1991-06-11

Mr. Pierre H. Vincent (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the Government's response to seven petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



IMMIGRATION ACT


Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough -Rouge River) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-232, an act to amend the Immigration Act (visitors' visas).
He said: Madam Speaker, this bill amends section 9 of the Immigration Act. Its purpose is to facilitate the issuance of visitors' visas to close family relatives of Canadians.
It is identical to the private members' bill presented by me in the last session of this Parliament and would permit a Canadian to stand as a surety or as a guarantor for the terms of the visitor visa.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

['Agreed.\nJune 11, 1991']
Mr. Brian L. Gardiner (Prince George-Bulkley Valley) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-233, an act respecting fiscal arrangements between the federal government and the provinces.
He said: Madam Speaker, I have just a brief explanation. Essentially this private member's bill is similar to one I had tabled in the previous session.
It would essentially impose upon the federal government an obligation to ensure that funds transferred to the provinces for health and post-secondary education are spent in those fields.
It is important to note that this bill is similar to a recommendation made by the government's own National Council of Welfare in a report that it issued last week.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, I have a petition duly signed by 28 residents of the city of Thunder Bay and certified by the clerk of petitions.
The petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to support the NDP plan to restore VTA Rail service cut on January 15, 1990; to maintain and, where appropriate, upgrade remote services on which many Canadians rely; to become a legislated mandate for VIA Rail; and to make available to VIA the resources which it needs to become a modern, passenger rail system in a class with those throughout the rest of the western world.

June 11, 1991
Routine Proceedings
I am pleased to announce that the federal NDP convention adopted the back on track campaign this weekend.


Hon. Ralph Ferguson (Lambton-Middlesex):: Madam Speaker, I rise today to table another 150 names on petitions. This totals over 9,000 names tabled, calling upon the government to ban methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl in Canada and substitute it with 10 per cent ethanol in all gasolines.
These petitioners are very concerned that the government would ignore the fact that ethanol blended gasoline is an environmentally friendly product, but they are even more upset that the government appears to be listening more to a very massive campaign being conducted by a large American company to maintain MMT in gasolines in Canada when in fact it has been banned in the United States since 1978.
We ask this government to move as quickly as possible to adopt this proposal.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Madam Speaker, I have here a petition from young Canadians recognizing the increasing need for education in Canadian society to meet the challenges of globalization, the changing Canadian economy and Canada's social challenges.
They recognize there is tougher competition in this world and education is the way of beating it. They deplore the cut of $485 million this year and the 3 per cent administrative fee on loans. They point out that education is not simply for the wealthy, that education must be for all Canadians. They encourage the government to give it a higher priority.


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present another petition signed by numerous residents of Kingston and the Islands who call upon Parliament to adopt a law which
would make it an offence to desecrate or destroy the flag of Canada.
The petition directly supports the bill introduced in this House by the hon. member for Scarborough East and urges this House to deal with the bill expeditiously and perhaps see to its prompt adoption.


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of a number of constituents from Kamloops and neighbouring communities who are concerned about the latest statistics from Statistics Canada.
They point out that the level of violent crime is increasing and encourage the federal government to reconsider its plans to cut back on the funding for the RCMP and maintain traditional funding in the years ahead.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Madam Speaker, another set of petitioners from western Canada are calling upon the government to rethink the decision to curtail VIA Rail service.
They point out that in Europe, passenger rail service is the most environmentally sound way of moving large numbers of people. It makes sense for the second largest country in the world geographically to have a good passenger rail system and are asking the federal government to reconsider the decision to cut back on VIA Rail funding.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Pierre H. Vincent: Madam Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Shall the questions be allowed to stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.
June 11, 1991



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance) moved: that Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament on February 26, 1991, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to present to the House Bill C-20 for second reading debate, the 1991 Budget Implementation Act, a very important piece of legislation. I am pleased to see so many Liberal members in the House today taking an active interest in this very important debate.
I think it is important, in opening this debate, for all members to realize the importance of expenditure restraint. It is critical in our attempt to ensure that we can provide a climate that is conducive to economic growth and stability. The issue of expenditure restraint is a key element of federal government policy.
The provisions outlined in this bill will help to ensure that Canada continues its progress toward economic recovery this year, but just as important these measures will help ensure that we set in place the essential conditions for stable continuous growth, and permanent job creation, as well as real increases in national and individual prosperity throughout the decade.
The legislation before us proposes to change four specific acts of Parliament. The Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act will be amended to extend the two-year limitation introduced in the 1990 budget on the growth of established programs funding to the provinces for another three years. In conjunction with this we are also proposing to amend this act to permit the withholding of other federal payments to provinces in the event of a breach of the national health standards set out in the Canada Health Act.
We are also asking for a change to the Parliament of Canada Act to limit annual increases in sessional and expense allowances for members of the Senate and the House of Commons. I know that all members of the
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House will take an active interest in that provision of the bill.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Yes, it is well supported.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am pleased to hear that from the hon. member from Kingston.
As well the bill before us amends the Public Utilities Income Tkx Transfer Act to extend the current limitation on payments for an additional four years.
Finally, the Unemployment Insurance Act will be altered to increase premium rates to ensure that this vital national safety net remains on a sound financial basis. I am sure the hon. member from Kingston would want to ensure that the Unemployment Insurance Act and the fund therein would be retained on a sound financial basis. That is something that he should know, if he does not already know, is required by law.
These measures continue and add further certainty to our commitment to put our national finances in order. For countries and governments as well as individuals and firms this is a fundamental starting point for the longterm security and prosperity of our country.
When we first announced the Government Expenditure Restraint Act in the 1990 budget, Canadians could at that time look back on six years of unprecedented growth, a record where we led all major industrialized nations, except Japan. Today, however, we in Canada as in the United States and in the U.K. are experiencing a recession. This has had an adverse impact not only on our economy but equally as well on our fiscal situation.
We hope and we have every belief, thanks to the effective measures we have taken in time, that the turnaround is imminent and that we will soon again enjoy positive growth. Judging by the positive indicators that we see emanating on a daily and weekly basis, we sense that the recession has bottomed out or is close to bottoming out. The point of recovery in the second half, as was projected in the February budget, is clearly imminent.
The measures now before the House are designed to renew our progress in reducing the annual deficit and controlling the destructive growth of our national debt. They are also part of the comprehensive plan to restore economic confidence and to bring down inflation. This is,

June 11, 1991
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of course, the key to a continuing and enduring decline in interest rates, which will fuel recovery and provide a climate for growth.
Since 1984, our government has been following a comprehensive, mid-term plan for fiscal consolidation and economic renewal. We have reduced government spending. We have tackled waste and inefficiency in government operations. We have reformed the tax system to provide a more secure and more equitable tax base while ensuring that there was fairness in the system, as well as international competitiveness. We are implementing structural reforms to improve the growth potential of the Canadian economy and, as outlined in the Speech from the Throne, we are determined to attack the issue of productivity and improve our competitiveness. This is key for a trading nation like Canada which relies more on trade than any other nation in the world with the exception of Germany.
These actions were successful in stimulating strong growth, particularly in investment over the 1985 and 1989 period. As well, these measures have allowed us to reduce the deficit. For 1990-91 it has been reduced by nearly one-half as a percentage of the GDP from where it was in 1984-85. As a percentage of GDP the deficit has been reduced from 8.7 per cent to 4.5 per cent-


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Nonsense, absolute nonsense.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -and that is the key number, Madam Speaker, in spite of what the hon. member suggests.
The measures introduced in last February's budget will ensure that our deficit spending does not increase this year over last, despite the pressures of the recession. Then, through the combination of expenditure restraint, economic recovery and lower interests rates, the deficit will begin to move sharply downward to just $24 billion in
1992-93, the lowest level in more than a decade.
The fiscal track that we are now on, by 1994-95 we will have eliminated the need for any new government borrowings on the financial markets for the first time in 25 years.


Mr. Mills:: Double the tax grab and put all the burden on small business.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: We see all the big spenders over there and they are critical of that, and I can understand
why. I am waiting to hear some words of enlightenment from the other side, but so far I have not.
Madam Speaker, the measures introduced in this bill will work effectively together as part of our plan for economic recovery. It is a plan that will bring about lower interest rates and strengthen our capacity to create jobs and generate real gains in Canadians' incomes. We will achieve these goals through a series of co-ordinated interrelated actions, carefully structured to promote economic progress while ensuring that no unnecessary burdens are placed on this country, either today or in the future.
For example, in tandem with the Governor of the Bank of Canada, we have set out low, but achievable targets, for reducing inflation. I am confident we are on track to meeting our goal of 2 per cent inflation by the mid-decade. This lowering of inflation represents the only reliable long-term method of bringing down interest rates.
Second, we are putting government finances firmly on a course toward a balanced budget. Third, we will introduce legislation to establish a debt service and reduction fund which will provide, by law, that revenues from the goods and services tax and from the privatization of Crown corporations as well as any private contributors will flow into this fund.
Well, I am certainly in a position to welcome any contributions coming from the other side today, and it is tax deductible. My colleague says that there is deafening silence over there.
All of these funds will flow into this fund, to be used only to reduce the deficit, to stop the growth of debt and not to finance new programs.
Fourth, we are severely restraining government operations. We are freezing operating budgets. As well, wages and salaries are being tightly restrained for cabinet ministers, members of Parliament, Order in Council appointments, and for federal public servants.
These are very important and bold initiatives to deal with the very tough and difficult issues we now face. If we were to follow the Liberal pattern, we could talk about the 1981-82 recession. The government at that time-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: They do not want to talk about history. That is rather interesting.
During the recession of 1981-82, the Liberal government chose a different path. That is why our budget this February and the legislation before us has become so necessary. What we are faced with today is not only paying the bills of today, but we are forced to pay the bills of yesterday, caused by my friends opposite who still believe that they can spend their way to prosperity.
What happened? By 1984-85, the annual deficit had tripled under their regime to over $38 billion in just four years. Interest charges on the debt were consuming a rapidly increasing proportion of revenues, revenues that could not be allocated to better the lives of Canadians.
That is the point. A huge deficit and the cost of servicing the deficit limits government's ability to provide needed services to Canadians. That is the real issue we face today. In fact, it is the compounding interest on the national debt we inherited that now accounts for almost all of the growth in the debt that has occurred over the last six years. That is the truth.
If we had followed the Liberal way, that short-sighted political way that is even today suggested by some of our more learned critics across the way, we would then have embarked upon a course of spending and fiscal irresponsibility which would have aggravated all of the fundamental problems we now have. It would have deepened and complicated the problem of renewing our national prosperity.
For example, if we had followed the same track that the Liberals were on, today instead of having a $30 billion deficit we would have had a $99 billion deficit. That is really the fact of the matter. It is a stark comparison of the difference in approaches and the difference in attitudes.
Instead of restoring the government's ability to assist Canadians in need, we would be weakening that capability. Instead of building greater confidence in Canada's ability to deal with its problems, we would be sending a message of indecision, uncertainty and probably incapacity.
We cannot spend our way out of difficult times with money that we have to borrow. The philosophy behind
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our program for economic renewal is clear and very concrete. We have to pay our way at home and earn our prosperity in the international marketplace. That is why we have embarked upon a course that places less reliance upon government and taxpayers' pocketbooks and more on personal initiative and enterprise.
Government spending in the end comes only from one source: the taxpayer. It is not government that creates jobs, prosperity and provides higher real incomes. It is the private sector through its enterprise, its initiative and its production. It is that production which produces the wealth that not only services governments and the important services that governments provide, but indeed provides the wealth for Canadians. It is not government that creates jobs and provides higher real incomes. Prosperity cannot be legislated, it must be gained in the marketplace. That is a very important philosophy. It is something I am pleased that hon. members opposite are agreeing with.
If we have that right, then it is pretty clear that we have to concentrate our efforts on attempting to put in place the kind of economic environment that is conducive to providing ways in which the enterprise spirit will prevail. The innovative and entrepreneurial spirit will certainly then provide the kind of wealth and the support and welfare for all Canadians. We clearly understand the role that government has to play. It must provide an economic environment in which prices are stable, productivity and risk-taking are rewarded, and initiative is encouraged. It is in keeping with this philosophy-


Dennis Joseph Mills: You're punishing productivity.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The hon. member says we are punishing. Yes, it is difficult because we have a difficult fiscal problem we have to contend with. Until we address that fiscal problem, we will not be able to provide that kind of encouragement and that kind of climate which the hon. member, I know, wants-


Dennis Joseph Mills: Well, say that.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -to establish. We have a difficult problem. We have to distribute some medicine. I am saying it. That is a fact. You cannot hide behind figures. The facts are clearly there.
Government Orders Mr. Mills: What pious nonsense.

June 11, 1991


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am asking hon. members across the way to shoulder their share of the burden and the responsibility because they created it and are probably more responsible for it than any other government in this country.
It is in keeping with this philosophy that our government has given a priority to the two key aspects of this renewal: structural reforms, such as deregulation and privatization, and removing the obstacles and barriers to innovation and enterprise and growth, whether it be interprovincial trade barriers, over-regulation, or various kinds of burdens and impediments to growth and economic activity. Second, we have devoted our attention to sound macro-economic policies.
As I indicated, we recognize the pressures and hardships that are facing many Canadians. Economic recovery is this government's fundamental goal, but we have to get the fundamentals right. Our policies, reflected in the measures in this bill, are establishing the sound fiscal plan on which recovery must be based.
It will be a recovery that is not borrowed from tomorrow's account. Instead, it will be a recovery that gives lasting promise and opportunities to young Canadians entering the work force, one that protects those on fixed incomes, the poor and the elderly and those who save and invest, from the ravages of inflation. That is important, Madam Speaker. The members opposite scoff at the inflationary targets. At the same time they want to ensure that elderly Canadians will not see their incomes eroded. I think we can all agree on that and in order to preserve that capacity we must ensure that we fight inflation and maintain realistic inflationary targets.
As well, we will be basing our recovery program on a philosophy that allows working Canadians and employees to plan for the future in confidence, knowing that economic growth reflects real strength rather than being based on the artificial and transitory prop of government.
At this time in a globalized economy there is no way that we can hide our inefficiencies or our lack of competitiveness. We cannot hide those inefficiencies through government subsidies or the creation of Crown
corporations. It is all out there. We live in a day and age of globalization where national boundaries are becoming increasingly irrelevant. As a nation which relies on world trade for about one-third of its GDP we obviously have to address that as one of the most important priorities. That is what we are doing both in the budget and in the commitment undertaken in the Speech from the Throne.
Meeting these goals cannot be done without restraint, co-operation, some sacrifice and hard work. We must all share the burden.
Having set forth the reasons for this legislation I want to elaborate on some of the specific measures involved.
The current limitations to the growth of Established Programs Financing, or EPF, will be extended through to 1994-1995. This measure will reduce federal cash expenditures by about $340 million in 1992-1993, $465 million in 1993-1994, and about $750 million in the third year.
It is important to put this measure in context. While it is an important step for government, it is not the drastic and destructive burden on the provinces that some have suggested.
The savings that we will achieve represent only about one-half of 1 per cent of the total provincial revenues in 1992-1993. Even with the measures proposed in the bill, EPF transfers in 1992-1993 will exceed $20 billion.
These transfers will continue to grow with provincial populations. I trust that hon. members will remember as well that in addition to the EPF transfers, the federal government also provides substantial assistance to lower income provinces through the equalization program, to help them provide a level of service that is consistent across the country. This support provides for health care and post-secondary education as well.
Equalization transfers have grown significantly-


An hon. member:: They have been cut.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The hon. member says that they have been cut significantly and that is absolutely, categorically false. The fact of the matter is that equalization transfers have grown significantly over the last few years, from over $5 billion in 1984-85 to over $8 billion in the current fiscal year. These transfers are not affected, and I repeat, these transfers are not affected by the budget.
June 11, 1991

They will continue to grow in line with the nominal rate of growth of the economy.
The government recognizes as well that limiting the growth of transfers under EPF raises concerns about the ability of the federal government to continue enforcing national medicare principles. Therefore, the legislation under consideration will also amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act. This will allow the government to withhold other payments to provinces in the event there are insufficient EPF cash transfers against which to apply financial penalties for a breach of national medicare principles, as set out in the Canada Health Act.
At the same time that we are asking the provinces to share the burden of fiscal restraint, we are also calling on this government and members of Parliament to do their part. The February budget announced our intent to freeze the salaries of cabinet ministers for the coming year. As well, the bill before us will amend the Parliament of Canada Act to limit annual increases in sessional allowances for members of both Houses to the average wage increases within the Public Service of Canada for the years 1992, 1993 and 1994.
Any increases in salaries and allowances for office holders of the Senate and the House of Commons and expense allowances for all MPs in these years will be held to these same levels.
Such measures ensure that the burden of financial restraint is not limited to the Public Service alone. It also means that all of us in government must learn to live with the resources that we have available, a discipline that the private sector cannot avoid and that we must learn to share.
As another element of the expenditure restraint program is the legislation before us. It extends the freeze on the transfer payments to provinces under the Public Utilities Income Transfer Act, commonly referred to as PUITTA, for an additional four years until 1995. Under the terms of the 1990 budget, these payments were frozen at 1989 levels of $280 million. As a member from Alberta I want to suggest that our action here is much less drastic than the actions taken by the provincial government. In its 1990 budget, Alberta decided to eliminate completely its rebates of provincial income taxes paid to privately owned utility companies.
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These tax revenues are now retained in full by the provinces, but our measure continues to return most of the federal income tax from these utilities to the provinces. That provides a level playing field with Crown corporations which do not pay taxes and operate in other provinces. It is for that reason that PUITTA was put in place in the first place.
Finally, the government proposes to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act to increase premium rates. Effective July 1, 1991, employee premiums will be increased to $2.80 per $100 of insurable earnings, from the current $2.25. Premiums for employers will rise to $3.92 per $100 of insurable earnings from the current level of $3.15. These measures work to assist the important restructuring of the unemployment insurance program that was undertaken last year, along with measures to provide more training and fewer disincentives to work. The program was placed on a sound financial footing with the costs financed through employee-employer contributions.
Since then, the deteriorating labour market conditions have led to higher than anticipated benefit payments. Consequently the program's account is projected to go sharply out of balance. This would seriously jeopardize the financial integrity of this self-financed program and further damage the government's fiscal position.
Since the UI account is consolidated in budgetary transactions, the changes in the rate will reduce the deficit by $2 billion in 1991-92 and by $2.4 billion in 1992-93.
The measures that we are proposing here today are not easy and not painless. They are the consequence of too many years of government overspending and overborrowing.
We worked hard to reverse that trend and reverse that record, but to make further progress on behalf of all Canadians we have to ask Canadians everywhere-individuals, other levels of government and businesses-to share in the burden of fiscal restraint.
I said earlier that our policies and programs are already having a positive effect on the economy. It is worth highlighting just a few of the recent indicators that show we are on track for recovery in the second half of this year.

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For example, short-term interest rates have dropped by more than five percentage points in just over a year. The Bank of Canada dropped its rate again last Thursday to the lowest level since April 1988, and I am sure that all hon. members will agree that that is good news.
As well, I think it is important that the differential between Canada and U.S. interest rates has narrowed significantly. From a high of about 560 basis points a year ago, it has dropped to well below 300 basis points. I believe 2.59 per cent was the last figure I saw and that was for a three-month commercial paper.
If we compare the Canadian prime rate at nine and three-quarters per cent to the U.S. prime rate at eight and a half per cent, that is a differential of about one and a quarter per cent. Those wide spreads that were a legitimate complaint in the previous 12 months have narrowed significantly, and I believe that it is a clear expression of confidence in the measures we have taken. It is a clear measure of confidence in our bid to engage in fiscal consolidation that we have demonstrated a resolve and a commitment to deal with the deficit and to deal with the underlying causes of inflation.
I think the underlying causes of inflation and the inflationary expectations and pressures are key elements to interest rates now and in the future, and it is important for us to maintain that course.
In turn, the reduced interest rates are fuelling a significant rebound in the housing sector as both housing starts and resale transactions surged in April.
Also, last week Statistics Canada announced that manufactured shipments, due to the strength in the automobile sector, increased a half a per cent in March to $22.6 billion, the first rise in five months. A recent Conference Board of Canada index of business confidence showed a dramatic gain in the first quarter.
These are all positive signs and positive indicators, but we are not suggesting that we should get over-ecstatic about it. We think the recovery will be slow, but we hope that it will be a durable one.
I think it is a clear fact that the course we are on is proving to be the right one, and I think that is shown by the indicators that we see.
If we waver and let the deficit begin to surge again, we will significantly undercut the renewed business confidence in the mid-term prospects that will help generate
new investment and new jobs. We will also be encouraging Canadians in every sector to return to the inflationary behaviour and expectations that are the driving force behind higher interest rates.
We simply do not intend to let this happen. The national interest, the prospect for all Canadians to enjoy renewed growth and prosperity, demands that our commitment must not flag just at the point where we are beginning to get back on track. By persevering we will not only be able to bring the deficit under control but will also, in the not too distant future, begin removing this burden from the backs of the Canadian people and particularly the backs of future generations. Only in this way can we build the Canada that we want for ourselves and for our children.
I am presenting this bill for second reading. I urge the hon. members to support it, to support the motives and the inspiration that underlie the bill. It is certainly in keeping with the trend and the direction that we must take in terms of fostering a solid foundation for economic growth and prosperity in the future.


Mr. David Walker (Winnipeg North Centre):: Madam Speaker, my congratulations to the Minister of Finance. I believe it is his first major speech in the House since taking over this portfolio. I would also like to thank the minister for having his staff brief the opposition parties and give us an opportunity to review some of the technicalities of this very important piece of legislation. When I was listening to the minister, I was thinking that it is unfortunate that the sins of the father have to be visited upon the son. I am sure the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls is a man better equipped than myself with images for these situations. I was thinking about the change in the government and how it always tries to make things seem like a relay race, a smooth transition of handing things off. But if we look at this government since it changed portfolios, it is more like a hot potato race. Immigration is over here and external is over there and finance is there, and all are throwing hot potatoes into the air hoping someone else will catch them. The minister is being caught with a hot potato and the first move he has to make is with Bill C-20.
The reason why this party will not be supporting Bill C-20 is that we disagree fundamentally with the strategy behind this legislation. It is a strategy of social policy by stealth. It is a strategy of undermining the fundamental programs in this country by using technical measures
June 11, 1991

rather than by dealing with them in a straightforward way.
The harsh battle that we saw with Bill C-69 is about to be repeated with Bill C-20. We must show Canadians that this government is seeking to undermine the Canada Assistance Plan, to undermine the equalization programs, and to undermine medicare and post-secondary education. They are doing this not by dealing with them directly, not by telling Canadians they are no longer interested in those programs, but by using fiscal measures through the back door that Canadians have a difficult time understanding and following.
It is at this quiet moment in the House at 10.30 on a Tuesday morning that an important piece of legislation is being introduced without people really understanding what the future holds for them.
I would like to spend the time during my speech to go over some of these measures and to explain, as best as I can on behalf of my party, why this legislation is in fact dangerous.
A well-known Canadian, Grattan Gray, has written in Policy Options, a very well respected magazine, that he would describe the strategy of this government as social policy by stealth. I would like to quote, to set up this particular analysis, from Mr. Gray.
In brief, (he Tory style of restraint has become what can only be characterized as "social policy by stealth".
It relies heavily on technical amendments to taxes and transfers that are as difficult to explain as they are to understand and thus largely escape media scrutiny and public attention. It camouflages regressive changes in their rhetoric of equity in an attempt to convince Canadians that tax increases are tax cuts and that benefit cuts are benefit increases. By further complicating an already complex labyrinth of taxes and social programs, the stealth style of policy making confuses 1he electorate and so insulates itself from criticism. The Conservative's record on social and tax policy constitutes a variation on Newton's Third Law of Motion. For every positive action there is an equal and opposite negative change. As a result, the goal of a fairer, simpler and more rational system of taxes and transfers remains as distant as ever.
In other words, the language is there: the language of fairness, the language of concern, the language of good management. The government knows the language. The government does not have a clue as to how to carry this out fairly, on behalf of all Canadians.
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The minister is fond of referring to the past. Anyone who watches the House of Commons during Question Period sees that this government refers constantly to what the bad guys did, what the Liberals did in the 1970s and the 1980s. They do not mention of course the introduction of medicare and old age security. They do not mention the amount of money that was put into post-secondary education so that this whole generation could be educated. They seem somehow to forget that.
Perhaps we should go back and ask: "What were they thinking in those years?" Let us take the former Minister of Finance, for example. He said as reported on March 23, 1982 at page 15758 of the Commons Debates:
In past years, the federal government has used its taxing power and the financial strength of its position to exert its influence and to establish national standards and programs-
National standards and programs, these are words that we hear all the time now. he continued:
This is acceptable and I think we can understand the use of that power.
Here we have the future Minister of Finance staking out the turf that he is in favour of national standards and in favour of the use of the federal powers to follow up.
He continued in the same debate:
The only sign the current government shows of cutting spending is by shifting the burden of the established programs funding on to the provincial governments. The provinces are now moving into a deficit position, a position which will make it more difficult for them to finance this shift in spending. This is particularly true in Ontario and in the eastern provinces which do not have the substantial energy revenues of most of the western provinces. That is not co-operative federalism. That is a predatory federalism, and it will not and cannot work in this country.
Let us read those words again and think about them: predatory federalism on provinces that cannot afford it. What do we see this government doing? We see it undertaking and participating in predatory federalism to the extent that the only road that these governments have nowadays is to go to the courts. We have federalism by court action. We have the provincial governments taking the federal government to court on basic constitutional issues such as the cap on the Canada Assistance Program.

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Can we imagine a future Minister of Finance standing up in the House to speak in a debate like this and laying out a position that it is fundamental to his understanding of the country that we do not terrorize provinces?
Then in February this year he stands up and says, without any warning at all: "We will extend the existing 5 per cent cap on the growth of Canada Assistance Plan payments to the fiscally stronger provinces of Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta for three additional years". This is while they are already in court on another issue.
Second, the existing freeze on total per capita cash and tax transfers to the provinces, under Established Programs Financing, will also continue through 1994-95.
So there you go. On the one hand you stand in opposition and worry about the terrorism created by a government dealing with the recession. Then you come into power and say that the first people you are going to knock over are the provinces. You are going to make them pay for the programs even though you know most of them cannot afford to. In addition, it is fundamental to their fiscal security to have a strong central government. You take the language, you make people look this way, and while they are looking this way you take the cash and run.
Bill C-20 is all about taking the cash and running. It is done in a veiy quiet way where, if it is not pointed out, people will think that this is just a burden that we have to carry.
I listened very carefully to the Minister of Finance and I want him to remember his words when he said there was only one taxpayer. The great mythology in this country is that there is only one taxpayer, you and me. Well there may only be one taxpayer in this country, but there are distinctions among that so-called one taxpayer that this government refuses to admit.
Recent research has shown very clearly that the middle-class taxpayer is a special person as compared to the corporate taxpayer under this government. The rises in taxes paid by the average Canadian, which we estimate to be 34 taxes at last count, has doubled the rate of tax increases to the corporate sector. Now that is not to go on, as the NDP would, to a great anti-corporate diatribe. It is simply to point out to the government not to give us this thought that there is only one taxpayer when it has
made a distinction. If there is only one taxpayer, why do the taxes go up a high percentage for the middle-class family and only a small amount for the corporate taxpayer? The government itself is saying just the opposite, that there are two classes of taxpayers and that it favours the corporate taxpayer and is going to protect them.
The guilt that people try to bring out in this deficit reduction dialogue has to be stopped. There is a deficit, it is important for us to get rid of it, and this Liberal Party will participate in any reasonable debt reduction scheme. As part of that package we not only want to see deficit reduction but real tax reform from this government and some wealth creation. We do not have wealth creation in this country right now. We have the loss of 275,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector which is just one indicator as to how little we have.
We would then like to see some real policy directions and the reform of social policies in this country. You cannot just single out deficit reduction and then drive everything by that when you have no idea how to govern the country in a reasonable way. No wonder so many Canadians are turning elsewhere and are becoming introspective by wanting to set up their own countries and move away from the centre.
The centre cannot hold if you do not have any ideas. This government lacks ideas. As commentators have said, it moves by stealth.
Yesterday, we heard the ministers of finance in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island talk about what it is like trying to set a budget when the government takes money away at every opportunity.
This is not to say that the provinces are not positioning or that they do not have their own axes to grind. None of us are naive about provincial ministers of finance, but I would just like to point out that federalism requires co-operation.
The government cannot on one hand be trying to set out a new constitutional regime and perhaps even be talking about a new economic regime while at the same time saying to the 10 colleagues around the table: "We are going to try to squeeze every ounce of cash out of the system, and we really do not care how much you scream".
June 11, 1991

The provinces are there under the Constitution to deliver services which are close to people. That includes welfare, education, looking after municipalities and a number of functions. If you ask who matters more to average Canadians, whether it be the backbenchers in the House of Commons, city councillors, local administrators or provincial people delivering education, they will tell you we count for less every time.
Our job here is to design a federal regime which protects and supports those people. We do not do it by undermining them at every opportunity.
Bill C-20 is designed to carry on the battle begun by this government in 1984 to undermine the social fabric and the current constitutional arrangement in this country. Each federal-provincial meeting whether in health, social policy or fiscal arrangements with the finance ministers, including the first ministers' meetings dealing with the Constitution, has been designed to shift the direction of this country.
Direction is not shifted by directly saying "this is the new Canada", but by saying "free trade will have no negative impacts on the country. Bill C-69 will have no impact on the country. The constitutional arrangement will really have no impact on your lives".
Suddenly people are turning around and saying: "Where is my country? Where is the place my parents built up? Where is the place I moved to? Where is the place that opened its arms and welcomed me?" It is depressed because the underpinnings have been removed by people who do not understand how it was put together in the first place.
The fight over Bill C-20 is a fight to get this government to recognize the significance of legislation which undermines the activities that people take pride in. The bill is a piece of legislation which comes out of the budget.
In the Canadian parliamentary system, when the budget statement is made the government presents a number of items to see it through. There is no new news in here, but we see the details under which the government hopes to continue its Draconian measures to destroy this country.
In the first section it deals with federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, federal post-secondary education and the Health Contributions Act. It repeals a number of
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the sections and sets out a low growth strategy in the transfer payments to the provinces. I would like to deal with what that means to somebody in any one of our Canadian cities who is trying to get proper services.
What does it mean when the federal government says: "We are no longer going to sponsor post-secondary education the way we did in the past"? What does it mean to somebody 18 or 19 who is thinking of their education? It means they better begin to prepare and save if they can for very high tuition increases.
It is not out of line to think that tuition will hit $3,000 in the very near future. People say: "Why are we paying so much for education?" When people in this House went to university, they probably paid somewhere between $400 to $900 for tuition depending on the province.
Now we are saying to the next generation: "Three thousand dollars a year is not much. Don't worry about being $20,000 in debt". Then we will have to tell them: "You have to go back to Bill C-69 and Bill C-20 to understand how the federal government began to grab the cash out of the system". This can be very obscure and difficult to understand for a student in high school right now.
We stand in the House of Commons today and say to the government: "Rethink your fiscal arrangement strategy. Don't squeeze the universities. Find another way of financing this country. Find another way through tax reform. Find another way through economic growth. Don't be driven by the deficit to the point of distraction".
The act also continues on to outline the strategy, first noted in the budget, that the government is going to extend its powers under the Canada Health Act.
The Canada Health Act was designed by the last Liberal government to give the Minister of Health and Welfare fiscal authority and financial powers to limit payments to provinces which do not conform to the standards of the medicare program. The medicare program, of course, has five principles attached to it and with those five principles we protect our medicare system. If it is found to be sufficient, and as long as everyone stays committed to those five principles, then the need to actually use the Canada Health Act is very limited.

June 11, 1991
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Members of this government are anxious to protect medicare because they understand that people out there fear them, they fear for medicare, they fear for its future. At the meetings of the ministers of finance yesterday in Charlottetown the story was: "You guys in the federal government are destroying medicare; we cannot finance it under the present program, let alone under future cuts".
This government understands that that message is out there in Canada. It has two choices. It can either recognize the concern that medicare is fundamental to the way Canadians think about themselves and do something about it, or take away medicare cash and force the provinces to find cash in other ways. This government pretends to be protecting the system, but in reality it pulls cash out of the rest of the system in order to play this charade. This is a charade and it is going to be called a charade and it is going to be fought as a charade.
The Government of Canada could protect medicare through the Canada Health Act and through proper funding of the provincial arrangements that now exist. It does not need to pull cash out of the rest of the system or threaten the provinces.
The act is somewhat obscure as to what measures are available. Perhaps for the public record this will be the opportunity to lay out exactly what is meant by other measures.
The federal government transfers funds to the provinces under several different programs. In reviewing these programs you have to remember that the federal government, if this gets through, will be able to pull money out of any of these programs. This sounds like a good idea, protecting medicare. Again, the way to protect medicare is to fund it, not to take money from elsewhere.
For example, under the Canada Assistance Plan the federal government shares the cost of each province's income maintenance and social services programs on a 50-50 basis. Cash expenditures for 1991-92 are forecast to be $5.7 billion. If the federal government decided that a province was not spending its medicare money properly, it could hold back the transfers under CAP which is meant for welfare. This is, in fact, an attack on poverty. Day care is paid for under the Canada Assistance Plan. If the federal government is not happy with the way medicare is working out, because public opinion polls tell
it to be careful in medicare, it could take money from day care. It is right here in the legislation.
Crop insurance, now here is a hoot. Farmers could be forced to pay for money lacking in medicare. It has the right to take away from crop insurance. The federal government shares administrative costs and premiums for crop insurance programs with the provinces and farmers. Federal contributions for the current year are estimated to be over $200 million.
This government could take money away from official languages and education. These formula payments to provinces under the Official Languages and Education Program provide enhanced opportunities for Canadians to learn a second official language. The cost is estimated to be about $263 million for the current fiscal year. That too can be pulled away.
There is a number of programs dealing with disabled persons under miscellaneous health and welfare to the extent of $170 million. Let us think about it. They want the authority to put into this legislation that if they want some money they can pull back $170 million from disabled persons.


An hon. member:: Shame.


David Walker: This is unbelievable. Why would they want that particular instrument in government, unless deep down they thought: "We are going to squeeze these guys so hard they will not know how to fund medicare. We are going to be out there telling Canadians that we will do anything, anything except put up the cash, anything but tax reform, anything but turning this country around". This is just not the way to govern the country.
Tlirning to young offenders services, the federal government has agreements with the provinces and territories to share the costs incurred delivering justice services under the Young Offenders Act. The contribution is estimated currently to be $158 million.
Let us go over the list. They can take money from farmers. They can take money from young people. They can take money from the disabled. They can take money from welfare, from poor people. Is this the strategy for protecting medicare?
Let us continue. They can take money from justice. One of the great concerns of people is with safe cities. The federal assistance to provinces for legal aid programs related to criminal law and for programs that compensate victims of violent crime, $77 million. Again,
*- .L * [DOT]
June 11, 1991

people who have been subject to violent crime could have their money taken away from them.
Transportation includes federal transfers to provinces and municipalities for coastal marine transportation services, the establishment and operation of airports, and rail grade separations. Another $69 million is made vulnerable.
Equalization, which the government puts at $8.4 billion, is a big pocket to get into. Territorial financing for the territorial governments, another $1 billion is not going to be available to the federal government.
Perhaps the one that I enjoy the most-and I am sure my hon. friend from Kingston and the Islands will be happy to discover it-is that this government wants to put into this package grants in lieu of property taxes. The federal government makes grants to provincial and municipal governments instead of paying the property taxes levied on federal and diplomatic property. The grants to municipalities right now is estimated at $344 million.
In other words, if there is a hospital in Ontario which for some reason the government does not like the way it is operating, perhaps with user fees or whatever, it can turn around and say to the city of Kingston: "We are withholding all your money". It could say to the city of Ottawa: "We are just going to withhold your money, that is it; get the province in order".
What kind of terrorism are they setting in motion? They have the legislative authority to turn municipalities against the province and against the federal government. Is that co-operative federalism the former Minister of Finance waxed on eloquently when he had the luxury of being in opposition? Perhaps he never thought he would be government and have to take responsibility for this country. Perhaps some of the good news is that he no longer is responsible for the financing of this country and we will find a better way of doing things.
We consider that this new weapon in the arsenal of the federal government in its attack on this country is totally unsuitable. We will work as hard as we can to make
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Canadians familiar with this particular component of the legislation and to fight hard against it.
If that were all the bad news we would be saddened, but there is no end to the bad news from this government. The bill continues on to deal with the UI. It quietly announces a 30 per cent premium increase of $2.25 to about $2.85. We have to stop and think: this follows the legislation they are so happy about, Bill C-21, not two years ago in this House, after a long, bitter and acrimonious fight in which the government withdrew from the unemployment insurance and left it up to individuals and companies.
Now we find out that the premiums have to be raised because in the absence of government support the fund is in a great deal of debt. Is there any mention in this legislation or in the minister's speech about training? Did he say anything about training? No.
So here we have on the one hand the Prime Minister traipsing about the country, balloons going up about how interested the Department of Finance is in training issues and how incompetent the provincial governments are in education. What do we find in the legislation the government presents to the House. We find that it is capping the moneys and withdrawing moneys from post-secondary education.
The government talks about the unemployment insurance fund. Does it mention training? No. How do people get themselves back into the system if this government cannot even remember to mention it in a speech, let alone care to do something? It cannot even remember that it made a commitment.
The Conservatives come into this House and talk about the need for deficit cuts and so forth, and then they turn around and attack the working people of this country in a way which totally destroys their confidence that they will have a secure and full life in this country.
Until these attacks stop, the depression in this country and the uncertainty will continue. It is up to this Minister of Finance to show some leadership and to understand how a piece of legislation such as this is so destructive.
Recently this legislation and the budget were reviewed by the National Council of Welfare. This is an advisory group to the federal government. It published a report

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entitled Funding Health and Higher Education-Danger Looming. This has been a subject of much discussion in the last 10 days. It is an excellent report. It comes from an organization which has been researching in this area for 20 years. It has managed to do the fine balancing act of being a critic of the government and a creature of the government at the same time and of being a spokesperson for Canada's poor at the same time as being responsible in its judgments.
I have over the years used many of its documents as a researcher and can attest to the seriousness of it work. It became the centre of a controversy last week when it indicated that the cash payments being made to the provinces were about to disappear.
As the government well knows, there are two components to the transfers that it makes under, for example, the health programs. It makes a tax point transfer, most of it settled under the 1977 EPF arrangement, Established Programs Financing arrangement, but it also transfers cash. In the analysis done by the National Council of Welfare, those cash payments begin to disappear from the provinces. Those cash payments are first to disappear in Quebec within five years, and in the rest of the provinces and the territories within 15 years.
When we look at this analysis we begin to understand the dilemma of the federal government. It refuses to tax properly, and therefore it is cash short. It does not have a gross strategy for this country and therefore revenues are shrinking. It has a deficit that is mind-boggling, three-quarters of which has been created by its own stupidity. When we take those components we realize what the National Council of Welfare is warning us about. Then we go back and look at Bill C-20 and all of a sudden realize what this is all about.
The government is trying to move out of its traditional domain. While it talks of national standards and tries to introduce into the constitutional debate a discussion on national standards, it pulls its cash off the table. As it pulls its cash off the table, particularly in medicare, the provinces say: "Well, listen, we need this cash for medicare. We are having trouble. We are having to choose between education and medicare". The government shrugs and says: "Medicare is protected under the Canada Health Act and by the way under Bill C-20, if you mess around with that, we have all these other weapons and we will go after you there".
The National Council of Welfare points out the following in its remarks, which I think are vety good: "Health care and post-secondary education are undertakings vital to the well-being of Canadians". That should not have to be restated, but it does in this country right now because people are losing sight that that is one of the reasons we got together in the first place. It warns that people in poorer provinces will have to make due with health care services inferior to the services enjoyed by Canadians who happen to live in richer provinces if these measures go through.
Again, let us think about it. Let us think about my colleague from Gander-Grand Falls having to go back to his constituency and saying: "No matter how difficult life is in the province and no matter how much you struggle, the only news I have for you after this spring is higher UI premiums and the likelihood that your medicare system is not going to be as good. By the way, if you want to go on to post-secondary education, you can try the university in this province, you can pay your $3,000, but really it is getting to be better elsewhere in the country".
We cannot deal with families on that basis. We have to tell them they are there as fishermen, as loggers, as miners and as farmers. Sometimes there are good years; sometimes there are bad years. Sometime there have been bad years in the west. What are they supposed to do if medicare gets undermined? Do they live for three months in the farms of Manitoba and then go to Toronto for medicare during the winter?
What are the Conservatives thinking about? The National Council of Welfare is saying: "Be careful, this is the system you are setting in motion. We want you to pay attention to it because, if you let them put this into legislation, in 10 years you will wake up with no cash from the federal government". The federal government says that it does not have cash, that it will squeeze somewhere else, and that, by the way, it is trying to make a good constitutional deal for everybody to make them feel like this is a fair country.
That is why this government has no credibility and that is why the sooner it is gone the happier Canada will be.
There are some very specific recommendations coming from the national council report which are worth while presenting to the House. As this legislation moves to committee, I would like to see the committee consider
June 11, 1991

some of them and make sure that the legislation conforms to these important points.
First, the federal government should continue to play a significant financial role in both health care and post-secondary education.
Second, any changes in the financing of health and higher education should result from federal-provincial negotiations rather than being imposed by Ottawa. What a message.
After years of co-operative federalism beginning under Lester B. Pearson in the 1960s, after special deals made by Mackenzie King to ensure that UI became a national program, after the leadership shown by Paul Martin, Senior, in ensuring the medicare came into Canada despite federal-provincial problems, the development of regional development programs in the 1970s within the atmosphere of federal-provincial agreements, the extension of economic development ERDA agreements, the Economic and Regional Development Agreements in the early 1980s, we are all of a sudden starting the 1990s with an advisory group having to make the most elementary statement that Ottawa should not impose new agreements.
Why does that have to be stated? It has to be stated because nobody trusts this government any more, particularly the people concerned about social policy in this country.
Third, any new arrangements negotiated for financing health and higher education should focus on federal cash payments. A cliche in business, particularly small business, is: after a deal has been made, who has the cash? Maybe we should remember this in dealing with the federal government: Who has the cash?
They do not have it because they will not collect it and, because they do not have anything, they will not give it to the provinces. We know that the individual taxpayer in Canada has no cash, their provinces have no cash, and the feds say they have no cash. The big question right now is: Who has the cash?
The Minister of Finance went over the problem and said: "Oh, I don't have any cash, Mr. Opposition Party. You should know that". This country has cash, so who has the cash? If the biggest tax collector in the country is telling us that he does not have cash, where is it? Is it
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because they have wasted it and therefore should not be governing any more? Is it because they do not know how to collect it fairly? Why do they not have the cash? I ask the minister that question. Perhaps he can return to this point later on in his discussions.
Finally, federal funding for health care should be distinct from funding for post-secondary education. Federal legislation should stipulate that the cash received by a province for health and higher education is to be spent as intended.
I want to deal with one of the most subtle and dangerous changes in the fiscal arrangements in this country, by focusing attention on medicare which we can take for granted is one of the most important if not the most important programs we have, because when everything is said and done health is essential to life, and by building a corral around medicare we have to stop and think about what has been excluded. If we do not have cash for medicare, where do we find it? That is the question provincial ministers of finance have. You find it in post-secondary education. So many provinces have been guilty of stealing moneys from the post-secondary field to cover up other fields.
It is stealing from their future. It is stealing from students who need a first class education. I do not mean 50, 60 students in a political science class whose books are four years old. That is kidding ourselves. People who have language skills, people who you can trade with- how can you have a world trading system, as these ministers talk about, if you do not have people who can speak many languages? How can you speak many languages if you do not get trained?
You talk about going into Asia. Who are you talking about going into Asia and what skills are they going to have?
You talk about selling our wheat to new markets or developing new products in the wheat markets. Where is that research going to be done? You do not do that by reading a four year old book at a university library. You do it in first class facilities.
The National Council on Welfare is absolutely correct to say: "stop the stealing from education because nobody notices it today or yesterday". All of a sudden down the line everybody is going to notice it, everybody is going to

