchewan producers, I am trying to speak fairly clearly to the government opposite which is putting together a program, an agreement, that is not on the table. The legislation that we are trying to deal with today that simply enables the government to create that agreement. The farmers of Saskatchewan, as are the farmers in the rest of Canada, are not in any position to debate or even think about the specifics in that agreement. There are crop insurance people in Saskatchewan right now going door to door talking to farmers, telling them that they had better sign up for this program because the premier of Saskatchewan has said that if they do not sign up for this program, they will not be eligible for any other program that comes out of Saskatchewan or out of the federal government.
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These people who need cash to get their crop in the ground this year, who need to find a way to have their debt restructured so that they can survive until such time as there is adequate income produced from their industry, who are relying on us in this Chamber to provide for them an income protection and stabilization program that meets their needs have to be astounded by the way in which all of this process is happening.
I want to speak as loudly and as clearly as I can to the government opposite, to the parliamentary secretary, to the minister, to the Prime Minister, and say that these people need long-term income stabilization programs to secure their future in the industry and to secure the future of the industry in Canada: the agrifood industry, the agriculture industry, the farm industry. Without it, we are going to lose it.
Therefore, because all of this is involved in these agreements that are not on the table, we are stuck with having to amend bits and pieces of very flawed pieces of legislation in order to try to make the point to the government opposite that things are needed that are not there. Because this bill does not address the big picture, we are reduced to talking about little pieces of that big picture.
Therefore, I support the motion that is on the floor today from the member for Algoma. He has identified another small piece of this legislation that needs to be addressed.
I am concerned. If the government does not support this motion, which says that no information submitted by a producer for the purpose of administering a program established under agreement, may be communicated, disclosed or made available to an official of the Department of National Revenue without prior written permission of the producer, I am concerned about what it is behind its thinking. What is it trying to do if it will not allow the producer to be the one who controls the information that goes to Revenue Canada?
Many of my producers have had a great deal of difficulty with Revenue Canada over the last few years. Many of my producers live in that area that is marked for the northern tax allowance benefit program. Many of those people have been told one thing by Revenue
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Canada one day, and the next day something else. It has ended up costing them $2,500 to $4,000 in the course of a year because of the way in which Revenue Canada has dealt with them. They do not trust Revenue Canada and they certainly do not trust this government in the way it is handling this type of situation.
I give a number of examples of this Revenue Canada activity. For example, when a producer signs on to the program and puts so much money into NISA, and has money matched by NISA and fills out the forms and does everything that needs to be done, that is not done for tax purposes. That is done for the business purposes of that farm operation. The piece of paper that has that information on it in the GRIP or the NISA program does not recognize that that producer may have that year been separated or divorced or lost a child or had a number of things happen within their family circumstances that has affected their income tax operation.
For this program to be able to transfer information about that farm operation from an agricultural agreement point of view, over to Revenue Canada, for Revenue Canada to interpret it, audit it, review it, do whatever Revenue Canada wants to, is a tremendous breach of the privacy and personal circumstances of those individual producers.
The information that is provided to the GRIP and NISA programs, when they are created and set up, have nothing to do with taxation matters. We fill out tax forms, we pay our taxes, we do what we are supposed to do. Revenue Canada has to accept those signed documents as being the documents that are, in essence, the documents for tax purposes. Not the GRIP and NISA agreements, not the GRIP and NISA forms, not the GRIP and NISA programs.
Therefore, I am very, very pleased with this amendment, as I have been with the amendments submitted by my colleague from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre here in addressing some of the things that have been missing from this legislation.
In the end, I would like to see the agreements come before this Parliament for full debate before they are accepted. I would like to see the future of agriculture as described by this government in terms of its programming for the next 50 years put in front of this Parliament for debate.