June 11, 1991
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be in a panic and then it may be too late because you cannot create a new student. You cannot create a new university library. You cannot create a new community college by going "presto, it's here". This takes time and a lot of effort and if we do not start now, it will take us 20 years to catch up.
These are the comments on Bill C-20. As you can see, we have serious reservations about it. We are very concerned about the ongoing cutbacks to the transfer payments to the provinces. We think it is a strategy not developed in a realistic way in the context of program development, of tax reform, of deficit reduction.
We are as concerned as the government about the debt that it has created, and let the records show that it is their debt and no one else's debt. It had a finance minister there for seven years. He knew what the debt was. He projected every year that he would be doing a better job. He failed. It was turned over to a new minister. It is too late for them, but the country is saddled with $400 billion worth of errors.
This party is very sensitive to the need to reduce that deficit, but it is also, as I have indicated in my speech, it is something that is not done on the backs of farmers-and this is documented-of municipalities, of provinces, of people who are vulnerable in the society. You do not build strength by attacking the weakest.
This attack on the weak should not go unchallenged and, thus, our party opposes this legislation and will continue to challenge it.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Madam Speaker, we have had a remarkable demonstration this morning of the smugness of this government. We are confronted with economic conditions across this country which are damaging human beings, destroying communities, making our opportunities for the future as a country more narrow, making our potential for our young people more constrained. That is the reality of our economy across Canada in 1991.
The New Democratic Party has just completed an economic recovery tour of 15 communities. We talked to over 75 groups, groups ranging from farm groups, women's groups, co-operatives, groups representing aboriginal Canadians, to trade unions, to business groups, from those representing large scale business, like the Bank of
a
::
Nova Scotia, to those representing small scale business H like Caplan Retail Stores in Hamilton.	I
The message which has come to us is not a message	I
such as the Minister of Finance tried to present to this	I
House this morning. He suggested to people that every-	I
thing was really moving ahead, that this government was	H
on track and that the economy was moving into a	H
recovery which was going to be durable. Those were his	I
words.	*
I have to say that this minister and this government is	I
certainly on track. It is on track in leading this country	I
into the worst period of economic experience that this	I
country has felt for a long period of time, since the 1930s.	I
We go back to the recession of 1981-82. There is no	I
question that the Liberal Party at that time led us into a	I
recession which was attacked by the Conservatives on	I
that side of the House because it demonstrated to those	I
Conservatives that the Liberals did not care about	I
people. The Conservatives may have been right, that the	I
Liberals did not care about people. What the Conserva-	I
tives have done in their economic management of this	I
economy is to demonstrate that not only can they repeat	I
the mistakes of the Liberals in the early part of the	I
1980s, but they can do so with a callousness, coldness and	I
lack of concern for the future of our entire country,	I
which as we enter 1991, really puts our country at risk.	I
We had a set of hearings in Montreal. A great many	I
francophone groups came before us. They were groups H such as the Union of Quebec Farm Producers, the UPA, I the Confederation of National Trade Unions, the repre- I sentatives of the environmental groups and social devel- H opment groups in Quebec. Many of these groups had	I
already given up in expressing their view of where	I
Canada and Quebec should go in the future.	I
They had said: "Quebec should become independent." I Why? Because these groups demonstrated to us how I devastating the economic policy of this government was I to the every day Quebecer, to the person who does the I work to make that society go forward. Yet this govern- I ment says: "We are on track."	I
I quote not from something that the New Democratic I Party has written, not from something that comes from a H trade union, a farm group or any of those popular groups I across this country that we talked to during our hearings, I
June 11, 1991

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but from a publication which came out yesterday, "The Business Review" of the Bank of Montreal.
This is not exactly a socialist document. This is something from one of the largest business corporations in the country, the Bank of Montreal. What does it say? It says:
The current recession has clearly been much more severe than
earlier expected.
Do you remember what the government told us just six months ago, back last fall? They said: "This is a temporary slowdown, just a brief pause for us to get our breath". Well it has turned out that they were wrong with respect to that. The current recession has been much more severe than earlier expected.
This government has also said: "Well, the rest of the world is experiencing recession". Let me quote again from the Bank of Montreal:
In Germany and Japan, on the other hand, a slowdown is currently
underway but there seems no likelihood that in either country, a
recession will develop.
This government has tried to call this a slowdown. It is not a slowdown, it is a reversal. It is a destruction of economic growth in this country, a reversal which has reduced the level of output in Canada. Germany and Japan are not experiencing that and are not expected to experience it according to economic observers such as the Bank of Montreal.
The minister suggested to us this morning that things are rosy, that there are many positive indicators; housing starts, manufacturing shipments, business confidence is growing.
Let us look at the reality. The reality is, and again this comes not from the New Democratic Party, but from the Department of Finance's own publication which came out this past Friday. It indicates that the GST revenues collected in the last fiscal quarter were higher than estimated in the February 1991 budget, by $400 million. That is $400 million on a base of $1.8 billion.
In fact, this government has collected from the pockets of Canadians, 25 per cent more than it told Canadians it was going to collect-25 per cent more in GST. The minister considers that a positive indicator. Let me tell you, there are many constituents of mine and many people across this country I have talked to who say that is
precisely the problem. This government is taking the money from peoples' pockets which would otherwise be spent on goods and services and keeping people at work in this country.
The minister says positive indicators. He did not happen to mention the unemployment rate on Friday, which went up from the previous month to 10.3 per cent, an unemployment rate increase which includes a loss of jobs for our young people in this country, a loss of jobs for young men for a total of 13,000.
The seasonally adjusted figures for unemployment itself indicated that 15,000 more people were unemployed in this country last month. Is that a positive indicator? If we compare the unemployment figures that were just announced Friday with last year, what is the reality?
The reality is that full-time employment in this country of ours decreased by 330,000 jobs since April of last year. Surely it is not possible for this government to say that these are positive signs for the future of our country.
This decrease is not just in the goods producing area, the manufacturing sector which has been hit so hard. There were 174,000 jobs lost there, but 65,000 jobs were also lost in the service producing sector.
We have seen, brought home to us in these kinds of statistics, that this is not a country enjoying a durable recovery. This is a country still experiencing recession. When we move into recovery-eventually we will have to move into recovery because that is how business cycles work-what sort of recovery is it going to be?
Again, let me quote from the Bank of Montreal which is usually on the government's side. It does not say that it is going to be a durable recovery. No. It says that it is going to be a weak recovery. To quote:
Weak income growth is expected to be one of the main
impediments preventing a more robust recovery.
Expansion is expected to be sluggish. Maybe this government is satisfied with a sluggish, weak recovery. Let me tell you that you have lost 330,000 jobs in a year. To see a sluggish recovery and be satisfied with it is surely shameful. In my view, there is no question that this government is far too smug about what is happening.
Interest rates in this country are still far too high. The gap between us and the United States of 3 percentage points is far higher than anything that we had historically

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between Canada and the United States in the past. We have never had that 3 per cent rate.
The dollar's value now is consistently over 87 cents American. Every single institution that you speak to in this country, from the government's own Economic Council to the Canadian Exporter's Association and the trade union groups that are being hit so hard in terms of jobs by this recession, says one thing with a single voice. The government succeeded in bring labour and business together on the one single, dominant point that the dollar in this country is far too high and that we have to reduce interest rates further so that we get a competitive level of dollar. The Economic Council, the government's own body, has suggested 78 or 80 cents.
We have a government that has changed the unemployment insurance system so that there are far more people being forced into the destructive experience of having to receive welfare payments to keep their families together.
We have seen the destruction of our manufacturing base. We need investment in the future, in training, in research and development, in new institutions to channel capital into the rebuilding of our manufacturing sector.
This government is giving us none of that kind of leadership. Instead, it gives us the bill that is in front of us this morning. This legislation is as mean-minded, penny-pinching and as non-creative as any of its previous legislation in the last seven years.
What we have in front of us is a piece of legislation which takes, at a time of a national unity crisis, the present level of support to the provincial governments and it says "we are going to cut that level of support even more in the future". It breaks its promises to the provinces with this piece of legislation, and assumes that somehow that is going to contribute to national unity.
Anybody who has any sensitivity, any sense of concern about the future unity of our country, has surely got to say to these people "for the sake of a united Canada, don't do this; don't destroy the promises that have been made in the past". These promises were broken last year, and this year the government has gone on to break them for a further three years, to 1994-95.
You cannot expect, if it continues in this way, to see medicare, which the people of this country care about so much, survive. You cannot squeeze a good system, a system which is performing so much better than its equivalent in the United States. The United States has a system where Americans spend over $2,200 U.S. per year per person for their coverage while Canadians spend under $1,600 per year per person. It costs on average for Americans $360 per day to stay in American hospitals, compared to $210 in Canada.
Here is a system that is helping our competitiveness, helping our capacity to deal effectively with competition from the United States, by giving us a much more effective, much more human, much more accessible program and the government is attacking it by cutting back the funds that are going to it.
My colleague, our health critic, is going to be talking more about this as this debate goes forward because this is one of the most dangerous parts of this piece of legislation. The government says it is going to be able to withhold other cash transfers. All that will do is increase the squeeze on the provinces, increase the conflicts with the provinces.

As we struggle with unity problems, is it wise to cut back transfer payments to the provinces? I do not think so, Madam Speaker.

There are other parts to this legislation too. There are amendments which reduce the ease with which members' salaries will increase. We have no problem with that. There are amendments to the Public Utilities Income Tkx Transfer Act. Some of my colleagues will be talking to that. There are amendments to the Unemployment Insurance Act. Some of my colleagues will be focusing on that. Over-all, what we have here in front of us is another example of the constipated, devastating approach that this government has been taking to management of our economy. People across this country are hurting and hurting badly as a result.
All I can hope is that this debate will bring this government to its senses, that it will somehow start to recognize that it must change direction for the future good of our country and of our people.
June 11, 1991


Mr. George S. Baker (Gander-Grand Falls):: Madam Speaker, I would like to put a few words on the record with respect to the legislation which is before the House today, to amend certain acts in order to really enforce the budget that was brought in and, specifically, the federal transfers fiscal arrangements act, which really affects the money transferred to provincial governments from the federal treasury.
The Minister of Finance made a statement in this Chamber a few moments ago which I am going to disprove. I am going to lay on the Table of the House facts that are directly contrary to what this Minister of Finance said today and what the Government of Canada said in its budget. They said that although there were cuts to the provincial governments for education and health and equalization payments, the actual dollar figure was not cut. That is what the government is saying. It is saying that the rate of increase has been cut back, but that there is no actual dollar for dollar cut to the provincial treasuries.
I have with me the official charts given to me by officials from the Department of Finance. They show some interesting facts. They show that, for example, that the province of Newfoundland will receive for this year $16.9 million less than they received last year under equalization.
What is equalization? Equalization, as defined by the Minister of Finance, is, and I quote from a letter that he wrote to me.
-a formula set out in legislation that compares provincial governments in their abilities to raise revenues from the revenue sources typically used by all provincial governments.
In other words, a provincial government is sent every month a sum of money. The poorer provinces now, to make up for the revenues they could have received if they had the ability to raise money through taxes that the other provinces are able to raise through taxes, are given equalization.
That defines, then, what the poorer provinces are in Canada in total amounts of money. What are the poorer provinces in Canada, the top three?
The province that will receive the most money in equalization from the federal government is Quebec. Of the total equalization package of $8.4 billion this year, Quebec will receive about $4 billion, Manitoba about $1
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billion, and Nova Scotia about $1 billion. Therefore, in total amounts of money being transferred to the provincial governments from the federal Treasury, the top three in total equalization to the poorer provinces are Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.
In looking at the figures year over year, here is the way they work out in equalization. The largest increase in equalization payments for this year will be to the province of Manitoba at $90 million more than it received last year. This is according to the federal Treasury. Then comes the Northwest Territories, which is is under what is called "territorial financing". It does not receive an equalization payment as a provincial government but will receive territorial financing of $90 million. Next comes Saskatchewan, which will receive an extra $70 million; then comes Quebec, which will receive an extra $60 million; then comes the territory of Yukon, which will receive an additional $36 million; and then there is New Brunswick; which will get an additional $25 million; Nova Scotia comes next and will receive an extra $23 million; then comes Prince Edward Island, which will get an additional $5 million.
Those are the increases in equalization for the year 1991-1992, as outlined by the Federal Department of Finance.
Madam Speaker, you will notice that I only read out nine provinces and two territories. I left out a province. I left out a province because that province is not receiving an increase. That province is receiving a decrease. It is not just a decrease of $1 million or $2 million or $3 million or $4 million or $5 million or even $10 million. No. It is a decrease of $20 million this year. Here it is on the official record, in French and English, if the Minister of Finance does not understand it. The province of Newfoundland will receive less money this year in federal equalization than it received last year.
Fet us not forget it is not just equalization payments we are talking about but the total transfers to the provinces. In other words, the federal government pays money to the poorer provinces to make up for the fact that they are poorer provinces and cannot raise the revenues from taxation that other provinces can raise. It is not only that. The transfers are also for health and education. They are for grants in lieu of property taxes, reciprocal taxation, public utilities, income tax transfers, statutory subsidies, youth allowance recovery, tax points for this and tax points for that. But if we add it all up, it is

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called the total transfers to the provincial governments from the federal Treasury.
The total transfers to the provincial governments are interesting numbers. This upcoming year we will see total transfers of $36,472 billion, $36.4 billion. The provinces receiving the most in Canada are Quebec and Ontario at $10 billion apiece. It is then British Columbia at $3.2 billion, Alberta at $2.7 billion, Manitoba at $1.98 billion, Nova Scotia at $1.78 billion, New Brunswick at $1,623 billion, Saskatchewan at $1,453 billion, and down it goes to include the territories as well. Newfoundland is ninth. The big three in equalization payments, as I pointed out, are Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.
I mention all of that to show on the official record that the Minister of Finance is wrong. There is a province in Canada that is receiving less equalization this year than last year. There is a province in Canada that is receiving less in total transfers this year than last year, and that is the province of Newfoundland.
If that were not enough, another strange thing happened this year. You will notice that on these charts that I am going to table it says estimated federal transfers to the provinces, territories and municipalities for the fiscal year. The reason why it says estimated transfers is that these transfers are made prior to the federal government knowing how much is actually owed to the provincial governments.
In other words, at the beginning of every year the government makes an estimate for that year and sends a cheque in the mail toward the end of the month so that the provincial governments will get it at the end of the month. The total figure for the year is an estimate and at the end of the year the government then reassesses that estimate. After all of the figures are in, in 36 months hence, three years, it will determine the actual amount of money that should have gone to those provincial governments.
What happens from time to time under these fiscal arrangements is that provincial governments are either owed money or they sometimes have to pay back money to the federal Treasury.
Last March in the federal Department of Finance in Ottawa an audit was done on the fiscal transfers to the
provinces. They found out the amount of money that provinces get through taxation on cigarettes, booze, gasoline and all other taxes.
rrhey added it up and found the actual dollar figure that each province received, the amount the government paid them, the amount the provinces thought they were going to receive in equalization transfers and then the final accounting was done. At the end of March of last year the federal government found that there were four provinces in Canada who were overpaid, from three years ago. Those four provinces were Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
Do you know what that means? It means that now those provinces have to pay the money back. There is a formula for paying back the money and they have to pay it back at no more than $60 per head of population in any one year. Let us look at the figures. Who owes the money?
For all of Atlantic Canada in 1988 the Atlantic provinces owe $90 million to the federal Treasury. For 1989 they owe $85 million to the federal Treasury. What is interesting is that of the $90 million owed for the year 1988, the province of Newfoundland owes, according to the federal Department of Finance, $37 million. Thirty seven million dollars of the $90 million owed by the four Atlantic provinces was overpaid to the province of Newfoundland, according to the Department of Finance.
In 1989, of the $85 million that was overpaid to the four Atlantic provinces, it claims that Newfoundland was overpaid $34 million. As I explained a moment ago, the repayment schedule of limiting the amount of money to $60 per head of population per year, so as not to overburden a government every year, means that Newfoundland will be paying back that money for three fiscal years.
In other words, the only province in Canada that is paying back the federal treasury for money that the federal government claims was overpaid to them in 1988 and 1989, the only province that has to pay it back for this year and for a portion of next year, is the province of Newfoundland because the federal Treasury says: "You were paid too much money in 1988 and 1989".
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Add those two facts together. Add together the fact that dollar for dollar the province of Newfoundland this year will receive far less than they got last year, and the fact that they now have to pay back millions of dollars. The cheques are sent out every two weeks, back to the federal government here in Ottawa for money that the federal government claims, and the books show the province was overpaid in 1988 and 1989.
If you were in a position to say: now, in which provincial government would I like to be the Minister of Finance? It certainly would not be the province of Newfoundland, would it? Here you are being cut back on your equalization payments, dollar for dollar, by the Government of Canada. You are being cut back on your transfer payments dollar for dollar and on top of that, you have to pay back money it claims was paid in this case to a previous government. Imagine that, a previous government. There was a Progressive Conservative government, a Tory government in power in the province of Newfoundland in 1988 and 1989.


An hon. member:: They did not ask for the money then.


George Baker: The Government of Canada says: Oh, we overpaid them then, so now we are sending a bill to the Newfoundland treasury and you are going to have to pay it back in three years. On top of that, we are not only going to make you pay back what the Tory government got three years ago, but we are going to cut back dollar for dollar what you get in equalization and total transfers. We are going to single you out and we are going to cut you back dollar for dollar. The government loses $16.9 million in one area and $20 million in another area. Why? According to these estimates, not only are its cash transfers down, but its total transfers are down. Its fiscal equalization is down. Its cash subtotal is down. Its general purpose transfers are down for this year, and the Minister of Finance stands up in the House and says no province is being cut. He is saying oh, there is a reduction, yes, but all provinces are getting more than they got last year.
Oh, no, that is not correct. In fact, they are not only getting less than they got last year, but they have to pay back money they got four years ago. Add to that the Minister of Finance in the province of Newfoundland paying back money the former Tory government got three years ago. Here you are trying to plan your budget
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and they are saying: "We are going to give you a lot less than you got last year, dollar for dollar". On top of that there is the federal government imposing a 7 per cent new tax that takes 7 per cent out of the economy of every provincial government in Canada.
I must say for the official record that I heard a newsman interview Premier Clyde Wells and ask him about the money owed. The premier said: "If Newfoundland owes it, then Newfoundland will pay it back. If we rightfully owe it on the books, in the accounting, then we will pay it back." Other leaders would have declared a day of mourning and had everybody in the province walking around with black arm bands, carrying coffins down the street. They would. Any other previous administration would have done that. But the premier of Newfoundland said that if we owe it we are going to pay it. You have to admire a man like that for his honesty and integrity, his apolitical approach to the entire question.
I think it is an outrageous thing for the Government of Canada to do and I ask them to do two things. First of all,forgive the overpayment. After all, we just forgave moneys that were owed to Canada by several foreign nations and several foreign banks. Secondly, and I will conclude with this, Madam Speaker, I know you are trying to get me to sit down; we should have a formula that says no province should actually lose money, dollar over dollar from last year, to ease the pain for those provincial administrations.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member knows that the only thing I was trying to do was tell him that his time had expired. There was no reflection upon what he was saying.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to what the hon. member had to say. I wondered if there was an implication in what he was suggesting about the request for repayment of moneys from Newfoundland that perhaps the overpayment was politically motivated in 1988 because there was a Newfoundland election coming up, and perhaps the government was trying to bail out its Tory friends.
Then in 1990 the money was demanded back after the Conservative government in Newfoundland was thrown out and the people lifted the yoke of Toryism off their backs, as it were, in that election. I know they wish they had done so successfully federally as well. I wonder if he

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could tell us if he thinks that the demand for payment was politically motivated. Does he feel that the Conservative government in Ottawa, having failed in its attempt to bail out its Conservative friends in Newfoundland, felt that it should demand this money back in order to burden, or punish, the people of Newfoundland for having voted other than Conservative? Is he suggesting that in his speech? If so, does he think it is a proper way for a federal government, that is supposedly bent on national unity, to behave?


George Baker: Madam Speaker, there have been people who have suggested to me that perhaps the previous PC government in Newfoundland, faced with an election, gave an overestimate of the amount of equalization moneys that were due. I do not hold that opinion because I believe that although the system does lend itself to the possibility of that happening, it is not based on the amount of money that is transferred, but on an estimate. It is a guess by the federal government how much money a provincial government would be able to collect if it had the same fiscal capacity through taxation as the other so-called wealthier provinces.
I think it was an honest mistake on the part of the federal treasury. I do not believe though that any federal government should turn around and ask Premier Wells or any provincial premier in this nation to pay back money that a previous administration was given three years before.
What I was reading here-and I can table this-is a letter to me from the Minister of Finance explaining the entire procedure and explaining why Newfoundland is the only province in Canada paying back money this year and next. The other three provinces received over-payments that were so little they could pay it back in one year, you see. This is why he went into extensive detail to explain to me why Newfoundland was singled out. And then he attached, for my benefit, the charts that showed again that Newfoundland was singled out. On top of this, Newfoundland was the only province in Canada that received a reduction in its total transfers. He also pointed out in the chart that Newfoundland is ninth in the amount of money received from the federal Treasury-ninth of all the provinces. Newfoundland is not in
the top three provinces that receive equalization money from the federal Treasury.


Dennis Joseph Mills: Madam Speaker, I would like to direct a short comment to my colleague. I think it is important to point out the timing. When you first mentioned this incident, the question that came to my mind was that if all of a sudden I got an extra thousand dollars on my pay cheque at the end of the month, wouldn't I know? It would be up to me to go to the payroll clerk and say "here, you have made a mistake". So, I thought that surely to goodness, if there were millions and millions of extra dollars coming into a treasury, the recipient would have noticed that this tremendous sum of money was over and above what he should have received. It would be incumbent on the recipient to go back to the giver and say: "Hey, you have made a mistake, we did not expect this".
I initially wondered why the Liberal government would not have picked that up. But my colleague has just informed me that the Liberal government was not the recipient. In other words, they discovered it quite a bit later and they were not involved in the transaction. I think it is important for the member to comment on the time lapse between the original recipient and when the new government found out.


George Baker: Madam Speaker, that is a very interesting point.
According to this letter from the Minister of Finance which I received just the other day, the former Progressive Conservative government of Newfoundland received $71 million more than they should have received-$71 million.
Well, as the hon. member has just pointed out, surely to goodness they should have at least looked at it and said: "Well, my goodness, where are we getting this extra money from?" I mean, it is $71 million. It is not $5 million or $10 million or $20 million-it is $71 million.
Certainly, it should have been incumbent upon them to say: "This is a rather exorbitant amount of money we are receiving."
The points made here today have not even been mentioned publicly before to my knowledge. Is it legitimate for Newfoundland to receive less money this year than last year and have to pay back all this money?
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Perhaps it was a legitimate exercise, if it was politically motivated at the time. I think it was a legitimate exercise. The Government of Newfoundland has taken a position as I mentioned before. The premier says: "If it is on the books and Newfoundland owes it, brother, we are going to pay it". It is a very honourable position for the premier of Newfoundland to take.
Certainly, as I said before, there are a lot of politicians in this country who would have been very political and would have been beating the drum. They would have made political hay out of it. The premier of Newfoundland did not do that, but the premier of Newfoundland then has to turn around and cut his budgets.
There was cut, cut, cut everywhere to make up for this money that they have to pay back every month. Every two weeks they send a cheque to pay back. They have to make up for all this money, the actual dollar for dollar cut year after year. They have to pay back.
How can the Newfoundland government respect its commitments at all, having to do that? If you wanted to be a minister of finance, you sure would not want to be one in the province of Newfoundland.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Madam Speaker, the legislation before us has dire consequences for what we determine to be the poorest provinces.
There are provisions for cutting back on transfers to provinces. I understand the point the member for Gander-Grand Falls is making about the injustice of the situation, but I just want to ask him a general question.
There was a report put out by the National Council of Welfare this year called "Funding Health and Higher Education: Things are Looming". In this document, there is a chart on page 30 which shows that Newfoundland, for example, by the year 2005 will have its cash outlays cut to pretty well nothing.
I want to ask the member: How in the world can this country stay together if the richer provinces can continue to give services in the health field, in post-secondary education field and others, such as CAP, and the poorer provinces are called upon in less than 15 years to do without the federal contributions assisting them in main-
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taming these very good and very Canadian programs? That is, I think, a very important question.


George Baker: Madam Speaker, that is perhaps the most important question of all.
As you know, Madam Speaker, we all share the opinion that the two most important things that government has to look at are health and education, hospitals and schools. My goodness gracious, if there is something that you would not touch, something that you would hold up and say: "I am not going to touch that as a budget, it has got to be hospitals."
My goodness, you would never cut back on the expenditure to hospitals, but what has happened here is this. The federal treasury gives what we call "block funding" and no longer gives dollar for dollar. When the federal government cuts back on block funding, the provincial government then has to find the dollars from some other place.
It just cannot be done because you cannot take your entire funding for wages and salaries of public employees and put it into trying to keep hospitals going.
You have to pay salaries. You have to do maintenance on your roads and so on. That is what the provincial governments are left with. In the case of Newfoundland-now that chart is interesting-we are practically down to zero. No money at all under block funding. If hospitals are to be kept open in Newfoundland, the provincial government has to take the money from everything else. That is a tragedy.


Pierre H. Vincent: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak at the second reading stage of Bill C-20.
It was not my intention to comment on federal payments to the province of Newfoundland, but after the hon. member's speech, I feel I should set the record straight.
First of all, federal transfer payments to the provinces, including Newfoundland, are statutory and subject to certain calculations, to ensure that annually, and I would

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almost say in advance, the provinces receive the money to which they are entitled under a number of existing programs.
When I hear the hon. member complain that Newfoundland has to pay back money to the federal government, I may remind him that the amount Newfoundland received was more than the amount to which it was entitled after the final calculations were made. I will get back to this later.
So in this case, it is perfectly normal for Newfoundland to pay the money back to the federal government, as it would be for any other province, whether we are talking about Alberta or British Columbia or Quebec. All the provinces are governed by the same legislation. Madam Speaker, the hon. member also said-and I am not sure how he figured this out-that Newfoundland would receive less money this year or the year after. This is just not true. In 1991-92, Newfoundland will receive more money under all programs-I will elaborate on some of these later on-than it received in 1990-91. This applies to all programs, including equalization, established programs financing, and so forth.
I wanted to set the record straight because the hon. member got carried away by his subject, with figures that were probably inaccurate, but my point is, Newfoundland was not penalized in any way.
To get back to Bill C-20, the proposed legislation affects several areas. The two main ones are federal-provincial fiscal arrangements and the Parliament of Canada Act. When we talk about federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, we must be careful because there are several kinds. In Quebec, when we talk about federal money, the first word that comes to mind is equalization. This is one kind of transfer payment. There is also established programs financing.
Very briefly, established programs financing involves money that is distributed annually by the federal government to all provinces on an equal basis. Each province gets the same amount per capita, and whether I happen to live in Newfoundland, British Columbia or Quebec, the federal government sends the same amount.
Equalization-which is different-is a special program to help provinces who need more assistance in funding health care and education. Equalization payments are received annually by the four Atlantic provinces, Quebec and occasionally Manitoba.
And here is another distinction: federal money goes to the provinces in two forms: as tax points and as cash.
This year, the federal government will give Quebec about $11 billion. It does this through the equalization program and EPF, established programs financing. How does the government pay? That is indeed the question. There are two ways: tax points and cash. Mainly in Quebec, the amount paid in the form of tax points is much higher. Madam Speaker, perhaps you will remember that when you files your income tax return like all Quebecers, and I see it was a delightful experience, there was one line on the return for Quebec residents where it shows 16.5 per cent, because Quebec collects more income tax from its residents than the other provinces. This means that the amount on the cheque the federal government sends to the Province of Quebec is not as high, because the province has already collected the difference via the tax return you filed on April 30 like any good Quebecer.
So we have two programs under which Quebec receives money, and two ways in which the federal government pays the money to the province: income tax collected directly by the province from Quebec residents and the amount on the cheque sent by Ottawa.
Madam Speaker, recently there were reports and comments by various sources to the effect that in a few years, Quebec would no longer be receiving money from Ottawa. That is probably what will happen. It does not mean that the federal government gives the province less money. In fact-and I will quote the figures later on-the annual amount received by the Province of Quebec, like the amount received by the hon. member's Province of Ontario or by any other province, increases every year, but the amount on the cheque written by the federal government may go down because the province may be collecting more money directly in the form of income tax.
Madam Speaker, perhaps I may quote a few figures that are vital to this discussion and also to opposition members' understanding of Bill C-20 and that of the general public as well.
In 1984-85, Quebec received $8.1 billion from the federal government, which means $1,256 per capita. The federal government paid the province the equivalent of $1,256 per capita in 1984-85. For 1990-91, the amount is $10.1 billion, which means $1,503 per capita will be
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received by Quebec in 1990-91, as money transferred by the federal government to the provinces.


An hon. member:: What would it have been otherwise?
The hon. member says: what would it have been otherwise? That is not the point. The point is that annually, the federal government transfers more to the provinces percentage-wise that it spends on program spending. The federal government's expenditures are around 3 per cent per year, and we have maintained that so far, despite the fact that the opposition keeps telling us to reduce the deficit and at the same time spend more. We are working on the deficit, and we are maintaining increases in program spending at 3 per cent, the exception being transfers to the provinces that are now growing at a rate of almost 4 per cent per year.
So we have to keep these figures in mind. If we look at the provincial governments, Madam speaker, we see that the increase there is about 6 per cent. Well, the national debt is very national. It is the debt of all Canadians. Whether I live in British Columbia or Prince Edward Island, as a Canadian I have to cope with a problem that is called the national debt. Today, the national debt is more than $15,000 per individual, per Canadian. Each and everyone of us, from new born babies to senior citizens, is $15,000 in debt. Something must be done.
The measures taken by the federal government are in some cases draconian. I admit.
Last Friday, I took part in a lunchtime open line radio program at the CHLM radio station in Trois-Rivieres and the announcer, Michel Charland, was saying that Canadians feel they are paying a lot of taxes, if not too much. My reply was this: "It is true that we are heavily taxed, but we have many services and an enormous debt." This debt, Madam Speaker, has to be paid off; otherwise-if we keep increasing our spending by 6,7 or 8 per cent every year-the future generations will not be able to even dream of any new programs.
Just think, Madam Speaker, that 35 cents out of every tax dollar collected by the federal government is taken up to pay, not the capital, but the interest on this debt we inherited from the Liberal government. Let us call a spade a spade. When we came into office, the accumu-
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lated debt was $200 billion. Granted, it has increased. But, Madam Speaker, the national debt has grown by the amount of the interest payments we have had to make every year. Had it not been for this debt we inherited in 1984 and the interest to be paid on it, there would not be a annual deficit.
The Opposition gets angry, Madam Speaker, when we mention the debt they left us but it is the truth. There is a debt and we have to live with it.
But, I would like to come back to Bill C-20, if I may. The good thing about this, Madam Speaker, is that it wakes them up to hear me talk about their debt and our debt. I was just trying to explain to my colleague opposite that, had it not been for the interest we had to pay on these $200 billion, we would not have ended up with an annual deficit and, with no annual deficit, the debt would not have increased. It is as simple as that. So, 35 cents out of every tax dollar goes to pay the interest on our debt, the debt of all Canadians.
Madam Speaker, the federal government must continue on the course set out in 1984 and administer while recognizing, provincial needs regarding education, health, etc. Let me give you more figures, Madam Speaker. In 1992-93, Quebec will receive $10.8 billion from the federal government. That's $1,575 per capita. You will remember that I said that, this year, it is $1,503.
So, there is indeed an annual increase, and I could give the figures for all the provinces, Madam Speaker, because they will all get more next year that they got this year. Now, Bill C-20 calls for a reduction in this increase, so that the provinces can do their share and help us deal with the national debt and deficit problem we are faced with.
We could increase transfer payments further. That could be done, but the question would remain: where shall the money come from? If the national debt could be paid off tomorrow morning, which would mean no more deficit, we would not have to pay interest charges anymore. We would then have about $30 billion available every year to create programs to help Canadians, $30 billion to develop new programs, create jobs and make life yet easier for the people of Quebec and Canada. This is the amount we have to use right now to pay interest charges. The limit on the credit card has been reached,

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Madam Speaker, as it was in 1984. And what we have been trying to do ever since is precisely to pay off the interest on the debt and, by 1994, no longer have to borrow so that we can start paying back our debt the normal way, the way a country is normally administered. That is one of the aspects covered in Bill C-20.
As you know, Madam Speaker, in 1984, the federal government was spending $15 billion more, not $15 million but $15 billion-we are not talking peanuts here-every year than was coming in. The Canadian people were getting $15 billion more, in programs of all kinds, thant they were paying for in taxes. This contributed to the annual increase in the deficit and the national debt.
This year, we will be spending $10 billion less on programs than we will be collecting in taxes. Now, that's good management! That is what all the people who are watching us do, how the head of the family manages the household budget: they spend a little less than they earn and set some money aside. And that is what we have managed to do over the past five years. In just five years, we turned a $15 billion deficit in a $10 billion profit, a $25 billion improvement. It was no easy task. How did we do it? We made unpopular but necessary cuts and increased taxes a tad. But 70 percent of these $25 billion that have changed columns come from cuts within government, while 30 percent come from increased taxes. The tax increase was only 30 percent, not 100 percent, as the Opposition said. To achieve this turnaround, we brought government spending down by 70 percent, and more needs to be done, Madam Speaker. All is not well yet. There is one major outstanding problem.
There is nothing I would like better, Madam Speaker, than to hear the Opposition say they agree with Bill C-20. The time has come to work all together, the NDP and the Liberals along with the government, to settle the financial situation of the country. Among industrialized countries, Canada is the one with the largest debt. Every Canadian man and woman is $15,000 into debt without having received anything for it. I think that of members opposite for Bill C-20 the support.
There is another aspect of this legislation that I have heard hardly any comment about so far and that is the freeze on the salaries payable to the members of Parliament, including government members, opposition members, Cabinet members and the Prime Minister. Bill C-20 contains a provision whereby, next year, the percentage increase of the MPs and ministers' salaries would not exceed the average percentage in the public service of Canada. That is to say that, if federal civil servants do not get a raise, neither will the hon. members. And you are well aware that we are not necessarily planning on giving civil servants a raise.
So, I hope the opposition will support this piece of legislation to set an example for all Canadians. By voting against Bill C-20, they will be voting for a raise. I think that, in these difficult times, as they take such malicious pleasure to point out, the members opposite should join members of Cabinet and government members to show leadership and do what has to be done.
The other provision of Bill C-20 which did not get much publicity is the four-year freeze on the operating and capital budgets of all federal departments. This means that if next year a department wants to set up something new or increase its operations, it will not be able to get new money. It will not be able to knock on Treasury Board's door or ask the Minister of Finance or anyone else. It can't say: I need extra money for my budget because I have a special item. That won't work. All capital spending and operating budgets are frozen.
If they want to get around that, it will take another bill to allow department X to spend more than was provided in its budget for 1990-91. It would take another bill, so I imagine that frozen means frozen.
In concluding, Madam Speaker, and I see you are signalling that my time is almost up, I want to make it quite clear that all monies collected under the GST, as well as all revenue from privatization operations, will be used only to reduce our national debt. This money will not be used for new programs, new budgets or anything else. I think that is important, and that it will help improve our quality of life and the economic situation in this country.


Mr. Rey Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, I would like to make a few comments and perhaps pose a couple of questions to the hon. member in debating this bill.
June 11, 1991

I think the hon. member is trying to make a case that Canadians should be preoccupied with the deficit of money, but not the deficit of lives. In this bill there will be a cut in funding to provinces, a cut in education, a cut in health care. Many other complications are also emanating from this bill before us today.
In matters of education, I would like to indicate to the House that a consequence of cuts in funding to transfer payments to the provinces will be a cut to post-secondary education. We already know that over one million children are poor in this country and that one of the consequences of poverty is dropping out of school. We have heard Canadians tell us, and it has been debated in this House, that we should be competitive in the world. I ask the hon. member, if we do not have an educated citizenry how can we have a competitive citizenry?
In pursuing the economic argument, I wonder if the hon. member has read the Senate report on poverty released in January of this year. There is a beautiful analysis in the document telling us that if you spent $5 billion today for the poor of our country and for the poor children, you would reduce the number of school dropouts by 186,000. Over a period of 20 years there would be a net return of some $27 billion.
I would like to ask the hon. member if he disagrees with this well-researched analysis. Will he agree that it is not deficit spending to spend $5 billion today when you can, in return, get $27 million in productivity, in revenues, in payment to the unemployment insurance program, in reduced claims from the unemployment insurance program and in reduced claims from social assistance programs?
I would like to see the economics of this government.
While I am on my feet, I would just like to ask the hon. member: What is the distribution of the national debt? He alluded to our debt being equivalent to the debt of every single Canadian. I think that is a very simplistic analysis, and I think the hon. member must answer to Canadians. To whom do we owe money? I am told by the Library of Parliament that at least 20 per cent of the total national debt is owed to the Bank of Canada. Who owns the Bank of Canada? The Government of Canada.


An hon. member:: No.
Government Orders


Rey D. Pagtakhan: The hon. member is saying no. Is the hon. member saying that the money that goes to the Bank of Canada is not revenue for the Government of Canada? .1 would like the hon. member to research his information.
I have the figures here for total health expenditures for selected years from 1960 to 1990. The expenditure is expressed in terms of the per cent of the Gross National Product. In 1960 it was about $2.1 billion, 5.5 per cent of the Gross National Product. In 1984 it was $37 billion, 8.6 per cent and in 1990 it was $60 billion, about 9.2 per cent of the Gross National Product. Since 1984 there has been only a .6 per cent increase of the per cent of the Gross National Product. The Gross National Product is one way of telling our capability to pay.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member. Is he aware that he was recognized on questions and comments? Let us call it comments and questions if you like. I am sorry I interrupted the hon. member. I thought he was really getting into debate at this time. I imagine he will want to allow the parliamentary secretary some time to answer. There are about three minutes left to answer the hon. member for Winnipeg North.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Madam Speaker, I realize that. I will conclude at this point by indicating that since 1975 the rate of growth in national health expenditures has been similar to the growth in the Gross National Product. The capacity of Canadians to pay has been there. I would like the hon. member to explain his government's rationale, its preoccupation with the deficit spending. Let us speak of the deficit of lives.


Pierre H. Vincent: Madam Speaker, I see I have very little time to answer the hon. member's question.
I would like to start by repeating a very important point which the hon. member does not seem to have understood. He says we are cutting amounts transferred to the provinces. I gave an example which shows we are not cutting, only reducing the annual increase in transfer payments. A cut-the people of Trois-Rivieres will understand-is when you earn $500 a week and your boss says: Well, now you will get $400 a week. That is a cut. However, if you earn $500 a week, and you were supposed to get $550 but your boss says: No, you won't

June 11, 1991
Government Orders
get more than $525, that is not a cut, because I am now earning more than I was earning before.
So transfer payments to the provinces are not being cut but the increase in those payments is being reduced. I hope the hon. member understands, because if we are not talking about the same thing, there is bound to be a problem, whether a person is asking or answering the question. So transfer payments to the provinces are not being cut but there is a reduction in the usual increase.
The hon. member also wanted to know to whom we owe all this money. We owe this debt partly to Canadians and partly to people outside Canada. But this is all part of the old Liberal philosophy, Madam Speaker, which maintains that the debt doesn't matter because we owe the money to Canadians. If I owe my brother $100,000 and my sister $200,000 and my father $300,000, and I have no money at all, when I go to the bank for a loan, can I tell them: No, I don't owe any money, I just owe money to my family? When I open my books for the bank, Madam Speaker, it doesn't matter who lent me the money. I still owe it!
The same is true here. Canada's debt which is partly owed to Canadians and partly to people outside the country is still a debt, whether we owe the money to Canadians or to non-Canadians. And internationally, when other countries look at Canada and its debt, they say: Canada, your debt is $400 billion. They don't care who lent us the money. It is still $400 billion.
I went to Japan recently, and we talked about this. They don't care who lent us the money. Their question is: Do you owe that much? Yes, we do.
Madam Speaker, I think we should get rid of this Liberal philosophy that it doesn't matter as long as we borrow from Canadians. Madam Speaker, this is very serious! And when I say that the federal government owes $400 billion, I am not talking about the money owed by the various provincial governments. If I happen to be an investor looking for a country to invest my money, and I look at Canada and I do some figuring, well, I don't think we have that much to offer, compared with other countries. And that is why we must deal with this problem.
Madam Speaker, my time has expired. Thank you for your patience.


Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker, I rise to participate in debate of Bill C-20, an act to amend certain statutes to implement the budget tabled in Parliament February 26, 1991. It is debate on the values and ideals which are fundamental to our society and the institutions through which we maintain a national standard. These ideals and values are quickly being eliminated from the face of Canada.
The Minister of Finance, in this budget just as in the last budget, is continuing on course in passing the buck to the provinces of this country. The federal government has simply transferred their federal fiscal problems to other levels of government.
At this time I would like to draw attention to a statement made in the House, since we are great at going back 10 or so years, by the member of Parliament for Etobicoke Centre in March, 1982, in which he criticized the government of the day for shifting the financial burden to the provinces by reducing transfer payments. This is still true today.
The current five-year freeze on the EPF, Established Programs Financing, will substantially reduce the funds available to the provinces. By freezing transfers to the provinces, the government is clearly and systematically destroying Canada's health care and post-secondary educational systems at a time when the U.S.A. is trying and is hopefully going to find ways to implement a health care system in that country.
Each year as the population increases, students realize the necessity for higher education and the demand for classroom space escalates. While the number of instructors per students declines, the funding diminishes.
Students now face higher tuition fees. UPEI, opening in September, is predicting that tuition increases will be 15 per cent. Add that to the fact that there are not many jobs out there for students. There are higher tuition fees, overcrowded classrooms and the burden of other cost-maintenance measures which the smaller provinces are forced to administer.
Federal funding in post-secondary education is imperative to keep tuition fees from becoming unaffordable for most Canadians and to ensure better access to higher education for low-income people. This is a must.
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June 11, 1991

We must not let our education system become a system for only the wealthy people in this country.
No wonder we have a problem with national unity. The federal government is forcing the provinces to compete with one another for insufficient funding.
Over the next two years Prince Edward Island will lose $12 million in transfer payments. This will spell higher taxes and fewer social programs, and most of all, it will sever Atlantic Canada's lifeline.
The writing is clearly on the wall. Social programs and medicare appear targeted as the first to go. Smaller provinces and territories will not be able to hold the system together or support the development of new or innovative health programs. How can the federal government expect a small province to maintain national health care standards when it slashes the EPF?
I again draw your attention to the member for Etobicoke Centre when in 1982 he stated that all Canadians will suffer from a cut in services for post-secondary education and health resulting from cuts to Established Programs Financing.
As our health care system advances, we find people living longer lives and the costs of high technology and medical equipment rising. With cuts to transfer payments, the provinces are forced either to slash essential services or impose higher taxes on the already overburdened taxpayer.
To cite again my hon. colleague for Etobicoke Centre, the government does not seem to realize that there is only one taxpayer who pays the taxes for the federal, provincial and municipal governments. The taxpayer does not care where services come from; what the taxpayer wants is to see service provided to meet his or her needs. As my hon. colleague stated almost 10 years ago, this government is showing utter contempt for that taxpayer.
At one time Canada maintained national standards for health care and other basic services, but no more. In the last budget the federal government vowed to maintain national standards through new legislation. Indeed, we now have a national standard, a national standard which is the slow death of medicare. It has become the standard in every province.
Government Orders
We need a strong federal presence in all social programs to ensure that Canadians will have access to similar services and similar benefits no matter where they live. A strong federal presence is impossible without a strong federal financial commitment. Without federal leverage, provinces can and probably will impose user fees for medical and hospital services. This is a backward step which will deter poor people from seeking the care they need and are entitled to.
On the other hand, it could be difficult for Canadians to have full medicare coverage when travelling outside their home provinces. Has the government forgotten that federal funding in the field of health was the incentive that lead to the development of medicare in all provinces and territories? Regional disparities have always been a problem throughout our history. Without substantial financial contributions from the federal government, regional disparities will continue to grow and affect our national standard of living.
There is no conceivable means whereby provinces like Prince Edward Island will be able to afford half of the meagre social programs existing today, unless there is strong federal financial commitment to uphold the national standard.
It will be difficult, much more difficult for poorer provinces to provide accessible and affordable programs to their residents.
In my riding of Hillsborough, a great many people are on fixed or low incomes or are seasonally employed. I strongly emphasize this is neither by choice nor by laziness. These people now have the added burden of paying the GST. The federal government will not even reimburse the rebate credit to those taxpayers under 19.
In the past, cash payments from the federal government have made it possible for Canadians to have highly developed systems of medicare and post-secondary education. Any cuts which threaten the integrity of these programs are a direct affront to the fundamental values and ideals of the Canadian people.
I would conclude by saying that Prince Edward Islanders are fully aware of the deficit problem that Canada is facing and are more than willing to pay their fair share. The federal government must realize that it cannot pass its fiscal mismanagement on to the provincial and municipal governments of this country.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Unfortunately, I will have to interrupt the honourable member and wish him bon appetit as it is one o'clock p.m. I will now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
The Elouse took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, although it has been over a month since Canadian truckers, frustrated by this government's inaction, blockaded major highways in Ontario, the government has yet to deal or to act with the mess that deregulation has caused. Yet there is much it could do if it wanted to.
For example, deregulation has resulted in making $100 million worth of transport licences worthless. This has had a devastating impact on a trucking firm's equity base.
In the United States in 1980 when the trucking industry was deregulated, the American government gave its carriers a three-year accelerated write-off on these licences. I call on the government to do this in Canada for our tuckers and to offer loan guarantees for these authorities until that time at which the firm's equity base can be restored.
Truckers cannot afford to wait any longer for this government to act. As we saw a month ago, if this government does not act it could be a long, hot, slow summer on our nation's highways.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, a disconcerting new phrase has crept into Canada's national unity debate which frequently is used to misrepresent the values of our official languages legislation. That phrase is "enforced bilingualism". Those words tend to imply that bilingualism is a mandatory requirement which is imposed, perhaps unfairly or unjustly, upon individual Canadians.
In reality the reverse is true. Rather than imposing either or both official languages upon any citizen, the concept of bilingualism actually provides the freedom for each one of us to live completely in only one language in Canada if that may be our wish. Therein lies the basic value of bilingualism.
The Official Languages Act provides that Canadians can and must be served by the federal government in the language of their choice. The intent of that legislation is linguistic freedom, not linguistic imposition. To be sure, the concept of bilingualism does impose special linguistic capabilities upon government in order to serve the people. The fundamental purpose remains, however, to make individual Canadians free to be unilingual and to live fully in this country in either English or French.
To describe the concept as "enforced bilingualism" is to really miss the true values of linguistic freedom which must be inherent in a generous and tolerant Canadian society.


POVERTY
Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon -Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday we were reminded that the feminization of poverty is not an academic theory but rather an undisputed and acknowledged fact.
Jean Swanson of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, at the government's own symposium on women and the law, noted that many women today are forced by Canada's inadequate social support system to commit crimes of survival such as writing bad cheques, shoplifting and prostitution.
The federal government is retreating into the Middle Ages by cutting social programs. This government sees support for low income Canadians as charity, not as a right, not as an entitlement. It has cut unemployment insurance, capped the Canada Assistance Plan, and kept the minimum wage below a living wage.
All Canadians, and especially single parent women and their dependent children, are being sunk deeper into poverty. How much more evidence does this government need before it realizes that antiquated social policies are
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June 11, 1991

forcing all Canadians, and especially women, to make impossible choices just to survive?
This is deplorable and Canadians should be outraged.


FIRST COMBAT ENGINEER REGIMENT
Mr. Ross Belsher (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to bring to the attention of Canadians the efforts of the First Combat Engineer Regiment and its ongoing activities in the Persian Gulf.
The fighting in the Persian Gulf is over and the majority of the media has gone on to other issues, but the very important and extremely dangerous duties of our engineers continue. It is not a glamorous job, but it is an integral part of the United Nations effort to restore peace and safety to the border area between Kuwait and Iraq.
What is this onerous task that takes 250 members of our engineering regiment from their home at Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack? What is it that causes families to be separated and worry to be the order of the day? These very brave men and women are clearing unexploded ordinances from the Kuwait-Iraq border so that unsuspecting people will not get hurt. These people are finding and defusing bombs. They are laying their lives on the line every day, doing whatever it takes to ensure the safety of others.
I pay tribute to the brave Canadians of Chilliwack's First Combat Engineer Regiment. I wish them Godspeed and safety in their duties. I pay tribute to the families in Chilliwack who worry and wait for the return of their loved ones. I wish them strength. Canadians thank them for their service.


BILL 178
Mrs. Sheila Finestone (Mount Royal):: Mr. Speaker, English speaking Canadians who live in Quebec, Canada's French speaking province, a province of cultural plurality and diversity, also want their rights as Canadian citizens respected.
The English of Quebec believe it is time to reaffirm their place in a dynamic Quebec and a dynamic Canada
and want to stop the outflow of Quebecers, young Quebecers.
We are uncomfortable with the removal of our rights of presence and we want Bill 178 removed. It is disrespectful, offensive and neither reasonable nor justified. Removing Bill 178 would let all Canadians feel at home in Quebec and anywhere else in Canada for speaking and working in French or English is an economic, social and cultural asset.
Language itself is not the issue. It is rights and freedoms in a democracy that are at stake.
I sincerely hope the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs will remember in discussions with Premier Bourassa and other leaders the profound Canadian belief that you advance neither society nor its majority by diminishing the rights of any minority: English, French, aboriginal or any other minority group in our society.


FOREIGN INVESTORS
Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government's indebtedness is a serious problem, but it is not as disastrous as we describe it so often. In fact, it is a problem which Ottawa controls much better today than it did a few years back, in spite of accounting appearances and large figures.
In certain respects, we are doing the same thing as with the assessment of the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States.
According to a recent study by the Bank of Canada, the Canadian economy has shown in 1990 a positive balance of $4.3 billion in foreign investments. It was the first time in 16 years that Canada had such a positive record. According to some economists, this positive balance is due only to the fact that Canadian investments abroad were lower last year. However the Bank of Canada believes that it is a positive effect of the Free Trade Agreement, which made Canada more attractive to foreign investors.
Mr. Speaker, one fact remains: Canada never had such a positive balance in 16 years.


ASSEMBLY OF FIRST NATIONS
Mr. Ian Waddell (Port Moody-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, Georges Erasmus is retiring today as Chief of the AFN, that is, the Assembly of First Nations.
I have known Georges Erasmus from about 15 years ago when I was with the Berger commission up in the north. At that time Canada got its first view of an incredibly talented generation of native Canadian leaders. Georges Erasmus, a Dene from the Northwest Territories, is one of those leaders.
I wish to acknowledge in the House of Commons his work in the constitutional conferences, his administration of the AFN, and his energy and determination on behalf of Canada's first peoples. He is a tough and effective foe of government no matter what the stripe of that government, and he warned us of explosive grievances in the native communities.
I want to express the personal hope that Mr. Erasmus will spend a little time, perhaps in the Gray Lakes area of the Northwest Territories, will mellow out a bit, and will come back to serve the first nations and to serve Canada as he has done so effectively in the past.


CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, Alberta's Premier Getty says that we need greater decentralization but recent public hearings found that Albertans favour a stronger, not a weaker, federal government.
Quebec minister Remillard says that his province will not participate in a constituent assembly, but a recent poll says 57 per cent of Quebec residents favour holding a constituent assembly.
If the recommendations of a constituent assembly were subjected to ratification by a federally sponsored referendum tabulated on a province by province basis, the real feelings of the people of each province would be made abundantly clear to their federal and provincial representatives.
After all, Premier Getty and Mr. Remillard certainly would not be the first Canadian politicians whose views did not correspond to the wishes of the people they were elected to represent.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday a number of members of Parliament from both sides of this House met with the Drug Legislation and Enforcement Policy Committee of the Toronto Mayor's Thsk Force on Drugs. The municipal politicians need our help federally in two ways.
I want to know why this government, despite repeated requests, has done nothing? When will the Minister of Justice return the money used in undercover operations to the municipal police? Currently the police invest money for the undercover purchase of drugs. When the dealers are busted the money is kept by the federal government. It should be returned to the community to continue to fight against drugs.
Also, there must be a full review made of the Supreme Court Decision in the Duarte case. The police were told that the use of the audio and audio-visual taping equipment was not allowed, but they need that tool as undercover backup.
We are going to lose a whole generation of children unless we stop delaying and start to work to win the war against drugs.


CROSS-BORDER SHOPPING
Mr. Garth Tbrner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, crossborder shopping is a form of tax revolt now being performed by thousands of Canadians. Let me point out that these Canadians believe they have every right to cross the border and shop in the U.S. despite the ruinous effects on Canadian business, but cross-border shoppers have no right to think they can be cross-border smugglers.
I want to rise today and praise the Minister of National Revenue. He has invested many hours in understanding the complexities of this problem and in listening to people living in border communities.
June 11, 1991

Now he has taken action. Soon cross-border smugglers will face additional personnel when they return to Canada and stiff new penalties on those goods they have tried to hide. Cross-border smugglers should no longer be above the law. They should not penalize the rest of Canadian taxpayers by tiying to avoid paying the taxes which support the great services in this country. Crossborder smugglers must be shown the way, and the minister has had the guts to stand up and do exactly that.


MINERS' MEMORIAL DAY
Mr. David Dingwall (Cape Breton-East Richmond):: Mr. Speaker, today, June 11, marks Miners' Memorial Day in my riding of Cape Breton. Miners' Memorial Day, also known as Davis' Day, is a day to honour the many coal miners who have fallen victim to the hazards of coal mining.
The coal mines have been a part of our history on the Island and they have claimed many lives. The cold, dark, and dreary pit has taken many a father, a brother, an uncle and yes, many sons.
Today we honour those brave men and we give special thought to the families who remember this day with great sadness and loss.
Mining has changed through the years but yet the mines and the miners are still a pride for all of Cape Breton. We look at our coal mines with a sense of respect and yes, a sense of fear.
I would like to join with my constituents on this Miners' Memorial Day in remembering those who were lost and to pray for the safety of those who still carry on the great tradition of the Cape Breton coal miner.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, as we are all aware, the environment is an issue that affects us all. It transcends all boundaries, be they geographical, political or ideological.
Ensuring a healthy future for our environment demands a tremendous level of co-operation. The Fraser
River clean-up, announced June 1 in my riding of Delta, is the product of such co-operation.
Many groups, from environmentalists to industry, municipal, provincial and federal governments, have all played important roles in putting this clean-up program together.
The challenge now will be to build on the partnerships that have been established and to extend them to involve everyone who lives or works in the Fraser watershed. As the Minister for the Environment has said, the Fraser River is at a critical stage. By acting together and by acting now, we can save the Fraser for future generations to use and enjoy.
The headline in Vancouver Province reads: "Good news for fish". The $100 million clean-up plan is good news not just for fish, but for everyone in British Columbia.


BLUEBERRY INDUSTRY
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland -Colchester):: Mr. Speaker, the blueberry industry of Nova Scotia has grown from a million pounds production in 1953 to about 20 million pounds production today. The value to the province each year is in the area of $30 million. Most of the blueberry crop is processed and exported, making it the most valuable exported horticultural crop in Atlantic Canada.
Considering this tremendous growth, the value to the economy, and that it is a major export competing with products from other countries, it was disappointing when the Department of Agriculture research station in Nap-pan, Nova Scotia discontinued research on blueberries a few years ago. The industry is now concerned that the remaining research being done at the Kentville research station is being threatened.
Research is being done on varieties, chemicals, production and harvesting. Research includes machinery and materials and in the past has resulted in significant strides ahead in blueberry production.
It is absolutely necessary that the Department of Agriculture continue this research if the industry is to continue to grow and be competitive.

June 11, 1991
Oral questions


SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, on Saturday in Halifax at the National Convention of the New Democratic Party, a resolution was passed that gives a clear indication that the Canadian shipbuilding industry will be taken seriously by a New Democratic government.
This resolution gives balanced support to all aspects of the industry-construction, supply of components, training, labour-and states that amendments will be made to the Canadian Shipping Act that will require Canadian ships to be built in Canadian shipyards by Canadian workers, then to be crewed by Canadians when carrying Canadian goods.
At the moment any ship built anywhere in the world can call itself Canadian as long as it flies the Canadian flag. This is wrong and is damaging the survival of the struggling Canadian shipbuilding and repair industry.
With the implementation of this resolution, that situation will change. For the first time the shipbuilding industry in this country has the assurance that a government of Canada will do what it can to protect the industry.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Mrs. Edna Anderson (Simcoe Centre):: Mr. Speaker, it is very said to read the June Globe and Mail report of the environmental embarrassment that is the Barbara Weit River in western Prince Edward Island.
Choked by potato processing waste starch from the Irving owned Cavendish Farms plant and raw sewage from the town of Kensington, the river will not even grow seaweed.
Would it not have been nice during Environment Week to announce that federal and provincial governments would support and encourage those good corporate citizens, the Irvings, in building a fuel ethanol plant utilizing cull potatoes and this starch waste rather than putting up a $10 million sewage treatment plant.
The Irvings could then use this ethanol as a source of [DOT]octane for their gasoline operations while providing diversified employment for the Summerside region.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Minister of National Health and Welfare.
For months now, his government has been denying that transfer payments to the provinces for health care and education are being cut. We know now, following the tabling of documents by the Quebec Health Minister yesterday, that in six years transfer payments to Quebec will be reduced to nothing, zero, zilch.
Is the government now willing to admit that these cuts are threatening our universal medicare system?
Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health
and Welfare): Mr. Speaker, we will never point out enough how the hon. member for Hamilton East is ill informed and how much she is consistently distorting the facts.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member must know that transfer payments to the provinces in the health field come under two headings: cash transfers and tax point transfers.
In 1977, when her party was in power, the government of the day granted, to Quebec in particular, additional tax points to give, I presume, more responsibilities and more flexibility. This is why, starting in 1996, Mr. Speaker, all transfers from the federal government will come to Quebec as tax points that it will be able to manage as it pleases.
I wish the hon. member would tell the people from Quebec who are listening that she is against them managing their own health care system, Mr. Speaker.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Prime Minister.
Canadian taxpayers want to send one message to the minister's finance meeting, one clear, unanimous message: We are paying too much tax to too many governments.
June 11, 1991

Can the government explain how increasing the number of tax collectors will make the system fairer for ordinary Canadians?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. Acting Leader of the Opposition would agree that we do have a serious fiscal problem in this country. I think all governments, federal and provincial, are addressing the fact that we must try to weed out any inefficiencies in the system and try to deliver our services as a government, as all governments, in a more effective and efficient way.
On that score, all governments agree with that fundamental philosophy. It is not a matter of cutting back services. It is a matter of trying to deliver the same standard of services but to do it in a more effective and efficient manner.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, according to the study released yesterday by the Quebec Minister of Finance, from 1990 to 1995 the federal share of health care costs will be reduced from 40 per cent to 32 per cent. It is on a downward, slippery slope that is causing a crisis in Canadian health care.
I want to ask the Minister of Finance: Is not his underlying agenda in fact to reduce transfer payments to the point where the federal government will no longer be responsible for universal health care? Does he not plan in fact to make the provinces responsible financially in that area as well?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the hon. member knows that in this fiscal year some $37 billion will be transferred to the provinces in the form of cash and tax points. That number is going to increase each yea,r not decrease.
As a matter of fact, for the next five years there will be increases in the order of 3.7 per cent per annum and that is built upon annualized increases of 4.7 per cent per year per capita for the have provinces and 5.5 per cent per year per capita for the have not provinces.
Not only has the growth been increasing over the last five years, but it will continue to increase over the next five years.
Oral questions


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Paul Martin (LaSalle-Emard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday, Sidbec-Dosco announced 600 lay-offs, 275 of which are in my riding, in Ville Emard. The reason is obvious. I quote from the president of the company:
The dollar is killing us. It is the great culprit. American steel is
coming into Canada in full swing and at a very low price.
While this government is closing its eyes, companies are closing their doors. My question is as follows: How long will the government stick to its suicidal policies? How many more plants, Mr. Speaker, will have to close their doors before Canada knocks on St. Jude's door?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member as a businessman and an entrepreneur. It would be nice to know what value he would place on the Canadian dollar and how he would go about sustaining that.
He knows very well that many factors contribute to the value of the dollar, namely the confidence within the Canadian economy both from an economic and a political point of view, the relative rate of interest, the relative rate of inflation, commodity prices, and the capital exchange market.
All those things have an effect upon the value of the dollar. Having regard to all those things, I would be interested in knowing how the hon. member would set the value of the dollar, what value he would set it at, and how he would sustain it.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: Mr. Speaker, right after the next election we will answer those questions.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Paul Edgar Philippe Martin: If you cannot answer them, then step down and let somebody else take the job who can.

June 11, 1991
Oral questions
That answer is absolute nonsense. It is wanton and callous. Since 1980, the U.S. government has funnelled over $30 billion a year to the U.S. steel industry while this government's only counter has been to hike our dollar to a suicidal 87 cents.
Let there be no mistake. The government can drop interest rates by a further two points. It can tell the world that enhancing our manufacturing base is as important as targeting a tax induced inflation.
There is only one issue. This government can provide our steel industry with a level playing field. Why won't it?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that when I put the question to the hon. member all we saw was an absolute cop-out.
We know very well that consistent with the Liberal tradition we would end up with interest rates of 22 per cent and an inflation rate of 13 per cent.
I find it passing strange that the hon. member argues with the fact that there is confidence in the Canadian dollar, confidence in the Canadian economy and confidence in Canada as a political entity.
Why is he trying to downgrade and degrade the Canadian economy and the confidence that investors have in the country?


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Almost a year ago, I proposed on the floor of this House that we need to have a new process for building the Constitution. We need to have a process that we felt would succeed and that would have legitimacy and the faith of the Canadian people.
At the time I proposed that we should look at a process like a constituent assembly. At that time the Prime Minister said that he thought it was an idea worth consideration. Yet, in advance of the Beaudoin-Edwards report and in advance of the Spicer commission report, the government appears to have totally rejected that idea.
Why has the Prime Minister rejected the idea of having a more open process so that Canadians can be heard and listened to in the constitutional process?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, all of us in the House were interested in the quite constructive and complex discussions on national unity that occurred at the recent meeting of the New Democratic Party in Halifax.
I think that underlines the difficulty of the issues we are facing and also the importance of dealing with those in an innovative and a tolerant way. I personally want to congratulate the leader and her party on the way in which they approached those complex issues.
We have not at all ruled out a more open process. Quite the contrary. What we have done is taken the decision that at a time when we are seeking to restore confidence in this country it would be useful for us to draw the best from a parliamentary system that has served us by and large well, but also to add to that other elements that might ensure that people who feel excluded now will feel included in decisions affecting the Constitution and the future of our country.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr, Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
He is right that at my party's convention this weekend we were able to bring together people from very different parts of the country with disparate views, and it was tough. He is right, it is tough. However, after a whole day of talking about national unity and what we could come to agree on, I have renewed my faith and even strengthened my faith that everyday Canadians have something useful to say on the Constitution and that we have to look for a way to include them.
Yes, we have to include politicians as they were included in that discussion on the weekend. It is not a question of by-passing elected politicians at all. In fact what I am proposing is that we have a process that includes elected politicians from all three levels and adds to it the best of the other groups that have felt excluded so that we have one voice to look at the Constitution and the future of this country.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I think that the question has to do with whether the government is prepared to look at methods that can combine the elements that the leader of the New Democratic Party has just referred to, and the answer to that is yes.
June 11, 1991

I look forward to the opportunity to do two things: first, to discuss with her some of the ways in which that can be done in the proposal we are putting forward and, second, I look forward to reading the reports of the Beaudoin-Edwards committee which we expect will be before us on or before July 1.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, my point however is: if we are going to start a new process, let us start it in a new way right from the beginning.

At this point in time, the government is suggesting a committee made up of only politicians, including a large number of non-elected senators. That committee will simply have to study the government's proposals. Will the government consider replacing that totally inadequate process with a new one, and agree to consult other political parties and start that new process now, right from the beginning?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the question here is if we are ready to abandon a process I have discussed in general terms with other parties, as well as native leaders, a committee representing women in Canada, the Canadian Ethnocultural Council, and the premiers.
No, we do not intend to abandon an approach based on our parliamentary institutions, but we are perfectly open to suggestions that would give our fellow Canadians the opportunity to get more involved and participate fully. I have already discussed such approaches with, for example, native leaders.
I am prepared to consider some other solutions, but in a country like ours, when you discuss the importance of our traditions, of our institutions, I think it would be best to use our parliamentary system as the basis for our approach.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Oral questions
Yesterday when I asked the whereabouts of the secret memo that had been lost in the office of the former Secretary of State for External Affairs, the present minister said:
We are in the process of looking for the document within the
department-
The minister has had three months to look for that document. This is a document that goes to the very heart of the credibility and responsibility of this government.
How can the government and the minister be so cavalier and casual about a secret document that has been lost in the bowels of her department for over three months?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat what I said yesterday. I might say that because this memo did not come in the normal way and did not have the normal routing slip on it, it is a little harder to trace. We are looking for it. What can I say?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, if the minister was at all serious about this matter, she would know that this memo came in an envelope marked "Secret." Those of us on this side of the House take that seriously, even if the minister does not.
Considering how important it is to get to the truth of this matter, is the minister prepared, if she cannot find the document, to ask the RCMP to come in so that they could find the document and Canadians can know the truth?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member actually took his job as seriously as I take mine, he might have discovered that since the time I became minister other serious things are going on in the world, not one of which he has asked a question about.


Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, on May 16 the Secretary of State for External Affairs said she welcomed a parliamentary inquiry into the Al-Mashat affair. On the same day she said the government was prepared for full disclosure.

June 11, 1991
Oral questions
Yesterday the government House leader told the press that it was pointless for the parliamentary inquiry to continue and that the government would be moving to shut down the committee this afternoon.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Since Parliament has clearly yet to finish its inquiry into this matter, will the Prime Minister give an undertaking to the House that the government will stick to its promise of a full inquiry?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: The hon. member has misinterpreted what I said to the press. I did not say the government would be closing down the committee, I said it was up to the committee. The facts are on the table. She knows it, everybody knows it. The committee will decide what to do.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the Prime Minister. Given the fact that astounding new revelations are coming to light on the Al-Mashat case on a daily basis, we want to know what the government is trying to hide. Will the Prime Minister give his assurances that the inquiry will continue, and that the committee will be allowed to continue its work to get to the bottom of this affair.


Harvie Andre: What is astounding is how they trivialize Parliament by these types of questions.


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance with respect to cross-border shopping.
The Canadian Labour Marketing Productivity Centre has reported that the Canadian dollar is now worth 11 per cent more on purchases in the United States than it was in 1980.
Why does the government not cut interest rates more forcefully so as to reduce the value of the dollar and help Canadian border communities in that way.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that in order to bring interest rates down and to
keep them down over the long term, you have to get the fundamentals right, that is attacking the inflationary pressures, inflationary psychology and expectations and that is what we are doing. As a result, interest rates have come down by over five percentage points since a year ago and the spread has narrowed between the United States and Canada from a high of about 5.5 per cent or
5.6	per cent to about 2.5 per cent. I am sure the hon. member would suggest that is a good track record. If we can keep on that track and continue to fight the root causes of inflation, hopefully we will see interest rates come down further still. That is the key to growth, that is the key to jobs and and that is the key to prosperity.


Steven W. Langdon: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.
There is no doubt that the government has created a problem. Thanks to the GST, cross-border trips are up an incredible 22 per cent in the first four months of this year.
Why does this government rely on the big stick approach, which has been announced by the Minister of National Revenue? Why does it not change its economic policies so that people do not have to vote against its high tax, high dollar and high interest rate policy by cross-border shopping?


Hon. Otto Jelinek (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance just answered that question.
Since the member makes reference to my big stick approach, I had assumed that my announcement yesterday was going in the right direction until I read the following statement: "Those are all good steps. I welcome federal efforts to beef-up customs as part of a bid to deter cross-border shopping." That was Bob Rae, the Premier of Ontario.



Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to get back to the missing memo.
The government suggests that it is mere coincidence that a top secret memorandum in the Al-Mashat case has gone missing. The question is, if it was lost, who lost it? If it was stolen, who stole it? If it was shredded, who shredded it?
June 11, 1991

I would like to put a question to the Solicitor General. Why has the Solicitor General of Canada, responsible for national security, not called in the RCMP to track down the whereabouts of that particular memo?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, it is because I have not been asked to.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, is the Solicitor General saying that he is waiting for a telephone call from the Prime Minister to investigate a missing top secret memo?
I put the question to the Solicitor General again. The credibility of the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs is at issue in terms of the whereabouts of this particular memo. The minister is responsible for matters of national security. Will the Solicitor General do his job and call in the RCMP to investigate the whereabouts of that particular memo, or is he going to continue to protect his cabinet colleagues?


Mr. Speaker:: The question was all right up until the end. An accusation that the Solicitor General is protecting a colleague is a completely improper allegation and I ask the hon. member to withdraw it.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, I would like to withdraw that and put the question to the Solicitor General. Will he not agree that he is responsible for matters of national security? Will he not agree that the RCMP should be called in to investigate the whereabouts of a top secret memo that went to the offices of the former minister of external affairs? Why is it that there is one standard of justice for ordinary Canadians and another standard for his cabinet colleagues?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, what is perfectly clear is that all the information in this case has been coming forward to the committee. We have been very forthcoming. What the information has shown is that there were some errors made. There is no smoking gun anywhere, as the hon. member has not been able to prove through all these many months because we have been very forthcoming with information.
That is it, that is all, there is no more. I am sorry, John, but there is no more.
Oral questions


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Papineau-Saint-Michel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for External Affairs. On May 14th, the minister said that Mr. Raymond Chretien had taken no action to make sure that his deputy minister would be informed of the Al-Mashat affair. Yet, documents made public yesterday, by the minister herself, clearly demonstrate that she was wrong. Indeed, according to those documents, Mr. Chretien took concrete action, as early as February 27th, to inform the deputy minister, Mr. Demontigny Mar-chand. Is the minister prepared today, in this House, to do the honourable thing, admit her mistake and put the record straight?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, there is a divergence of opinions between the official at the deputy minister's office and those at Mr. Chretien's office. All the information is before the committee. Everything is clear to the committee. It is up to the committee to determine which opinion is the correct one.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that the committee will face its responsibilities. What we are trying to do here, on this side of the House, is to make sure that ministers also take on their responsibilities.
According to documents made public yesterday by the minister herself, it is clear that Mr. Chretien is the only senior civil servant to have taken concrete action in order to inform both his minister and his deputy minister. So, in the light of this information, would the minister not be ready, in all fairness, to admit that she was wrong with regard to Mr. Raymond Chretien, and to apologize to him for having needlessly tarnished his reputation on May 14th?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, we pledged to give all the information to the committee and to the public. That is what we have done and that is all we can do. What went on before the members of the committee is clear, and the decision is theirs.

June 11, 1991
Oral questions


THE ENVIRONMENT
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.
Before the public ever had a chance to participate in an environmental assessment, the Rafferty-Alameda dam was built and the Oldman River dam was built. Before construction begins on any roads or dams, before any land is flooded, will the minister assure this House that there will be a single, comprehensive, environmental assessment review process on the James Bay II project, known as the Great Whale?


Hon. Jean J. Charest (Minister of the Environment):: Mr. Speaker, the member is probably aware that there have been discussions with the Government of Quebec and the Cree and the Inuit. The sense of those discussions was to try to explore whether there was a possibility of doing one single assessment. The Government of Quebec through its Minister of the Environment, Mr. Paradis, was willing to look at that question and get back to us. I expect that they will formally say whether or not they are ready to do that and we will take the matter from there.


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister. Four weeks ago the Federal Court of Canada wiped out the Kemano settlement agreement, struck down the Order in Council exemption of the project and ordered an environmental assessment review of Alcan's huge power export project in British Columbia.
Since the court concluded that time is of the essence and that environmental concerns should be dealt with in advance of construction, will the minister today undertake his legal obligations and appoint an EARP panel for Alcan's Kemano II project?


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, as the member will know, the decision was rendered and is being actively reviewed by the government. There are legal and environmental considerations.
I do want to add one thing. The information I have is what the court suggested we do was not necessarily-and I stand to be corrected if it is not the case-to undertake an initial assessment that may or may not lead to an EARP panel. If I am wrong, I will correct myself. My
information, if I remember correctly, was that we undertake an initial assessment that may or may not lead to an EARP panel.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, there now appears to be a real human cost to the Senate stalling of the GST legislation. Delays in passing the bill have in turn caused delays in building the GST processing centre in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. This has caused great uncertainty in a community which has already suffered from government cutbacks when the Canadian forces base there was closed.
My question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Can he tell the House what steps he is going to take to fulfil his statement of last September when he said: "The welfare of the civilian employees of the base whose jobs will terminate in 1991 is uppermost in our minds".


Otto John Jelinek: Mr. Speaker, that statement stands. Because of the delays in the Senate last fall and winter, we were late out of the starting blocks in trying to begin preparations for the processing centre in Summerside. However, since then, with co-operation from other federal departments, we have caught up. We will begin training and hiring as early as next year and then phase in the operation.
I would like to advise the hon. member that I am meeting this afternoon with representatives of DND civilians from Summerside to assure them that this government continues to meet the commitments we made last year.


BANK OF CANADA
Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister is no doubt aware that a number of federal agencies, including the Bank of Canada, have embarked on a policy of preventive withdrawal from Quebec. Yesterday, we heard that as of July 1, the Bank of Canada will close its international division in Montreal and withdraw the position of foreign exchange
June 11, 1991

consultant which has existed for over 20 years to help financial institutions in Quebec.
My question to the Prime Minister is this: In the circumstances and considering that one-third of foreign exchange transactions take place in Quebec, will the Prime Minister ask the Bank of Canada to reconsider this decision which runs counter to the interests of Montreal and Quebec?


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to reassure the hon. member who is often concerned for the wrong reasons. No service or position or person has been transferred from Montreal to Toronto by the Bank of Canada, as a result of the restructuring he mentioned.
What is happening, Mr. Speaker, is quite straightforward, and all government departments and agencies are having to cope with this. We have asked them to help reduce the deficit, and it is a fact that at its various offices, including those in Montreal, the Bank of Canada has cut certain positions. In Montreal, this amounts to about 2.5 person-years. The people in question were offered jobs in other positions in Montreal and elsewhere, but that is as far as it went, Mr. Speaker.


AIR CANADA
Jean-C. Lapierre: I have a supplementary for the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker.
Another federally-controlled agency which has been partially privatized, and I am referring to Air Canada, has changed its mind about the training centre in Montreal and moved its flight simulators to Toronto, and I just heard that as a result of a restructuring of all Air Canada flight operations, out of 16 directors there will be only one Francophone and only three in Montreal, while the others will be posted in the rest of Canada.
Can the minister give a good reason why all this has to happen at the expense of Montreal, once more?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as everybody knows, Air Canada was privatized several years ago and has become a commercial operation that is trying to restructure its operation like any commercial business, in order to survive as long as it can
Oral questions
and provide Canadians with an efficient transportation system.
I am surprised the hon. member opposite should be upset about the fact that a company tries to enhance its stability and thus be able to provide jobs for its employees for many more years to come.


MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a booklet that I am sure the Prime Minister knows well. It is entitled Notes on the Responsibilities of Public Servants in Relation to Parliamentary Committees. It was issued by the Privy Council Office in December 1990 and declares most emphatically the doctrine of ministerial responsibility.
On page 6 it says as follows: "It is ministers and not officials who exercise the constitutional authority of the Crown, and it is ministers and not their officials who are responsible to Parliament."
Will the Prime Minister confirm that this is the policy of his government?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I realize this occurred before the hon. member was elected, but in 1985 the McGrath committee on parliamentary reform spent a lot of time looking at the question of ministerial responsibility. It concluded in its third report, on page 21 I believe, that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility as historically practised was outdated and no longer reflected the reality of today.
It went on to recommend that the government co-operate in making officials available for appearances at committees so that members could access officials directly. That recommendation was unanimous. All parties of the House recommended it. The government accepted it. I wonder why the hon. member will not.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, I am not referring to a report of the eighties, I am referring to a document issued by the Privy Council Office in December 1990, six months ago.

June 11, 1991
Oral questions
On page 1 it says: "Ministers are responsible to the House for everything that is done under their authority". Will the Prime Minister have the integrity and backbone to accept this statement-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a minute. The hon. member can ask if the Prime Minister wants to do something else, but using those words imputes the honour and integrity of hon. members.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: I will rephrase the question. Will the Prime Minister accept this statement and instruct his ministers involved in the Al-Mashat affair to accept ministerial responsibility for the actions of their officials?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, every single minister who was involved with this issue has been here ready to answer questions. They have appeared before committee.
In keeping with the recommendations of the McGrath committee, all of the officials who had an interest in this issue appeared before committee and answered all the questions asked by the opposition, even some of the rude and outrageous ones.
So the reality is that by being here and answering questions-even those that are out of order-for the hon. member we are showing responsibility. We are trying to comply fully with that document as well as the policy adopted by this House after the unanimous recommendation of all parties on the McGrath committee.
I think the hon. member, if he is being fair, will recognize that we fully accept responsibility.


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Ken Atkinson (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.
The trucking protests on Parliament Hill and in other cities in the last couple of weeks focused attention on the Canadian trucking industry. The minister mentioned at the time that there are a number of studies under way.
Can the minister advise us whether anything has been done to alleviate the concerns of the owner-operators of these trucks?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question and reassure him that in fact I have met with many people, including representatives of the largest transportation unions, the Canadian Trucking Association, the National Coalition of Owner-Operators Association.
I want to emphasize to the hon. member that the unions have been full participants in the task force process; indeed, they originally proposed setting up the task force in June 1990.
I also want to assure the hon. member that I will be attending the task force meetings tomorrow and Thursday in Toronto along with the Minister of State for Transport. I look forward to seeing the work of the last eight months come to fruition. I anticipate a very busy and fruitful meeting.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Brian Tobin (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. For two days in a row members on this side of the House have asked ministers opposite why the government has not been actively engaged in trying to find a missing top secret memo. For two days ministers have demonstrated, in our view, a a real active lack of interest in finding that memo. Incredibly the Solicitor General today said he has not instructed the RCMP to look for it because he has not been asked.
I want to ask the Prime Minister, who described a missing budget document as a criminal act and described those who had it as criminals in advance of any court case, whether he will now instruct the Solicitor General to have the RCMP go into External Affairs to see if they can find this missing memo, or if they cannot find it, find out what happened to it? Will the Prime Minister do that, given his interest in finding missing top secret government documents?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, I said in this House yesterday that should it be necessary to call in the RCMP, this government would do so. We do not yet believe it is necessary. We are looking for the document. I have said that several times. I am continuing to look for it.
June 11, 1991

There is nothing I can add to that. I think if the hon. member has some patience, he will be satisfied.


Brian Vincent Tobin: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Prime Minister. The minister's answer gives rise to my request that the Prime Minister deal with this matter. It is clear that after three months of so-called looking for a document, the minister continues to say there is no urgency. There is an urgency, and it is necessary now for an outside agency, for the RCMP, to find this document.
Will the Prime Minister of Canada please instruct his Solicitor General to send in the RCMP to find out what happened to this critical missing memo? The government appears not to want to find it. Is it not important to find the truth? Find the memo.


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the point is that shouting at the House is not going to change the course of events. It also is silly to say that we have been looking for this document for three months. We began to produce the documents, as we said we would, when it was revealed that this person was in the country without ministers having concurred.
We have done our best to be forthcoming. The information is there. The opposition has not found a smoking gun and there is not one to find. It is over and they know it.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister responsible for constitutional renewal. In his many discussions across the country with provincial premiers and others concerning the Constitution and rights, has he discussed the question of property rights. Would he, in that discussion, talk about property rights and the right for people to own property and not have it taken away from them without due process and compensation, in much the same fashion as set out in the Bill of Rights produced before this House by the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, the question of property rights is of very real interest-I guess not to Mr. Tobin,
Oral questions
but it is to other members of the House of Commons- to Canadians across the country and has been discussed in various rounds of constitutional discussion. The question was whether it had come up yet in my consultations with provincial governments. It has not. But there will undoubtedly be a range of opportunities over the next several months for that and other constitutional issues to be considered, including by this House.


FORESTRY
Brian L. Gardiner: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Forestry. Yesterday in the House the Minister for International Trade said that the government has failed to reach a consensus with the provinces on the softwood lumber tariff memorandum of understanding before making a presentation to the Americans tomorrow to get Canada out of this rotten deal.
What specific steps is the minister and the government taking to see that all provinces are united to ensure that we can tell Carla Hills tomorrow that we want to scrap the MOU?