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Growing Together, the paper that outlined in very general and nebulous terms what this government thinks it wants to do, has not been up for debate by this country and by this Parliament. We are very anxious to see some future for Canadian agriculture. Dealing with matters such as these, pieces of legislation that simply give the government carte blanche is something we do not want to do.
I appreciate the time and attention the members from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre and Algoma have given to this bill, and to my colleague and friend, the member from Mackenzie, who has worked so hard for us in agriculture matters. I am very much in support of this particular amendment and I will support it at the time of the vote.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Motion No. 9
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 11 by striking out lines 21
and 22 at page 9 and substituting the following therefor:
"members who shall represent Canada, the provinces concerned, producers and any other group of persons".
He said: Mr. Speaker, these amendments were brought forward from the committee. We do not have the final committee report of the bill. I would ask unanimous consent to read the modified version of this which has the same context:
That Clause 11 be amended by striking out lines 20 to 22 at page 9 and substituting the following therefor:
"special measures committee which shall consist of members representing Canada, the provinces concerned, producers and any other group of persons.
I think there is agreement around the House to accept that as read.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: So ordered.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a few comments to this motion if I could.
This motion is a good motion. It is motion No. 9 in the list of amendments. It has to do with clause 11 of the bill, which talks about a special measures committee.
A special measures committee is to review this bill where the minister is of the opinion that exceptional circumstances are important. In other words, where the third line of defence comes into place, there will be a committee that will be formed to advise the minister on what form a third line of defence should take.
The problem with clause 11, as was discussed many times during the committee debate, was that there are a lot of "mays" in this clause. It says:
That the minister may implement such procedures or other special measures as the minister considers necessary to determine the appropriate action to be taken to remedy those circumstances.
In other words, the third line of defence. It goes on to state:
That the minister may appoint a committee to be known as a special measures committee consisting of members who may -
This is the crucial word in this clause:
-who may represent Canada, may represent a province, may represent producers and may represent any group of persons who the minister considers appropriate.
In other words, the minister is to appoint a committee, but on that committee he can put anybody he wants. It
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may represent Canada, the provinces, the producers. Of course, it may not represent them either.
The concern is that we should have a "shall" instead of a "may". Certainly, it would make people on this side of the House feel more comfortable, and I am sure it would make the producers across this country feel a little more comfortable if they know that the special measures committee shall consist of members who represent Canada, the provinces concerned, the producers and any other group.
What it does is solidify in legislation the fact that there will be a group formed that will be representative of producers; in fact, it will include them. We do not know what is going to happen down the road with this legislation. We do not know when third line defences will be required.
It is very important that we pass legislation that does not allow the government to get away with things. We do not know what type of government we will have in the future. We are sometimes surprised at the type of government we have had in the past. If we had a New Democratic government of course these matters would be different.
It is important regardless of which party is in power. All kidding aside, it is important whatever party is in power that there are some assurances, that the people of Canada have some assurances, that the producers of this country have some assurances that there is some protection for them in legislation.
What we are saying is that this is an important clause to be put in place. I am pleased that this matter was brought forth.
I want to make a couple of other remarks. This group, this committee that will be formed, is going to be a very important committee. The third line of defence is certainly an important factor in this whole bill. There is still much discussion to go on with respect to the third line of defence. As I said it will come from time to time. It is a worth-while committee which will be doing very important work. I am pleased that the government will see fit to let this motion pass.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Motions Nos. 10 and 11 will be grouped for debate. They are in the names of the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre. Both motions are in order.
They will be grouped for debate and an affirmative vote on Motion No. 10 obviates the need for a vote on Motion No. 11.


Lyle Vanclief: Motion No. 10
That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 19 by striking out lines 25
to 34 at page 16 and substituting the following therefor:
"19.(1) A review of the operation of this Act shall be completed:
(a)	on any day before April 1, 1993, and
(b)	the expiration of every fifth year after that date by the Minister, who may for the purpose of that review consult with representatives of such organizations as the Minister considers appropriate.
(2) The Minister shall cause:
(a)	the results of any review carried out under subsection (1), and
(b)	any report received by the Minister under paragraph 5(3)(a) to be laid".


Rodney Edward Laporte: That Bill C-98 be amended in Clause 19 by striking out lines 27
to 36 at page 16 and substituting the following therefor:
"(a) no later than October 1, 1992, and
(b) no later than the expiration of every fifth year after that day by the Standing Committee of the House of Commons on Agriculture or any special committee of the House of Commons established for the purpose, which may receive evidence from representatives of such organizations as the Committee considers appropriate."


Lyle Vanclief: Mr. Speaker, just to clarify this motion, it looks like the rewording of it changes considerably the wording in the bill as we have seen it before. It does not do that, other than the fact that the original bill says that a review of the operation of this act shall be completed.

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In subparagraph (a) it says: "on any day before April 1, 1996".
The purpose of this motion is to make sure that the review is done prior to that. That is five years down the road. I know the government has agreed to a review committee earlier today, of which we are very appreciative, but I think it is important that we change this date. This motion says: "on any day before April 1, 1993", which is two years down the road, and it goes on to say at every five-year interval thereafter.
That is the purpose of the motion. I think it is worth while that it be placed in the bill at this stage, and I will leave the debate at that.


Rodney Edward Laporte: Mr. Speaker, the motion I have placed before the House proposes two changes to the legislation as it now stands. The first, as does the previous motion, calls for an earlier review than is set out in the bill.
The bill calls for a review within the next five years and concern has been expressed by some producers, certainly producers from the prairie pools, that in fact there should be a review before that time, preferably starting within a year from now. We are dealing with new legislation that is going to have a lot of loopholes and problems. It is important that we tiy to get it right. In fact we look forward to a review process that is going to improve the program, that is going to provide farmers and producers across this country with a good program.
The second part of my motion deals with that review. The way the legislation reads now in clause 19, a review will simply be done by the minister and tabled in front of the House. Quite frankly, I have some concern with that in a couple of areas.
First of all, this is a bill that is dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars. This is an expensive program. This is also the first program coming out of the Growing Together paper. Hopefully there will be others, but this is the first piece of legislation. What we are doing is casting a new form; we are casting a new way for agriculture in this country. There is a new direction that is being set by this legislation.
It is very important as we set a new direction for agriculture that we ensure that there is a proper review process in place to fine-tune the legislation. This legislation needs some fine-tuning, but it is important that we
have a review process in place that is going to deal with the review and the necessary changes down the road.
The best place that can be done is through Parliament. We are all elected here to represent our various ridings and collectively the country. What has happened with Parliament over the years is that we have an executive that tends to dominate this place, especially with majority governments. We have a situation sometimes where we have a few members of the House who really dictate what goes through this House.
What we are talking about here is a fundamental matter involving the democracy of this nation. This motion does not call for the minister to do a review but for a committee of the House of Commons or the Standing Committee of Agriculture to do the review.
The government has indicated, and we raised this in committee, why do we have to have that? The committee of agriculture can review this any time it wants and so on. It is more important than that. Although the committee of agriculture can do the review, there is no guarantee in legislation that it will do the review.
We are seeing right now in this House all sorts of negotiations and problems happening with respect to the Standing Orders which are now in the process of being changed. In fact, the proposed set of Standing Orders that I saw are going to further limit the abilities of members of Parliament to carry out their duty. It is for that very reason that we need some kind of protection in legislation so that producers will know that in fact there is to be an all-party committee that is to have a good and thorough review of this bill.
There are precedents in this House for that. Most of them are relatively recent. I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the Employment Equity Act which in section 13 says that "five years after the coming into force of this act, and at the end of every three-year period thereafter, a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this act including the effect of those provisions shall be undertaken by such committee of the House of Commons as designated or established by the House for that purpose".
An act to amend the Parole Act and the Penitentiary Act says in section 14 that "three years after the coming into force of this act a comprehensive review of the provisions and operations of certain sections of this act shall be undertaken by such committee of the House of Commons or both Houses of Parliament as may be
March 21, 1991