Hon. Frank Oberle (Minister of Forestry):: Mr. Speaker, there have been ongoing discussions with the provinces.
A position has been put together that will formulate the approach which will be used in our discussions with the United States. The Minister for International Trade is in charge of the situation. There have been meetings today with the minister from British Columbia who is in the gallery, and things are well in hand.


GOODS AND SERVICES TAX
Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.
Many people in my riding of Haldimand-Norfolk and throughout rural Canada are being charged GST every time they turn on their tap. While city dwellers can fill up a swimming pool without paying a cent on GST, rural residents who are not hooked up to the municipal water system have to pay GST on water used for drinking, cooking and washing.

June 11, 1991
Privilege
When will the minister put an end to this unfair discrimination against rural Canadians?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member is referring to farmers, if they do pay a GST they can claim it back as an input tax credit.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY
Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of members the presence in the gallery of His Excellency Adrien Sibomana, Prime Minister and Minister of Planning of the Republic of Burundi.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of members the presence in the gallery of the honourable Claude Richmond, Minister of Forests of the Province of British Columbia.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Nowlan:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not want to take too long in the House. I want to find out a few little guidelines. I understand fairly well how the system works.
In terms of the recognition of guests in the Speaker's gallery, with the greatest respect, I think that might come between statements and Question Period, not to interfere with the flow.
You can take that under advisement, Mr. Speaker, as I hope you will take something else under advisement. That has to do with the guidelines on statements made by members which is open to all members. I understand some of the rules. I know you do not use a list because a list would be an insult to the independence of the Chair. Mr. Speaker, I know you just would not follow that.
Having sat here all Monday and all TUesday, having done my parliamentary aerobics as I fully expected to do, and not being very upset that a lot of good government members have made a few statements, some of which were somewhat provocative and/or a little political, I do take umbrage, having been here and rising at the gong at
2 p.m. until 2.15 p.m., with seven government members being recognized yesterday, fine, and today eight government members being recognized, five of whom were recognized yesterday.
I really do think, as you sit in the chair of the equal among equals, that you look equally at all sides of the House and recognize members who are doing their parliamentary aerobics so that we can present statements, certainly not even to suggest that a list is giving you any direction but to suggest that your own independence is going to be the guide.


Mr. Speaker:: I am certainly paying attention to what the hon. member suggests. I hope we will be able to satisfy him and other members.


PRIVILEGE
David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I rise pursuant to the notice of a question of privilege I sent you earlier this day.
I wish to refer to the statements of the government House leader as reported in the media which I submit were intended to interfere with and impede the business of one of the standing committees of the House.
Such interference with the business of the House, which includes of course the business of committees that as you know and all hon. members know are after all creations of the House, constitutes in my view a contempt of this House.


Mr. Speaker:: Before the hon. member proceeds further-if it is appropriate, and it may well be, I shall certainly hear him-I listened very carefully during Question Period and I am quite sure the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond did as well. I am wondering whether the response given by the government House leader to a question on this point would make any difference to the hon. member's intervention. I bring that to the attention of the hon. member.


David Charles Dingwall: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was indicating to the Chair and to all hon. members present I refer to Erskine May, the 21st edition, page 115, which reads:
-any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of his
June 11, 1991

duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent of the offence.
That is on page 115 of Erskine May, the 21st edition.
It should be noted that on several occasions ministers of the Crown gave clear undertakings to the House. In fact the hon. minister opposite, the Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, stated on page 254 of Hansard, dated May 17, 1991:
-we are very anxious to get this matter before the committee as soon as possible. Then all relevant officials can be called before the committee because we are absolutely convinced that the facts we have elucidated will become obvious to those who keep an open mind.
That was on May 17. On May 23, 1991, at page 477 of Hansard the Minister of Employment and Immigration stated the following:
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member and all other members of this House will have a chance in the standing committee to respond to all the issues that were raised. We have already said that we prepared a report, and that report has been released.
If there are additional matters on which further details are requested, it will be the committee's job to take care of that and I trust it will.
On May 28, 1991, on page 680 of Hansard, the present Secretary of State for External Affairs said:
Let me say as well that we have agreed there will be an open and honest inquiry-.We have said from the beginning that we would produce all of the people and all of the relevant materials to the extent that is possible.
I have given this House my commitment on that from the very beginning, and the hon. member knows it.
On May 30, 1991, at page 822 of Hansard, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance said:
I have no objection to that but surely it is a matter that should be properly questioned at the committee where all the witnesses they require and/or demand will be available to respond.
Mr. Speaker, in today's Ottawa Sun there is a headline, "Tories to end Probe. House leader wants Mashat inquiry dropped". In fact the minister is quoted as saying: "-the committee has already established how Iraq's former ambassador to Washington got fast-tracked into Canada".
Privilege
He is further quoted as saying: "I don't know what further facts could be adduced".
Mr. Speaker, in other words the government House leader is interfering in the committee's conduct of what was supposed to be an open and honest inquiry. He is saying to the committee that it is getting too close to the facts and that it better stop before it really uncovers the truth.
Mr. Speaker, members-


Mr. Speaker:: Just a moment. I have already indicated that the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond might consider carefully what the hon. government House leader did say in Question Period, but certainly that last remark is getting to be an allegation that carries with it a lot of difficulty.
I am giving the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond every opportunity, I think, to make the point, but I do not think that the point is that the statements which are reported in the House amount to interference with the committee.
The hon. minister has already, at least to some degree, responded to that. Certainly I think that the interpretation put by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond goes farther than the argument needs.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, of course the hon. member opposite will have an opportunity to respond to the concerns that I have laid before Mr. Speaker and will respond in kind. I have heard, as other members have heard, some of the remarks made by the hon. member opposite. He will have an opportunity to explain in full in a moment or two, provided the Chair will give me an opportunity to conclude my remarks.
Members of my party and of that committee have made it clear that a number of further sittings and witnesses are required. They have suggested that the former cabinet secretary, Gordon Robertson, an acknowledged, non-partisan expert on ministerial responsibility, appear as a witness. They have also requested that the Secretary of State for External Affairs and the Minister of Employment and Immigration reappear in order to clarify their roles in light of information gathered since they last appeared. For the same reasons, they wish to recall Mr. David Daubney. They would also

June 11, 1991
Privilege
like to hear evidence from a former legislative assistant to the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
In conclusion, the government House leader has announced that he is, in essence, ordering the committee to shut down. His statements can only be interpreted as orders to the government majority on the committee to do what he says or else. In my view, he is intimidating the committee and, therefore, impeding it in its pursuit of its work. This represents not only a reversal of government policy toward the work of the committee, but is also a direct and, I believe, unacceptable interference in the work of the committee and therefore of the House.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, what we have just had is an abuse of this House by debating an issue that has no right on this floor. There was no point of privilege. You will notice he did not put a motion, which is required when he raises a point of privilege. He did not demonstrate, in any way, shape or form, how he is impeded in performing his duties as a result of it. It was a bogus point of privilege and, frankly, I think it should come to an end if the hon. member is going to show the respect for this institution he frequently talks about.
Let me deal with the allegations. He suggested that I have ordered the committee to finish. To begin with, he knows that the House leader, because of parliamentary reform and the changes in the rules which this government brought in, cannot order a committee to sit or not to sit. I cannot do that.
He then quoted, a number of times, statements made in the House, where I and others have said we would welcome a committee sitting. That was not considered interference in a parliamentary committee. He also says that because outside the House I am quoted as saying I would welcome the committee terminating its sittings, that is interference. How can it be both? How can it, on the one hand, by suggesting a committee sit be perfectly appropriate, but by suggesting a committee not sit is somehow an intolerable abuse of that member's privileges? What an absurdity and what a waste of the House's time.
Again, he is abusing the House by distorting and warping what in fact was in the paper. If anybody has a privilege it is me for the deliberate distorting of what is
in the paper. What is in the paper under quotations is: "I don't know what further facts could be adduced," Andre told reporters. That is what I said. It is a breach of the privileges of this House, Mr. Speaker, for the House leader to say such an outrageous thing. My gosh, what is this place coming to that I should be so outrageous as to make this kind of suggestion?
Mr. Speaker, if you think that is a breach of the privileges of the House, I would welcome a motion and will defend myself for having so abused the hon. member's sensitivities by suggesting I do not know what further facts could be adduced. My God, I did not realize I said something so outrageous.
Come on. This is a waste of time. I suggest we get on to other business and the hon. member stop wasting time in this manner.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I really do feel I have to provide a few observations, particularly based on the rather hysterical outburst by the government House leader.
I join with my friend, the opposition House leader, who was astonished, as most sensitive Canadians were this morning, to read the headlines in The Ottawa Sun that the House leader wants the Al-Mashat inquiry dropped. We all remember time and time again when the government House leader has indicated clearly, as other senior ministers have, in an effort to divert if you like, a discussion on the floor of the House of Commons that the committee would be the appropriate place to obtain the evidence.
I do not remember the exact quote, but I remember the statement being made that all witnesses necessary would be welcome at the committee. That suggests that if committee members had people that they believed were appropriate in order to get to the bottom of this that they ought to be heard.
Therefore, when the government House leader says that he does not know whether further facts would be adduced, that is sending a very clear signal to his colleagues on that committee that enough is enough, and the Tories plan to end the probe.
Perhaps the truth of all of this will come out in the next few days in terms of whether or not all of the appropriate witnesses are still allowed to be called. At that point we may be back again.
June 11, 1991

I simply want to join with my colleague to say that it appears to me that the government House leader is prejudging the work being done by the committee. A certain element of interference is there in his comments. After all, we are told on a regular basis by the government House leader to get off the issue in the House of Commons because the committee is where this should be dealt with. Yet now he is saying that as far as he is concerned, enough of the facts have come out and the committee, presumably, should wrap up its proceedings.
I want to simply say that it is important that we get to the bottom of this. It is important that some minister eventually accept responsibility for this dastardly sequence and the way to do that is in a committee.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I think the government House leader protested a bit too much in his statements. I want to cite a couple more authorities for Your Honour to assist you in consideration of this case.
The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond has already referred to the statements in the case. I have turned to Maingot's work on Parliamentary Privilege in Canada page 193, where the learned author writes, quoting one of your distinguished predecessors, Madam Speaker Sauve. He states:
As the Speaker has said recently, ". . .the dimension of contempt of Parliament is such that the House will not be constrained in finding a breach of privileges of members, or of the House. This is precisely the reason that, while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits. When new ways are found to interfere with our proceedings, so too will the House, in appropriate cases, be able to find that a contempt of the House has occurred."
I submit what has happened here is an attempt by the government House leader to muzzle this committee. That is a breach of members' freedom of speech. That is one of our fundamental privileges in this House.
The suggestion is that there has been an attempt to muzzle our freedom of speech. If that is so, I suggest that it constitutes a breach of the privileges of the House. If it fails on that score, it is certainly a contempt of the House because it is one of our fundamental privileges.
Privilege
I refer also to Halsbury's Laws of England, fourth edition, page 608, where there is a distinction drawn between the offences of contempt and breach of privilege, citation 1500 in that work. I quote again:
The power of both Houses of Parliament to punish for contempt is a general power similar to that possessed by the superior courts of law and is not restricted to the punishment of breaches of their acknowledged privileges. Any act or commission which obstructs or impedes either House in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of the House in the discharge of his duty, orwhich has a tendency to produce such a result, may be treated as a contempt even if there is no precedent for the offence.
I do not need to read further, but I submit that in this case there is clearly authority. If Your Honour finds that there is a prima facie breach of privilege in this case, either myself or the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond will be pleased to move the appropriate motion to have the matter referred to the House management committee where it could be investigated fully.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I feel like my privileges have been abused for about 15 minutes. I tend to be busy and there are meetings that need to take place and this discussion has gone on at some length.
If, Mr. Speaker, you were to find significant members of this Chamber speaking to the press about what committees should do to be indeed a contempt and a breach of privilege of this House, I suggest that most members on the other side of this House would be guilty. On more than one occasion, I have seen an enormous amount of publicity in the last two or three weeks from members on the other side, from the Official Opposition and the third party in this House, long, long dissertations on television, lots of quotes and newspaper articles in which people are telling the Al-Mashat committee or the external affairs committee exactly what it should do.
If that is a contempt of Parliament, it would be a sad, sad day for the notion of free speech. However, this filibuster on this issue is a denial of free speech and I think it should come to a conclusion right now.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to your suggestion that I reflect and weigh very heavily as to what the government House leader had said in Question Period. As a result of that, I made my summation and of course did not proceed with the normal motion, which the hon. House leader has referred to as

June 11, 1991
Points of Order
somehow being a major omission in terms of our parliamentary procedure on the floor of this House.
I was thinking that the hon. House leader would have taken advantage of the opportunity to explain and to apologize to the House and to committee members for his activities.
If that is not the case, I believe, based on my summation that I have made, and listening to other evidence that has been adduced, that this is a clear violation of the privileges of the House. If the Chair finds such a prima facie breach, the appropriate motion will be proposed.


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to deal with the matter immediately.
The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond brings to the House by way of a question of privilege what he alleges is a contempt of the House, as a consequence of what appear to be quotes from the hon. government House leader in a journal today.
The quotes concern the hon. House leader's views of certain proceedings in the committee and certainly indicate the government House leader's opinion.
The thrust of the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond's argument is that this amounts to an improper interference in the affairs of the committee and, as a consequence, it is a contempt of the House.
I ask the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond and the members of the House to keep in mind what the hon. government House leader said during Question Period. I think it is clear from the comment that he made in answer to a question put to him that it was his view, if I remember the words correctly, and it certainly was his declaration that the committee makes up its own mind about what it is to do.
The hon. the member for Calgary West has risen and has reminded hon. members that there has been a great deal of comment about this committee outside this place. There has been some comment about the committee inside this place, but for the most part, within the bounds that the Chair has had to set with respect to questions.
I listened carefully to the hon. member for Kamloops and also with care to the erudite comments adding to those given by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond and the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
I have to say that, on balance, having listened to both sides of this argument, I am not persuaded that there is a prima facie case of contempt. I thank hon. members for their restraint in the arguments that have been presented to the Chair.


POINTS OF ORDER
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my point of order arises from the response of the Minister of the Environment during Question Period to the question put regarding Alcan's Kemano II project.
I have provided the minister with the appropriate sections of the Federal Court ruling of May 14, 1991 by Mr. Justice Alison Walsh.
The minister suggested that perhaps only an initial environmental evaluation is what is suggested by the ruling, but I think the following two very short quotations will reveal to the minister and to the House that that is not what the court had to say and I quote from the bottom of page 36:
I conclude that the Kemano II Completion Project requires an assessment by virtue of the environmental assessment review process and that the ministers involved, and specifically the Minister of the Environment, were under an obligation to arrange for it and not frustrate this by the settlement agreement signed in 1987 finally by the order of the minister, confirmed by Order in Council that no such assessment is necessary.
A few sentences down it goes on and it says:
-deciding against an EARP assessment in connection with the present project, however, where on the facts it is evident that one is required, goes far beyond the exercise of discretion in a fair manner with which the court cannot interfere and becomes a failure to undertake a legal obligation required by law. The same is true, although perhaps to a lesser extent, with respect to the other ministers named as respondents. It is not sufficient to be satisfied with-


Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-South Langley):: Mr. Speaker, it sounds to me like this is a carrying on of a debate arising out of Question Period rather than a point of order.
June 11, 1991


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am almost finished the one sentence that I was reading.
The same is true, although perhaps to a lesser extent, with respect to the other ministers named as respondents. It is not sufficient to be satisfied with a review, however extensive, performed by the proponent of a proposal, even in co-operation with the ministers involved without a public assessment by an independent panel at which all interested parties may be heard.
Those are the quotations that I think are the most important and I am sure the minister is aware of the conclusions of the Federal Court in relation to the same judgment.


Jean J. Charest: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Skeena for having sent over to me copies of the rulings that he has just quoted from. Although I do not have page 36, it is not material to the point I want to make.
First, let me reiterate that I stand by the answer I gave in Question Period. I think what the member from Skeena and I are talking about here is a question of interpretation rather than a disagreement on what the ruling is about. Let me be clear so that there will be as little confusion as possible on what this is about in the environmental assessment process.
As far as I can tell from the pages I have in front of me, I think that when the judge refers to a process, the judge refers to this process in a generic sense of the term more than the specific sense.
The process itself is made up of two parts as they now stand under the guidelines. The first part requires that a federal government department makes what we call an initial assessment. Once the department has made that assessment, it determines whether there are or are not mitigable measures that can be taken in the case of any specific project and it can then be satisfied that those mitigable measures are taken and not ask for a public panel. There is also a public panel that can be asked for if there is what we call sufficient public interest.
In the case before us, my understanding of the ruling is that the court says that the ministers involved should do that environmental assessment process in the generic sense and that that would require the initial assessment to happen. Let me refer to page 38 of the same court ruling under the title Specific Conclusions. The last five lines of that page 38 where the justice says "with respect to paragraph 4 an order of mandamus will be issued requiring the various ministers named to comply with the
Points of Order
requirements of the EARP guidelines order and submit the proposal to an environmental screening and assessment pursuant to section 10 thereof".
That, as far as I am concerned with the information I have, is an order by mandamus to the ministers concerned, not the Minister of the Environment, but the ministers concerned, to undertake what I referred to in that initial process.
In closing my remarks, let me point out to you that as the guidelines now stand, the Minister of the Environment does not have the power to act alone in constituting a panel. To do that requires that an initiating department ask the Minister of the Environment to do that. Once that request is made to the Minister of the Environment, he or she has no choice but to order the panel. But that, mechanically, must be done first and that is why I answered the way I did during Question Period.



['The member is giggling, saying I raised it. Yes, I did raise it in the House because when The Financial Times published a report claiming that 7,000 of my constituents were going to be laid off, I naturally wanted to raise it in the House.\nWhen the information came to my attention that it is false, I wanted to make sure, on behalf of all of my constituents, that this information was on the record. All Canadians should know that Hilton Works is not closing down and that people who put out this kind of rumour should not be allowed to parade it as news because it is not.']
Mr. Larry Schneider (Regina-Wascana):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order reluctantly and with appreciation for the difficult job of the Chair.
I would like to point out that I was questioner number four on the government side and I do note that the government side obtained about five questions yesterday and I was somewhat inspired by the privilege that we had to ask some questions. As a result of that, I prepared a question today on a subject that was not addressed by anybody in the House of Commons, and I was not able to ask that question.


Nelson Andrew Riis: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the frustration and I share it with my hon. friend and many others, I might say, who would like to ask important questions.
That is why I would like to suggest right now, in an effort to facilitate my hon. friend and many others, that we extend Question Period for 30 minutes every day, between now and June 21, so that these important questions have an opportunity to be put.


William D. (Bill) Casey: On the
same point of order, Mr. Speaker.
We do not have to change the rules as proposed a minute ago. I refer to Beauchesne's sixth edition, citations 409 and 410 which say "in Question Period a preamble need not exceed one carefully drawn sen-

June 11, 1991
Points of Order
tence" or "supplementary questions require no preambles whatsoever".
As far as I can tell from my record today, we had 32 questions in Question Period and not one of them qualified under Beauchesne's citation 409 or 410. Those are also listed in the annotated Standing Orders in section 37(1) that even go back to the original Beauchesne's of 1922 and they are referred to all the way back to the English Debates in July 18, 1862, 129 years ago.
All we have to do, all of us in the House is co-operate and follow the rules. We do not have to change the rules, just follow the rules that are very clear and simple and anybody here can understand them. They are not complicated, they are simple, and if we all follow the rules we will all have the opportunities to ask the questions that we need, and we do need the opportunities to ask the questions.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised to hear the hon. member who is persisting in this, because of course he is very selective in his readings from Beauchesne's. He is ignoring another fundamental rule in Beauchesne's which I draw to the attention of Your Honour, and that is citation 417 in Beauchesne's sixth edition which says: "Answers to questions should be as brief as possible, deal with the matter raised and should not provoke debate."
Today we had answers to questions that were evasive, that were an abuse of this House because they did not answer the question that was asked. Ministers stood here in the House and had the unmitigated gall to suggest that a search was under way for documents, without calling in the police, because the documents were missing for three months. We had ministers say that everything was fine when it patently was not. We have had a constant abuse by ministers of the rules of this House by giving long windy answers that drift all over the place.
For the hon. member to suggest, as two of them have, that they were deprived of a right to ask questions because of questions on this side of the House is completely wrong. Question Period is for the opposition, and those members should learn that fact.
It is not an opportunity for the government backbenchers to throw softballs at their ministers so they can answer it any way they want.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please! The Chair has heard from the three major parties represented in this Chamber. I would reiterate the suggestion I made last week to the effect that the House Management Committee may be the most appropriate forum to pursue the discussion hon. members want to have on this issue.
I will therefore seek the co-operation of the House and humbly suggest that hon. members bring this matter before the House Management Committee if they want to go in greater detail into the matters raised during question period.



Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, this is on a different point of order. It relates specifically to an intervention of my own yesterday during the discussion of the opposition motion on youth unemployment.
I quoted from an article in The Financial Times in which an unnamed reporter in The Financial Times claimed that Hilton Works in my riding, which employs
7,000	people, was about to announce a permanent closure in August of this year. The unnamed reporter further went on to state that the police in the city of Hamilton had been called specifically with the intention of involving more officers in August, lest there be violence at the announcement of a permanent closing of a facility which has been in operation for more than 100 years.
You can understand the concern that this particular article raised among the people of Hamilton. My phones were ringing off the wall. I have had conversations both with the police department and with the senior management of Stelco They have advised me that in fact that particular article is patently false. There are no intentions of closing the Hilton Works operation, which employs more than 7,000 people, and in fact over the last year there has been more than $100 million of fresh investment to upgrade that particular facility.
June 11, 1991

I thought it was important to put that information on the record because clearly, in the battered economy that we have had in Hamilton, it does a disservice to our community when unnamed sources promote rumours that become the substance of newspaper articles-


An hon. member:: Oh, oh.


Sheila Maureen Copps: The member is giggling, saying I raised it. Yes, I did raise it in the House because when The Financial Times published a report claiming that 7,000 of my constituents were going to be laid off, I naturally wanted to raise it in the House.
When the information came to my attention that it is false, I wanted to make sure, on behalf of all of my constituents, that this information was on the record. All Canadians should know that Hilton Works is not closing down and that people who put out this kind of rumour should not be allowed to parade it as news because it is not.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Pierre Blais (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Agriculture)) moved: that a Ways and Means motion relating to a taxation measure respecting the operation of a wage claims payment program and to amend the Income Thx Act thereof, laid upon the table on Monday, June 10, 1991, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, June 6, consideration of motion of Mr. Corbeil that Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), be read a third time and passed.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: When Bill C-ll was last before the House there were 10 minutes remaining in the question and comments period follow-
Govemment Orders
ing the speech of the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls.
I will now recognize hon. members who wish to continue the question and comment period.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, when my colleague from Gander-Grand Falls was speaking previously on this debate I was particularly struck with his knowledge of the whole sector in Atlantic Canada.
I want to refer here to the actual purpose of that particular bill introduced in 1966. The two main purposes were to ensure that eastern Canadian ports could compete with the United States ports and to enable the ports of Halifax and Saint John to compete with Montreal and other St. Lawrence River ports.
As the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Committee contends, the budget papers that contain this measure failed to identify the full purpose and objective of the program and rationalize this decision to terminate it solely on the basis of the absence of competition between the United States and Canadian ports.
Having said that, I want to ask the member: If I were to place a phone call asking where I can get information on this or where I can get freight service-I suppose it would have to be a 1-800 number-where would I have to place that call? Who would answer?


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, at this time of the year, a lot of people are planning their vacations, especially their vacations to motor to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island or some other place.
There was a 1-800 number under that subsidiary of CN, Marine Atlantic. There was a 1-800 number until about a month ago. The 1-800 number was 1-800-565-7421. There were very catchy tunes on television and on radio advertising the 1-800 number.
The 1-800 number has now been discontinued, but if you are in the United States or in Texas, there is a 1-800 number that you can use. If you are in Alabama or any state in the United States, there is a 1-800 number: 1-800-347-19981 if you want to write it down and you are in the United States.
If you are in Canada, you cannot call a 1-800 number. You cannot call toll-free. If you want to take any of the ferry systems or any of the boats in eastern Canada that go to these islands, you just cannot call toll-free. If you

June 11, 1991
Government Orders
live in the United States, you can, and that is not the end of the story.
When you compare the rates, it is amazing. In terms of the union with Canada-I can remember when the debate was on about whether or not we were going to join Canada-there was quite a campaign on, that we should join Canada because there were advantages to it. One of the big things in the Railway Act, the act we are talking about today, was that the rates to be charged for passengers and freight moving to Newfoundland would be comparable to the rate charged if you went an equal distance on land. That is in the terms of union.
Now looking at the new rates, it is $99 for your car if you go from North Sydney to Argentia. Your cabin costs $96.25 with the GST added and no window. If you want a window, you have to pay $99.77 for your cabin. A reclining chair is $12.04 with the GST included, an adult pays $41. That is on the Argentia run. That is pretty expensive. When you add all that up, it is close to $700.
On the Port aux Basques run,-I am talking about return now with four adults in a car- it costs practically $400. You could go to Prince Edward Island 20 times on that kind of rate, down to Argentia. But in answering your question relating to competition with the United States, not only do they have a 1-800 number in the United States of America for our services to our islands in Canada, but they do not pay GST say if you phoned Bar Harbour, Maine. If you called Bar Harbor, Maine about Marine Atlantics, CN's subsidiary which operates between Bar Harbor, Maine and Yarmouth, you will notice that there is no GST on the cabins there. Also, you can get a return fare. Now you know what that means. It means you get a reduced rate if you buy a return ticket. So there you go. The 1-800 number is gone in Canada but is still in the United States. If you are in Texas or Dallas you can call free, but if you are in Canada you cannot. GST is not charged for the ferry that matches up with the state of Maine from Canada and you get special return rates which are lower than if you paid individually one rate to the other.
I believe that these rates by CN and its subsidiaries are a violation of the terms of union between Newfoundland
and Canada. They have not only taken away those subsidies, they have even taken away our railway tracks in Newfoundland. Not only are the railway tracks gone, but even the ties under the railway tracks are gone. It is pretty difficult walking down those railway lines with not even a track there or a tie. Eveiy three or four feet you drop down into a hole. That is what is left. Not only did they take up the railway tracks and the ties, they did away with the railway and took away the subsidies that we are talking about. They also sold, as I mentioned before, the telephone company that they own. They sold that last year.
We have really been sold out by the Tory government.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, I can only take it from the comments of the previous speaker that the decision to terminate this program in the budget papers, based on the absence of competition between the United States and Canadian ports, was a false assumption as were so many other items in that particular budget.
Could the member give me a comment on that, please?


George Baker: Mr. Speaker, I think the entire bill that is before the House is a good indication of what the Government of Canada is doing. What the Government of Canada is doing is setting adrift the entire intent of equality in this nation, in transportation and in everything else. It is setting us adrift and it is making the decisions by cabinet. They are not even waiting for us, as parliamentarians, to pass the bill.
Why if you even look at this bill you will discover that the bill really applies, I believe, to flour and grain that was put on a railway car back in 1978 I believe. So, in other words, it would not apply unless the flour and grain has not yet arrived at its destination. The subsidy was done away with in 1988 or 1989 and the Government of Canada did not even wait to pass the bill before this Chamber. They are now bringing in that particular piece of legislation, but I would not like to use any flour that has been on a train for the last three years covered by this particular piece of legislation.
Maybe that is what is wrong every time I bake some bread and it does not work out. Maybe it is the flour that we are all using.
June 11, 1991


Hon. Roger C. Simmons (Burin -St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words to say on Bill C-ll, but maybe you will allow me, just in passing, to make a comment which I am sure you will find relevant to the debate, at least to one of the debaters in the debate. I listened again with great interest to my friend from Gander-Grand Falls as he talked in the last few moments, answering questions from my friend from Lambton-Middlesex. I could not help but have a couple of thoughts when he mentioned that he remembered the events of the Confederation battle between the pro-confederates and the anti-confederates in Newfoundland in the pre-1949 period. Surely he does not remember it too well because he is much too young to remember a lot of it; and what a fount of wisdom this man is.
Very few people know his direct connection to the Confederation period or, after the fact, I tell my friend from Calgary Southeast, among his other many achievements he is also the publisher, the producer, of a best-selling, long-playing record called, "Oh, What a Battle It Was". This record makes available on tape to historical buffs and others some of the actual speeches of Mr. Smallwood and his protagonist during the great convention that preceded the coming together of the Dominion of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Canada in 1949.
I am not paid to do this but I believe there are still a few records somewhere available out there in somebody's cellar. If not, I have one that I would be glad to play for the member for Calgary Southeast. He would hear some great speeches by Mr. Peter Cashin, the uncle of Dr. Richard Cashin, and by Joey Smallwood and others of that particular period.
Apart from-


Mr. Sobeski:: What's the relevance?


Roger Simmons: Ah-h, now the member for Cambridge wonders about the relevance. Apart from always wanting to throw a bouquet in the direction of my friend from Gander-Grand Falls, it is supremely relevant to revisit those debates on that particular record which my friend has seen fit to have preserved. He went to the CBC archives back in those days when he was not busy being the editor of Hansard in the Newfoundland House of Assembly, being the clerk of the Newfoundland assem-
Govemment Orders
bly, or the Editor of Debates. He has been a fairly busy fellow in his day but he found time to go to the CBC archives and have the speeches put on a record to be available to the public. Many thousands of Newfoundlanders have those records and I am sure as a result of this promotion today the requests will come flooding in again. I want him to know that my share goes to charity.
There is a relevance, I say to my friend from Cambridge. The relevance is that when those great debates were going on, apart from the rhetoric-of which we get a little bit in this House-of those days, Major Peter Cashin led the anti-confederate forces, the Newfoundland independence forces if you like, the Responsible Government League it was called, and Joey Smallwood led the other forces-by the way I was just talking on the phone to a friend of mine today who visited Joey this afternoon; he is hale and hearty, still walks around his garden three or four times a day and is in very good shape. He will be 91 this Christmas Eve, but he is in very good shape, the only living Father of Confederation.
When Joey and Major Peter Cashin and their entourages got up at the national convention in St. John's to debate the future of Newfoundland, they marshalled the various arguments which will be found on that tape to which I made reference in relation to the member for Gander-Grand Falls. Those arguments were either for confederation or against confederation. My friend from Gander-Grand Falls in his last answer made reference to one of those arguments. Joey Smallwood and others successfully sold the benefits of the two dominions, the Dominion of Newfoundland and the Dominion of Canada, coming together. Those who are about to remake the country keep in mind what Newfoundlanders did in 1949. They passed up nationhood, albeit they were only a half million souls or even fewer at that time. They deliberately, consciously in a vote-it took two votes to do it, mind you-said: "We will forfeit dominion status and nationhood, as a small country, a full-fledged member of the British Commonwealth." Do not forget that it was one of the four dominions in the Statute of Westminster back in 1931; New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Newfoundland. It was one of the original four dominions. That dominion elected by popular ballot in the period leading up to 1949 to forfeit its dominion status, to forfeit its national status, to become a province of Canada.

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As an aside, but I believe an important aside from where I stand, I say to those who are now redrawing the map of Canada and reconfiguring what kind of Canada we are going to have, one of the many factors they have to keep in mind is that unlike every other province of this country-well, I suppose the exceptions are the original four, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario, who came in as provinces-but the only other of the ten provinces that came in as a separate entity and was not carved out of existing territory already part of the Dominion of Canada was Newfoundland and Labrador. It came in as a province, not part of a region, not a quarter of a province, to be a province. That was the trade-off.
I give notice now that when the time comes when we as Newfoundlanders have to choose between fighting for that principle and opting for some hodge-podge of regions in this country that subvert the dreams and aspirations those people had in 1949, my father and mother and the parents of my friend from Gander-Grand Falls and others, we have no doubt where we will stand in that particular debate. That is another debate for another time.
I will talk about the retroactivity of this bill in a few moments. The bill itself is an affront. It is an affront that can be traced in terms of impact right back to that great Confederation battle involving Newfoundland's decision to join Canada. Part of the package, if you like, that was put before the voters at that time when they were asked to choose between continuing dominion status or being a province of Canada, a marriage with Canada, related to matters of transportation, availability of foodstuffs at reasonable prices.
Now, 42 years later, we in Newfoundland, as in so many other provinces, but for us it is more poignant, for us it is more pointed, for us it is more focused, because we made overt decisions based on the inventory of this country as it was then, based on the advantages, based on the substantive benefits of being part of this country. I could run through them if we had the time, but just in a quick illusion, not only to do with transportation, but to do with that social safety net, the family allowance, the pensions and so on, which are now being dismantled, left, right and centre by the representatives of the confederacy to the south over there. They are just dismantling it every chance they get.
The continuance of the railway was a part of that package and that has since gone the way of the dodo bird.


Dennis Joseph Mills: It is a retreat of national government.


Roger Simmons: As my friend from Broadview-Greenwood says so well, what we are seeing is the retreat, the abdication of the national government, the shredding of the mandate of a national government. What purpose is there in having a national government if it has no raison d'etre, no reason for existing, if it works itself out of business.
Bill C-ll, which in the last House was Bill C-26, died an honourable death at third reading stage. Then the government, by the back door, got it back in here again over the opposition of we who felt it should not be here.
Mr. Speaker, if you go back to the 1200s, to 1215 I suppose, the Magna Carta, and follow through from there, the whole principle-even 1066 my friend from Regina-Lumsden says-the very beginnings, the very elemental, primitive, beginnings of parliamentary democracy and follow it through to the present day, you will find that there was always some protection for the ordinary people. This is why we call this place the House of Commons. Here we represent the common, ordinary people of Canada. That is where the name "Commons" comes from.
But we in the opposition are less able to do it when we have a government that writes its own rules every day of the week. It is equivalent to having a losing baseball team. Lord knows they have become a bunch of losers over there. Then, because they cannot win with the rules as they are, they keep changing them. So they say well, you fellows will still have nine players, but we would like to have 13. We would like to have two people at bat at the same time; we want our people only to run one base instead of three; we want to shorten the distance between bases from 90 feet to 45 feet.
It would be easy to win a game if you were allowed to write your own rules all the time. Is anybody in this Chamber surprised that this bunch of losers over here, this crowd that cannot get the support of any more than 14 per cent of the people, can still ram legislation through here? How can they do it? They can do it because they doctor the rules of the game all the time, they keep changing the rules. That is the only reason this bill is here. This bill should not even be here because it died at third reading in the last House. If they wanted to bring it back they should have had the integrity to bring it
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back in the normal way instead of ramming it through as part of a package of four.
Mr. Speaker, the bill itself would undo a long-standing set of subsidies that were put here by a former government-and I will tell you, it was not the Tory government either-because it saw a need to look after the ports of Saint John and Montreal and Halifax and the other ports down the St. Lawrence.
It was done at a time when it was trying to parallel a similar circumstance which had taken place in the United States in 1959. That is why we implemented this amendment to the Railway Act in the 1960s.
It is true that that subsidy we were trying to match no longer applies in the United States. But before we throw it out, we ought to go back to the people who brought in the bill in the first place. I am glad to say it was a man by the name of Jack Pickersgill, a man who was born in Manitoba. I have always said that you do not have any control over where you were born. Not that Manitoba is a bad place to be born, but having been born in Manitoba and having worked in various parts of Canada and the United States, he had the good sense to run for and win a seat in Parliament to represent the people of Newfoundland.
My great friend and a great parliamentarian, Jack Pickersgill, represented the old seat of Bonavista-Trinity-Conception. I think it was called something different in those days, Gander-Twillingate, I guess, for a number of years.
As Minister of Transport, he introduced this legislation that this government wants to cut the guts out of. He said at the time that one of the reasons was the one I mentioned before, that it was to match the advantage of subsidy that the American ports, the eastern seaboard ports had. To put Montreal and Saint John and Halifax and those ports in a similar circumstance, he brought in the legislation. But he brought it in for another reason. It is worth reading the actual quote from that particular time.
Mr. Speaker, he said at the time: "To ensure that we will have rights which will provide some inducement and incentive to shippers to use the facilities of the Atlantic ports." To provide some incentive, some inducement.
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I want to ask members on that side of the House who are representing those Atlantic ports, where are they now? Where are they now, that their jobs are going down the drain in Halifax and Saint John. This is not fear mongering. This has happened in the past few weeks. The elevators are closing. People are losing their jobs down there in Halifax. We have heard the stories. We have seen them in the press. Where are the people they sent here to speak up for them? Where are the members who now should be doing what Jack Pickersgill said 30 years ago needs to be done. Are those Tory members telling us and telling their constituents that there is no need now for some incentives to shippers to use those facilities?
They ought to take a look. When they go back to their ridings, if they get the nerve to go back to their ridings, they really should take a walk down around the port in Halifax or Saint John or Montreal and some of those other places and see what is happening there, see the devastation there, see the pain that this legislation is inflicting even before it has been implemented. Why can this legislation inflict pain before its time? Because this government not only has brought this bill in through the back door, it has gone and wiped out the subsidies anyway as of July 1989.
This government is now trying to get the legislative authority to do what it did two years ago. Twenty-three months ago the government wiped out this particular subsidy without any legislative debates. It is a complete shame. It is a tragedy to sit here and watch basic protections, that the people in any democracy have a right to, being eroded by a government that changes the rules of Parliament to suit its own whim. It uses its own muscle to change subsidies and laws without even the benefit of a rubber stamp in Parliament. The government has the majority to do this and if it had some good planning, maybe if it felt it important to do away with these subsidies, it would get the sequence right. This government would get the law changed first.
That is not too much for those producers to ask who are left out there twisting in the wind, nor for those farmers to ask whose prices are already, I am told, depressed as a result of this particular initiative.

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Mr. Speaker, do you realize that export grain shipments in the ports of Halifax and Saint John have stopped? Saint John grain elevator is closed. Fifty-five people in Saint John, New Brunswick, have lost their jobs, in Halifax another 27 people. These are actual statistics which put a face, a human face, on the madness that the government is up to with this particular Bill C-ll.
There are so many more things I could say, but I see by your signal that my time is just about up.
Let's see what the present Minister of Finance had to say, the Deputy Prime Minister, a man who has a reputation for telling it like it is, about an earlier effort to do away with this particular provision, this At and East subsidy. Here is what the gentlemen who represents a farm riding in Alberta had to say when he was in opposition. At that moment back there when it was talked about that they were going to wipe out the subsidy he said that the government must not cancel the At and East subsidy. Then he went on and said:
The elimination of this subsidy could mean a loss to Canada of
something in the order of $28 million worth of value added processing
activity.
He was slightly wrong, only in the sense he was very low on the figure. It means a loss already of more millions than the $28 he mentioned at that particular time.
If there is one thing that disillusions the public, it is people who say one thing in opposition and other in government. I would have thought that the very man who would not do that is the gentlemen who is now the present Minister of Finance.
I see that you are getting ready to cut me off because my time is up. How time flies when you are having fun.


Mr. Benjamin:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
There being only 10 members present I would like you to call a quorum.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I see there are fewer than 20 members present. Call in the members.
And the bells having rung:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Since we now have a quorum, the debate shall resume.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, it would be a pleasure for me to participate in this debate, but I have the sinking feeling that I have already spoken at third reading, which would prohibit me from continuing. I wonder if I could see some clarification from the Chair.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: You are right.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I want to inform my colleagues, especially on the other side, that I will do anything to get an audience. I hope you will stay to be reminded about some things for Atlantic Canada which you are participating in doing away with.
For nearly 100 years there has been a number of transportation assistance programs in place in Canada designed to keep east-west movement of goods and people going in commerce, and also designed to prevent the United States from moving in on us with their transportation systems.
Various governments at various times over the last 100 years have made wise moves, sometimes forced on them, sometimes because they did the right thing on their own. These transportation programs were designed to take into account our geography, our climate, where our people are located and how far we are from export positions.
The average grain haul in Canada is over 900 miles. In the United States it is some 700 miles. They have the advantage of a massive waterway system and much of their grain is grown closer to their seaports.
Australia and Argentina, two other main competitors are, on average, within 200 miles average of export position. It is similar in Europe. From Poland west there is not a grain haul more than 300 or 400 miles.
It means that Canada has to take extra measures to give us that so-called level playing field, although so far we have had level playing fields where the other guy has the ball on our ten yard line all the time. The reason for these programs was to give us an equal shot at the ports of Quebec, Saint John, Halifax. That was the reason for the Crowsnest Pass rates, the bridge rates and several other programs that have been done away with by the previous government and this one.

Our transportation systems are in bad, bad trouble. Our railroads, our airlines and our trucking industry, between so-called deregulation and the free trade deal have been put in an impossible position.
Somebody raised the trucking industry in the House today. The fast write-offs for the trucking industry in the United States also applies to railroads, so both the Canadian trucking industry and our railroads are at disadvantage. But we provide subsidized transportation costs for purposes I mentioned and also to equalize, to some extent, our opportunities in competition with U.S. transportation.
This measure, as others before, and I include the Crowsnest Pass freight rate, has done nothing but increase costs for grain producers. This one also affects Quebec, Ontario and the prairie provinces, particularly Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
I want to ask my hon. friends over there, where the heck are the Conservative members from the Atlantic, from Ontario, from Manitoba and Saskatchewan? We only have four left from Saskatchewan and it will not be long before there are none left. Where are they? This hurts the Canadian Wheat Board. It needs to do more effective export marketing of flour, milling wheat and feed grains. This hurts the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board.
The effect of this bill is not just a couple or 300 jobs in Atlantic Canada, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The effect of this sort of a measure goes away beyond those borders. In fact, I submit, there has been no net cost of this program to the Government of Canada. The maximum it ever paid in the subsidy was $40 million, and it would fluctuate from $10 to $40 million each year. But when you consider the number of people it kept working, not only in the terminals and the flour mills in Saint John and Halifax, and consider the benefit it was to livestock producers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, who were making a buck, paying taxes, and consider the help it was to grain terminals and transporters on the Great Lakes and the upper St. Lawrence, the result was more income for the government in the form of taxes. This program did not cost the government a darned nickel.
Mr. Speaker, four grain elevators have shut down since the At and East has been cancelled: two in Midland, one in Port McNicoll and one in Prescott. The
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terminals in Midland and Port McNicoll are in the riding of the former Minister of Transport, not the present one, the second last one. We have been through so many I think they should put a revolving door on the Minister of Transport minister's office.


An hon. member:: It shows their level of commitment.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: This is the 14th or 15th one I have been through.
Ontario flour mills have lost export contracts since they quit paying the subsidy, and require lower wheat prices to compete with mills in Quebec or with the Americans or the European community. They lower the wheat prices, that bankrupts some more grain producers in Ontario as well as in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
I want to say, as far as I am concerned, we have a first class Speaker of this Parliament, but like all the rest of us, he is not perfect. I think the Speaker should rule with a hard hand on any government legislation that is put in effect over a year before it is even passed by Parliament.
We took the federal government to court over another bill back in the 1970s. We took it to Federal Court and the Federal Court told the federal government to pay its bills. It had to keep on paying part of the storage costs of grain in Canada. I do not know why the Atlantic provinces' governments have allowed this one. They could have taken it to court because it has to be somebody who has a direct interest in the matter. I do not know where Dover Flour Mills is. Why are they not in on this? I do not know where the management and ownership of the terminals in Halifax and Saint John are. Saint John has been shut down for over a year now. We need those grain terminals.
Canada only consumes 20 per cent of our grain production; 80 per cent of it goes to export. The Americans consume 80 per cent of their grain production; 20 per cent of it goes to export, just the opposite of our situation. So we have to do all the things we can to give us a fair shake at these markets.
When we dealt with this bill the first time in the previous Parliament, we met with and talked to the people from Halifax and Saint John. We talked to the livestock producers in Nova Scotia. You know what lengths they were feeling they had to go to? They were looking at bringing corn in from the United States or feed grains from Europe, for God's sake, and out west

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and in Ontario we are up to our backsides in feed grain. What the heck are we doing?
This is wrong-headed, it is stupid, it flies in the face of good economic transportation sense. I know there are Conservative members from Atlantic Canada very unhappy about this. Well, you can just say the word to your Whip that you are either not going to be here for the vote or you are going to vote against it and put your action where your mouth is. With something that is bad for the country as well as bad for your own area, surely you have to persuade the government not to proceed or you have to tty to defeat it, no matter where you sit in the House.
Oh, for a minority Parliament. They would not have dared try it, they would not have dared.
The Halifax grain terminal is crucial to livestock producers because they bring in feed grain from Ontario and western Canada. They use that terminal for a surge capacity. They fill it up. They decide what space they need for the milling grains and the high-grade export grains, and they fill the rest of it up with feed grain. As and when farmers need feed grain, they truck it from that grain terminal in Halifax out to the feed lots on their farms and out to their processing plants. That is almost by the boards. The Halifax grain terminal is barely breaking even; its days are numbered.
To pursue my earlier complaint when I said I did not think the Chair was 100 per cent right on this issue of retroactive enforcement of legislation before Parliament has even dealt with it, both Houses, before it has received Royal Assent, how can you do that, Mr. Speaker? It passes all understanding as far as I am concerned.
I want to say that the subsidies paid under the Export Enhancement Program by the United States and the European Community subsidies are causing us enough trouble but we increase our troubles ourselves by doing away with this minimal program.
We should be exploring more flour and grain markets. We used to ship a lot of flour to Cuba. It was a three-way deal with the Soviet Union. It would sign a contract for two million, three million or four million tonnes of grain, specify a certain number of tonnes had to be milled into flour and the flour went to Cuba out of Halifax and Saint John.
The Cubans sent the Russians sugar, molasses and rum. That is how they paid for that flour. The Russians sent us cold cash. That arrangement was in place for about 12 or 14 years; it was a good deal. By the way, the Russians said that the Cubans make very good rum. They prefer vodka, but they will drink the stuff. It was a semi-barter deal.
Those Caribbean countries, including Cuba, badly need feed grains, and they badly need flour. What are we doing? We are shutting down the whole operation in Atlantic Canada. How dumb can the government get? Where are the Tory MPs from Atlantic Canada, from rural Ontario, from the Great Lakes ports or from the St. Lawrence ports? Where are the Tory MPs from Manitoba and Saskatchewan? We will not worry about the ones from Alberta; they have enough trouble anyway. Alberta's grain all goes pretty well to Vancouver.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Not this week, it doesn't.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Not this week, no.
Isn't it funny when there is a lockout. When there is a lockout, nobody says a word. When there is a strike: "Oh, legislate them back to work." There is a lockout. How come they do not legislate the grain companies back to work? I do not understand it.
However, nothing is moving west, so let's ship it east. The trouble is that we have lost the Crowsnest Pass rate and now we have lost the At and East rates. It makes no sense. It is of no significant use or benefit to the reduction of the deficit.
If you put that many people out of work, if you cut down on that much export out of those terminals and ports, you cut down on government revenues and you probably lose more money than what the subsidy costs.
It is not only no net cost. The livestock industry in the maritimes depends on grain. It is estimated that the abolishing of this puts the transportation costs for feed grain up by $10 a tonne. It is estimated that 5,000 jobs will be lost in the livestock industry, the feed mills, the meat packing plants and the dairies.
Surely that is not a risk worth taking over a piddling little subsidy like this.
As I said at the outset, this subsidy is what allows the Government of Canada to take into account our geography, our climate and where our people produce their goods and services. It gives us an even fight with our
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competitors in the United States and the European community and these dummies want to cancel it.
I hope my hon. friend, who is a farmer in southern Saskatchewan, will get up and try to defend the abolition of these rates. I hope he will tell the feed grain producers and the producers of high grade milling wheat in his riding that they are going to lose some support and help on the export, that it is going to inhibit the ability of the Canadian Wheat Board to do even a better job even than it is doing now.
The figures I got show that closure of Dover Flour Mills will cost 45 to 60 jobs; the Halifax terminal lost 483 jobs at the port and 250 indirect jobs are going to be lost as well. Dover Flour Mills is the only flour mill left, I believe, east of Montreal. It is the only one left. I understand it is efficient, it works well and makes good flour. What would you want to shut it down for? Why would you cause the management and ownership of it to have to shut it down? How dumb can a government get?
The Ontario flour mills tell us they have lost export contracts and they want lower wheat prices. All they have done then is victimize our grain producers even more. You cannot blame them for trying.
The Halifax terminal plays a vital role in the livestock industry and the grain and flour transport industry in Atlantic Canada. It always has. Why cut it off? You have already cut off one terminal. It has stopped and has not been running since February, 1990.
I am hoping that in the last days of this session the government will decide that it does not need to do this now. A subsidy is not a net cost to the government. The number of jobs lost will cost more money than what the subsidies were. It will cost more in lost export contracts than what the subsidy costs. It has not been a net cost to the government and it never has been.
I hope the government will change its mind on this. I will applaud them for it if they do. It is totally unneeded and unnecessary and it makes no difference to the deficit. I hope they will decide to withdraw this bill.
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Mr. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, in the current spirit of civility and non-partisanship that hopefully will pervade Parliament, I hope I can appeal once again to the member for Regina-Lumsden to recognize the realities of this situation as they apply to the change in the At and East and the repeal of that form of subsidization.
I do not want to excite him further. I just want to review, very briefly, the history of the change that was made by the budget.
First of all, since July 1989 there have been no grain or grain products including flour moving under the At and East system. The port of Halifax and other east coast ports have not in fact been receiving any flour shipments through the At and East for exactly two years now. It is a fait accompli in terms of the realities of the situation.
We can and we have debated time and time again the question of whether the At and East subsidization process should have been removed. The member just pointed out that there may have been no net saving to the government in one sense, and that has been a matter of debate. I do not see any further need to advance the arguments pro or con on that point. Because of this, and I am repeating myself, the grain and flour are not moving through the port of Halifax under At and East. What jobs have been lost, what harm that may have impacted on the port of Halifax has been carried out. It is history.
What we in the port of Halifax would like to do, and I think other Atlantic members agree with me, is pursue offsets to the cancellation of the At and East.
The member for Regina-Lumsden knows that the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission said from the outset: "We will not defend the At and East; we will not attack the cancellation of the At and East".
But we in the transportation industry are particularly interested in the east coast ports like the port of Halifax and want offsets. We have been diligently working to try to create those offsets. One offset would be the assurance that the grain elevator in the port of Halifax is continued in operation, and a great deal of work has been done to accomplish that purpose.

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There is also the matter of the impact on the agricultural industry and people have been looking at that. But the answer there is self-sufficiency in its feed grains, and a great deal of work has been done on that.
My point is to appeal to the member for Regina- Lumsden to allow the bill to pass. Let me tell you why. It is due to the fact that the bill has never been passed that there is this legal dispute, albeit an academic legal dispute, that has prevented to some extent the agreement with respect to offsetting benefits that would minimize the impact of the At and East.
We can go on with the argument. I think the member's party protested the legalities and brought the matter to court. The fact of the matter is that no shippers are using the At and East and no shippers intend to use the At and East. Again repeating myself, it is history.
I want to point out to him that there is a real disadvantage in not passing this bill, as Dover Mills Limited has found out in Halifax. There are now grain ships, flour ships, going right through to Thunder Bay and using the western grain transportation subsidy to move grain out of Thunder Bay which would otherwise have gone through Halifax.
There is a downside to not having this bill passed, and I wish he would understand and appreciate that.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, there is a perfectly good reason why there is no grain moving through Halifax and Saint John. When the railroads found out that if they moved that grain they would not get the subsidy as of January 30, 1990, they just refused to move it-except at the full commercial rate. That is why there is no grain moving through Saint John and Halifax.
They were warned, they were told, so was the Canadian Wheat Board; if the subsidy ain't going to get paid, we can't afford to ship it there-and it costs the farmers even more money.
There is another point the hon. member made, but he got me so stirred up that now I have forgotten what it was. But it doesn't matter because it wasn't a very good one and I was going to shoot it down, too.
However, in any case, this has been a cooked up set-up for over two years.


Howard Edward Crosby: It is history, Ben.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It is not history. Withdraw the damned bill and keep paying the At and East rate subsidy. You might get some friendly remarks out of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, just for a change.
You know, you keep doing it. You keep niggling away at the few benefits that our grain producers and our transportation systems have, to the point where we have no railway tracks left in Newfoundland. The CPR wants to abandon that line into Halifax. With the At and East gone, they don't need it, they say. We have lost 3,000 miles of railway tracks in the three prairie provinces. We lost the Crow rate. Our trucking industry is in dire straits and so are our railroads.
It keeps saying that it is going to reduce the deficit. This is going to cost more than the programs cost and it is going to cost more in a lot of different ways.
We used to have the best rail transportation system in the world. We had two world leaders in airlines. We had an excellent trucking system with truckers who were responsible.
We get deregulation. Hells bells, now, if one can get the money from a bank, lease a couple of aeroplanes and hire a couple of laid-off flight crews, you are in business, and all that happens is that they take turns going broke. The same thing applies to the trucking industry. That is what deregulation got us.
I hope all my colleagues read that series of three articles in the Ottawa Citizen over the weekend, all the things that the witnesses before the transport committee warned you about in '85, '86 and '87. The government was warned. It was told repeatedly and chose to ignore it.
It is about time the government realized that, like the Speaker, they ain't 100 per cent right. In fact, they are a long, long way from being close to that. They have been wrong on this one. They have been wrong on several others. It is bad economic and transportation policy. When are they going to realize it and withdraw this bill?


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I first want to compliment my colleague on a very excellent speech. The one area I would like him to address is the possible relationship between the elimination two years ago of the At and East subsidy which assisted the movement of grains, to a certain extent, by rail to Halifax and Saint John, and the fact that today the
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railroads are very, very worried about the ability of the American railroads to undercut them by taking away traffic that currently is destined for Halifax; not grain traffic, but container traffic, although we have also seen some shipped in marine. Is there a real danger that because of the At and East elimination this government is actually directly responsible for the decline in other movements to the ports in Atlantic Canada.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I want to assure my hon. friend that the repercussions of this are on things like container movement and general cargo movement, lire American railroads and American ports, Boston in particular, will offer rate incentives and confidential contracts, which will further cut into the movement of cargo, other than grain, to Halifax and Saint John.
I want to make a final point. My friend from Atlantic Canada asked me a question. He quotes the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission. I do not know if he was in the committee, but when the minister, the hon. Mr. Lewis, was there we asked him why the alternatives to eliminating the At and East rates that were put forward by Atlantic provinces had not been studied in spite of the fact that that they had been received over a year before. My hon. friend tells us about the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission which sent that study to the then Minister of Transport over a year ago. He tells the transport committee he has not studied it. Obviously he had no intention of studying it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. The question and comments period is over.
Before resuming debate it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows:

the hon. member for York South-Weston-Immigration; the hon. member for Sain t-Leonard-Quebec's regional development; the hon. member for Davenport-The environment; the hon. member for Don Valley East-Housing; and the hon. member for Northumberland -Immigration.


Mr. Murray Cardiff (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate and put some facts and figures on the record, not only for this House of Commons but for those who might be watching and taking a keen interest in what is happening with this debate and with this legislation.
We also have to recognize that since this At and East Program was put in place in 1967, the world shipping and economies have changed. Our grain markets have changed dramatically throughout the world, so we have to position commodities where we can best do that.
In 1967, when that act was put into place, the government of the day established the subsidy for grain and flour shipments moving for export at and east of Buffalo, New York. I sometimes wonder how well all of us understand when that was done and why it was done. Maybe my hon. colleague was here when that happened. I do not know what year he came to the House, but quite possibly he was here at that time.
The objective was to preserve jobs by encouraging the use of Canadian rail grain handling and port facilities to export Canadian grain and flour instead of shipping via the U.S. eastern seaboard ports. The At and East rail rates were frozen at the levels in effect in 1960 for grain and in 1966 for flour. The program applied to grain and flour moving from Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and the Upper St. Lawrence to the Lower St. Lawrence and maritime ports for export.
At the time the program was put in place, Canada's biggest markets for grain and flour were in Europe. Nobody can argue with that because at that time that is where the markets were. For instance, in the 1967-68 crop year, the United Kingdom was our biggest market, importing 1.8 million tonnes of wheat and flour. Canada exported 4.6 million tonnes of wheat and flour or 50 per cent of our total exports to Europe that year, compared to 3.1 million tonnes or 35 per cent to Asia.
That was 23 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Our principal grain markets are now in the Asian Pacific Rim. In 1988-89 Canada exported 4.4 million tonnes of wheat and flour, 25 per cent of our total exports, to Europe and 6.7 million tonnes or 38 per cent to Asia.

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Government Orders
With that shift in markets, there has also been a shift in transportation patterns. More of our exports now move through the west coast and competition from U.S. ports is no longer considered a threat to east coast ports.
This subsidy is no longer necessary to keep Canadian grain moving through Canadian ports. The majority of the program stakeholders have recognized the subsidy is not cost effective nor needed to keep grain moving through Canadian facilities. They have expressed a willingness to explore possible alternatives.
transportation costs. The storage capacity of the elevator also ensures that there is an adequate supply of feed grain in the region at all times.
This has not changed. The Halifax elevator continues to serve the livestock, feed and flour industries. The Saint John elevator, which has closed, had been almost exclusively handling export grain from outside the region. As a result, its closure has had a minimal impact on the Atlantic agrifood sector.


The At and East only encouraged the use of high cost transport routes instead of cheaper routes dictated by the marketplace. For example, Ontario grain was shipped backward, or west, in order to transit from Georgian Bay ports and qualify for the subsidy. It also encouraged extra handling and storage at these ports. We do not have the luxury of using money to do those things. We have to be very responsible in how we spend our moneys. We have to change to alternate programs. The subsidy cost the federal government between $21 million and $48 million in the 1980s.
In 1988, 655,348 tonnes of export grain and 201,677 tonnes of export flour moved under the At and East subsidy. Over 95 per cent of the exports went through Halifax and Saint John. The subsidy for that one year was $32 million.
Export grain moved by the program represented almost the entire volume of grain handled at the port of Saint John and about 60 per cent of the volume at Halifax.
The elimination of the program was announced in the budget in April, 1989, effective July 15 of that same year. Shipments in transit, as of July 15, were eligible for the subsidy if they were exported by January 31, 1990.
As a result of the termination of the program, the Halifax elevator has lost some of the grain it previously handled and the Saint John elevator has since closed.
From the point of view of the agrifood industry, the effects have been minimal. The Halifax elevator provides an important level of competition to rail for the shipment of feed grains into the region. This competition is estimated to save about $10 per tonne on feed grain
The At and East program has been under review for a number of years. It is generally recognized that it was not cost-effective. In 1984 the program was assessed by the Canadian Transport Commission, and the Commission found that in the period from 1971 to 1981 the grain component of the subsidy created approximately 330 jobs, at an average cost of $86,780-and that is in 1981 dollars. In 1985, the Nielsen task force recommended termination of the program as a means of expenditure reduction. Since the Nielsen task force report, the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, known as APT, has made a number of proposals mainly intended to maintain economic activity in the Atlantic provinces.
Last May the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of State for Grains and Oilseeds announced that a study of the viability of the Atlantic elevators would be conducted under Agriculture Canada's Grains 2000 program. The Grains 2000 program is operated out of the National Grains Bureau in Winnipeg, and it was chosen specifically because it was designed to allow industry participation in its projects. Industry has participated fully in this study. A consultant was chosen and a 24-member steering committee representing agriculture and transportation interests in the Atlantic region was chosen to guide the consultant's work.
The consultant selected was based in Halifax and did the study in conjunction with other consultants based in New Brunswick. The consultant met with the steering committee several times and also met with other industry groups in the region. He also examined proposals such as those submitted by the APTC and the Halifax-Dartmouth Port Development Corporation.
The study concludes that the Halifax grain elevator is viable in the short term and can be made viable in the
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Private Members' Business



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

[Stage Direction]
long term for much less than the cost of the At and East program. The report suggests that Halifax can become viable by equalizing water and grain freight rates between Halifax and the St. Lawrence ports based on a payment of about $3 per tonne on an addition of 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes of grain. The cost of implementing this recommendation would be between $300,000 to $600,000 per year.
The Saint John elevator has unique needs, and to approach long-term viability it would require a marine off-loading lake as well as additional storage capacity to accommodate an increased level of throughput. In addition, assistance of over $1 million per year would be required from the federal government to equalize water freight rates between the Saint John and St. Lawrence ports.
The study also examined the potential for a seaport elevator on Prince Edward Island. The study concluded that the volume of grain moving to and from that province is not sufficient to justify a single-use facility at this time.
The report recommended that Transport Canada consider replacing the potato handling facility at Summer-side with a multi-commodity facility.
The ministers now have the Grains 2000 report and are prepared to act on it. The government understands that the viability of the Halifax elevator is important to the local flour milling industry. The government also recognizes its importance to livestock producers and understands that the removal and the termination of the At and East has reduced the volume of grain moving through the port. For livestock and feed industries, Halifax represents a competitive alternative to rail for shipping feed grain into the maritime provinces.
['Agreed.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 5 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 30(7), the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona) moved: that Bill C-204, an act to amend the Atomic Energy Control Act (ending development and exportation of prescribed items and substances) be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, my hope for this bill, Bill C-204, is that it might become the vehicle for a long overdue debate in this country about Canada's commitment to, and involvement in, the nuclear fuel cycle and all which that entails, from uranium mining through to waste disposal.
It is a debate which, when I was elected in 1979 seemed about to occur. The new Progressive Conservative government elected on May 22, 1979, was promising a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy. The motive for the inquiry was mixed.
The nuclear industry in Canada was a creation of successive Liberal governments. The Conservatives were open to an inquiry which, as well as raising fundamental questions as some had in mind, would uncover Liberal sins, the greatest of which, for some, was the failure to more successfully market Canadian reactors.
In any event, the government fell and with the return of the Liberals it was business as usual for government and the nuclear industry. All attempts to get any kind of public debate or input were stymied.
For instance, I tried in 1980 to get the then energy minister, Marc Lalonde, to hold hearings on the proposal to build the underground research laboratory at Lac du Bonnet, Manitoba, but to no avail. I also introduced a private members' bill at that time which called for a moratorium, an inquiry and a referendum on nuclear power. It was debated for an hour and then disappeared into history, as almost all private members' bills did at that time.
Since then, we have had the reform of private members' business which permits some private members' bills to be chosen as votable, a designation which provides for longer debates and a vote. This has meant on occasion that bills which would only have been debated once and

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Private Members' Business
forgotten have actually become law, because MPs have seen fit to give a bill their support freed from the discipline of government business.
One such bill is former Bill C-204, sponsored by the former member for Broadview-Greenwood, Lynn McDonald, who I might say is also involved in the life of this bill as a leader in the campaign for nuclear phaseout. Obviously, my hopes for this bill are that it, too, might become law.
Having said that, I appeal at this point to MPs on all sides of the nuclear issue to support this bill at second reading so that it can be sent to a committee and become the context for a much needed debate.
Returning to the history of non-debate which I was recounting before, all we got from the Liberals between 1980 and 1984 was an internal departmental review which not surprisingly concluded that everything was all right.
There was some hope that the Conservatives in 1984 might return to their 1979 policy of having an inquiry, but this was not to be. Now we have the current minister of energy, the hon. member for Provencher, making speeches all over the place about the importance of nuclear power to Canada's energy future.
Just today, the minister of energy, speaking to a meeting of the Canadian Nuclear Association in Saskatoon, made an offer of federal money to the province of Saskatchewan to help bring a nuclear reactor to Saskatchewan. This is a classic case of one government with absolutely no mandate negotiating with another government with absolutely no mandate on anything, needless to say no mandate with respect to choosing to locate a nuclear reactor in that province.
Where does this strange commitment come from on the part of the minister of energy and on the part of the government as a whole? It is not from any visible, parliamentary, political or public process, that is for sure. We have had committees which looked at isolated aspects of the entire nuclear issue thanks to the freedom given to committees to study what they want.
A committee looked at food irradiation, for example, and recommended against it. The then minister of health ignored its recommendations. Who was the minister of health at that time? The member for Provencher, who is now the minister of energy and chief promoter of the nuclear option.
Another committee looked at high level radioactive waste disposal, producing a report called The Eleventh Hour, which made a number of good recommendations, most of which have been ignored by the current government. Is it just a coincidence that the research going on into high level radioactive waste disposal, not to mention the entire Whiteshell Nuclear Research establishment, is located in the riding of who? The hon. member for Provencher, who when he was the minister of health, systematically withheld information available in his department about radiation levels in Canada after the accident at Chernobyl.
I do not want to dwell too much on the hon. member for Provencher. He is simply an archetype of those whose minds are captive to the mindset of the nuclear industry, with a dash of constituency politics thrown in for good measure.
Of course, now the minister of energy and the nuclear industry have discovered the environment, particularly the greenhouse effect. Those who for years vacillated between heaping scorn on environmentalists or ignoring them now purport to have been Greenpeacers in disguise all these years and offer to lead the planet away from the dangers of greenhouse gases into the benign and beckoning embrace of increased reliance on nuclear generated electricity.
We recently had a unanimous report in this House from a committee that looked at the issue of the greenhouse effect for 18 months. That unanimous report made no recommendation whatsoever that nuclear energy ought to be regarded as Canada's response to the greenhouse effect. Yet, we have the hon. member for Provencher, the minister of energy-and I read his speeches faithfully as they come across my desk-saying time after time after time that nuclear energy is the answer to the greenhouse effect. Once again he is ignoring the unanimous views of a committee of this House as he did before with respect to food irradiation. If this is parliamentary reform, if this is giving hon. members more input into government policy, then I am
June 11, 1991

truly mystified as to what the government might mean by its rhetoric.
Not surprisingly, I find the greenhouse strategy of the nuclear industry to be reprehensible and wrong, particularly when it manifests itself in the TV ads by the Canadian Nuclear Association, an association whose major members are taxpayer funded organizations like AECL. In the absence of any real debate and/or decision by Parliament, why should public money be channelled into advocating only one side of the issue? Let us have a good debate. Let us pass this bill on second reading. Let us get it into committee and let us have a committee process in which all sides and all aspects of the debate can be aired and heard, including the issue of whether the nuclear option is the answer to the greenhouse effect.
Otherwise, if the government and/or its members defeat this bill and prevent such a process, perhaps they should provide the Campaign for Nuclear Phase-out or Energy Probe or the Concerned Citizens of Manitoba or various other environmental groups with the funds to design and broadcast ads, putting the other side of the case that is now being made on TV by the Canadian Nuclear Association.
In the time I have left, I would like to enter into the substance of the debate and give an account of why my own view is that we should discontinue the nuclear option, a view which I have held since the early 1970s when I first became active in anti-nuclear politics, long before I got to this place.
At the root of my position on this issue is not some sort of Luddite, negative reaction in principle to new technologies or progress.
My life is full of, and dependent upon, a variety of new technologies, many of which I quite enjoy and which I think greatly increase our quality of life. At the root of my opposition to the nuclear option is the quite rational judgment, which is therefore debatable, that the risk involved in nuclear energy is not acceptable, especially when we have other choices. The problem with a nuclear reactor is that when something goes wrong it really goes wrong and all the years of safe operation, all the years of pious assurances, all the years of technological hubris, are to quote an old hymn "like an evening gone". The
Private Members' Business
damage, the disruption and the other negative consequences last for lifetimes.
It is, as it has been called, an unforgiving technology, a Promethean bargain, that has only tragedy as its last result however long that result may take to occur. I have seen such consequences with my own eyes in Ukraine on the way into Kiev from the airport where older single family neighbourhoods are being bulldozed in order to facilitate the construction of high-rise apartments to house the some two and a half million people who have had to be relocated or evacuated as a result of the accident at Chernobyl.
I know that the reactor at Chernobyl is not identical to Candu reactors. I know that our system is better. I know that human error was involved at Chernobyl, but unless we are being asked to believe that our system is completely and utterly fail-safe and our people without capability for error then we have to ask ourselves whether the prospect of having to evacuate Toronto and environs, however improbable, is a risk worth taking when there are other choices.
I say that it is an unacceptable risk needlessly perpetrated by an over-all commitment to an energy policy dictated by the institutional self-interest of the energy supply industry in this country. Within this the most glaring institutional conflict of interest is the way in which AECL is asked to both market and make judgments that could affect the marketing of nuclear reactors.
A good example of this is AECL's involvement in high-level radioactive waste disposal. Being able to say that the waste disposal problem has been solved is crucial to the successful marketing of reactors abroad. For that very reason it should not be AECL that primarily determines the acceptability of disposal options. It should not be the institution which depends on a solution being perceived to have been reached and which is responsible for the judgment about whether that solution has indeed been found.
An even better example of this institutional self-interest is the way in which AECL at the Romanian reactor site in Cernavoda managed to turn a blind eye for years to the fact that it was a forced labour camp to which people were being conscripted to work, as well as to many other things in terms of structural flaws, et cetera, in the work being done there. AECL turned a blind eye

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Private Members' Business
in order not to damage the prospect of further reactor sales abroad.
In any event, the rejection of risk because of the magnitude of the consequences rather than the probability of the consequences is an ordinary human judgment that we all make all the time. This is what many Canadians are doing in their rejection of nuclear power. Indeed, this is what the nuclear industry itself seems to be doing by insisting on things like the nuclear liability act which exempted it from any meaningful liability in the event of the kinds of accidents it keeps telling the Canadian public are so improbable. If these accidents are so improbable, why has the nuclear industry sought and received and now seeks to maintain this kind of protection from the consequences of accidents that it says itself are improbable? It is because it has made the same kind of ordinary rational judgment that the magnitude of the consequences make nuclear power a special case. That is what those of us who are against nuclear power are saying.
As for uranium mining and waste disposal, these for me are classic examples of inter-generational moral issues. We need to ask ourselves tough questions about whether we really have the right to bequeath to subsequent generations a world full of uranium tailings and lethal waste, not to mention the aboriginal justice issues raised by uranium mining itself in northern Saskatchewan for example.
Finally, there is the link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons which, in the final analysis, is the genesis of the special mystique attached to the nuclear industry in Canada and elsewhere ever since the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. It is this link to the ultimate evil of planetary destruction which has provided the nuclear industry with a unique immunity from political accountability and authentic debate because it has its origins as a strategy for diverting public attention away from atoms for war to atoms for peace.
Nuclear power has been protected for years because it is the means by which nuclear technology for the purposes of global death has been morally and politically laundered. Even the Brundtland commission fudged on this issue, which is an example of the power of this issue
and its relationship to matters of national security and nuclear weaponry.
In July 1986, following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the federal NDP caucus launched its own public inquiry into all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle in Canada. The inquiry was co-chaired by myself, as NDP environment critic at that time, and the former member for Vancouv-er-Kingsway, Ian Waddell, who was NDP energy critic at that time. We held hearings across Canada, received numerous briefs and presentations and conducted additional research into a variety of issues. No report was ever published because of a shuffle in critic portfolios that took both of us into other areas of concern before it was completed.
I would like, at this time, to share what I think were some of the major conclusions that were emerging from that process, all of which are in keeping with the spirit and substance of this bill.
One, the nuclear fuel chain from uranium mining to high level waste management poses unacceptable hazards to human health and the environment.
Two, nuclear power and nuclear arms are inextricably linked.
Three, nuclear power is unnecessary to meet Canadian energy needs. There are cheaper alternatives, notably demand reduction through improved energy efficiency.
Four, the Canadian nuclear industry has been a drain on the public purse. Alternative investments could create more long-term jobs and more balanced economic development.
Five, Canada's involvement in the production, manufacture, sale and use of nuclear materials and technology for all but medical purposes should be phased out.
Six, such a phase-out should be seen not in negative terms but as an opportunity to revitalize and retool the Canadian economy by reducing costly energy over-consumption in favour of a much more efficient energy use.
We could finally have an energy policy that reflected more than the narrow self-interest of the energy supply industry, an industry which, far from being interested in sustainable growth, is still committed to the infinite growth in a finite world that the Club of Rome warned us about 20 years ago.
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Mr. Speaker, I see that you are indicating I have vety little time left. I wonder if I could ask the indulgence of the House to just finish my remarks.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Seven, the Nuclear Liability Act should be repealed and nuclear designers, suppliers and operators should bear full responsibility for any damage which may be caused by nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities.
Eight, operating nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities should be required to implement the best practicable technology for reducing risk and radiation exposure.
Nine, enforceable authorized limits for radiation exposure should be established for workers and the public from each nuclear facility, including both individual and collective limits.
Ten, the Canadian government should demand a shutdown of U.S. nuclear facilities which threaten Canadian lives and communities, including Perry, Fermi II and the Hartford Nuclear Reactor in Washington pending a public review of the facilities in consultation with Canadian nuclear regulatory officials.
Eleven, a reciprocal agreement with the U.S. should be established for continuous monitoring of all trans-boundaiy nuclear hazards. The IJC could provide a suitable mechanism for administering such an agreement.
Twelve, all aspects of visits to Canadian waters of nuclear powered and nuclear weapons capable vessels should be the object of a separate inquiry done in consultation with effective municipal and provincial governments as suggested by Gretchen Brewin, Mayor of Victoria, in 1986. In the meantime, until such inquiry reports, a moratorium on such visits should be in effect.
Thirteen-and I will be winding up soon-further construction of nuclear reactors should be halted in order to pursue other energy alternatives and in so doing to also minimize the accumulation of even more high-level radioactive waste.
Private Members' Business
Fourteen, there should be a permanent and legally enforceable ban on net imports of nuclear waste from other countries.
Fifteen, there should be a ban on reprocessing of waste from Canada and from other countries and an end to research in this technology by AECL and other government supported bodies.
Sixteen, responsibility for waste management should be removed from AECL and given to an independent commission reporting to the Department of the Environment with full public participation at every stage of the decision-making process and ample funding for the development of independent technical expertise.
Seventeen, there should be a legally enforceable guarantee that Manitoba and other non-nuclear provinces will not be required to host a nuclear waste facility.
Eighteen, waste generators should be required to bear full costs of high level waste management, including intervener funding, hearings, research by Environment Canada and others, compensation for host communities and liability insurance for waste sites, et cetera. Let the real costs of the nuclear product be seen and felt in the marketplace. I say this to my friends on the other side who are great fans of the marketplace.
Nineteen, Canada should be pushing for a change in the terms of reference.


Mr. Kilgour:: With great respect, there are a number of people who want to speak in this debate. I hope he will not speak for more than another few seconds.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Nineteen, Canada should be pushing for a change in the terms of reference of the International Atomic Energy Agency so that it is no longer responsible for promoting nuclear power as well as preventing its misuse for military purposes. The IAEA's commitment to nuclear power has damaged its ability to report objectively on nuclear accidents.
A full accounting of all forms of public subsidy and support to nuclear power should be published, and a study of the impact of anticipated job losses in the nuclear industry should be conducted with a view to devising strategies for a transition to a post-nuclear energy economy.
Finally, I say to those who work in the nuclear industry that it should not be thought that there will be no more jobs in the nuclear industry if there were to be a nuclear

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Private Members' Business
phase-out. There will be jobs for decades to come in decommissioning nuclear reactors, in figuring out what to do with all the high-level radioactive waste that we have to deal with already. All that a nuclear phase-out would do would be to turn the attention of the best minds in the nuclear industry to how to get ourselves out of this mess that we are in rather than how to get ourselves even deeper into the mess that we are already in.
I am soriy that my time has expired, and I am sorry that I may have treaded upon the indulgence of the House. I had even more to say, but I am anxious to hear what others have to say.


Mr. Rene Soetens (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in this debate with some serious concern about the comments I have heard. Perhaps I will just refer to two very brief ones from the hon. member that I find interesting.
The hon. member talks about the government of which I am a member having no mandate to talk to another government in Saskatchewan, which he again says has no mandate. You have to understand that we are talking about a government that has a majority in this House talking to another government that has a majority in another House, and who is accusing us of not having a mandate? A person from a party which represents 22 per cent of the votes in Canada, which represents some very few seats in this House. I do not know who has the mandate and who does not.
I would suggest to the hon. member that he ought to look at who has the mandate and who has the right to make decisions on behalf of this country.
The other issue that I find rather exceptional in his comments is this. He says that we ought to be concerned about generational issues, that we ought not leave to our children and our grandchildren, et cetera, some of the legacies that we have today. I wish that party would have that attitude when it comes to spending money. I wish they would be concerned about that every time they rise in this House and say spend, spend, spend and let other generations worry about it. But that is not what this debate is about.
This debate is about nuclear energy and the benefits of nuclear energy to Canada. I want members to understand what we are talking about here. First off, my riding has one of the longest, largest operational nuclear power
plants in Canada, the Pickering nuclear generating station. It has in its capacity eight reactor units. Those reactor units provide approximately 20 per cent of the electricity that the province of Ontario consumes. So I have an interest, and I have a direct interest as a constituent and as a person who represents a constituency. That plant has operated without fail, without harm to any of its employees because of the fact that it is a nuclear plant since, I believe, 1964.
What do we have proposed here by this resolution? The resolution says that the Atomic Energy Control Board would refrain from licensing any nuclear power reactors starting in January, 1992, for 50 years. Fifty years we are talking about.
What would that do to Canada's economy and what impact would it have on the environment, short and long-term. I would like to talk about some of those, because there are some short-term impacts that would be rather dramatic to Canada, and particularly devastating to certain regions, including a region that I happen to represent. It is not just the riding of Ontario, but the province of Ontario.
Among the first victims would be the consumers living in the province that I live in and represent. Bill C-204, the one being proposed here, would prevent Ontario Hydro's Darlington nuclear power plant from having its last two reactors, reactor numbers three and four, licensed. The taxpayers of Ontario, the electricity consumers of Ontario, the NDP government of Ontario, which have invested $14 billion in building a new plant in Darlington, would be deprived by the NDP party of this House from commissioning and putting in place a reactor that will provide 10 per cent of the electricity to the province of Ontario.
It is amazing how they would stand for that. Even the NDP party of Ontario does not have the guts to do that kind of thing, yet these people over here in their glass houses sit there and say would it not be great to do so. Well, I find that rather unacceptable, particularly when these reactors are slated to come onstream in June and March of next year and the year following.
The inability to obtain operating licences for these two reactors would have a significant impact. There are some
935,000	customers in Ontario who would lose the benefits of access to this electricity that is needed a year and a year and a half from now.
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Where do we go for it? I know where they would say we would go for it. They would just as soon we go to Ohio because there is no generating capacity in Ontario. We can go to Ohio and have them fire up their oil-fired generating plants so they can spew their acid rain over the province of Ontario and Quebec. That is what they prefer we do. What else would they prefer we do? Maybe go to northern Quebec and dam up a few more rivers and flood a few more terrains so that we can have the electricity. You cannot dam rivers in a year and a half, but that is what they would have us do. Or maybe it is because the member is from Winnipeg. He prefers to go to Winnipeg or the province of Manitoba and buy some electricity from one of their dams and rivers that they are talking about damming up.
Where is the NDP's concern over all those matters? I find it rather insignificant on its part that it would even address those other subjects. Immediately, a year and a half from now, it would throw away some $8 billion or $9 billion without any thought. But, then, that is the NDP, so I guess I should know better.
It goes on from there. There is another impact of this whole resolution. We recently sold a Candu-6 unit to Korea. Canada has been trying to export our technology, trying to export our jobs, trying to create increased technology. Kill that sale, make that sale die is what it is proposing in its resolution. If you kill that sale, you kill an awful lot of opportunities and jobs for Canadians.
What does it mean? Well, $400 million of economic activity in Canada and 28,000 person-years of employment lost. From the party that talks about trying to create jobs in this country, by this simple resolution
28,000	man-years of work are gone with the scratch of a pen. I cannot believe that it truly-well, I can, because that is its way of doing things. I just find that the whole concept the NDP is proposing carries on this process.
He says: "Pass this bill so that we can have a debate, so that we can take this to a committee and have a debate". Simply passing this bill would send the signal to those parts of the world that are looking at new reactors, new
Private Members' Business
technology, that maybe Canada is having second thoughts, we ought not to look at Canadian reactors.
Imagine doing that to the Canadian industry. The NDP will do it. However, a government that I am a member of had better not because that is absolute folly.
Now, I will talk about our international reputation because it is a rather significant point. This Korean contract, if we cancel it, if we cancel any other potential sales or any interest,we must consider that so far the taxpayers of Canada have invested about $4.2 billion in creating this industry in Canada, $4.2 billion. With a stroke of a pen, the NDP would write it off. Amazing. That is NDP socialist philosophy-go ahead, write it off, don't worry about the impact. Another $4.2 billion gone.


An hon. member:: Then they will print money.


René John Soetens: Then they will print money, as one of my colleagues says. That just goes on, and of course that is the immediate impact. Never mind the immediate environmental impact that it doesn't seem to want to talk about. I find the whole concept of what it is proposing to be absolutely ludicrous.
Just think about it in another perspective, though. The member says: "Don't worry, there won't be any loss of jobs because there will be all these jobs available to decommission the plants". Isn't that ludicrous. Isn't that absolutely ludicrous. First off, what do you do for electricity? He has not answered that question in his whole debate. What do you do for electricity while you are decommissioning these plants? What happens to the technology that is required to keep the Bruce nuclear reactor, the Pickering reactor, and the Darlington reactor running? Shut down the industry and you may find that without that ongoing technology, it just doesn't happen. I find it rather deplorable to hear the member say there will be lots of jobs available in shutting it down.
There is $30 billion worth of investment in Ontario- that is the province I represent-by Ontario taxpayers and energy consumers, and he says: "Write it off, shut it down".
The list goes on. It goes on further. Those are some of the short-term immediate impacts. There are others, and some of them relate to the economy and the

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Private Members' Business
environment, and the world's environment. They talk about that in their party. I know the NDP are really not serious on the environment, but it does talk about it.
We in Ontario have 17 reactors. There is one in New Brunswick and there is one in Quebec. I am talking about large electrical-generating reactors. They generate some 11,000 megawatts of power. That is an awful lot; 16 per cent of all the electricity generated in Canada, 44 per cent of all the electricity consumed in Ontario, 40 per cent of the electricity consumed in New Brunswick. Not small numbers, not by any stretch of the imagination, and in certain regions of Canada very expensive things to replace, and certainly items that are not replaceable instantly. This bill would prevent construction.
As have other speakers, I would like to wrap up with another minute or two if I could have consent of the House to do so. I realize my time is up but I would look to the House for that approval.
I think it is important that we cannot just do away with 50 years. That is what we are hearing, a moratorium for 50 years. It is important that we continue to generate electricity, that we continue to have the options available to us.
I have a lot to say.