designated or established by Parliament for that purpose".
The Privacy Act in subsection 75(1) says that "the administration of this act shall be reviewed on a permanent basis by such committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament, as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose".
The Access to Information Act says as well, in section 75, that "the administration of this act shall be reviewed on a permanent basis by such committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate or of both Houses of Parliament, as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose".
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, in section 56, also calls for a comprehensive review by a committee of the House of Commons that is designated or established by Parliament for that purpose.
The Official Languages Act in section 88 does the same thing.
There is a number of precedents and what these precedents do is establish in the legislation a permanent guarantee that this legislation will have a proper and thorough review by a committee of the House of Commons. We have seen it, as I said, with the proposed changes to the Standing Orders which are to limit further the power of members to carry out their function as members properly.
I have only been a member since 1988, but I have talked to members who have been here for a lot longer than myself. They are saying that they continue to see an erosion of their powers as individual members and that it is more difficult for them to carry out their duties. I find that one of the most satisfying aspects of being a member is working within committees. I find committee work is most rewarding. We have all-party committees so we have a view from all political perspectives. The committee is on an open basis. It gets together and decides what it is going to look at, who is going to be a witness in front of the committee, and sets out the task for that committee. It is gratifying, enjoyable and rewarding. We have to
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be allowed to do our job. If the government continues to hamstring us then it is impossible to do that.
It is important to put this motion into the statute to guarantee to the producers in this country that there is going to be some thorough review, because this is a fundamental change in agriculture as we know it today. We are on the road to carving out a new direction. The government has talked, and I can say with some justification that there is consultation. There was consultation through part of this process.
After having looked at the legislation, farmers are now having some second thoughts on it. In front of our committee members of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture said: "We have to be careful. We are in a period of trusting the government to bring in decent legislation." They also said: "We have not really been consulted since August and we are hoping that the government will bring in proper legislation."
There have been comments like those and comments from other producers before the committee. Others who have appeared before the committee have said: "Look it, we are not really sure exactly which way the government is going with this legislation".
As committee members we have not seen any of the proposed agreements. They will not technically be signed until this bill is passed, but we have not seen the proposed agreements. We know snippets here and snippets there. We know what is going on in some areas, but we have not had a chance to look at this legislation. It is for that veiy reason that we should have in this legislation this clause that allows members of Parliament to carry out their duties properly so they can do a proper and thorough investigation of this bill at appropriate times, knowing full well that it will not be taken away at the whim of a majority government that wants to change the Standing Orders. It is for that reason that I do hope that the government and my colleagues in the Liberal Party will support this worth-while amendment.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I guess it is a matter of either supreme confidence or supreme arrogance on the part of the government that it thinks that any legislation it can make is going to be perfect the first time out.
If we had a great deal of past experience that the legislation which has come out of this government can withstand the test of time, maybe we would say it was supreme confidence that would allow it to say: "We do

March 21, 1991
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not need to look this legislation over for five years". However, we have many examples of poor legislation, legislation badly drafted and rushed through or pushed through without the right kind of vetting.
This particular legislation has within it a considerable amount of openness. On the surface that sounds like a good thing, but it is it is legislation which is allowing agreements to be established between the provinces and the federal government. It is giving a body outside the Parliament of Canada a considerable amount of power to spend taxpayers' money.
As I said, it may seem to be good legislation now but there is no guarantee. Possibly we might have even gone further than these two amendments and suggested that we have a continuous review of how this legislation is going to work. We could have suggested that we put on that review committee a number of producers from each of the provinces, from the administration of the plans and from the federal government.
This suggestion says: "Let us take a look at this as early as possible, in suitable times, and continue to look at it so that we have a fairly good control of how it develops".
As I said, if we could be confident that it was going to work and we had the experience that most pieces of legislation worked well, we would say: "Yes, go ahead. We will hold it for five years and then we will start looking at it". But we have to assume that it is not going to work. Many of the people who have looked at it closely are already saying that there are flaws in it which we are going to have to deal with as early as possible.
We are being told things almost daily by farmers who are becoming very knowledgeable about this legislation and about the agreements that this legislation allows. They are saying: "This is going to be good legislation for a couple of years, but what about that third year? There are certain things about this legislation that we already do not like. We should look at those right away of we should look at those at a very early stage".
If this legislation goes the way that some people expect it to go, it will go into huge deficits. Unless we have a consultation and review process in place which draws this Parliament back in, it is going to become a matter
between the two ministers of agriculture within the agreement they have signed. That is not the intent of the legislation. The intent of the legislation is to allow this Parliament to establish a structure for the agreements.
It is taxpayers' money we are putting on the line here, and a considerable amount of money it is. Therefore, it behoves us as responsible legislators to make sure that we protect not only the farmer in a different situation who can be gouged by this kind of legislation or these kinds of agreements, but also the taxpayer who foots the bill in the end if this becomes a costly runaway project.
Much as I want to have legislation that is going to help the farmer, I would much rather have stable legislation which makes the farmer look at it and say: "Yes, I can be part of this for the next ten years". If it is going wrong, I do not want him to leave. I want him to get in there and help fix it up. He must have enough confidence in it so that he would be part of the rearranging of the requirements which make it a good program. If we do not have the kind of review that is being suggested by these two motions, then we depend upon the minister.
There are three things about this review of which we should be careful. First, who shall do it? Second, how often should it be done? Third, to whom should it go, who should be involved in it and who should look at the monitoring of it? If we do that, we will have some kind of continuous monitoring of the situation and the parts of the legislation and the agreements which we already recognize as being flawed can be fixed up so that they will work.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, I have just a few short words.