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


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, the case has been well made by the proposer of the motion as to why this matter should go to a committee for a full-fledged debate on the matter.
I understand that this matter will stop at six o'clock p.m. and it will come up again in the fall for a continuation of this debate so that how the Liberal Party will vote is not to be determined by what is going to be basically a pro-nuclear speech here.
We have people on all sides of the issue, and we are not speaking with one voice. We are not monolithic.
To end the development and export of nuclear substances, nuclear reactors and atomic equipment and materials required to build nuclear reactors, which is ultimately the purpose of the bill as I think the member would admit, would mean a step backward in the economic development of Canada.
Regarding livelihoods of many Canadians and our international reputation, we have about 39 per cent of
the world's uranium supply and have developed a very successful and comparatively safe nuclear industry in this country. Our industry sells about $1 billion worth of uranium to domestic and foreign electrical utilities annually.
For years, Canada has been the world's largest uranium exporting country. In 1984, we became the largest producer, surpassing the United States.
After a decade of very little growth in the Canadian nuclear power industry, the 1990s looked promising for future expansion. The international markets for safe nuclear power plants are showing strong signs of revival. AECL predicts that its sales will triple over the next four years to about $660 million from $191 million in this fiscal year.
The nuclear power plant sold to South Korea will inject $400 million into the Canadian economy, creating about 7,000 jobs over a four-year period. With growing concerns about acid rain and the greenhouse effect, the Canadian nuclear industry has seized the opportunity to promote a technology that does not emit large quantities of S02 and C02 into the atmosphere.
Uranium, as members know, is largely sold to fuel nuclear reactors for electricity generation. The use of nuclear energy for that purpose is forecast to increase from the present 15 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020.
The increase in demand for nuclear energy will result in an increasing demand for uranium and create economic opportunities for Saskatchewan, which possesses vast reserves of uranium. It supplies over 20 per cent of the uranium produced in the western world.
The alternatives to nuclear energy in source provinces are running out. There is little hydro potential in Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan or the Atlantic provinces. Saskatchewan must have a new generating capacity in the next four or five year, and the nuclear option is a viable one.
I am the first to agree that nuclear energy must be very critically assessed. Many future scenarios indicate that meeting energy needs and environmental demands without nuclear power will be difficult. Nothing is perfectly safe, and this must apply to nuclear electrical generation as well. The tragic catastrophe in 1986 at Chernobyl brought the issue to the minds of everybody in the world.
June 11, 1991

That incident prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency to introduce two new international conventions. I will not give the details because my time is very short. We signed both of those conventions.
The incident resulted from an incredible series of human errors, incompetence, arrogance and bureaucratic squabbling in a then totalitarian system. The list of violations is extensive. It hardly needs to be said that safety precautions were nonexistent at Chernobyl.
Unfortunately, everywhere else in the world the social and political fall-out from the Chernobyl accident seems to be as long lived as the radioactivity it spewed. It provided opponents of nuclear energy with fresh ammunition. It was a tragic aberration in the history of nuclear power.
The Chernobyl type design, and this cannot be stressed too strongly, is not used anywhere except in the Soviet Union and could not be licensed to operate in our country.
Proponents of nuclear power express confidence that a new age of commercial reactor-building is already at hand, thanks to various breakthroughs in nuclear power technology. Advanced reactor designs are safer than existing models and can be built faster and for less money. A number of reactors being developed in the U.S., such as General Electric's fast-breeder PRISM reactor, Rockwell's SAFR reactor and the Department of Energy's Modular High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor, for example, incorporate self-shutdown mechanisms which require no mechanical, electrical or human intervention.
It remains, as we all realize, to convince a very sceptical public-I was one myself but I think the facts are beginning to change my mind-that commercial nuclear power is more reliable than ever.
The main economic disadvantage of building nuclear generating plants is their capital intensity, which makes them extraordinarily expensive. For example, in mid-1990 Ontario Hydro announced that the final price tag for Darlington would be more than $12.7 billion. It remains unknown how much it would cost to decommission a nuclear power plant once it reaches the end of its life cycle.
Private Members' Business
Yet, once in operation, nuclear generating systems produce cheaper energy per unit than thermal generating ones.
Since the Chernobyl incident, the use of nuclear energy has continued to grow around the world. In 1986, 26 nations operated 396 nuclear energy plants, which provided 15.5 per cent of the world's supply of electric power. In 1990, 25 nations operated 424 nuclear energy plants, providing about 17 per cent of the world's electricity. The steady expansion of nuclear energy world-wide since Chernobyl vindicates the safety and benefits of western style nuclear energy plants. Worldwide nuclear energy has displaced over 15 billion barrels of oil and saved $420 billion, I understand.
Our country relies on nuclear power for nearly 16 per cent of its electrical generation. Two new Candu reactors have been brought on line since the Chernobyl incident. In total, there are 20 Candu reactors operating in the country; 18 in Ontario and one each in New Brunswick and Quebec. Two others are, of course, under construction in Ontario. In 1989, four Candu reactors were included among the top 10 world reactors. The Point Lepreau station, located in New Brunswick, has been a world performance leader, producing power for more than 93 per cent of its eight-year life.
Now, what about other countries? In France, the number of nuclear energy plants increased from 49 in 1986 to 56 in 1990, supplying about 75 per cent of France's electricity, the equivalent of 68 million tons of oil. The French are proceeding with the development of a fast-breeder reactor, with the potential to deliver 50 times more energy from uranium than the standard water reactor.
In Sweden, the country that my friends in the New Democratic Party love to point at, I understand the government is moving away from its decision to phase out nuclear power by 2010. I understand that the Swedish government has concluded that it cannot afford to lose such a clean, low-cost source of electricity. In January 1991, the three political parties decided not to close two units in 1995 and 1996. Again to the member who proposed the motion, public opinion polls in Sweden showed last year that 75 per cent of the Swedish people believe nuclear energy will still be used after 2010.

Business of the House
Italy, which closed down its nuclear energy plants after Chernobyl, is now reconsidering since nuclear energy is the only valid alternative to the country's near total dependence on energy imports and oil.
What about Japan. A long-term government strategy calls for nuclear energy to supply 43 per cent of all electricity by 2010, up from 26 per cent today. To reach that goal 40 new reactors must be built.
There seem to be no insurmountable technical problems of solidifying wastes into chemically stable forms and disposing of them permanently, but political opposition has delayed the execution of specific projects in many countries. Waste disposal is therefore in hand only in the technical sense, but is well behind the schedule necessary for nuclear power to play an increasing role in the decades ahead.
Both the French and the Japanese convert their most toxic waste into a stable, glassy substance and store it in concrete bunkers at least several hundred metres below the ground. This is a temporary solution until experts determine where to dispose of the waste permanently.
There are obviously undesirable problems associated with the transportation of nuclear fuel and waste, as well as with maintenance or decommissioning of old plants at the end of their operating life. Where the equipment or building materials have become radioactive, the storage must be long-term and secure. Decommissioning costs escalate and the economics of the next generation of plants will become tougher.
However, the greenhouse effect is often a powerful argument for increasing the use of nuclear power if the safety and waste problems can be overcome.
I would ask the members: Is society better protected by dumping huge quantities of S02, NOX or C02 particulates and other contaminants into the atmosphere or by isolating relatively small quantities of radioactive waste?
A dispassionate view of the role of nuclear energy and global warming control was provided by a witness at the hearings of the Standing Committee on the Environment with impeccable environmental credentials, Dr. James Bruce. He said:
Where the nuclear option looks to be a reasonable option from
the economics of the situation, then I think it is probably better
from the point of view of the world's atmosphere than to build a
fossil fuel plant.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Order, please. Your time is over.


David Kilgour: I could perhaps ask another favour, if I move more quickly, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Does the House give its unanimous consent?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Very briefly.


David Kilgour: Thank you. I will skip a page-and-a-half, Mr. Speaker.
Nuclear power is different not only from fossil power but even from the solar option. Fossil fuels are sooner or later depletable, solar and nuclear are not. Unlike solar, the current status of the nuclear industry offers an infrastructure that would allow for the deployment of nuclear energy on a massive scale in the foreseeable future.
I would finally quote-well, I will not quote, I will end right there. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. There have been discussions among the three parties and I am sure you will find consent for the following motion:
That, when no member rises to speak on debate on Thesday, June 11,1991, on the motion for the third reading of Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), the Speaker shall adjourn the debate; and
That the resumed debate on such motion be called on Friday, June 14, 1991, with one speaker, for up to 10 minutes each, from each recognized party in the House, followed by the question being put on the motion and any requested recorded division being deferred to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, June 18, 1991.


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


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I want to confirm that the words of the motion that indicate the Speaker is to adjourn the debate mean that at that time the House will proceed immediately with the late show. In other words, there will be no other item of business called and the late show will proceed whenever that magic moment arrives

June 11, 1991

that no other member rises to speak, should that happen before 10 p.m.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I can confirm that even though we do have a rather extensive list that we could draw from, we will not call any further business and we will then immediately go to adjournment proceedings.


David Kilgour: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, things may have changed under the new rules, but when I used to have the position that the hon. parliamentary secretary has, I do not think we got up during private members' hour to do this. We did this at the end of the private members' hour debate, and I wonder why we are not doing that today, if I am correct in that hypothesis.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, once again to demonstrate our co-operation to the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, we would concur with the intent of this particular motion. But if memory serves me correctly of our meeting this afternoon, this motion was to be brought forward later this evening when the debate on Bill C-ll would collapse, if in fact it did collapse. However, I accept the intent of the hon. member opposite and I presume that my colleagues to the left will consent to this particular motion to which we now give our consent.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am not here to dissent. I understand that discussions have been held. However I would ask that the time which this little intervention has taken not be taken away from private members' business and that the appropriate number of minutes be added so that we can continue past 6 p.m.


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Albert Glen Cooper: Of course we would have no problem with that in the couple of minutes that this has taken in the normal time of Private Members' Business.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: What was just said is well noted. Does the House give unanimous consent for the request of the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader to talbe this motion?
Private Members' Business


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration on the motion of Mr. Blaikie (p. 1465)
Mr. Charles A. Langlois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Science and Technology):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have this opportunity today to address the House on Bill C-204 put forward by the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona.
I would like to take a moment, Mr. Speaker, to look at the nuclear industry in the national as well as global context. Mr. Speaker, the government of Canada actively supports the availability of a wide range of electricity supply options, including fossil fuels and nuclear power, as well as the various renewable options, such as biomass, wind, and solar power.
Conservation will also play an important and growing part in the overall future of electricity generation. Indeed, nuclear-electric generation compares favourably with other sources in terms of its overall environmental impact and does not contribute to acid rain, nor the greenhouse effect.
In sustaining a strong and viable nuclear industry, the governement of Canada continues to support the development of the uranium mining industry, as it has done for more than forty years. For decades, Canada has been the world's leading exporter of uranium and has ranked second behind the United States in terms of uranium output.
In 1984, Canada replaced the U.S. as the Western world's leading producer, and now produces more than twice as much as its nearest competitor, and one-third of the world's output. Today, the uranium industry in Canada employs almost 3,000 people, and generates revenues of close to $1 billion annually. Roughly 85 per cent of the uranium produced in Canada is destined for export, mostly to the United States, Japan and Western

June 11, 1991
Private Members' Business
Europe, where it is a major contributor to national energy programs.
Our uranium exports are critical to the electricity supply mix of our trading partners. For example, Mr. Speaker, how many realize that, in France, 70 per cent of the total electricity supply is nuclear-generated. In Belgium, the figure is 66 per cent, while in Sweden it is 47 per cent, in Switzerland 37 per cent, in Finland and Spain 36 per cent, in Japan 27 per cent, and in the United Kingdom and the United States about 20 per cent. These contributions are not insignificant, and Canada is a major source of fuel for many of these national programs.
In this latter context, Mr. Speaker, Canada's uranium producing industry is critical to our obligation under the Canada/U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which was implemented early in 1989. The FTA provides clear benefits to both Canada and the United States. It ensures that Canadian producers will have access to the U.S. market and that U.S. utilities will have access to Canadian uranium on competitive terms.
Uranium ranks sixth in terms of output value among Canada's metal commodities after copper, zinc, gold, nickel, and iron ore. However, it is much more important as an energy commodity. In 1987, Canada's uranium output was equivalent, in thermal energy terms, to the production of petroleum and natural gas combined, or almost four times Canada's production of coal. Canada has proven, untapped uranium resources which will ensure our dominant position in world markets well into the next century.
Like its competitors, however, Canada's uranium industry is currently facing an uncertain market, plagued by low and volatile spot prices, significant excess inventories and new sources of low-priced uranium from Eastern Europe.
Mr. Speaker, the proposed Bill would undermine the Canadian uranium and nuclear industries, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs and millions of revenue dollars. Surely, Mr. Speaker, this is the time when the uranium mining industry deserves full support from governments, since uranium remains a highly valued energy resource for Canada and its principal trading partners.
Mr. Speaker, much of the increased concern about protecting the environment is focused on the uranium and nuclear industries. These concerns are shared by everyone who agrees that we should not pollute our natural environment. With regard to uranium mining, the government of Canada is confident that the monitoring processes instituted by both the federal and provincial regulatory agencies and the strict standards required by them has served to minimize environmental impacts and protect the health and safety of the mine workers and the public alike.
The uranium industry is one of the most highly regulated of all industrial activities. It should be pointed out that all Canadian uranium operations are classified as nuclear facilities. As such, they are controlled by the federal Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Control Act and the regulations derived from the Act.
The AECB issues licences for the operation of uranium mines only after ensuring that they will not have a significant effect on the health and safety of the mine workers and the public, and after reviewing measures designed to ensure adequate protection of the environment.
Mr. Speaker, Canada is committed to ensuring that the future development of uranium resources will not cause serious environmental impact. In April 1991, the AECB referred six proposals for new uranium mining projects in Saskatchewan for public review by an independent Panel pursuant to the federal government's Environmental Assessment and Review Process (EARP).
Officials of both the federal and Saskatchewan govem-menents have successfully negotiated terms of reference for a joint federal/Saskatchewan Panel, which will ensure that the environmental, health, safety and socio-economic impacts of these developments will be fully evaluated.
I am confident that this review process will demonstrate that uranium mining can be conducted in a safe, and environmentally responsible manner. I am very pleased that the two levels of government have fully co-operated in initiating this joint review process.
As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, Canada exports uranium only to those countries that have made a commitment to the international community that they will not use the uranium, or its byproducts, for nuclear

Private Members' Business
explosive purposes, and have signed a bilateral agreement with Canada to that effect.
The government of Canada remains firmly convinced that the non-proliferation precautions that have been put in place make it possible for Canada to contribute effectively to the peaceful uses of nuclear power and the resulting worldwide benefits, while ensuring that no diversion for weapons purposes occurs. Canada's safeguards are among the most stringent in the world, and the government of Canada believes that the sale of uranium from Canada contributes to our national nonproliferation objectives.
Mr. Speaker, the emerging awareness of the advantages of nuclear power bodes well for its future, and in turn for Canada's uranium producing industry.
In August 1988, Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy, Mines and Resources released a report entitled Nuclear Energy-Unmasking the Mystery. In its report, the Committee stated its position very clearly, and I quote:
"Maintaining the nuclear power option is vital to Canada's interests, as it is vital to the interests of society in general. There is a compelling case to be made in support of continued nuclear development, a case based upon the future inadequacy of conventional petroleum resources and upon the environmental degradation arising from burning coal in progressively greater quantities for electricity generation."
Mr. Speaker, it may be of interest to the Honourable Member for Winnipeg-Transcona to know that a November 1988 poll by Decima Research showed that eight out of ten Canadians feel that nuclear energy is a good or realistic choice for large-scale generation of electricity and that it will be an important future source of energy. This poll also revealed that six out of ten Canadians favoured nuclear energy as one of the ways to generate electricity.
So, in closing, Mr. Speaker, I will remind the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona of the importance of the Canadian uranium and nuclear industry as both a reliable and clean source of energy for the future. Although well-intentioned, the proposed bill makes no sense in the national and global context and should therefore not be passed.


Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, at the outset I would request that I be first on at the next sitting of the House on this particular bill.
We as Canadians have a great habit of creating something that is great for Canada and for the world, as we have with the Candu reactor and with nuclear energy. Over 50 per cent of the energy used in the province of Ontario is from nuclear energy.
As soon as we do this, there are Canadians who come forward and they want to destroy what other Canadians have created that is useful to this nation and to our competitiveness in the international market itself.
One of the great things we have going for us in this country is that we have energy. Nuclear energy is one of the cheaper forms. We would be paying about 20 per cent more for our hydro bills today if we had to pay from sources other than nuclear.
Take for example the Avro Arrow aircraft. We did that, and we destroyed it. We have to go outside our own country to find people who have confidence in our Canadian industry, in our Canadian creativity, in our Canadian scientific community.
When the Challenger space shuttle blew up in the air, they realized that it was the O ring that had caused it, that had let go. Immediately, the Americans and the international market realized that Canadians had the O ring in their Candu reactor and they never had an accident.
Let us talk about safety here. All this fear campaign about a great energy source we have in this country has got to stop. I would love a debate on it. I will fight for it any day of the week because it is one of the greatest creations of Canada.
Do not throw fear around about Chernobyl. The Russians built their energy plant first and their safety systems were non-existent. ITiey did not build them until after the accident. In Canada, we build our safety systems first, and they are built to protect us from human error. That is why they are there. We go from there, and we put our nuclear reactor in place last of all.
I just want to give a simple example of some of the fear campaign that is going on, if I may. Daughter number one comes home and she says to her mother: "Mother, I have two offers of a job for the summer. I can work at the Darlington nuclear plant or I can work in the restaurant

June 11, 1991
Government Orders
atop the CN Tower in Toronto". And mother says: "Oh, my goodness, I think you should go to the CN Tower restaurant", not knowing that that daughter working in the CN Tower restaurant in Toronto will get twice as much radiation as she will while working at the Darlington nuclear plant. Why? Because the safety devices are built into the Darlington nuclear plant, and the higher you go the more radiation you get. So wherever you go in Toronto, you will get more radiation in the CN Tower than any other place in Toronto.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I will continue my debate later.


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



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The Blouse resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Corbeil that Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), be read the third time and passed.
Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to conclude my remarks. We were talking about the importance of the elevator at Halifax, which is the only facility available for storage of milling wheat in that area.
The government will demonstrate a support for the Atlantic livestock and flour milling industries by taking a leadership role in ensuring the Halifax elevator remains open. We are committed to ensuring that does happen. The government has examined various options to this effect, including the proposed equalization assistance contained in the Grains 2000 report. The government is monitoring the situation in Halifax and, if needed, is
prepared to act quickly to ensure that the elevator facility continues to play an important role in the agrifood industry. The government is prepared to offer the Saint John elevator the same level of assistance as any program assistance offered to Halifax.
A number of other initiatives have been undertaken by the government to serve the interests of the Atlantic agrifood sector. Various initiatives have been put in place to help the region move toward self-sufficiency in feed grain production. We know how important it is to develop feed grain production there.
On December 14, 1989, the government announced the $6 million special Atlantic livestock initiative to provide temporary support to the Atlantic hog, beef, and sheep sectors over a period of three years.
Feed freight assistance rates were also recalculated in 1989 to take into account the storage component at the Halifax elevator. The feed freight assistance provides a fair equalization of feed grain prices with adjacent feed grain deficit areas. This is one of the programs being reviewed as part of the over-all agricultural policy review process.
Feed freight assistance has also been included in the over-all review of agriculture transportation policies being conducted as part of Growing Together, the agriculture policy review.
When the federal and provincial agriculture ministers met in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, in August 1989, they agreed to a review of transportation policies. They decided then that the feed freight assistance, the Western Grain Transportation Act, and minimum compensatory rates on canola products should be reviewed in the light of changing economic and market conditions. The discussion paper Growing Together highlighted four pillars of reform to guide this review. The pillars include market responsiveness, increased self-reliance, a recognition of regional diversity with a national approach, and environmental sustainability. These are all very important areas.
The transportation committee of the policy review examined options for changes in the implications of such options. It presented its report to the federal-provincial agriculture ministers' meeting in Moncton in August
1990.
June 11, 1991

Subsequently, federal and provincial officials prepared a framework paper on options for using the funds currently spent on feed freight assistance and the Western Grain Transportation Act. This paper was presented to ministers in Winnipeg in November and is issued along with the committee's report as a basis for consultations.
Agriculture Canada has worked very hard to put in place a grains and oil seeds safety net program that will help farmers throughout the country, including those in the Atlantic provinces. This program has two components, the Gross Revenue Insurance Plan, or GRIP, and the Net Income Stabilization Account, or NISA. Together they provide farmers with predictable stabilization. This is probably the most comprehensive legislation that agriculture has ever had the opportunity of having in history. It is a very major piece of legislation and we feel it is a good process. The producers and stakeholders were all involved in developing that program and we feel it will be of great benefit and offer the predictability that is necessary for the long-term viability of agriculture.
Agriculture Canada is also taking a very active part in an industry-government review of the Atlantic Livestock Feed Strategy. A task group led by the Atlantic Farmers Council is examining all our programs to ensure that they contribute most effectively to the development of the Atlantic livestock sector. The task group is expected to submit a preliminary report for consideration by the federal and provincial agriculture ministers when they meet in Kananaskis in July of this year.
In conclusion, I would like to re-emphasize that this government has not forgotten the needs of agriculture producers in Atlantic Canada or, as a matter of fact, in any part of this great country.
We have been working with the provinces and with farm groups to develop new programs to better serve the industry.
We need to re-examine old programs that have been in place for years if we are going to achieve this. If we find the programs have outlived their usefulness, as At and East clearly has, we must take steps in the best interests of the industry and the country to adapt or remove them so that both farmers and the government can get better value for their money.
Government Orders
I was very pleased just a short time ago when there was an agreement in this House to see debate conclude on Friday and get on with this important piece of legislation.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the parliamentary secretary, who is very sincerely interested in agriculture, for his contribution. I was very glad that he mentioned in his remarks the study commissioned by the minister of grains and seeds, et cetera, et cetera, which is known, I understand, as the Grains 2000 Atlantic Port Study.
I know the parliamentary secretary himself is a very successful farmer, I think in a different area of grains. I do not know if it is all in peas or not, but it is in different ingredients. What I was hoping the parliamentary secretary might say and my question to him at this stage is this: he has read, I presume, the report of the Grains 2000 Atlantic Port Study. Is he aware that the report says that unless some more export grain is channelled through that elevator, it is jeopardized.
As a farmer in his own professional life, can he see Atlantic members involved with their farm constituencies sit idly by and let a subsidy program that has been here as long as the Crowsnest Pass-not quite because that was in 1966 and it was J. F. Pickersgill, I was in the House when he mentioned why this At and East was there to enhance the delivery of grain through the ports of Halifax and Saint John.
Forget about Saint John. It is gone and it is not fighting it, although it has lost the jobs. However, as a farmer, and not necessarily as the parliamentary secretary, if he had to put his produce into an elevator, that a 25-person steering committee that he is aware of, which is the Grains 2000 Study, said that unless it gets help it is dead and gone, would he sit idly by and let our government put this bill through without any real debate and without what we have talked about for two and a half to three years, admitting there are differences in trade patterns now, admitting there are differences in so many things in the world but admitting one thing that the parliamentary secretary did not admit, that for two and a half to three years the Departments of Agriculture, Transport, seeds, et cetera, et cetera, regional development have been trying to come up with a package to offset the loss of this $28 million to $40 million subsidy which in terms of seed money, as other people have said here today, produced more income, more taxes and less unemployment insur-

June 11, 1991
Government Orders
ance and less welfare than the cancellation of this policy?
Would the parliamentary secretary sit idly by? What is his answer to my constituents who are the farmers in the Annapolis Valley who have listened for three or four years in good faith, waiting for offsets or some program to help take care of the cancellation. We all realize that subsidies in abstract are distorting, but they also are life-giving in certain situations. What is his answer to these farmers of my riding and to other good Canadians in Atlantic Canada if the recommendations of the Grains 2000 are not implemented? As I think the parliamentary secretary knows, there has not been one tittle of concrete movement or one concrete commitment to help fill the vacuum with the loss of the subsidy and put in some offsets. So what answer does the parliamentary secretary have to that?


Murray Cardiff: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is asking me to speak as the parliamentary secretary and he is also asking me to speak as a farmer. I love to speak as both whenever I get the opportunity.
The hon. member has indicated the loss of $28 million to $42 million in the Atlantic region on the At and East program. I want to remind the hon. members that the majority of that money was used in central Canada as well as in the Atlantic region. To say that total loss took place in the Atlantic region is not correct because it happened in Ontario, and it also affected the farmers in my riding.
We do have elevators to ship out of and to receive there and we do have an inland terminal at Goderich which is quite capable of fully loading ocean vessels to full seaway depth.


An hon. member:: And with navigation.


Murray Cardiff: Yes, all those things are possible. We are also committed to spending tax dollars wisely and fairly. We have indicated that we will support the Halifax elevator every way we can and we are committed to doing that. We have offered the same options to the Saint John facility if it wishes to take up some of this.
We also want to support the livestock and feed grains industry in the Atlantic region. Further development of the production of grains there is very, very important because that is job creation as well and can probably
produce, with the new varieties that are being promoted today, all kinds of opportunities in the Atlantic region for new grains and some oilseeds to be grown in those areas.
We are committed as well to working with agriculture to do that.
As I said, there are the two programs: the Atlantic Livestock Feed Initiative and the Special Atlantic Livestock Initiatives Program. We hope that we can and will continue to support agriculture across Canada, particularly in the Atlantic region.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, if someone else wanted to ask a question, I would appreciate the parliamentary secretary's answer.
I was here when J.W. Pickersgill gave a statement of why the whole At and East was there. When I get on, recognized by the Speaker later on in my speech, I am not going to give him too many facts and figures about the job loss and all that. It has been covered well by those who have spoken here on the debate today, but this is such a symbolic thing that I can tell you that in terms of Atlantic Canada, this is the cut of the Gordian knot to the producers close to the land.
I have a fundamental philosophy: the closer to the land you are the more basic you are, the closer you get to the cities and the concrete canyons and that is life, things become more difficult and more artificial.


An hon. member:: Take it easy, Pat.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: I appreciate that. I do not want to get personal. That is not my speech yet.
The parliamentary secretary, the member from Calgary Southwest, is a nice, interesting young man who has got a computer mind and an interesting competent ability, but when he led off this debate he said: "The bill now before the House seeks to eliminate a subsidy which has outlived its original purpose and has become a burden on the public purse." I want to ask the parliamentary secretary what the distinction is between the At and East subsidy and the Western Grain Transportation subsidy?


Murray Cardiff: Madam Speaker, I suppose they could be similar in certain ways, but we have to recognize that the markets we are supplying have changed considerably since this bill was put into place in 1967 and we recognize that.
June 11, 1991

In the first part of my speech, I gave the figures of what grain exports were to Europe at that time.
As the hon. member knows, since then we have developed major grain markets in Asia, China and in other parts. Because of other components that have come into this, the Export Enhancement Program of the United States and the programs of the European countries, many of those countries that were net importers of wheat now are exporters of wheat. All those things have changed. We have to find the best possible means of exporting our product. We have to compete in the world with what we are selling and we have to move it to a position of loading for shipment in the most economical way possible.
I believe we are being responsible in what we are doing in responding to that. I know for a fact that the withdrawal of the At and East program does not affect the people and the producers in the province of Ontario to the extent that it does in the Atlantic regions. As I said before, we are going to work with those people, with the provincial governments and with the producers to make sure that they are compensated in some way that we can work with them so that they will have a viable and good future in agriculture.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss in some detail the bill before the House, Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act, insofar as it applies to grains and flour subsidies.
I must confess that I am a little bit amazed to be speaking in this House again on this very bill. At one time in the last session it died on the Order Paper.
I was sitting in my home in Thunder Bay watching television, watching the very capable and eloquent delivery on the folly of this bill by my colleague and good friend from Gander-Grand Falls. He expounded the history of the At and East bill from the development in this House in 1956 onward and it was very interesting to me.
The bill is brought on again with some surprise. I thought at one time that the government had reconsidered its position and decided not to bring forward this
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legislation in this session, but obviously without much luck. Here we are debating it at third reading.
There is a certain amount of offensiveness in the way this legislation is brought on. Two years ago the government first brought forward its plan to do away with the At and East rates and the effects of this legislation were immediately implemented by an Order in Council. What we are doing today is in effect debating a bill which has already been operative for the last two years. We are doing some housecleaning on behalf of the government in order to implement the proper legislation which already has been operative for the last two years.
I, like some of my colleagues, have only been here for two or three years, but it has always been my understanding that any legislation in order to be operative must be passed and debated in this House, and then implemented if it is passed. How the procedure can implement the workings of this bill to cut out those subsidies and then two years later bring before us the bill for debate leaves me somewhat dumbfounded with respect to the procedures within this House.
I am told by my colleagues who have been here for a long time that the implementation of this bill was done by an Order in Council and that is the way this government has been operating in this House since 1988. That along with the closure motions and so on has taken the responsibility of government away from the people and those of us who are elected to come here, hoping to do a job. What it has done has really been an administrative form of government without due respect and due regard to the parliamentary process. I take great exception in the way this is being done.
What I will do, since it has been implemented, is talk in some detail on some historical perspectives of the bill before the House, but as I stated it really does not matter because it has been effective for the last two years.
The subsidy in question was known as the At and East rates. It really means that from Buffalo in the east to the eastern coast, a program was in effect since the mid-1960s which maintained a fixed rate level for the movement of grain and flour via rail to eastern Canada mainly for export.
Because the rail rates at that time were frozen, the cost of moving this grain from all the ports in the southern part of the Great Lakes to other areas such as Halifax and Saint John was a subsidy which was paid to

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the railways for the movement of this grain. It was a subsidy, as my colleague behind me stated in the Question Period, which amounted to $40 million.
On this side of the House, we are not going to say that $40 million is not a lot of money, but $40 million when you talk about the grain shipments in Canada and the subsidies given to grain shipments is not a great deal of money when you consider that we spend $3.5 billion in this country on the movement of grain and on the subsidies of grain.
The At and East program evolved in response to a 1959 rate reduction by U.S. railways for grain movement. Historically the purpose of the legislation was to be competitive in the eastern part of this country with the U.S. farmers who were also producing the same commodity and offering it for sale to the same customers to whom we were trying to sell this product.
Since that time, we have been exposed to the round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. We just cannot seem to come to grips with, or arrive at any solution or agreement in principle to, the subsidies offered to the producers of grain, not only in Canada and in the United States but offered also to our friends in the European Community.
Since that time, we have been faced with what is a common term in this House but which is growing in importance; what the Americans are doing under their Export Enhancement Program. The Export Enhancement Program as applied to the grains in this country is devastating our grain industry.
Speaking generally with respect to the growing of grain and the movement of grain, the system at one time served all Canadians very well. It served the grain producers, those who grew the product on their farms. It served the mills. It served the flour exporters, the shipping companies and the railways. It served the elevator workers in Thunder Bay, the area I represent, and in British Columbia and Prince Rupert.
I refer always to the same phrase we so often hear: the movement of grain in this country is 10 per cent protein and 90 per cent politics. In 1985, when this government took over, we saw a dwindling of the grain movement coming out of the west into the port of Thunder Bay and down to the St. Lawrence seaway where we at one time
enjoyed over 50 per cent of that export market. It dwindled to less than 35 per cent.
The drought in 1988 and the Export Enhancement Program-I talked about how the grain industry is subsidized in the United States-put all grain producers in this country and those involved in the grain industry in a great deal of jeopardy.
The farmers themselves have been placed in some difficulty. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, and I do not want to embarrass him by these figures, at the agricultural committee this morning said that in 1983 the price of a bushel of grain was $5.80. These are the problems that we find in the grain industry today.
In 1983, the price of a bushel of grain was $5.80.
In 1991 the price of a bushel of grain is $2.75. It just so happens that in 1983 there was a different government, represented by this side of the House, when the price was $5.80. In the seven intervening years, through the mismanagement of the grain policies in this country, the price of a bushel of grain was dropped by almost half, to $2.75.
I think when we talk about the grain industry and the transportation of grain, all of the ports and all of the cities on the St. Lawrence seaway have been hampered by this problem that has been imposed by this government. All of the ports from Thunder Bay right through to Halifax, Saint John, down river ports beyond Montreal and east of Montreal have suffered because of this government's lack of concern and, I think, complete lack of knowledge of what the grain industry is all about.
The grain industiy is not just a matter of growing grain and selling it. It is a very, very intricate business that relies on timing from the time it is harvested on the prairies to the time it hits the grain cars and from the grain cars to the boats. All of that must be integrated with the sale of the commodity to our friends, usually in the eastern countries of Europe. So it is a very complicated business that needs tremendous involvement and the involvement of a government which understands and empathizes with the problems, not only of the communities, but of the people who are involved with growing this product.
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At one time our only competition was in the United States. However, now we see with the advent in 1992 of the European Common Market that that may be the greatest competition we are going to have in the grain business in the world. It will be coming not from the United States, but from the European Common Market, which has in place a subsidy that really causes a serious dilemma in the Canadian wheat business.
In addition to the dilemma of the farmers and the cities involved on the St. Lawrence seaway, in the last seven years, the shippers have been having a serious problem. I can remember when there were 160 to 170 bottoms or boats that would carry that grain from the port of Thunder Bay down to the down river ports beyond Montreal. Now we are down to something like 70 or 75 bottoms or ships that are available to carry that grain down. That number is lessening because we do not use it and we do not take this business and use it for the nine months of the year. What is happening is that those who are involved with shipping grain to the down river ports are saying they just cannot afford to operate those ships.
It is another dilemma we find ourselves in. I warn this government that we are going to have bumper crops in the future and we are going to have to export this grain and we are going to have to use the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence seaway. Unfortunately, because of its actions, when it comes time to use that capacity of 22 million tonnes in Thunder Bay, and those boats that are on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence seaway, they will not be available. They will either have been sold to other countries or torn up for scrap. That magnificent facility that we have on the St. Lawrence seaway, starting from the port of Thunder Bay, will no longer be. It has been an operative organization for so many years. It is an organization that we will not be able to replace in this country. That is one of the dilemmas because of the transportation policies of this government.
One of the other areas that causes us problems is the glut of wheat on the market. We all know what has happened with the amount of grain that we have not been able to sell, or sometimes have had to sell at distressed prices brought on by the trade agreement, brought on by the lower prices for Canadian product.
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The low prices, again, cause such a dilemma for our Canadian producers.
The elevator workers in this country are in a terrible state. I just see on television-


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: A point of order, Madam Speaker.
I must say I have not done this for a long, long time, since I was in opposition, but I am now in this rarefied situation between government and opposition and I do not see a quorum in the House.
Also, I do not see a minister of the Crown in the House and that to me is one of the fundamental things we are dealing with, the Crown business, the taxpayer business, the pocketbooks of the Canadians and we do not have any-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Call in the members. [Translation]
And the bells having rung:


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The quorum has now been restored.


Mr. Ricard:: Madam Speaker, on a point of order.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for Laval-Ouest, on a point of order.


Guy Ricard: Madam Speaker, this is the second time today members have asked for a quorum count. I have been here for seven years, and whenever a member has something interesting to say, he always has an audience. I wonder why some members rise in the House to ask for a quorum count, probably because they-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I don't think the hon. member would wish to comment in this way on the speeches of his colleagues. I think the best thing to do at this point is to resume debate with the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: The same point of order. Just to elucidate for my hon. friend, it was not the man who was making the discourse who called the quorum. I must say I thought he was making such a good speech there should be other members in to hear him. I called the quorum.


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Madam Speaker, let me thank my colleague from Annapolis Valley, a former chairman of the transportation committee and a very fine chairman.

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Getting back to the serious issue of the grain industry and the farming community of this country, what we are seeing is the over-all aspects of Canadian transportation and we see what happens to a country and to a government which operates without a policy on national transportation issues.
A country the size of Canada without a national transportation policy suffers and the farmers suffer and those involved in transportation suffer and the transportation industry suffers when there is no policy that we can follow. The country not only suffers, it bleeds and in some instances such as we are seeing today it haemorrhages and we cannot stop the haemorrhaging.
The legislation we have before us is just another example. Last week in this House we talked about another transportation issue that involved the Aeronautics Act and the changes in the piecemeal legislation, and two weeks ago the legislation was before this House with respect to airport transfer of power. Those are just some of the issues that have been hitting this side of the Chamber in piecemeal fashion.
Let us look at what has happened in this country since 1984, lacking the transportation policy it so vitally needs. Just this week in the Ottawa paper, there was a magnificent three-part article by Mark Kennedy, Ten Steps to the Dryden Disaster. One of the crucial areas there was the lack of regulation within this country, and it had a great part in the disaster. Look what happened right here in Ottawa in the last few weeks with respect to deregulation of the trucking industry. Look at what is happening to all of our seniors in this country because they cannot get on a passenger rail service and fulfil their desires to travel across and see this country because we do not have passenger rail service any longer.
Then there is the failure of this government to recognize the St. Lawrence seaway as a viable transportation route in Canada; the lack of the federal government to support a national transportation policy that uses national highways, to take an obligation to provide for the Trans-Canada Highway, which right now borders on disaster. This is what affects Canadians and it makes us wonder what Canada is all about. Without transportation this country has no unity, and without unity we have no Canada.
What this country needs and what I implore this government to do is develop a national transportation policy? that will benefit farmers, shippers and all those who are so adversely affected by what we see happening here today.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my friend the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon, who was a very valuable and constructive member of the transportation committee, how he, as a member from central Canada, Thunder Bay, where a lot of these grain boats start, views the cancellation of admittedly a subsidy program that certainly benefited and was supposed to benefit the Atlantic Canadian ports, even though they are sometimes in competition with the Thunder Bay port.


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: I thank my colleague from Annapolis Valley for that question. I will try to answer it as succinctly as possible. If we develop and operate under a national policy of transportation within this country, we must realize that we cannot just look at one area of the country and ask for its betterment at the expense of another area. When we develop and work by a policy, we have to look at Canada as a whole.
As I said, in the development of plans and procedures for the future that will take us into the 21st century with respect to rail transportation and the use of the St. Lawrence seaway, we should develop a policy that will enhance and ensure that the Great Lakes shipping fleets will stay in place and that we are able to utilize the benefits of the St. Lawrence seaway and the grain elevator systems.
I think of an article we had this past week in the Thunder Bay newspaper about Herbie Danaher, the business agent for all of the elevator workers. It gave his trials and tribulations as the business agent for that union and what he has had to do over the years. At one time we had 1,800 workers and now we have 800 workers on the waterfront. The article tells how he has had to cope with those problems and deal with those people who had such a knowledge of the shipment of grain.
Those are the areas that cause great concern to any member of Parliament that is involved in this very vital industry. We are not operating in a system; we are not
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operating with an over-all plan that enhances all of the communities and all of the regions of this country.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. friend for that answer. He answered my next supplementary in part by talking about a national transportation system and trying to have a balanced plan enhancing all the different parts of the plan.
I would like again to ask my hon. friend to try to give his perspective to members of the government and to Canadians who may just happen to have stumbled upon this debate through television.
I know this member as a very fair individual, notwithstanding that he is from central Canada and we from the east sometimes feel central Canada tariff policies leave much to be desired. However, I am asking the member from Thunder Bay-Nipigon, in this balanced plan for transportation that I know he has worked for in the transportation committee, what his reaction is to an At and East subsidy that has varied between $28 million and $40 million? That is the variance over the period of years it has been in effect.
I would like to hear his reaction to the cancellation of that as well as the maintenance of the western grain transportation subsidy that helps farmers in the prairies get their grain to the western markets through the ports of Vancouver and/or Prince George, to the tune of $700 million or $800 million.
Does the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon feel that that is a type of situation that helps make Canadians in Atlantic Canada feel they are fairly treated?


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Annapolis Valley-Hants for that question. Not to correct him, but the Western Grain Transportation Act is an act that enhances and assists not only the shipment of grain to the west coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, but it also enhances and assists grain that is shipped in the summertime to Port Churchill in the northern part of Manitoba. It also subsidizes the movement of grain to the ports of Thunder Bay, but does not subsidize the movement of grain from the Thunder Bay port to the down river ports.
What we have here is an industry that the government subsidizes in some form by about $3.5 billion a year. I think what we have to do-I will go back to this policy
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that we have to develop-is take that $3.5 billion and spend it more wisely than we are doing. It must not be spent at the exclusion of areas and regions such as those represented by my friend. What we have to do is impress upon the people in this industry in Canada that we can no longer have the terrible unstable conditions on our waterfronts that I see developing in Thunder Bay, that I see developing today in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, that I see developing in Churchill.
With the kind of money that the taxpayer in this country is spending, in excess of $3.5 billion a year, what we should be able to do is assure those workers, who have dedicated their lives to this industry, that at least they would have some stability and security of employment so that they do not have to look at layoffs which may extend for 18 months. At the end of the 18 month period, even if they have been employed by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool or Manitoba Pool or Cargill or any of the others, they are no longer an employee of that company. It is just not fair and it applies to every region in this country.
We have to stabilize the labour force in those areas that are involved in the vital industry of grain, the growing of grain and the shipping of grain in Canada.