An hon. member:: Do you promise?


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Yes, I promise. The main point of this motion is to draw attention to what could be a real problem with the way the bill is drafted now. As those of us who are watching the drafting of agreements between the provinces and the federal government are aware, those agreements are being signed for five-year periods. They come into effect on April 1 and they will lapse and be re-signed on April 1, 1996. It is extremely difficult to do a proper review, a serious review, if the review is
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reported in at the same time as the new agreements are signed.
It is extremely important, if we are going to have a serious review, that it be done at least a year before those next agreements are signed, or the whole effort is futile. Therefore, I suggest that we pick one of these dates that are before us-they are only five or six months apart-and have the review done after a couple of years of experience. In that way, we will have some idea as parliamentarians, as farm groups, as provinces, and as federal negotiators, as to what pitfalls to be looking for well in advance of negotiating and signing the next set of agreements.
The way the legislation is currently, it has no chance of being a realistic review process if the review must be tabled for public discussion at the same time as the new agreements are being signed. The review will have no effect at all if those two dates coincide, because the public will not have a chance to take advantage of the studies and the evidence that was found during the course of the review. New agreements will be signed without the public or the farm groups being fully aware of the shortcomings of the previous arrangement.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Mr. Speaker, I also rise in support of the amendments introduced. What the amendment is asking for is that we put in this legislation a time for the review; one suggestion is 1992 and the other suggestion is 1993, with just a few months' difference between the two.
The essence, as my colleagues from Mackenzie and Moose Jaw-Lake Centre have pointed out, is the need to have this legislation reviewed not in the distant future but to have it reviewed a year from its coming into effect. As has been pointed out, this is a commitment of large sums of money.
Second, there are various and genuine concerns which have been expressed about this program. In the province of Saskatchewan, the provincial government has organized meetings across the province to tiy to explain GRIP and NISA. It has not been all that successful because it does not know the answers to the questions that the farmers are asking. There is a lot of uncertainty about this program. There is uncertainty about what the benefits will be. There is uncertainty about how much the fees will be. There is uncertainty about how it will work. Those who are out there to explain the legislation
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cannot really answer the questions that farmers have been raising.
That is why the lukewarm reaction to the GRIP and NISA programs is not surprising. Many farmers are just backing off. In part, they are saying: we don't know enough about this. We are not prepared to commit ourselves and the sums of money that appear to be necessary to be able to enrol in the program. We are not prepared yet to commit that. That is another reason why this program should be reviewed.
It should be reviewed as well in one or two years time on the effectiveness of the program. Is it really doing what it is supposed to be doing? Is it creating the foundation for our farm economy, and is it doing it in an effective way? Or is it becoming a boondoggle?
There is a part of me that sniffs another scientific research tax credit scam here. It was a quickie little thing that the Liberals had introduced in the dying days of the government in 1984 and it resulted in the loss of several billions of dollars of money that was not properly used towards research and development. A lot of it was wasted, Mr. Speaker. Had that money been addressed to research and development then the state of research and development would have been in a much better position in Canada today than it is.
I have that same gnawing feeling here, that we are legislation that is so loose, its draftsmanship is so awkward, that it could result in the loss of large amounts of public money, most of which will not go to the people who need it the most. Most of that public money conceivably could go to a few individuals, while the vast majority of the farmers who need the money, those who are struggling to survive, who are being sucked under and down, are not the ones who will be receiving the type of benefits they will need in order to survive.
That is the fear I have about this program. I might be wrong. I hope I am wrong, I hope it does what the government claims it will do; that it will help family farms survive, and will allow a stable agricultural economy to flourish in Canada. I hope it does that. But let us make certain it does that.
Why not allow a review in 1992-93 to make certain that it does do that, to see if there is any need for some tinkering, for some amendments, for some adjustments? Every program needs adjustments. That is part of the