George Albert Proud: Madam Speaker, I rise to take part in the debate this evening on Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act dealing with grains and flour subsidies. I rise after listening today to many knowledgeable orators in this area, such as the hon. members for Gander-Grand Falls, for Regina-Lumsden, Halifax West, Thunder Bay-Nipigon, and Annapolis Valley-Hants, who has been part of the question and comments and a former chairman of the transportation committee, and many others. It brings home to me, and hopefully brings home to others in this great institution, that the Government of Canada, whatever government that may be, is going to have to continue to play a role in the transportation industry in this country because we are too big a country and too diversified to let the transportation industry live by the free market system.
We see this in this very bill because the results of it are already in effect today. The subsidy part of the At and East program was eliminated in July 1989. This rail subsidy has helped Atlantic Canada become more competitive in the shipping of grain by way of its ports. Along

June 11, 1991
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with all the other cuts to transfer payments and whatever, we are going to eliminate this financial arrangement.
The effects of this have already been felt, as seen in the case of the elevator in Saint John where jobs have been eliminated. If the Halifax elevator is forced to close, this will be another devastation to this part of the country.
I agree, and the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission agree, that the rates we are talking about are inefficient and distorting but I do not agree with the government's slash and burn approach to the problem. The subsidy should not be eliminated until the effects of such a move can be offset by other programs.
The termination of this subsidy, known as the At and East, will have serious economic consequences, as I have said, for the maritime ports; not only for them but for associated activities which depend on the movement of export grain and flour through these ports. Activities at the grain elevators, port employment and railway employment will be significantly affected.
The bill will also have a negative impact on flour milling and the movement of domestic feed grains in the Atlantic region.
The importance of maintaining elevators such as the one at Halifax cannot be overstated. It is a viable operation, critical to the entire economy of the Atlantic region. As well as the activity generated by the movement of export grain through the facility, the elevator also plays a vital role in the storage and handling of domestic feed grain and milling wheat. The local poultry and egg industries and, to a lesser extent, the beef industry will be seriously affected should the Halifax elevator be unable to remain in operation.
In addition, the Halifax elevator is utilized as the only means of storage for milling wheat by the only Atlantic region flour mill.
The use of the Halifax elevator for domestic feed grains represents the only competitive alternative to the use of railways as a means of obtaining the required feed ingredients for the local livestock and poultry industry. The use of light vessels to Halifax with truck delivery beyond is the only competition facing the railways for the movement of domestic feed.
When will the government realize this? When will the government halt this brutal affront to the economy of Atlantic Canada?
As I said before about the local livestock and poultry industries, the maritimes are faced with a tremendous disadvantage in terms of feed costs versus the competition in Quebec and Ontario. Once again, the government is giving the predominant provinces priority while ignoring the Atlantic region.
This was discussed by the member for Thunder Bay-Nipigon and the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants. This is another way of playing the regions off against one another. We talk about unity in this country. As long as we play one part of the country off against the other we will not have the unity that is so greatly desired by most people in this country.
I say to the government that we must stop this. When other means are put in place and the regions of the country are able to stand on their own two feet, when the regions-whether the Atlantic region, the western region or the northern region of this country-are able to realize a standard of living that is equivalent to the other larger provinces then I believe that we are on the road to having greater Canadian unity among our people. It is not just a language problem.
The shipment of export flour through the port of Halifax also contributes significantly to employment of this port. It plays an important role for the railways in positioning boxcars in the maritimes for domestic use. Another issue that has arisen in the last couple of weeks concerns the containers moving out of the Halifax port because the railways cannot afford to move them.
The cars utilized for shipment of export flour to Halifax are then repositioned within the maritimes for the shipment of domestic cargoes. As I have been saying, the At and East program has a significant impact on the Atlantic region and particularly the Halifax-Saint John area.
Through programs over the last normal year almost 90 per cent of the total tonnage moved was exported through Atlantic ports. Export grain moving under the program represented at that time almost 100 per cent of the volume handled at the Saint John elevator and 60 per cent of the volume handled at the Halifax elevator. The discontinuation of the program already has and will
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continue to have serious repercussions on the economic depression of the maritimes.
According to the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, $14,5 million in economic activity has been lost in the region as a direct result of this government's strategies. The elimination of the At and East rail freight rates hurts not only workers whose jobs depend on the busy ports and righst-of-way but the Atlantic agricultural sector as well.
Already local livestock and poultry industries face a major disadvantage versus the central Canadian producers in terms of feed costs.
Prince Edward Island produces only 80 per cent of the feed grain it needs to supply the needs of its livestock and poultry industry. New Brunswick produces only 35 to 40 per cent of its requirement and Nova Scotia produces only 20 per cent. The maritime provinces depend heavily on grain shipped from western and central Canada.
Higher costs from these grains, which will certainly result from higher transportation costs, will cripple these industries, causing a further decline in the economic activity and employment in this region. The potential exists for further economic harm to Atlantic Canada should the grain elevator at Halifax be unable to continue operation.
As has been expressed by the member for Halifax West earlier in the day, we must take steps to ensure that further negative economic consequences for the Atlantic region be avoided.
This government must support Atlantic Canada on this issue. This government must support the directives to which they were elected, and it must stop ignoring the pleas of Atlantic Canada.
Again, I hate to repeat this, but this is just another emphasis on shutting down Atlantic Canada, shutting down rural Canada, pitting one part of this country against the other.
In closing, I want to say that the At and East Program may be outdated, but it is this government's responsibility to help the affected industries, whether they are western and central Canadian grain producers, railway workers, Atlantic livestock producers or eastern ports. It
must do something to protect them during the transition period and beyond.


Ralph Ferguson: I would just like to ask the member if in fact the cutting of the At and East Program was a direct result of the free trade agreement where it was agreed to cut subsidies. Of course, this cut came in the budget of 1989 when there was almost $400 million cut in various farm programs: crop insurance cut by $200 million, the At and East by $60 million, Rail Branch Rehabilitation Program by $48 million, grain and crop advance payments by $54 million, dairy exports by $12 million, commodity-based loans by $15 million and the Canadian Dairy Commission by $10 million.
Do you feel that the government was very naive when it made all these cuts because it is obvious the Americans have not cut theirs? Because they have not cut theirs, and our program has already been slashed, the program is in the process of being removed, or it has already been discontinued, will the Americans fill that market to the detriment of the Canadian producers?


George Albert Proud: I want to thank my colleague for his questions. A simple answer: yes, I believe this has happened. We have known that the subsidy has been a dirty word around here for some time. Subsidies to the agriculture sector, to the transportation sector, are being eliminated almost daily, as a result, yes, of the free trade agreement and as a result, also, of our neighbour to the south putting pressure on the people involved in the GATT negotiations. This is something that has been ongoing for a number of years. The elimination of this and the subsidies still being paid in the United States shows that we have got ahead of ourselves and probably are shooting ourselves in the foot by doing this.
Certainly the agriculture community and the transportation community in this country, as I said a few minutes ago, needs subsidies, it needs to be helped to keep this country strong and great. With the elimination of this particular subsidy, we will see the transportation of these goods through other parts south of us in the United States.
Yes, I believe that this is a direct result of the free trade agreement because in the negotiations, and after the signing of this agreement, it was stated that our subsidies on grains and farm commodities, on shipping

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and on transportation must be eliminated or we could not participate in this free trade agreement.
I think we have come out second best on this deal. I believe we must go back to the table now, when they are negotiating another deal, and renegotiate these things that were mentioned in the first place by the Macdonald commission, that there were certain of these things that should be negotiated and protected for us in Canada.
I say that this has not been done, but we had better look seriously at it or we will not not only have manufacturing left in Canada, but our agriculture products will all be supplied to us from south of the border.


Iain Francis Angus: Thank you, Madam Speaker. You almost look surprised that I was up on debate on a bill. Perhaps it has been so long.
I would like to say at the outset that I am not pleased to debate Bill C-ll. I am not pleased because of what it does to Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and to the prairie provinces. But it is an example of how this Conservative government does not understand Canada and why it exists as a separate country north of the United States and how it functions.
I want to work my way through that argument during my time debating this bill tonight.
This bill, which is the elimination of financial assistance to move grain and flour from one part of Canada to another will leave it to the market system, to free enterprise. It is because subsidies distort the picture, because they are no longer needed, the government says. They have outlived their usefulness.
Well, tell that to the 5,000 or so men and women, and their families, whose jobs have outlived their usefulness, thanks to the elimination two years ago of the At and East rail subsidy.
We are a country that basically built itself north of the 49th parallel in a very narrow band of people from sea to sea, with scattered settlements elsewhere up toward our other sea. Our connection is east-west, yet the normal draws in the market economy would dictate that the raw materials, in this case grain, would travel from where they are harvested to where the largest number of people are, or where export position is.
On this continent that draw is southward, to where we have a neighbour which has a population ten times our size. The economies of scale work to put pressure on that, and it is only through interventions of governments, Conservative, Liberal in the past, that has enabled us to remain separate.
We now have a Conservative government that has decided that the marketplace is something it is more concerned about than the survival of this country. It has been slowly cutting off the ties that have held this country together.
It is no irony that the same month this subsidy ended, half of the rail passenger services in this country were eliminated, a devastating blow to Atlantic Canada.
It is no surprise that a year and a half to two years into the subsidy having been removed, that we now see other freight components of the services to Atlantic Canada being undermined. The railroads are extremely worried about their competition from American rail. The port of Halifax is worried that those containers that have been coming by rail to Atlantic Canada, to Halifax, will now go by rail to New York, because of the kind of rate cutting that is happening down there, both on rail and in terms of the ports. They have already seen container traffic that originally was destined for Halifax to be picked up by foreign vessels relocated to Montreal. They are seeing rail lines removed, they are seeing their air system totally restructured in Atlantic Canada, to the point where you cannot go anywhere unless you go through Halifax. That is a boon to Halifax but it doesn't say much to a lot of the other communities which used to have a higher level of service to other parts of Canada.
So, Madam Speaker, I suggest that the elimination of the At and East subsidy is just yet another symptom of a major disease that has struck this country and it is called Conservatism and it is the implementation of the rightwing agenda.
But it hasn't just hurt Atlantic Canada. By and large, most of the grain and the flour that goes to Atlantic Canada under the At and East program goes by rail. Only one-third of that is going to Halifax by marine.
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It is the rail workers in Quebec who have lost their jobs because of this move, the workers who maintain the trains, who operate them, the communities which service the trains and service the employees by providing goods and services.
In Ontario it is two-fold. Let me change that, it is three-fold. It is the rail jobs, the elevator jobs and the shipworker jobs, the men and women who ply the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence seaway who have seen yet another decline in the amount of grain available to them to move. That grain has not been redirected through another east-west link. It just does not move. That is why we have seen Ontario elevators shut down. That is why we have seen elevators in Atlantic Canada shut down.
One of the elevators in Ontario is now being considered as a storage space for used tires. Used tires in a grain elevator, can you believe that? That is their only hope for any kind of economic assistance, storing somebody's garbage in their grain elevator. Even the rats will be out of work because they will not have the feed to live on.
When my colleague the member for Regina-Lums-den was talking, he made reference to the fact that there was an estimate of 5,000 jobs being lost. Well, the annual subsidy is around $32 million a year.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Average.


Iain Francis Angus: I worked it out. The average subsidy is $32 million a year. Do you know what that works out to? It is $6,300 per worker.
I think I heard in this House not too long ago that one of the impacts or the realities of some of the offshore development in Atlantic Canada was a cost per job of $190,000. Here, to save money we are cutting out $6,300 per existing job. They have to pay more in income tax, they being those 5,000 men and women. They put more back into the economy than they take out through the At and East subsidy. It does not make sense. This At and East subsidy was an investment in the future of Atlantic Canada and in the men and women who work in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and on the prairies. This is dumb economics. It is the Conservatives who do not know how to run a country, let alone a comer store.
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Bob Rae invests in people. He does not worry about the folks on Bay Street. He knows how to work on behalf of the people of Ontario and he will continue to do a damned good job, I want to tell you.


An hon. member:: Ask all the people who are in the construction business if they want to support this.


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I think I have caught their attention.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: For all the good that will do.


An hon. member:: They are sensitive. Very sensitive.


Iain Francis Angus: Let us take a look at some of the specifics in this bill.
We are talking about 944,000 tonnes of grain and flour moved in 1988. About 90 per cent went to the ports of Halifax and Saint John. According to the Halifax-Dart-mouth Port Development Commission: "The economics of grain traffic at the port in 1988 amounted to $25.9 million in revenues and 263 jobs, while flour traffic resulted in $28.4 million in revenue and 220 jobs". So there are nearly 500 direct jobs in the Halifax-Dartmouth area alone. In Saint John, the port corporation says that the movement of bulk grain through its port in 1988, under the program, amounted to $8.5 million, along with 90 direct jobs. Collectively, they say that in addition to the 573 direct jobs in the two ports, another 250 indirect jobs may be lost as well, just in those two communities; that many jobs with one slice of a pen by the minister responsible for this program.
The livelihood of all those people plus all of the rail workers, the marine workers and the farmers who no longer have the ability to move or to sell their products, is on the hands of that minister.
One elevator has been closed, Saint John. We are also seeing effects on other areas. We are going to see higher freight rates for western Canada for the grains.
Let me just correct the record. The Saint John elevator is the one that is closed. Also, the transfer elevator at Port McNicoll, Ontario. I think that is in the riding of the former Minister of Transport, one of the many who have come and gone from this place under both Liberals and Conservatives, just another indication that neither party really understands the importance of transportation.
Neither party understands the importance of transportation because if they did, they would have left a minister in place long enough to learn the job. Having said that, the only one who came to the job with any knowledge was the first Conservative Minister of Transport. Although we fundamentally disagreed with him on policy,

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at least he knew what he was talking about when he got into the ministry.
The livestock industry, the feed mills, the meat packing plants and the dairies are going to be hit by the decision of this government.
The estimate is that rail rates for domestic feed grains will go up by at least $10 a tonne. The livestock industry in the maritimes depends on grain from Ontario and western Canada, and if the transport costs do go up by that $10 a tonne, it is estimated that 5,000 jobs will be lost in the livestock industry, feed mills, meat packing plants and dairies. This is 20 per cent of the total employed in this industry and related industries in Atlantic Canada and that is from the Executive Director of the Atlantic Farmers' Council, Keith Russell.
The elevators keep closing. We have two in Midland. We have one in Port McNicoll and one in Prescott. I\vo of those are in the former Ministers of Transport's riding.
Ontario flour mills have lost export contracts and require lower wheat prices to compete with Quebec mills for CIDA contracts. At the same time, Ontario farmers are already receiving record low prices and cannot afford to see prices drop.
For the Ontario Wheat Marketing Board, the At and East allowed it the flexibility to store wheat longer before shipping it which allowed it to get a better price. The elimination of the At and East Program forced the storage facilities in Georgian Bay to close and made shipping wheat to maritime ports during the winter more expensive.
I want to touch on another point. The existence of the At and East provided some flexibility for the Port of Thunder Bay. As you know, Thunder Bay is closed in terms of the marine side for two to three months each winter. It varies, but somewhere between the middle of December and the middle of January we shut down and we are open again when the ice goes.
During the late fall after the Welland Canal closes, we can still move grain by water to the bay ports and store it
there for inclusion in the At and East. That allows more grain to come off the prairies during the winter months and to fill up the elevators in Thunder Bay, while at the same time providing for the possibility of a winter rail program.
By eliminating the At and East Program and by eliminating those elevators which I talked about in the Great Lakes, we have lost some more flexibility.
In addition, thanks to this policy and the lack of concrete action by this government dealing with the inequities of the Western Grain Transportation Act, we have seen hull after hull after hull either flagged out to be used elsewhere in the world instead of the Great Lakes or cut up for scrap so that our Great lakes fleet has lost the ability to move a bumper crop for this country.
Decisions like this put forward because of a desire to conform to market economics have really undermined a part of the fabric of this country: our ability to grow excellent grains, the best in the world on our prairies, and get them to markets, through our eastern ports or through our western or northern ports. It is one more knife in the coffin of the grain industry in this country.
I say to you that the government has made a fundamental mistake, both in philosophy and in terms of practice. This has got to be changed and it will be changed by another government because it is too important to leave in the hands of the market.
Madam Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence. I want to conclude by saying that I am not happy to be speaking on this bill. I do not think it should be before us and that is why we will be voting against it.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, like other members who have participated in this debate, I have fundamental mixed emotions for a variety of reasons. I am not going to waste much of my limited time tonight to talk about those reasons. I am going to come down to the basics of the bill.
The bill is now C-ll. It used to be C-26. The hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan, who gave a very constructive contribution to the debate and is also one of the more active, constructive members of the transporta-

tion committee of which I had the honour at one time to be the chairman, knows fully the ramifications of the bill as does his colleague for Thunder Bay-Nipigon, another member of the transport committee. He gave a very balanced approach. I did not agree obviously with the full extension of some of the thoughts, but I understand why he and his House leader and others who have spoken initially have said they were not happy to speak because this bill, as the hon. member for Regina-Lumsden said earlier, which is absolutely right, is that this is a retroactive bill that is putting into law what a budget did back in 1989.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know what law school you went to, but I know you went to a venerable one and I certainly went to an honourable one. One of the most invidious, odious pieces of legislation was a retroactive piece of legislation that was put into law after the event and changed the rules half way through midstream.
On retroactivity, this bill should never have been before the House, I am not going to waste much time on the procedural aspect of the mutation, the interesting parliamentary mutation from an aberration of prorogation, when things were dead; but of course aberration and abortions are not to be treated lightly here. Prorogation used to mean that everything was cut off at the pass. If you did not get the legislation through, it died on the Order Paper.
This, Mr. Speaker, as you and I well know, was a great motivational inspiration to make some deals. As you got into June, July or August, as I used to sit here in the earlier days of my tenure, the George Mcllraiths, the Davie Fultons and men who understood Parliament got together and said: "Hey, we have debated this too dam long". That was of course before television which even makes it longer now because it cuts through to the core and cuts through to the sham. Even Carol Burnett could not stay longer than 10 years, and yet a lot of these debates seem to go on 10 years. But unfortunately-and I say it sadly-my former colleagues in the government, all of whom are honourable souls, have an Achilles' heel and that is the fact that they do not understand the parliamentary process.
I could go on to a whole speech on that. I am not even going to mention the Prime Minister who never had any parliamentary experience before he came here. That could be part of the problem too.
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Some of us earned our spurs in the trenches and did not come from the corporate boardrooms to the cabinet room. I say that is part of the problem of this parliamentary system. That is part of the parliamentary system and the problem that we have today as, Mr. Speaker, you and I well know.
We talk about the mother of battles and we talk about that horrible charade that we just went through in the Persian Gulf. I will not get into that tonight. But we have at least something serene, something stable, something basic, and that is the Mother of Parliaments that we are all supposed to have taken something from and/or adopted and adapted to our own particular geographic, historical and traditional and/or social mores and ways.
One of the basics of Parliament was that at a prorogation the Order Paper was dead. Government, get your house in order and renegotiate the new bills because something happened in the last session and they did not get through.
With that invidious notice of motion given approval by the Speaker I have to say sadly, Mr. Speaker,-I am almost prepared to predict that the slippery slope of the present Chair is going to be defined by his ruling on that invidious notice of motion-that with one stroke of the pen, Mandrake the Magician resurrected five dead bills that were in voodoo land.
With a little parliamentary imprimatur and the persuasion of the government House leader, they came to life again. The resurrection of Lazarus was never more supreme than those five bills that came out of that invidious notice of motion.
That is what we are dealing with here tonight. We have one of them on our platter. It should have been through negotiation. It could have been done through consent.
Perhaps this bill need not have taken the time it is taking in Parliament now because I agree with some of the comments, from the members opposite, especially those of my friend from Halifax West. I better not touch him too much because this gets too close to home.
I agree that the de facto input of subsidy under the At and East, Bill C-26 which is now Bill C-ll, has been dead since July 16, 1989. Of course, as the hon. member for Regina-Lumsden said, once you cut out the subsidy, then it is kind of silly to talk about shipments of grain to the east.

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I never thought I would ever be doing this in my life, but I happen to be sitting here in the opposition. That is part of the problem of this House. There are a lot of government members who never sat in opposition. They forgot from whence they came.
I agree with some of the comments made by my former colleagues who have spoken tonight. We cannot attune hypocrisy to any one individual, but the generic term applies to the hypocrisy in opposition. You say: "A, B, C and D," and then you get in government and it is "X, Y, Z".
You know something, Mr. Speaker, the fellow called Preston Manning is down the hill in a place called the Civic Centre. I am told by my colleague from Beaver River that there are 2,000 people there tonight to hear the new messiah on the political field. He has a lot of things to say.
One of the things he has to say is that this institution which used to be the highest court of the land should no longer be the biggest hypocrite forum in the land. With television we can no longer get away with saying one thing in opposition and then getting in government and doing just the opposite. That has happened so often.
In fact, there is an interesting contribution of the member for Burin-St. George's in quoting-I see the Minister of Grains and Oilseeds here; he is a very good friend of mine-the remarks of the present Deputy Prime Minister in his contribution to the debate on the At and East when he was in opposition. He said nothing different than I am saying tonight because what he said then was true. What I am saying tonight is true.
Coming to the reality of this debate, it was the then Minister of Transport who then set up-I think he said this under the National Transportation Act debate, and I happened to be a member in 1966- the transportation commission and he became the first chairman of the National Transportation Agency, which was an interesting thing to do in those days. Now Eric Nielsen is, so things haven't changed that much.
However, Mr. Pickersgill said many things. I am going to cut through all the wheat and the chaff, even though this is what this bill is about, because my friends on the
opposite side who say it is dead, it is over, it is history, they forget the histoiy from whence they came. The whole reason for the At and East was that little part of Canada which is trying to sustain itself. Mr. Pickersgill, my adversary at the time, was a lowly backbencher. I was about three rows up here to the right, so I have really come full circle. I watched him in the front row make his inimitable speech. I won't get into the mannerisms that he sometimes used, but the important thing he said about At and East is that it "was to ensure that we will have rates which will provide some inducement and incentive to shippers to use the facilities of the Atlantic ports". There are many more things he said.
When I hear friends of mine opposite say that the At and East is histoiy because the de facto implementation under cabinet order was July 16, 1989, I start to ask myself the question: "Is the elevator left in Halifax history?" That is the crux of this debate.
I cannot think of another individual item that affects Atlantic Canada so adversely, even though no one understands it, as the cutting of the At and East. In fact, I believe that in the proverbial bowels of the bureaucracy some bureaucrat was picking at bottom line reduction in spending and said to a confrere: "We have got to cut certain moneys out and we've got to cut certain payments out. What's this At and East?" Quite understandably I can almost believe that he could not have got an explanation. Someone looking at this escalating subsidy of $28 to $40 million-and that's approximate because it changed from year to year, but between $28 and $40 million-could easily say: "Hey, in our deficit reduction program let's slice this down".
Madam Speaker, do you know what we found out when the bureaucrats came before the transportation committee? I think my hon. friend from Thunder Bay-Atikokan was there and my hon. friend from Thunder Bay-Nipigon was there, as well as other members. We had officials from the Departments of Finance and Transport and whatever. I almost have the name of one, but I am not in the habit of mentioning names of public servants when they cannot defend themselves, but this is all a matter of the public record. In effect, we found out through the hearings of the transport committee on the At and East two years ago that someone inferred-now I am paraphrasing but I could get the absolute minute of the transport evidence to support what I am about to
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say-that: "Whoops, we slipped. We cut out the subsidy and now because of GATT and the international implications of a subsidy for export, we cannot reimpose it".
That is one of the messages received by the transport committee that had some hearings on this issue.
Madam Speaker, I don't know how much more time I have. Can you give me a little hand signal? Good-five minutes, that is great.
I am glad to see the minister here because I have a very real respect for the minister. I know he is anguished over this. However, Mr. Minister, do you really believe the statement of your parliamentary secretary, the computer whiz from Calgary Southeast, with a great competent mind but no heart and no compassion? He hasn't learned compassion. The Reform Party is like a wildfire in Alberta because a lot of competent members do a good job mechanically but they do not have any compassion for the people. If the parliamentary secretary was a member from Atlantic Canada he could not have made the speech he made to lead off this debate on Thursday, June 6. His first sentence was: "Mr. Speaker, the bill now before the House seeks to eliminate a subsidy which has outlived its original purpose and has become a burden on the public purse".
I ask the parliamentary secretary to stand up in this House, this open forum, to admit that the Western Grain Transportation Act is a subsidy for grain movement which distorts the market and has outlived its usefulness. I do not think the parliamentary secretary even understood the beginnings of the At and East, as illustrated with the quote I gave from Mr. Pickersgill, then Minister of Transport, that it was there for a very designated purpose. The hon. member for Regina-Lumsden and others have said that, in terms of the stupidity of eliminating this subsidy, it is more than offset with the cost to the government in increased welfare, in increased unemployment insurance payments, and the loss of the economic activity and the tax that could have been raised by that economic activity. We know the jobs are lost. The Saint John elevator is gone. We are not even trying to resurrect it.
The misleading thing about this debate that makes me most irritated of all is that when everyone talks about cutting out the old history no one mentions what the
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minister did then. It was this minister in the House tonight, I think, who was responsible for setting up the Grains 2000 port study. The minister received the report in November 1990 and it was finally released to the public in February 1991. Let us not say what that young little youthful computer parliamentary secretary from Calgary Southeast said: "Well, we are going to monitor the situation", and I quote from page 1289 of Hansard:
And if needed, the government is prepared to ensure that the
Halifax elevator remains in operation for the benefit of the Atlantic
livestock and flour milling industries.
What the heck does the young computer member for Calgary Southeast and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture think the Grains 2000 ports study said? It said that unless there is help, unless export grain is enhanced, that elevator goes down the drain the same as the elevator in Saint John goes down the drain. When that elevator goes down the drain, we cannot resurrect it. It is the same fallacy as Preston Manning, coming back to Reform, says: "Hey, we do not want Quebec unless Quebec says it is in". When do you ever have a divorce and then ask to get the terms of living? I could put that another way but in effect it is the same for this elevator.


An hon. member:: Kill it off.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: You do not have the elevator killed off and then suggest that a munificent government-we know there is not that much money around-is going to resurrect it. I mentioned the resurrection of Lazarus earlier, but it is not going to happen to a sterile elevator when world trade has gone by. Of course, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture is right about trade changes in the movement of grain. However, what he did not say is that we have already lost sales to some of our traditional customers because the At and East subsidy is not there. That helps to distort the trade of grain.
I do not know if the minister is going to contribute before this debate ends but the Grains 2000 report, and I give him credit for setting it up, says, as he knows from his bureaucrats, and my point and every Atlantic Canadian members' point has to be that you cannot support Bill C-ll unless there is something more than the wistful thinking of the Parliamentary Secretary to the

June 11, 1991
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Minister of Transport, who says: "Well, we will monitor, and if the need arises we may do A, B, C and D".
I was the chairman of the transport committee for two or three years or more-that is a past date and I do not mind trading on it at all-and we had hearings on this issue and tried to use the lever of not passing the bill to get the bureaucracy to come up with something called "set-offs".


An hon. member:: Offsets.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Offsets. The same thing, but twisted around. It had the same impact.


An hon. member:: Spin-offs.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Spinoffs, offsets, setoffs, we have had three years of discussion and there is nothing except this wistful pious hope that, if needed, we may be prepared to ensure that the elevator may stay for the benefit of the agriculture industry, of the flour industry, of jobs.
If this was a bill castrating the Western Grain Transportation Act, there is not a member in the western caucus even of a government who would have allowed this to come this far. My sadness is that there are not more Atlantic Canadian members up here in this House of Commons on all sides in a collective issue that has no partisan stripe, or should not have, but it is going to have unless members exercise. I know good members try within the government caucus to get the offsets, but there are no offsets today. We then waited and marked time until we heard the grain study report.
I appreciate, Madam Speaker, you have been very kind and generous, more so than usual, but I understand that because I know my time is just about up on this particular situation. I am not going to trespass further.
I really say that, without anything firm in offsets, we have talked for three years in the House and the committee, delegations, the Atlantic Transportation Commission, suggesting certain proposals that have not been accepted. In fact, in talking to the Atlantic Transportation Commission today, there have been letters from the Atlantic Farmers' Council of May 31, the Canadian Feed Industry, the Co-op Atlantic of May 17 and Maritime Advisory Council on June 3, others who
have written to the minister asking: "what are you going to do with the offset program?"
What do they get? They get a slap on the face, no answer to the letters, but this bill on the floor of the House. I conclude with this. One of my colleagues on the opposite side of the House, who is a friend of mine says that it is all history. It does not matter because it was all dead because, in effect, July 16, payments stopped and the railways did not do it. If it was dead, why-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I must interrupt the hon. member. My dear mother used to say: "Use, but do not abuse", unless there is unanimous consent of the House. Questions or comments?


Iain Francis Angus: Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the intervention in this debate of my colleague, the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants. Perhaps we should have let him talk a little bit more on the transport committee. He makes eminent sense in his opposition to this bill.
I wonder whether the member would care to react to the following statement. If we are to survive as a nation, if we are to ensure that the items that we export, particularly grain products like wheat, like flour, rf we should as a country be neutralizing transport. In other words, it should not cost anything to get it to our ports so that once we get there, then the marketplace, the international marketplace, would begin to click in. In that way, there would be no internal distortions in terms of east-west direction, and we would ensure that the value added could be accomplished throughout the country rather than just at key points. I wonder if he would care to comment on that.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, I think if I understand my hon. friend's question, it is a nice leading question and I would agree with that. That is in effect what the At and East was trying to do.
He mentioned the country. We all can make compassionate speeches on the country. I cannot emphasize enough that in Atlantic Canada, even though people do not understand it, those who do-and they are the farmers, they are the producers, they are the people in the marine and the transportation industry-this is a cut of the Gordian, another slice of the Gordian knot that keeps us all together.
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As we have all said here in this debate, it was relatively peanuts when you put the $28 million to $40 million to little old Atlantic Canada against the $700 million or $800 million for western grain transportation. I know there are some different factors there, but still you have the subsidy. You cut off one and you leave the other. Yet the governments says it is going to review it, and yes, it may, the same as it is going to review the survival of the Halifax elevator. I am telling you, in Atlantic Canada, I have not felt so badly for a long time because of the fact that this does tear away.
It comes right down to Joe Citizen. You could look at this tomorrow in the newspaper and say: "Good God, what is going on in Ottawa? Have they really lost their minds or has the summer season really taken over".


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my good friend from Annapolis Valley-Hants whether he would care to comment on a matter in terms of equalizing opportunity between Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, St. Lawrence and Great Lakes ports, the matter of ice-breaking. You do not have to break ice in Halifax and Saint John.
I and my colleagues are not complaining that the taxpayer pays for the cost of ice-breaking. We are not too worried about that. That is a natural hazard that Canada and the Canadian government takes into account. We do our best to help out the people in those areas, in those industries to get ice-breaking.
Does my hon. friend have any estimate as to whether or not the ice-breaking services in Quebec, in Montreal, in the upper St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, exceed the costs of the At and East rates?


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, my hon. friend from Regina-Lumsden has asked a beautiful question. I must say that in all the debate I have been involved with over several years, I frankly do not know the answer. I do not know the answer in terms of offsets, whether the cost of one in effect the offsets price of another. The same, frankly, as I do not know really the offset of removing the payment for the subsidy to the railways-which employed people-and yes, it was not the most efficient way to move grain. Most people do not understand that the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission for
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several years suggested different modes and different ways to move that grain.
It is a good question. This is something that, frankly, I think government should have done. What is that thing called in Washington, the office of financial management or budget control? That is a question that I think deserves an answer, and I agree. I am not against the ports of Montreal, Quebec and the St. Lawrence, but those are extra costs that you do not have when you go to Halifax, which is one of the world's great open, natural all-year ports.
The other thing they do not have is the offset of cutting the subsidy: How much because of the loss of jobs-and other people have touched on this-the increase in unemployment insurance, the increased welfare, the loss of tax dollars from depreciated economic activity? I would say that on both counts, in terms of the offset of navigational aids and the ice-breaking work, that that would be veiy close to the subsidy we pay to Atlantic ports.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: It is a lot more.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Or more. Well, we all can play with figures, depending on how you start to calculate the base calculations.
Second, and I think almost as important, the absolute cut in the subsidy is not a net benefit to the government. It is going to be a net deficit to the government.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, I am glad to have a chance to say a few words on Bill C-ll, the At and East rate bill. I want to compliment the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants because-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Before the hon. member gets into his comments, may I assume that the hon. member is splitting the 20 minute period with another member? It will make it easier for the Chair to advise the hon. member.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Madam Speaker, I assume we may have to get unanimous consent for each of us to get 40 minutes but we will try our best.
The bill that is before the House tonight is Bill C-ll, which replaces the old Bill C-26, and I believe that the

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debate tonight is really about the government bringing back a bill at third reading without unanimous consent.
There is a very fundamental aspect about this whole debate that is fundamental to the survival of Atlantic Canada. I think the hon. member for Annapolis Valley- Hants brings to this debate two valuable perspectives. One, he has been a distinguished chairman of the transport committee for many years so he has been through all the briefs and presentations by grain producers, shippers and so on, but also, he comes from one of prime agriculture areas of Nova Scotia. His perspective is, perhaps, very well founded. He really touches the kernel of what we have to do in this countiy if we want to have a broadly-based agriculture industry that is diversified.
During the free trade debate our caucus had public hearings in Fredericton and we heard presentations mostly opposing the free trade deal, but some were relatively in favour of it. The statement which really caught my idea of how devastating the free trade deal would be to Atlantic Canada, to much of Ontario, and to many other parts of Canada; was the comment by somebody after a long afternoon and all kinds of presentations when it was said that if you want to see what free trade can do for New Brunswick, go across the border into Maine and see what free trade has done for Maine. They have had free trade with the rest of the United States for 50 years, 100 years.
When you stop and think about agriculture in Atlantic Canada, they have their specialties like potatoes in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and those commodities. They have a special climate and soil base and all the rest of it. They also have a dairy industry which they do not have much of in Maine. They have a pork industry which they do not have much of in Maine. Yet, they have the same resource base generally.
Look at companies like Irving, and McCain's, especially, which was a world-wide food processing industry started in New Brunswick. They do not have any McCain's company that has a world-wide base in Maine that I know of. That is because we have organized our agriculture on the basis that we want medium-sized units, very efficient, and we want to produce milk and
cheese and these other commodities of the dairy industry all over the country.
If you go to the United States, you can go to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, or California. Those are the main dairy producing areas. Our concept, which the Tories are rapidly trying to destroy, and God help them if they serve for another two and a half years, they will have gone a long way towards doing that, is based on trying to have a broadly diverse industry through the use of marketing boards, supply management, and marketing mechanisms like that. To some extent the Wheat Board is another mechanism which tries to diversify and help the industry.
The debate tonight is not so much about whether the At and East rate will be effectively killed, as the hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants said. It was effectively killed on July 16, 1989, when payment of the subsidy was stopped. There are a lot of people in this House, including the hon. member who just spoke who has a stake in his constituency, who want to see this kind of agriculture continue in this country.
The Tories are hell bent on another scheme of market economy. They think they will solve all the problems. It will be a disaster. It will be a disaster for Canada because the kind of diversified agriculture we see in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island will be destroyed, if we destroy those special instruments we have put in place, including the At and East rate.
It has already been described that it is going to cost our agriculture producers down there some $21 a tonne for their feed grains. It may not sound like very much, until you talk to hog producers in Prince Edward Island, as we did a couple of weeks ago when we visited there with the hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings. They are teetering as to whether they are making a go of it or not.
Removing this subsidy, throwing the whole marketing board system into question, may not show up in the big macro-economics of the countiy, but it has a profound influence on the individual producers. Hundreds and thousands of those individual producers making a go of it with a medium-sized, very efficient operation is what gives rural Canada the vitality we want to maintain.
I am surprised when I hear and see columns by one of the Tory members for Halifax where he says: "We do not need these subsidies down here. We will make it on our
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own". That is one aspect of the whole agriculture side of it.
Then there are the industrial jobs. Already the Saint John terminal has closed, throwing 55 people from the maritimes out of work, a very substantial number of people in that community. The Halifax terminal may eventually close. It involves another 27 jobs I am told and, perhaps, several hundred if one considers the stevedores and the rail people and so on. Therefore, there is a very, very profound impact of the At and East rate.
What we were trying to do when this was put in place, was to try to balance the cost of shipping from Buffalo to the Atlantic ports, which are two or three times more than the cost of shipping and the distance involved from Buffalo to New York City.
This is an important debate because it talks about the viability of Atlantic Canada, the viability of our agriculture industry, the diversification of our economy and it is very important that the government not be able to get away lightly with removing support programs to our most vital industry, the agriculture industry.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Questions or comments. There is a five minute question period. The second part of the 20-minute debate, the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, I wish to make three points with regard to this debate on Bill C-ll.
The first point deals with the procedural aspects, the second with the substance of the bill itself and third, the measure of fairness or, indeed, lack of fairness with regard to the bill.
The hon. member for Annapolis Valley-Hants made reference in his remarks to the fact that this was a previous bill known as Bill C-26. Thereafter, the bill had been reinstated by a government omnibus motion, which made members of my party express great frustration and anger that the government would attempt to reinstate a bill which was basically, in procedural terms, dead on the Order Paper as a result of the government's decision to prorogue the House.
Many members in our caucus have spoken out against this particular bill, some with great emotion, all based on factual information provided to us by various interest groups in our respective regions, whether we come from the west or from the Atlantic region.
I think it can be said that most members of Parliament on this side of the House, and I can only speak for those in my caucus and in the Liberal Party, disagree wholeheartedly with the government on the measure to reinstate the bill. In doing so, we do not just do it for political gains.
I just want to review the substance of that bill. It implements an April 1989 budget decision to eliminate what is commonly referred to as the At and East rates effective July 15, 1989. That was almost two years ago. 'These At and East rates are really specified under section 272 of the Railway Act. Under this section of the Railway Act, shippers in Atlantic Canada for instance paid 1960 rail rates for export of grain and 1966 rates for export of flour. Those rates have not been frozen at the levels they were at on those two dates.
The Government of Canada subsidizes the balance of these rates to amounts of between $20 million and $40 million or so in recent years. Perhaps a more precise figure is about $37.3 million for the fiscal year 1988-89. That is the substance of Bill C-26 and now Bill C-ll. It is a subsidy. It is a subsidy paid by the Government of Canada to individuals who happen to reside in the regions of our country.
I see across the way the minister who has some responsibility for regional economic development in this country. I have to ask myself why a government would, at this time with the economic situation being the way it is, want to rid itself of this particular subsidy affecting primarily a smaller region in this country. Thirty-two million dollars to the Government of Canada is not a large expenditure in terms of its total expenditures.
The third point that I had raised at the beginning of my remarks, because I know I have limited time, is the fairness. We subsidize western grain transportation. I think it has been referred to as $700 million or $800 million, whereas in the Atlantic it is roughly $32 million. I have not heard any member on this side of the House, in the years in which I have been elected to this Parliament, question the authenticity, the need and the

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importance which the subsidy for western grain transportation does for that region of the country.
I think most members, if not all, would support and support enthusiastically that kind of subsidy to that region of the country. The reason why is because it is just, it is appropriate and it is fair.
What we find particularly disturbing in Atlantic Canada is there is $700 million and $32 million.
I ask the Chair, where is the fairness? The fact of the matter is, there is no fairness. This is a deliberate act to inflict economic pain on those of us who happen to reside in Atlantic Canada. If it were otherwise, it would not proceed.
We have heard the catch-all phrases: "We are going to review the prospects of trying to save the grain elevators in the port of Elalifax. We are going to review that at some point in the future". That is a code word which this government has used time and time again to do nothing. For those of us who have been the victims of this government's policy in Atlantic Canada, we are disheartened to learn that a $32 million subsidy is being cut off when a $700 million plus subsidy for another region of the country is going to proceed.
When I say $32 million, what do I mean by that? I said $32 million, $37.3 million, $30 million and $40 million, average it off if you will. The economic impact of the termination of the At and East program for grain elevators in dollars is $3,735,000. The flour mill in Halifax is $3,200,000. It includes wages and benefits paid by flour mills at Halifax and also goods and services purchased.
With regard to the grain elevators, it includes wages and benefits paid to elevator employees at Saint John and Halifax, and also goods and services purchased by elevators.
The additional cost of livestock and poultry feed is $18 million on an annual basis. This has been calculated with the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, using tonnage of feed grain handled under the Livestock Feed Program of Canada and rail freight rates, which in the absence of the Halifax elevator, would apply in lieu of present water compelled rail rates.
Local grain production, $950,000; port and railway employment, $8,280,000 adding up to approximately, on a yearly basis, anywhere between $32 and $37.3 million. That is the extent of the subsidy and that is where it goes.
For those of us in Atlantic Canada, we just call out, not for a special rate or a preferential rate but just for due process, fairness and some semblance of dignity for the people who live in that particular region. It is no wonder that residents of Atlantic Canada say: "Hey, we have to re-examine those national institutions which impact so negatively on our economy and on our people".
In closing, let me put this brief amendment on the record. I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the
word "that" and substituting the following therefor:
Bill C-ll, an Act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), be not now read a third time but that it be read a third time this day six months hence.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I would like to ask the permission of the House to keep it under advisement for a few minutes. We will continue debate and then I will come back and put the motion to the House once I am sure it is in order.
Questions or comments.


George Baker: Madam Speaker, I would like to put a question to the hon. member from Cape Breton who gave such an excellent speech and who moved a very appropriate amendment.
The amendment really is saying to the Government of Canada that the people of Atlantic Canada have had enough. I want to ask the hon. member this question: how does the hon. member see this decision by the Government of Canada in ending the subsidy for the movement of grain and flour into eastern Canada which is now being replaced by imports of heavily subsidized grain from the EEC?
How does he think this fits into the general attitude of this Government of Canada toward his part of the country, especially as it relates to this bill which deals with the railway?
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David Charles Dingwall: Madam Speaker, first of all I want to thank my colleague from Gander-Grand Falls for such an intelligent, thought provoking question at this hour of the evening.
Succinctly put, I think the measure the government has put before us tonight ought to be addressed from a number of perspectives. Specifically, with regard to the question as raised by the hon. member who has now brought to the attention of the House that there will be large quantities of imports from the European Economic Community, I think it fits quite nicely with the government's over-all economic thrust, which is clearly the following.
We have a large geographical map of Canada. We have a small population base dispersed over this large geographical mass. We are going to deny the role of the national government in terms of bringing people and geography together with regard to our transportation system.
The government does not want to be involved in that any more. It wants to let the so-called free market enterprise operate, but the fact and the truth of the matter is that when it says that and when you check the record of where this particular quantity of goods will come from, it is being massively subsidized by the foreign country that is exporting into Canada.
That has been the economic philosophy and thesis of this government; to deny Canadians in the poorer regions of this country an opportunity to place their trust and their faith in other regions and in other people throughout Canada domestically and hinge their bet on some foreign power whether it be Third World, the European Economic Community or our economic neighbours to the south.
In response to the hon. member, I find it rather frightful that we in Canada as national legislators would allow this kind of behaviour and conduct to continue. We know, because of fact after fact, that we as Canadians are being robbed of our economic livelihood domestically and creating a dependency, not domestically but internationally, on markets abroad and on foreign economies to provide Canadians and in this particular instance, Atlantic Canadians, with a product which is both reasonably priced and appropriate under the circumstances.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The period of questions and comments has now expired.
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After discussions with the Clerk, the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member Cape Breton-East Richmond is in order.
We will now resume debate.
All speeches are of 10 minutes and there are no periods for questions and comments. The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls.
I think we are having a marvellous round of apres vous, Gaston except that no one is called Gaston.
The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls had been recognized and so that he does not lose his place he should have the floor. The hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls.