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process of experiences; you experience things, you learn things, and you adjust as you go along.
Why does the Minister of Finance not do that? That is a whole other question about the Minister of Finance.
But what we are appealing for here in our amendment is for the government to recognize that it might need adjustments, and to allow those adjustments to be written into the legislation to ensure that this review will occur which involves all the farm organizations and the farm groups, that will involve Parliament and a committee of Parliament, the Standing Committee on Agriculture. These too should all be involved in the process of the review.
As members of this House, especially those who represent farm communities, we will pick up on how this program works and how it doesn't work. We will very quickly know the little idiosyncrasies in this program, the types of situations that even farm representatives, farm bureaucrats and even the minister in his office cannot even think of. We will pick up the little nuances and bring that experience and that information on to the floor of the House of Commons and into the committee on agriculture, so that our experience and the knowledge that we pick up in being members of Parliament are part of the input into this review process.
The amendment before us is a piece of common sense. I sincerely hope the government will be gracious in accepting the amendment because I believe it will strengthen the legislation. Hopefully it will create a bill, create a farm program that will do what I am sure all members of the House would like to see it do, enable a viable farm economy for Canada.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, I just want to comment on Motions Nos. 10 and 11. Between the two I assume that Motion No. 10 will come to a vote first. It seems to me that it is the preferable motion because it suggests that a review be made by April 1, 1993. GRIP really starts August 1, 1991. The terminal point for that crop year is August 1, 1992. The final pay-out comes some time after that, perhaps in the fall of 1992.
If we are going to have a reasonable review of at least one full year of the operation of GRIP, to try to do it before April 1, 1993 is simply not practical.
I would hope that if the government is accepting either one of these amendments that it would accept the first one standing in the name of the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings. It allows for one full year of operation of GRIP plus a few months afterwards so that we can at least have a report and a review which really reflects one complete crop year operation, taking into account premiums, the benefits paid out and the over-all operation to ensure that it is a reasonable and fair assessment of the value of the program.
I hope these comments will be taken into consideration by the government. We are very appreciative of the fact that Motion No. 5 has been accepted and does provide for some review, although it does not specify an exact date but provides for a continuing review without putting the deadline of April 1, 1993, as Motion No. 10 does.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I have just three short points as the clock winds around to six o'clock. First, I want to thank the Minister of Agriculture for his presence in the House and take the opportunity to say to him that the farmers in The Battlefords-Meadow Lake and in Saskatchewan want to see some bridge financing now. They want to see some pay-outs in time for planting this spring. They are going to have to know about this now.
On behalf of the producers of Saskatchewan, of western Canada, in particular The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, I ask the Minister of Agriculture to make that pitch to cabinet and to make an announcement to the people on the prairies.


Simon Leendert de Jong: Don't tie it to GRIP and NISA.


Leonard William (Len) Taylor: As the hon. member for Regina-Qu'Ap-pelle indicates, don't tie it to GRIP and NISA. I think that is very important too. Do not say: "Sign up or you don't get this". That is a very important point. The finance is necessary now. We know GRIP and NISA is coming later.
The second point is also on a congratulatory note. I notice in Bill C-98 a clause concerning environmental assessment. This is the first time I have noticed an environmental assessment written into government legislation. I think this is a major step forward in the legislative process. I want to encourage the government
March 21, 1991

to continue to do this in all of its legislative processes, as well as all of its policy making. I have a couple of problems with the way in which it is written into the bill, but I am pleased to see that the step has been taken. The fact that we could have environmental assessment after the damage has been done by the bill is a matter that concerns me.
The third item I want to raise is this amendment. I support the motion in front of us, because I believe a review of the bill within the timeframe set out in the amendment is much more important than the timeframe set out in the bill itself.
The points that were made by the hon. member for Mackenzie are very well taken, that in fact this review must take place before any renegotiation, any new signing of any agreement occurs. The review process is very important.
As my friend from Moose Jaw-Lake Centre pointed out, it is very important we ensure that the review process is conducted by parliamentarians who have regular day to day discussions, communications, consultation with the producers who are the people who put us into this place to speak on their behalf in matters such as this.
With those few points, I hope the amendments that were put forward here today by members of the opposition will be supported by the government. I wish us all well in the deliberations that come and on our speeches at third reading, whenever that takes place.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some hon. members:: Question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the said motion?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some hon. members:: Yea.


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


Some hon. members:: Nay.
Government Orders


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: In my opinion the nays have it.
And more than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Pursuant to Standing Order 76(8), a recorded division of the proposed motion stands deferred.
Normally at this time the House would proceed to taking the deferred division at report stage of the bill now before the House. However, pursuant to Standing Order 94.(2)(b) the recorded divisions will stand deferred until 7 p.m. Monday, March 25, 1991.


PARLIAMENT OF CANADA ACT
Hon. Marcel Danis (for Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons) moved: that the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-79, an Act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, be read the second time and concurred in.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member for Ottawa-Van-ier would like to be here to discuss this important motion. He supports the motion; he has worked very hard on this bill with hon. members on all sides of the House. I want to thank him on behalf of our caucus for his assistance on this bill. I know that were he here, he would speak for it. He had an important meeting in his constituency at this time.
I may say that we support the amendments. We believe the act will improve Parliament and we support it.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, briefly, I know how hard members have worked on this bill and how quickly we would like to it to be given Royal Assent. Therefore, I move:
That the question be now put.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon -Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, as you know, there have been long deliberations about Bill C-79, the Parliament of Canada Act.

March 21, 1991
Adjournment Debate
Some considerable progress has been made in dealing with the concerns that have arisen with regard to it.
However, there are still outstanding issues which need to be considered, which need to be debated. It would be unfortunate and undesirable to move to votes at this time with outstanding issues remaining. There are still some serious questions which need to be addressed. I think we need to spend some more time in trying to ensure that there is an arrangement which can be reached to the satisfaction of all the parties.
I do not think that would necessarily take all that long, and I do not think it is necessary to be precipitous. I notice, Mr. Speaker, that it is 6 p.m.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Because of the important nature of it, I think there might be a predisposition in the House to not see the clock for a bit if people do want to put some of this perspective on the table.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: Is there consent not to see the clock?


Some hon. members:: No.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, one theme that has come up repeatedly in the past few federal budgets is that Canada is facing a huge deficit. Too large a percentage of Canadians' tax dollars is going to paying the interest on the deficit. If moves are not made to decrease the deficit immediately, then the burden on future generations will be unmanageable.
I am sure we are all in agreement about the seriousness of the deficit and that reducing it is important. However, what we do not agree on is how best to reduce it.
Perhaps I can just make an analogy to describe what I see as the present government's method of reducing the
deficit. Suppose a homeowner had a leaky roof but no money to repair it. Surely, it would be wise to find the money somehow in order to repair that roof. By not repairing the roof, in time it will fall and the homeowner will have no place to live. In addition, the loss of a substantial investment will take place.
Unfortunately, it is clear that the government and its economic policies follow an approach which is permitting the roof to fall in. It is not investing in the future.
We have seen cutbacks to social programs of all kinds that would have been inconceivable 10 years ago. Many feel that programs that make us proud to be Canadians, such as medicare, will soon be lost with the lessening of federal contributions to the provinces.
Colleges and universities are being forced to raise tuition fees because with less support from the federal government, this is the only way that they feel they can raise money to ensure continued programs.
The result is increasing inaccessibility of post-secondary education with more and more less well-off Canadians being turned away from an education. All these cutbacks are in the name of reducing the deficit. All Canadians must do their part is what we have been told by the government.
Are all these cutbacks really going to help reduce the deficit in the long run? I fear that by cutting back on social programs, we are allowing the roof to slowly cave in. The price we will have to pay to fix it in the future will be very great, indeed.
A Senate committee which looked at child poverty recently heard a report estimating that children who drop out from school due to poverty over the next 20 years will cost the economy $33 billion. That is an amount greater than this year's entire deficit.
Are poor families getting any help from the government in this budget? Clearly, they are not. On top of the blow of the GST, we are seeing further limits to cap funding, cuts to transfer payments to the provinces and still no national child care strategy.
There are no spending measures intended to combat the effects of the recession. Unemployment premiums will rise and the benefits from unemployment insurance have decreased. This is not good news, Mr. Speaker, as I am sure you will agree, for the 10.2 per cent of Canadians who are unemployed.

All these cuts I have just mentioned will certainly have an impact on poor Canadian families and on their children. Children are poor because their parents are poor. I think that, all too often, this government ignores this fact.
When we hear about 1.4 million Canadians being out of work, that is not just 1.4 million Canadians who are suffering. It is many more than that in terms of families with children who are finding it difficult to provide basic food, shelter and clothing for themselves.
That is 1.4 million families with children who are at risk of dropping out of school because of poverty. That is happening at a cost of $33 billion to the economy over 20 years as predicted before the Senate committee.
Is this the kind of social financial planning that will reduce the deficit, cut spending here and there to save now with the result being huge expenditures down the road to pay for those, by comparison, relatively small cuts now? I do not think so.
Perhaps I could provide another example: the case of low birth weight babies. Annually, Canada has spent over $200 million a year caring for low birth weight babies. All these costs do not end just with the initial care. Low birth-weight babies are at high risk of infant mortality, many illnesses, intellectual language and motor disabilities, increased rates of school failure and are at high risk of being socially maladaptive.
Would it not be wise to provide poor pregnant women with adequate food and nutrition before the baby is born? The cost would be marginal in comparison to the huge financial and human costs incurred after they are born. I do not think anybody could argue that this would not be a wise investment. Yet the government continues to ignore these problems in Canada, sending the message to poorer Canadians that they must do their part to help fight the deficit.
The fact of the matter is that if the government only invested in poor families now, the poor would be able to do more than their fair share to help fight the deficit later. They would help save the government many times over what it is saving by cutting social programs.
Adjournment Debate
I am past appealing to members of the present government on the basis of their compassion, their compassion for poor children who are ridiculed at school because they wear clothes from the Salvation Army, and who cannot stay awake in school because they have not had anything to eat for breakfast. I am past the point of asking for compassion for the single mother who works eight hours a day for minimum wage.
I am trying to appeal to the only thing that the government seems to understand or care about and that is the bottom line. To invest today in Canadians is a good investment; it will save billions of dollars in the future. The alternative, which is presently being followed, is to save a relatively small amount of money now, with the result being a generation of Canadian children being sacrificed to poverty, only to incur greater expenses in the future.


Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the hon. member's question and attempt to explain government spending and transfer payments to the provinces. Mr. Speaker, the hon. member does not seem to understand how the federal system of transfer payments to the provinces works. The two main ways the government transfers sums of money to the provinces are what we call established programs financing and equalization payments.
Mr. Speaker, established programs financing is money that is apportioned equally to all provinces on a per capita basis. Equalization consists in payments made to the so-called poorer provinces. Most provinces receive both transfer and equalization payments. This includes Quebec and a number of other provinces.
The provinces are given this money to spend as they see fit. This year, over $36 billion will be transferred by the federal government to the provinces, who will use this money to finance education, hospitals, and all other areas under their jurisdiction. Mr. Speaker, federal transfers to the provinces were not cut in the latest Budget because this year-if I compare with next year and two years from now-the provinces will receive more money than they received last year. There was a reduction in the increase, and I am sure the hon. member will understand when I explain this in terms of his salary. His salary hasn't been cut, but the increase to

Adjournment Debate
which he is entitled has been reduced. He will get a raise just the same, however, and this is exactly what the government and the Budget are doing with transfer payments to the prvoinces.
Mr. Speaker, I see that my time has expired. EMPLOYMENT


Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address an issue of major importance for Canadians generally, but more specifically for those in the Montreal area.
On December 10 last, I directed a question to the Minister of Employment and Immigration concerning the tragic job situation in the Province of Quebec. At the time, Quebec had lost 87,000 jobs over the previous six months and I had predicted that the situation would deteriorate even further. Mr. Speaker, I was right.
As recently as three months ago, I asked the Minister to take concrete measures to create long-term jobs as well as implement immediate programs to assist working men and women who had just lost their jobs.
In her reply at the time, the Minister of Employment and Immigration stated that employment programs were available in Quebec and that these programs would bring results which would meet my expectations.
I must say today that, as far as job creation is concerned, I am not at all satisfied with the results this Tory government's initiatives have brought to the Montreal area.
And the basis of the information I have received from Statistics Canada, I must conclude that the programs to which the Minister alluded to, last December, were nothing but empty shells.
Mr. Speaker, let us have a look at the results the Conservatives have obtained with their job creation initiatives. Today, one out of every four Montrealers lives under the poverty line. The unemployment rate on the territory which includes the Island of Montreal and Island of Laval reached 15.1 per cent in February, according to Statistics Canada. Of all the major Canadian centres, Montreal had the highest unemployment rate. Some 225,000 Montrealers are unemployed.
Such is the result brought about by this government's employment policies. Although the unemployment rate in the Montreal area keeps increasing, we are still without any economy recovery program to create longterm jobs.
On top of this economic flight we now have to contend with the last Tory budget. This Budget, tabled on Februaiy 26, is not providing any assistance program to the unemployed. Quite the contrary, Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Finance announced in his Budget speech a $100 million cut from its Canadian Jobs Strategy.
Another factor which is hardly conducive to job creation is the research and development funding reduction. As evidence of this, total 1987 federal government expenditures for that item amounted to 1.4 per cent of the gross national product, as compared to only 1.28 per cent now.
Mr. Speaker, I am asking the Minister of Employment how does she expect Canadians to believe that this government is serious when it affirms that it wants to create permanent jobs and help the unemployed when in fact all the basic job creation programs are reduced?
Then again, Mr. Speaker, bankruptcy figures contribute precious little to restore the confidence of the unemployed looking for work. In excess of 11,000 companies went belly up in 1990, and this figure has been on the increase ever since. The result of these bankruptcies is a direct increase in unemployment levels. I have already pointed out that Montreal's unemployment rate now stands at 15.1 per cent. Unemployed Montrealers are not in a mood to rejoice when they see these figures.
Quebec is not immune to the havoc stemming from the bankruptcy trend. The number of Quebec bankruptcies soared to 40 per cent in the first months of 1991. Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada officials tell us that 1,618 individuals have sought protection under the Bankruptcy Act. Yet the minister told me on December 10 that I would be pleased at the outcome of job creation programs.
March 21, 1991

Who can possibly rejoice over a 40 per cent rise in the number of bankruptcies? Mr. Speaker, who can possibly rejoice over an unemployment rate topping 15 per cent?
I can assure the Minister of Employment and Immigration that nobody is pleased in Montreal. Would the minister care to ask the 1,800 General Motors employees who have just been told they will be laid off for one year whether they are going to be pleased?
I spoke about the economic situation in Montreal on a number of occasions since December 10, and again yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and I am still waiting for concrete measures designed to boost the economy in the region of Montreal.
So again I ask the Minister of Employment and Immigration what measures does her government intend to take to create jobs in Montreal before it is too late? What does the government have to offer to the 225,000 people who are out of work in the region of Montreal? Mr. Speaker, let us hope again that she has more than pious wished to express.


Pierre H. Vincent: I am pleased to answer my hon. colleague from Saint-Leonard who, I must say, has got quite a nerve to come and talk about problems in Montreal. I would like to quote a few statistics, Mr. Speaker, if I may. My colleague quoted several, but here is one more, Mr. Speaker.
I was in private practice as a lawyer before I was elected to this House in 1984, and during the three years of Liberal rule from 1981 to 1984, my hon. colleague's own party, 4,000 jobs were lost-that is right, Mr. Speaker, not created but lost-in the Montreal region.
Since this government was elected in 1984, 276,000 new jobs created in Quebec, 83,000 of which in the Montreal region, Mr. Speaker.


Alfonso Gagliano: What about unemployment!


Pierre H. Vincent: When you were talking, I listened. I would ask for the same consideration. As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, 83,000 jobs were created in the Montreal region by this government and its policies, compared to zero, actually minus 4,000, for the Liberal government from 1980 to 1984.
Adjournment Debate
I would have a few more statistics for the hon. member, Mr. Speaker. Again, the hon. member is requesting policies and programs, but let me quote some figures to show what this government has accomplished since 1984. Employment rates are higher, the misery index is lower and the average family income, after having decreased by 1.8 per cent between 1981 and 1984, increased by 5.7 per cent from 1984 to 1989 in constant dollars, Mr. Speaker.
In the province of Quebec, the number of families with incomes below the poverty line decreased by 26.7 per cent between 1984 and 1989, while it had increased by 22.2 per cent between 1981 and 1984. Mr. Speaker, the last budget-


Alfonso Gagliano: Come and tell that to the people of Montreal!


Pierre H. Vincent: -will once again ensure that these figures remain in the black for Montreal and the rest of the province. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I want to tell my hon. colleague that we have no lesson to take from his party.


NORTHERN BENEFITS
Leonard William (Len) Taylor: Mr. Speaker, on June 7, 1990,1 rose in this Chamber to ask a question about the northern tax allowance, a matter which is very important to a large number of residents in my constituency in northwest Saskatchewan.
My question was not adequately answered by the Minister of Finance at that time, and subsequently he has announced that a new permanent program will be established to replace the current one, the one that we found most unfair and discriminating.
However, during the past year, and for some during the past 18 months, residents of my constituency have been left in the dark about how the old tax program and now the new one would be applied in their area. For one part of my constituency the question is still not resolved, and for another the resolution of the question is totally inadequate. I am still trying to get this government to acknowledge that a fundamental unfairness is affecting the residents of the towns of Loon Lake, Makwa, and the rural municipalities of Loon Lake and Beaver River.

March 21, 1991
Adjournment Debate
I have contacted the finance minister and the minister responsible for Revenue Canada on numerous occasions, and they are well aware that the people in these communities and rural municipalities were once declared eligible for the northern tax benefit in 1987 but were then subsequently reviewed and disqualified and forced to pay back taxes for which they had been eligible under the program. They were asked to pay back taxes with fines, interest and penalties, including court costs for some who took the matter to tax court and some now in the Federal Court of Canada.
There are two bits of unfairness in all of this. First, the people of these areas were told one thing and then assessed differently and penalized for it. Second, they remain as isolated and northern as any of the other residents in the surrounding areas who are eligible for the northern tax benefit.
Let us take the village of Pierceland, for example, which is inside the boundaries of the rural municipality of Beaver River. By a special order, the people of Pierceland are eligible for the northern tax benefits but the rural residents who may live 50 feet outside the town's boundaries are not eligible.
A nurse at the hospital who lives in town will get the benefit; the nurse who lives out of town does not. There is no fairness in that program.
Another example is a teacher who lives in the town of Loon Lake but works in the town of Meadow Lake, a half hour drive away. That teacher who lives in Loon Lake does not get the northern tax benefit, but the teacher who may live across the street from the school in Meadow Lake does get the benefit. That is not fair.
I might add that the new program established by the minister does not correct the unfairness of this. I want to ask the minister to put Loon Lake, Makwa, the rural municipality of Loon Lake, and the rural municipality of Beaver River on par with the program for the towns of Meadow Lake, Pierceland and Goodsoil.
I also want to ask the Minister of Finance to re-evaluate the new program to ensure that there is justice within it. For most residents in my constituency currently eligible for the benefit, the benefit program will be phased out by the 1995 tax year under the new program.
All of these people presently benefiting from the tax program should not be disentitled by 1995. They are northern and isolated by definition. If they are considered to be in need of this tax break today, I see no reason why they should be considered less in need in the future when they are asked to be phased out of the program.
As I see it, all Canadians should pay tax and for the taxes we pay we must receive a service. For the residents of southern and urban Canada the direct government benefits for their taxes paid are accessible. For those who live in Ottawa for example the services of government are more accessible than for those who live outside of Ottawa. For those who live in southern and urban Saskatchewan, the benefits of government are much more accessible than the benefits available to those who live in northern and isolated communities.
But every resident of Canada pays tax and theoretically it is an equal portion of tax. For northern residents, the benefits are not as accessible as for those in the southern part of the program. The northern tax benefit, as I understand it, simply recognizes that northern residents do not have equal access to government programs and returns to them some of their tax dollars in compensation for that lack of access.
Otherwise, our unfair tax program is even more unfair with northern and rural people paying a greater share than is warranted. I am hoping the Minister of Finance can correct this.


Pierre H. Vincent: Mr. Speaker, according to the northern tax allowance program, which came into effect in 1987, every person who has been living in an eligible community for at least 6 months is entitled to the maximum $450 monthly deduction. Furthermore, the employee and his family are entitled to a deduction for travelling expenses paid up by the employer, including up to two trips a year for vacation purposes, as well as any travel taken for medical reasons.
Under the 1987 program, determination of eligible communities created some administrative problems because the criteria were applied on a local basis. It was time-consuming and led to mistakes. Problems surfaced because certain communities were eligible while neighbouring towns were not. This had to be replaced.
March 21, 1991

To this end, the Minister of Finance established, on April 29, 1988, the Task Force on Tax Benefits for Northern and Isolated Areas. Its mandate was to look into the eligibility criteria and to make recommanda-tions for improving the program. The task force submitted its report to the minister on October 27, 1989.
The task force members took 18 months to study the question and prepare their report. They held consultations across Canada and made a thorough analysis of the subject. The task force concluded that a zonal approach was the most equitable and simple solution. Since the task force report was submitted to him, the Minister of Finance has received hundreds of letters and documents on this issue and has consulted with the communities concerned on many occasions.
Following these consultations and the review of the task force recommandations, the minister has developed a new northern tax allowance system for Northern and isolated areas. According to this new system, the inhabit-
Adjoumment Debate
ants of the northern area, as recommended by the task force, will be entitled to the entire deduction, up to $450 per month, while people living in an intermediate area will receive half of the benefits provided. Moreover, residents of communities for which the benefits will be reduced or removed will have a long transitional period.
This new program meets adequately the general consensus on the need to reform the old program which provided disparate benefits. It will allow for elimination inequities, facilitation of compliance with the rules and improvement of the administrative process. It will also provide more efficient tax assistance to residents of remote areas of the North.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Paproski):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, March 22, 1991