George Baker: Madam Speaker, I was listening as the hon. House leader for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition was speaking and moved this motion. He represents an area of our country called Cape Breton Island. Thinking about the railway, it was not that long ago, it was in the last year, that the federal government decided that there would no longer be rail passenger service from the riding of the hon. member who moved this motion, extending right down to Truro, Nova Scotia.
The trans-Canada link of CN ended. Passenger service from coast to coast ended because there was no longer a connection from Newfoundland to British Columbia. It ended. It stopped with that decision in the past year involving Cape Breton Island.
Just think of it. The federal government subsidizes a bus operation in Newfoundland. When you get on the bus and go to the ferry boat in Port-aux-Basques, if that bus does not make that ferry boat, you have to spend the night in Port-aux-Basques. If the ferry boat does not meet Acadia Bus Lines in North Sydney, you have to spend another night in North Sydney, and if the private bus company does not meet the train in Truro, Nova Scotia, you have to spend another night there. You can see what change has taken place in the past year. That is why I support the motion put forward by the opposition House leader.
When you think about it, it is rather interesting. The presence of the federal government in rural areas like Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland has practically disappeared. The post offices are being closed one after the other. That job is gone to that community, never again to be returned. Never again will you see a flag pole with a Canadian flag on it in a lot of these small

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communities because that was the one building that had it.
No more will you see a train move down the track, because CN has closed and laid off the people. There have been great plans to give them pensions and the golden handshake, but the jobs are gone and the federal presence is gone.
The federal presence on land with your trains and with your post office, which was usually the one place you could identify the federal government, is gone.
Then by air. Air Canada, a Crown corporation, was cut back and no longer do you have that presence in the rural areas. You have air traffic controllers today in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In the name of saving person-years, the Government of Canada embarked on a policy of hiring Americans. Bring them up on contracts to work in Toronto in our air traffic control centres so that they would not count as federal employees. I think that is what was behind it, because we have young Canadians today who are anxious to get into air traffic control, very highly paid positions in the federal government, perhaps some of the highest.
Last year, we were hiring Americans on contract. Now we have a bill before the Elouse to move the airports to local authorities. Federal employees again will completely disappear from some communities in this country, never again to be treated as federal public servants, but as employees of a corporation operating an airport.
Some of us received letters lately. I received one today, and I went back over my files to discover that back in 1989 I had received a similar letter talking about the rumour of closing the Burnt Point lighthouse. This fellow says: "We have no meaningful land mass between us and the European and African continents and many times in years past the fact that contact could be made to the lighthouse keeper by means of a citizen's band radio has meant the probable difference between being rescued or lost."
Today the contract has been awarded to close the Burnt Point lighthouse in Newfoundland and to close another 11 lighthouses. The cost to the federal treasury
is $1 million apiece. One million dollars to do away with one person-year which is absolutely necessary. There are another 22 being closed. The contracts are going. I will put it on the record that a member from the Government of Canada, from St. John's East, interfered politically and got a lighthouse in Belle Island, Newfoundland, lifted from the list. A political interference by the member for St. John's East on behalf of politics.
We have the Government of Canada saying to us in eastern Canada that we are not even allowed in Coast Guard again to use our ice-breakers. They are tied up. You see the new policy is that you tie it up. There are seven tied up today in Quebec City. Five are tied up in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. There are another two tied up for engine repairs in St. John's, Newfoundland. Meanwhile, there is ice everywhere around the coast up there. The policy is: "Well, you know, we are looking at the Arctic transportation system and when one of those large ships gets stuck, we are going to send up an ice-breaker from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, up to Greenland." To save money. It is cheaper to tie them up than it is to have them operating.
That is the policy of the federal government. No matter where you look, it has had a small presence in Atlantic Canada. That is why the six-month hoist is so important. We must put an end to this bill which stops the subsidy on the movement of grain into eastern Canada. It is another point in a long list of actions by the Government of Canada which has seen the removal of federal presence in the air, on the land and on the sea. The House here today should vote with the hon. member, the House leader for the Official Opposition, in the motion to put a six-month hoist on this bill. Every member of the government who votes for it will be congratulated in the next election.


Ralph Ferguson: Mr. Speaker, this is not a debate that I am pleased to take part in. In fact, I have already spoken twice on the At and East legislation, the first time on February 12, 1990.
At that time I pointed out that there were 400,000 to
500,000	tonnes of wheat sent under the At and East regulations by the Canadian Wheat Board. The Ontario Wheat Board alone moved between 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes under this legislation on an annual basis.
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I want to commend our opposition House leader for his amendment. I recall placing a similar amendment back on June 5, 1990, to delay the implementation of this legislation until 1995.
Had the government listened to what we were saying, not only in the Official Opposition, but listened to what the witnesses in front of the legislative committee dealing with this piece of legislation were saying, it would have realized that it was making a grievous error.
When it looked at the Grains 2000 study of November 1990-and a delay such as we proposed at that time would have allowed it to take a look at the impact of this-it would have realized the error of its ways and withdrawn this legislation and put Atlantic Canada back on a competitive basis in terms of its livestock and poultry industries and saved all those jobs connected to the flour mills and the elevators in Atlantic Canada.
This government moves very, very slowly. I recall April 12, 1989, when we asked the government to do something about the no-rolled beef that was coming into Canada at the time, a million pounds a week. Since that was tabled at that time, those imports have tripled. As a result we have six packing plants that have closed in Ontario since that time. This low-grade beef has devastated the beef industry in eastern Canada.
Finally, the former Minister of Agriculture acknowledged the crisis and told the Canadian Cattlemen's Association that he has instructed his officials to require that United States beef, whether graded or ungraded, be identified as such to consumers.
Two years and two months after the problem was drawn to his attention, the government is finally going to look and see what is going on.
I have to suggest tonight that I strongly suspect that I had some of this cheap ungraded imported United States beef in the cafeteria in the Confederation Building at lunch time, tough as nails. It stays with you. You have to chew on it for a long time.
When this government cut back this subsidy, as I mentioned earlier tonight, I suspect part of the reason was that it was trying to do away with subsidies to adhere to the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement. It thought that this is a transportation subsidy, it would be a
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good one to do away with. The government completely ignored the fact that the maintenance of the Mississippi waterway is done by the United States Department of Defense. That, in effect, is a subsidy to the United States grain industry.
Let us examine the other subsidies the U.S. is giving. I will use one as an example, the Export Enhancement Program. For the year 1989 it was $777 million, in 1990 it was $556 million, and in 1991 it was $900 million, a total of $5,033 million since it was first introduced in May 1985.
This government is very naive to have entered into such an agreement without having the United States lower its subsidies at the same time as ours are being lowered.
It is kind of amusing that this government stands idly by and does not do anything about these subsidies. In fact, there is a provision in the free trade agreement to call for consultations if the other country keeps its subsidies. There is also a provision to ask for compensation. The government has done neither. Instead, it has opened up the borders to United States grain and grain products. We all know what is going to happen in Atlantic Canada when those subsidies on United States grain look so attractive to the grain buyers. That market will not be supplied by Canadian grains, it will be supplied by grains from other countries.
One of the interesting things I found the other day was that one of the very major grain companies in North America, American-based, has really taken advantage of these subsidies, both coming and going. It uses the export enhancement subsidy to transport grain out of the United States. Then, in turn, it took a subsidy from the European Common Market to transport barley-that is the original product it exported-from Sweden back into the United States. It has it both coming and going and this government sits idly by and cuts back our transportation subsidies, which were put in place in 1966 in order to ensure an adequate supply of grain to Atlantic Canada when the seaway is frozen up, grain that would travel by rail from western Canada or from Ontario into the areas of Atlantic Canada where it is used, or from where it is exported.

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I also have to take this government to task and ask it to retaliate concerning another issue that has been brought to my attention just these last few days. The Chicago Board of Trade has passed a resolution just recently to ensure that its Export Enhancement Programs only handle American product. Therefore, this resolution would not allow those companies to buy Canadian grains because they might turn around and export them.
This is another abrogation of the free trade agreement, if this government stands idly by and lets this happen. Our Ontario soybean industry is hit hard, as the United States is the largest export market, with 70,000 tonnes shipped this year.
With what is happening here, in terms of the pressures that are being brought to bear on the Canadian producers, there were over 70 food processing plants closed in Canada last year, 32 of those in the province of Ontario. I know the minister likes to brag about the 50 new plants that have opened. However, I should remind him that on the list his department gave to me one of those plants was in Arizona, an irradiation plant, and another one in Butte, Montana, a canola-crushing plant. Those are hardly Canadian plants. Two were water-bottling plants, some were warehouses, some were plants that had previously closed and reopened.
The fact of the matter is that the food processing industry in Canada is hard pressed. By removing the At and East subsidy, by opening up the borders to American wheat, flour and other products that market will be lost to Canadian producers, who produce the highest quality grain in the world as efficiently as any of our counterparts in the United States. The government has failed to recognize that their input costs, input costs that are under direct control in many instances-I speak here of interest rates and fuel costs-have placed them out of competition.
I ask this government to reconsider the error of its ways and reinstate this legislation which is so badly needed in Canada at this time.


Chris Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, Atlantic Canadians are wondering what it is that the federal government has against them. We have seen a relentless attack on Atlantic Canada and we have seen nothing to assist the fishing industry, which we
all know is in a crisis and has been for some time. We have seen unemployment insurance cuts having a drastic impact on the region and cuts to transfer payments to the provinces making it ever more difficult for the provincial governments in that region to fund health care and post-secondary education. We have seen cuts to VIA Rail which have had a major impact on the ability of people within the region to move about that region. We have seen the closing of post offices. We have seen a major attack on the region of Atlantic Canada and, as I say, Atlantic Canadians are wondering why this is. What is it that the federal government has against them?
At this time all these things took place when Atlantic Canadians were and are suffering from severe economic conditions and totally unacceptable levels of unemployment.
The situation in Atlantic Canada is indicative, of course, of decades of neglect by successive federal governments and by provincial governments which refused to take matters in hand.
Last weekend, some 1,200 New Democrats were in Halifax for our annual convention, and I have had many opportunities also to visit Atlantic Canada on other occasions. What Atlantic Canadians are saying is that they have had enough of these policies which attack them, which undermine their ability to create jobs and to function in Canada as a viable region.
They demand some attention to their legitimate concerns from the federal government, and surely they have a right for the federal government to pay attention to those demands.
Coming from a province like Saskatchewan, it is easy for me to understand the concern and the anger that exists in Atlantic Canada. In fact, all of the regions of this country have been neglected by the government's obsession with its free enterprise market-driven agenda. This bill that we have before us now, Bill C-ll, which will cut a further $35-or-so million from the Atlantic Canadian economy is another example of this government's obsession with market oriented policy, and in this particular case with transportation policy.
The reason for the subsidy which amounts to about $35 million was, first of all, to assist Canadian Atlantic ports in competing with American ports. But it was also
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designed to ensure that there would be some inducement and incentive to shippers to use the facilities in Atlantic ports. Indeed that was one of the reasons stated by the Minister of Transport at the time for the introduction of the subsidy. In other words, the At and East rates were intended to enable the ports of Halifax and Saint John to compete with Montreal and the other St. Lawrence River ports.
Serious economic consequences flowed and are flowing from the termination of the At and East rates. Activities such as grain elevator operations, port and railway employment, flour milling and the movement of domestic feed grains, have already suffered as a result of the termination of the rates. Virtually all of the export grain tonnage via Saint John and a large portion of that via Halifax moves under the At and East rates. While it of course creates distortions in the transportation marketplace as a result of the subsidy, nonetheless it has given those ports an opportunity to provide employment and to provide economic activity in their regions.
It is not that people have ignored the government's concerns with regard to this transportation policy. Indeed, the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission recommended some alterations, some changes in the policy which would go some way toward responding to the government's concerns while protecting the ports of Halifax and Saint John.
The Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission proposed to reduce the demand on the federal treasury by lessening or eliminating any distortions or inefficiencies. They also proposed to maintain the movement of export grain and flour through these Atlantic ports to maintain the commercial viability of those two ports of Halifax and Saint John. They proposed that the frozen rates to the St. Lawrence ports be allowed to rise to a compensatory level and be held at a compensatory level on an annual basis by the National Transportation Agency, and that rates to the ports of Halifax and Saint John be set at a fixed differential above those rates to maintain the current competitive relationship between the St. Lawrence ports and the Atlantic ports.
On the basis of fairly recent figures, the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Committee concluded that the adoption of this proposal would save the federal government approximately one-half of its total subsidy pay-
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ments, but would nonetheless maintain the viability of those ports of Halifax and Saint John.
In response to these proposals, in response to the debate that is taking place; and in response to the concern about job losses in Atlantic Canada, the government has proposed this bill which, as I say, will cut $35 million from the economy of Atlantic Canada. Such is the means by which this government listens to Canadians and responds to Canadians' concerns.
We have already seen the impact of the removal of this subsidy. We have seen the elevator at Saint John close with a loss of 90 jobs. The elevator in Halifax is operating on a break-even point on a day-to-day basis and its future is clearly in doubt.
If the Halifax elevator closes, it is likely that the only flour mill in Atlantic Canada will also be forced to close. Without the Halifax elevator, shipping feed grains by lake vessel through the port of Halifax would no longer be possible. The likelihood is that rail rates would increase by anything up to $10 a tonne. The livestock industry in the maritimes, which depends upon grain from Ontario and western Canada, would also be adversely affected. Indeed, studies have suggested that if transport costs go up by $10 a tonne that 5,000 jobs will be lost in the livestock feed mills, meat packing plants and dairy industry. That is 20 per cent of the total employed in the livestock and related industries.
The closure of the Halifax grain elevator itself would result in a loss of some 480 jobs in Halifax and possibly another 250 indirect jobs lost as well. The closure of the flour mill which is so closely related to the grain elevator would result in another 45 jobs lost.
In other words, it is a major, major impact on the economy of a region which is already under severe, severe threat.
In addition, there would be implications in Ontario as well.
Well, enough is enough. Atlantic Canadians hold the federal government in the lowest esteem they have ever held it. I guess it is possible that support could go even lower down into single figures, but it is unlikely that Atlantic Canadians are going to forget this major attack on their economy.
What Atlantic Canadians are asking for and what every Canadian is asking for is a fair shake, a fair chance for their federal government to care about what happens to them, to help when times are tough and not to slash

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programs which create jobs and which help keep jobs in the region.
At the NDP Convention last week, the party restated its commitment to the fishing industry, to fishing communities and to those working in the fishing industry, and became the first and only party in Canada to have a pro-active and comprehensive policy to support the shipbuilding industry. These are two critical industries to Atlantic Canada employing many, many people, industries which have received little or no support from this government. Once the ships that are presently being refitted in the Halifax yards are completed-there are three there which I visited last week-there will be no work for 1,400 people.
At the moment, the yard in Dartmouth employs 16 people when it could employ many, many hundreds.
Anyone who cares about fairness, anyone who cares about people having jobs and opportunities and feeding their families in Atlantic Canada and across this country would have to be opposed to this latest attack on Atlantic Canada.


Mr. Fred J. Mifflin (Bonavista-THnity-Conception):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by explaining to anybody who wonders why a member from Bonavista- Trinity-Conception is getting up to speak on the At and East bill.
There are a number of reasons for it. First of all, I am an Atlantic Canadian. Second, I am very concerned about the effects this will have on the Atlantic provinces. I am very concerned in particular about the effect it will have on the ports of Saint John and Halifax since I know both the ports and the cities very well. In fact, I lived in Halifax for probably one-third of my life. I also know the economic impact this will have on the Atlantic region and I want to make a comparison before I sit down on what it could mean compared to other things that could happen that would be considered as being disastrous.
Another reason I am very anxious to speak on this is because one of the architects of this bill was one of my predecessors. The hon. member for Annapolis Valley- Hants made reference to the hon. J. W. Pickersgill many times. Mr. Pickersgill still lives in the Ottawa area, I
speak with him frequently, and I know he is very interested in this debate this evening.
Although it has been done many times this evening, as much for myself as anybody else, I want to recall what At and East means. I had heard the term many times and, quite frankly, I did not quite know what it meant.
It was developed in 1959 and it is a grain and flour subsidy program administered by the National Transportation Agency. It does two things. It gives a subsidy on grain moving essentially from the Great Lakes to ports east of Montreal: Halifax and Saint John, New Brunswick; and for flour moving from points east of Thunder Bay and transported by rail to ports east of Montreal again transported to Halifax and Saint John.
The reason this was developed in 1959 was that in the United States the U.S. railway systems reduce their rates at and east of Buffalo, New York. So the "at" was Buffalo for the United States. The "at" was essentially Montreal for us. Their reduction of rates made it very difficult for Canadians to compete and the fear was that we would use the U.S. route to transport our grains and flours, so in 1959 the At and East, which we are discussing here this evening, was implemented.
It worked quite well until the budget of April 27, 1989, when the announcement was made that the 1959 At and East rate was going to be cancelled. It gave the reason for it initially as I just gave, but then it said the competitive concern no longer existed because the cost of shipping by rail to the United States ports was now considerably higher than the cost of shipping by water through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence seaway.
As many people have said during this debate today, that was only one of the reasons this policy was developed. Again, to use the words of the then Minister of Transport, the Hon. Jack Pickersgill, another reason the legislation was under consideration was to ensure that we have rates that would provide some inducement and incentive to shippers to use the facilities of Atlantic ports. In other words, the major reason was for ensuring that the eastern Canadian ports could compete with the U.S. ports. In addition, it was considered by the government of the day that it was also fair to enable the ports of Halifax and Saint John to compete with Montreal and
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other St. Lawrence River ports. I think that was reasonable then and I think that is reasonable now.
I want to get into the despicable and unforgiving manner in which this was done. The announcement was made a couple of months later. The whole thing was cancelled and this government has been trying to produce retroactive legislation which I understand from my lawyer friends is the worst kind of legislation. It tries to make right a wrong.
In the wisdom of this House, it did not get through. Then, through the stroke of something that was considered by many members to be, if not unparliamentary, then very close to it, a motion was made which reintroduced the bill to put it back to where we are today.
That gives me, as a new member of Parliament, not a warm feeling about how things operate in this House. I do not want to elaborate on that because that is not the reason I am on my feet.
What is this going to do? Essentially, if it is not going to devastate the port of Halifax, it is going to have a tremendous reduction.
Madam Speaker, I do not know how much you know about ports. I have spent more than half a lifetime being in ports, sailing into and out of ports. I can assure you that I have been to many ports in the world and Halifax is one of the better ones. So is Saint John, New Brunswick. They are excellent ports.
One may say: "They may be good, but if there is no use for them, why are they there?" I think there are all kinds of considerations. Let me give you one to begin with.
We have heard various figures being bandied around. We have heard of various jobs. We have heard of jobs as high as 400, 500 or 600, if you take it all into consideration. The second and third order effect, I would suggest, may well go above 1,000.
The consistent figure that we hear and the one that the government was aware of when it introduced this motion is $35 million. As the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond said, $35 million is not a lot of money to the Government of Canada. But I can assure you that it is a lot of money to Atlantic Canada when you consider the effects of all the things that have happened
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such as VIA Rail, unemployment insurance changes, the effects of free trade and all the other cuts, the post office, et cetera. I could go on for the rest of the time I have to be on my feet about the ills that have happened.
There is no compassion when it comes to the area that I come from. I am not one given to easy criticism of any government, or any particular party, because I know it is not easy to run a country. It is very difficult to run a country. One is bound to make mistakes, operational mistakes from doing business, if you do anything at all.
This kind of a mistake is a kind of a knife in the heart of Atlantic Canada to say nothing of what is happening here when there was really no need for it. The effects that we are going to see are not in themselves going to be devastating, but they are going to be another nail in the coffin. We do not need many more. It is just about shut down right now.
Let me tell you what $35 million means. I once did a speech to the Board of Trade in Halifax and I indicated that the effect of the Navy in the Halifax-Dartmouth area was roughly 25 per cent of the economy if you took into effect the first, second and third orders; the families, their spendings, the doctors, the dentists and the professionals required because of the people in the Halifax area.
Madam Speaker, do you know what that worked out to? It was around $350 million a year at that time. That was about three years ago. Thirty-five million dollars is 10 per cent of that. If one looks at the $350 million as being one-quarter, 10 per cent is a pretty big impact on the Halifax-Dartmouth area.
What happens when the jobs are lost? What about the welfare payments? What about the UIC? What about all the other things that are going to happen?
As we all know, the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission is responsible for running the At and East program, and it is going to have to come up with something else for the grains and the flours that are not being brought to eastern Canada.
Do you know what they are going to do? They are looking at the possibility of, would you believe this, importing foreign wheats, oats and barley, not from the United States, but from France and from Europe.

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Here is the scenario. We jack up the rates so we do not get the flour and the grain, and what do we do? We get the grain, flour, wheat, oats and barley from Europe and France. Therefore, we will not subsidize the rates for eastern Canada because, for some reason or other, it is not considered to be efficient. I am not going to make any odious comparisons with the west. Then we go and subsidize the European Economic Community, with which we are great competitors. I try to understand this, and I cannot. I doubt if any member here can. I have stood in this House and voted for and against many things. But when I get up to vote against this, it is going to be one of the most vicious votes I have ever made because I think it is one of the worst things that has happened in this House since I have been a member of Parliament.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Madam Speaker, I just want to compliment the hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception on a veiy thoughtful speech on a very complex issue which, frankly, a lot of people do not understand. I share his views. Being a member of the transport committee for several years, I can say in terms of witnesses who came before that committee and members who were on that committee that the At and East is such an inane title to a subsidy program. If we called it pork and beans, anything we wanted, then there would be a little life to the thing. But as you say, it was at and east of Buffalo.
In the budget of 1989, the then Minister of Finance only mentioned one reason why it did not apply any more, in his judgement, and he did not mention the other reason that Mr. Jack Pickersgill stated in the House in 1966 when he confirmed the At and East in legislation.
I do not want to trespass too long here, and I am not going to repeat everything that was said earlier, certainly by me. Several of my colleagues across the way have said this is a dead issue because the subsidy de facto has not been paid since July 16, I think, of 1989 under cabinet order. Therefore, this bill is really putting the end to a subsidy program that may have been nice, but things change. It is over. It is history.
As I did say, repeating myself a little, I have concerns. The hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception
touched on it, showing ihe reason why he was the Grand	B
Admiral of the Maritime Command Fleet in his very	B
lucid assessment	of the	issue.	B
I am not worried tonight about speaking on the history B of a subsidy program. I will be the first to admit that a lot	B
of subsidy programs have to be changed, have to be	fl
cancelled, have to be phased out, re-adapted to changing	fl
circumstances. My concern about history is the history of	B
that elevator. I cannot stress it enough here tonight in as	B
even a way as one can, that I am disappointed that more	B
Atlantic Canadians from all sides of the House	have not	Bcontributed to this part of the debate. If that	elevator	flgoes, the $35 million input into the economy that my B hon. friend talked about is there in spades. Relatively	flspeaking. I hasten to say, that is a conservative estimate	fl
of the impact of that as it filters down into the agricul- fl ture area, let alone the flour mill, which is the only flour fl mill, that is viable and ongoing in Atlantic Canada. B
The thing that really bothers me about the other side	fl
of the subsidy program is the multiplier effect that you	fl
get out of some subsidies. My hon. friend from Regina-	fl
Lumsden asked me a question about this after I	finished	flspeaking earlier. I had not been asked that	question	flpreviously, and someone should answer it. No one is	Bgoing to answer it tonight, and most likely it is not going	Bto be answered before	we	get to vote on this bill.	BWith all respect to our British parliamentary system,	flthis is where there have to be more changes made, more	flreform in this House to make it a more viable place	Bwhere we have more meaningful debate and where we	Bget more objective advice. I refer to the American	Bsystem, in part, where they have their OMB, their Office	flof Management and their other agency which does	Bcongressional assessments and studies on the impact of	Blegislation.	BIn all the years the At and East has been before this	flHouse, I have seen nothing. I hope if there was some-	flthing that could refute me that the government would	flproduce it before we vote. That was basically the first	Bpart of the question from the hon. member for Regina-	BLumsden, who asked me if the cost of the subsidy varied	flbetween $28 and $40 million. This is why it is so difficult	Bto put a handle on it. It changes from year to year,	fldepending on the shipments of grain and/or the export of	Bflour.	fl
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Roughly, it has gone from $28 million to $40 million over the period of its existence. But is the cost of that any more or any less than the cost of the coast guarding effect. My maritime commander might even have figures on that. Seriously, is that the cost of a subsidy which has a multiplier effect because it helps the farm community and it helps people all through the community? Goodness knows how that is clawed back by government in taxes. So it is really not a $28 million to $40 million output, depending on what year you take it, because an awful lot of it comes back in taxes because of the economic activity of the $35 million that my friend talked about.
But then you still have the cost of the navigational equipment and the ice-breaking facilities to keep the St. Lawrence open, to say nothing of the port of Montreal and the port of Quebec. I have never seen that assessment as to whether one offsets the other or what is the deficit or surplus position. I would think in another way, in another world, a more ideal world that we should know something about that before we cut off this type of subsidy. We all know that once you cut it off, it is not going to come back. And that brings me to my final point.
I am perhaps being a little more aggressive than my hon. friend who spoke before me, a very even-tempered and mature person. I am trying to be that myself. Elowever, have been here for a few years and have had At and East talked about until it is like com flakes coming out of my ears, and still nothing is provided by government to help offset the loss of the subsidy, to fill in the vacuum, to help compensate for the loss of the economic activity.
I have certain friends over there, and I am not going to name them by constituency because that might get a little too close, who are neighbours and friends of mine from my province of Nova Scotia. They have said that we could do this, or we could have double stacking, or we could have the corn countervail come off, or we could have unit trains that go from Halifax through. We could have all these things. We could have a marvellous world out there. But we all know there are some realities.
The thing that bothers me about this piece of legislation, without getting into the procedural reasons why we are debating it tonight which I mentioned earlier is
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another debate in itself, if this thing is dead as it has been in terms of dollars paid out since July 16, 1989, what is the problem with the amendment moved by the opposition House leader? In effect, it would give it that six-month hoist so that at least the bill is not completed, proclaimed and finally terminated so that there can be some pressure on the bureaucracy to use a lever. We all respond to pressure. We know that in this world of ours. There would be some pressure on the bureaucracy to come up with some of those mythical offsets.
That is what bothers me, and that is why I think the amendment moved by the opposition House leader has merit. I know there are some sincere members and a couple of sincere ministers on the government side who have been trying to work out some type of meaningful program to offset the loss of this subsidy so that we are not left high and dry in Atlantic Canada as we have been in so many ways as described here by other colleagues of mine tonight.
That is the reason why every Atlantic Canadian, at least I would think, would have to support the amendment of the opposition House leader. If that does not carry, then certainly for their own consciences and those of their constituents, they should have no hesitation in voting against a piece of legislation that is not going to do what it is intended to do anyway, namely, save the taxpayer's money, yet is going to have an adverse effect on the economy of an area that really cannot stand many more blows.
Again, I am glad to have had the chance again, in view of the amendment of the opposition House leader, to have spoken. I just hope that members on all sides, and especially the government side, those from Atlantic Canada will really decide that sometimes parties are necessary, but the people you represent are fundamental. On this bill, there is absolutely no question of how you should vote.


Mr. Ron Fisher (Saskatoon-Dundurn):: Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the debate on this motion. Is it C-ll or is it C-26? It is regurgitated, right?


An hon. member:: It is C-ll today.


Ron Fisher: Yes. And the fact that it is even back in the same form it was before the House prorogued is indicative of the problem that this House is facing, and not only with this piece of legislation.

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I have been listening to the debate on C-ll, in its earlier form and since it has been amended as well, and I see the speakers groping for some way to express what will happen in the most horrendous terms possible. It seems that it is not possible to come up with a superlative that describes how horrendous this bill is.


An hon. member:: Grotesque.


Ron Fisher: No, that does not even come anywhere near it.
The Americans have a way of distilling the English language. If we were American, we may say: "I am from Missouri, I have no faith in this. I do not believe it. It is not going to work". We have "good news, bad news", which has almost become a cliche. When it comes to C-ll, the regurgitated C-26, there is no good news. We have come to a point where the worst-case scenario, as described by the opposition-and I would say collectively, in all charity-really becomes in the real world, as the previous speaker mentioned, the good news. The worst-case scenario which we described really becomes the best news.
If you are referring to free trade, we described the worst-case scenario and it turned out to be even worse. Perhaps not the best news, just the only news. It is worse than we even imagined. The changes to C-21 are far worse in their devastation than the opposition described. Where the opposition was talking about the transfer payments and the unwillingness of the government to keep up with the increases in inflation, as far as post-secondary education and medicare are concerned, our worst description becomes even better than reality has turned out to be.
That is the case with this piece of legislation. The At and East was simply a way to compensate for the extra cost of hauling exported grain to the Atlantic ports of Saint John and Halifax in the winter when the St. Lawrence is closed and the ability to ship it by the cheaper waterway was no longer an option available to the wheat producers or the grain producers of Canada.
It had the spin-off effect of keeping the elevator in Saint John and the elevator in Halifax viable entities, employing many people along the way. That is good, and we will get into the numbers of people that are involved in that. The concept of the At and East is just a marvellous way of helping the grain producers of the west and Ontario, a way to help the millers of the maritimes, a way to help the livestock producers and the
poultry producers of the maritimes as well, and to keep the cost down for them and the products they produce, which the people of the region consume. We had a positive spin-off there as well.
What has been proposed has not only been proposed, it has been eliminated. During part of the previous debate someone from the government side said: "It is gone. It is finished". That is probably an apt description of what is going to happen to this government as a result of the programs it has brought in, the others which I have referred to including this one.
One of the previous speakers referred to the elimination of the lighthouses and how the lighthouse keeper said the closest habitation to him was Europe and Africa. I suggest that this kind of legislation and previous situations show that the Government of Canada is equally as far removed from the populace of Canada and will suffer the results.
The grain elevator in Halifax, which I referred to previously, contributes to the economy of the city and the region somewhere in the neighbourhood of $25.9 million per year and employs somewhere around 480 people on a continuous basis. That is just the grain handling portion of it.
As a result of it being able to store grain for the millers of the area, it contributes, through that and through the milling facilities, another $28.4 million to the region for a total of $54 million.
The At and East cost the federal government somewhere around $40 million, so we can see that from the port of Halifax alone there is a positive effect within the Canadian economy of somewhere around $14 million. If we include the port of Saint John, the other open water port during the time that the St. Lawrence is frozen, and its contribution of somewhere around $8.5 million and around 90 jobs we can see that the total economic effect to the region is extremely positive in relation to the expenditures.
We, as New Democrats, have suggested that, in agreement as a matter of fact with the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, perhaps the $40 million is, in view of increased technology and so on and the changing times, a figure that could be reduced. The Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission suggested a cost of $20 million could be a sustainable figure and still keep the ports open and be able to continue as
June 11, 1991

had been done with the $40 million under the At and East.
Comparing the $20 million which has been proposed in comparison to the almost $60 million result shows a tremendous cost advantage for the Canadian people.
If we take into consideration the probability that the cost with the At and East being eliminated will rise by $10 per tonne, there is the probability that flour mills will close. There is the probability that packing houses will close. There is the probability that the livestock industry, the feed mills, will also be adversely affected in the region to the tune of somewhere around 5,000 jobs in the ancillary agricultural activities within the region. That amounts to almost a fifth of the people employed in the agricultural sector of the economy of the region.
There are effects as well for the province of Ontario. Four grain elevators will shut down, or have shut down, because the At and East has been cancelled-two of them in Midland, one in Port McNicoll and one in Prescott.
It is interesting to mention that the one in Midland and the one in Port McNicoll are in the constituency of the present Solicitor General. I do not know whether that indicates bravery on the part of that gentleman or not, however it is also interesting to note that he was the Minister of Transport when it came into effect.
The worst-case scenario is that as a result of the elimination of this subsidy there is a likelihood that a good many of the other commodities all across the railroads to the maritimes will be diminished, perhaps even to the point where there will no longer be any trains, as is the case in Newfoundland.
I can see the time when all the way from the constituency of the Solicitor General to the maritimes there may be no railroad at all except perhaps the CPR which runs from Montreal to Boston.
My time has run out. I tried to outline the worst case scenario and I assure the House that things will be one heck of a lot worse than that.
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Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Madam Speaker, I would like to make a few comments about this bill and raise a few questions which I think are being raised in the minds of some Canadians. I think the last poll showed about 86 per cent of Canadians at the present time just cannot accept or understand what this present government is trying to do to this country. As said by some earlier speakers this evening, the big question in their minds is what they are going to do and continue to do for the next two years.
The question comes to my mind as well. Their actions on this bill, the support of the maritime, western and Ontario grain producers through this bill and the way this bill was used in the At and East subsidy really beg the question: what is the government trying to do to rural Canada, and for what reason? It is shutting down post offices. I have had the opportunity to be in the west and I am not exaggerating when I say that I was through towns, rural towns, in which there were four by eight sheets of plywood across the windows and doors of the shops and the stores.
I cannot understand the purpose or the reason or the motive of the government to continually try to drive rural people out of the areas where the quality of life is second to none, where everything can be provided and where it is a tremendous place to raise families, and into the more urban areas where unfortunately some of the problems of our society today seem to exist at a much higher rate and intensity.
We know that the At and East subsidy was put in a number of years ago for several reasons. It was put in to allow producers another route to market grain from this country on an open port, 12 months of the year. It was also provided and put in place in order to provide jobs through that avenue to the maritimes where they have been, are now, and certainly will be needed in the future. I know that it was not put in place to assist livestock producers in the maritimes. That was not the purpose of it. It was for milling grains and flour and the shipment of those. I would be less than honest if I did not say it had some positive spin-off effect.

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Much of the feed grain needed in the maritime region for livestock production has to be brought into the area and this being there, not used directly but indirectly, was certainly a positive effect.
Just this morning, to raise the question again, what is the government trying to do? What is its motive? At the standing committee on agriculture we had presentations from the Ontario wheat producers board and from the prairie pools. The discussion this morning was on the opening of the Canada-U.S. border to U.S. grain coming in. I do not know and I have been in the agricultural industry and the agrifood industry all my life. I keep asking myself what the purpose or the motive is behind all of this.
There does not seem to be an answer. Some of the things we hear people say I do not choose to repeat here in the House because they are not very polite things and I do not wish to make those comments.
We have a situation in the maritimes right now, over all in the maritimes, in which we are looking at somewhere around a 15 per cent unemployment rate. We know that this program has cost $30 to $40 million in the past, and that is a considerable sum of money. I realize that and I recognize that. We also know that in order to make money, in order to create money, you have to spend money. The spin-off effect of this program has been tremendous, and it has not only gone to one small group. It has gone to the producers in the west, the producers in Ontario, to those who take part in the transportation system, to the mills in the maritimes, to the ports, to the elevators and it has gone to all kinds of people.
Why is the government doing it? How can the maritime backbenchers and the maritime cabinet ministers sit there and do this to their own people? Then to make a farce of the whole thing, the government did this back in July of 1989. I have not been a real student of the parliamentary process for as long as many of my colleagues have been here in this House, but it was my understanding that when the House was prorogued whatever was on the Order Paper died.
I guess I should not have said some of the things that I did to some of my constituents when we were talking about that at town hall meetings earlier this winter. They
asked me: "Mr. Vanclief, what happens to the work that is before the House?" I said: "when the House is prorogued it all dies on the Order Paper". Now I have to go back and explain to them why it did not die on the Order Paper. Here it is back again. What purpose? Another example, if you are wondering what the government is trying to do, is it is tiying to manipulate the orders of the House, the Standing Orders of the House, and tiying to manipulate what Canadians have wanted to and still want to think of this House, this great Chamber that we are in tonight and every day.
As a colleague from the other place said when he visited my riding not too long ago, when you look at much of the system and much of what the present government is doing to the system and the way it is using the system to achieve whatever goal the government is tiying to achieve, quite frankly we cannot understand what that is, other than it appears to be total destruction and total lack of care for individuals, whether they be primary producers, blue collar workers or whoever.
You tend to have to almost force your mind from wandering to the thought of knowing who wanted the free trade agreement, and knowing who wanted the GST. The friends and the buddies of the government wanted these and the government has delivered for the good of a few and without question for the harm of the majority of Canadians.
There is an amendment before the House. I ask the government to stop and take account of what it has done, take account of what it is about to continue to do, and take account of one case in particular in which we in the opposition told the government it was doing the wrong thing when it came to the handling of grain, and that was a few months ago on the Advance Payments for Crops Program. We pleaded with the government at that time. It can do nothing more than come back to us at this time and say to the opposition, if it is being honest with itself and honest with Canadians: "You told us the right thing, opposition members." It did reinstate the advance payment. I am asking the government, I am pleading with it on behalf of primary producers and every one in the system; the employees, the workers, the elevator operators, the port workers, those who want to purchase grain from Canada at that time of year. It opens another market, it gives another avenue to ship, and heaven forbid we need all of those eveiy chance we get.
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The government talks about being competitive and that we have to stay that way, and every time we turn around it takes away one of our competitive edges, one of our management tools and one of our operative tools in marketing of grains and crops. The government speaks one thing out of one side of its mouth and another thing out of the other side of its mouth. It really begs the question.
In closing, I ask the government to reconsider. The amendment before the House tonight is giving it the chance to reconsider what it has done and what it wants to make official by the passing of this bill. When government members vote with their conscience, I hope they stop to think that what they are doing is to the detriment of so many in so many different ways. I ask them to support the amendment before the House put forward by the House leader of the Opposition here this evening.


Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Madam Speaker, it is a privilege, although I was not intending to speak on this debate. I must admit that, I would not call it coerced, but I was motivated to speak. Now that I have spent the last three hours here, I think it is very appropriate. It again proves a lesson to me that if you stay in this House and listen to the debate there is so very, very much to learn. I am sure the Canadian people know that there are not many more than 20 people out here and I hope there are more of them out there who have also learned a great deal about a topic which is of extreme importance to eastern Canada.
As I listened to the ribbon of thought, I said: "Now how can I relate that to my constituency?" The longer I spend here the more I feel that I can relate it because I was in eastern Canada this past weekend and I am in my own constituency a great deal and the two are very similar. We are all like voices in the wilderness saying: "Please pay attention. Please do not do any more economic injustice to us."
When I think of the $35 million subsidy that goes toward the At and East I relate that to my community and I relate it to transportation. Sault Ste. Marie is at the confluence of the Great Lakes. We had a proud Sault Ste. Marie lock. It has been closed for three years. It would cost $35 million to replace that entire lock. We have implored the transport ministers, all of them, to put some money into the canal because it is a Canadian link
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between the Great Lakes. The answer from our government is that there is no necessity for a Canadian link and we can rely on the American locks. Thirty-five million dollars would make a tremendous investment in our community. The lock is on the very flag of our city. Does it want us to tear it off the face of the community? That is why it is so very, very easy to relate to what is happening here with At and East.
I now realize the extreme importance of the funding of this subsidy to eastern Canada. The amount is perhaps insignificant to the amount of money when you compare it with the dislocation of people and the social programs which have to come into place to fund, I understand,
5,000	people whose jobs will be lost because of this action. I am sure the cost will be much more than the $32 million.
My reading tells me that the revenues into Halifax and Saint John are beyond the $32 million subsidy. It is a net gain. Therefore, why the action?
I think all of the members from eastern Canada have suggested that. We cannot understand the rationale. The rationale from the government, as it said on April 21, 1989, was that the subsidy has the effect of diverting traffic away from the seaway in favour of subsidized rail movements and is inconsistent with the government's market-oriented transportation policy. There is the bottom line. It is for market oriented transportation policy, as in VIA Rail, and beyond transportation policy we get into Canada Post and PetroCan. We are talking about a federal presence in eastern Canada, in northern Ontario, that we are beginning to miss. We are losing that federal presence. This is a disavowal of the government's obligation to be in these outlying areas, the extremities of Canada. It is extremely, extremely unfortunate, and it is a euphemism to say unfortunate.
From time to time it has been attempted, I do not think intentionally, to pit region against region. The figure of the western subsidy amounts to $700 million and certainly the $32 or $35 million pales in comparison. Should we be pitting west versus east? From time to time it involves central Canada. People say: "This is done at the expense of eastern Canada to support rich central Canada". I resent that attitude, because central Canada, Ontario and Quebec namely, is suffering economic hardship, probably beyond just about everyone else. Because of the loss of manufacturing jobs people can no

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longer look to central Canada with envy. We are in similar circumstances with eastern Canada.
Subsidy is a difficult concept to define, certainly as shown by the free trade agreement. There was a purpose and there is a purpose for subsidies. If regional subsidies are used strategically and appropriately, they can help the areas of Canada that require that help. We just cannot disband all subsidies because of a bottom-line, budgetary decision. We cannot allow that to happen.
Take a look at the irony of this situation. We are competing with the Europeans, who are heavily subsidized in agriculture, and the Americans, who are heavily subsidized, and we are the good people, the fair traders who once again bow to everybody and say: "We will lower our subsidies or we will cut them completely out".
Again I can relate the same experience to my constituency in terms of steel. The steel industry in the United States is subsidized to the tune of $30 million. In Canada if there is a very small intent to subsidize steel the Americans countervail and harass us with rulings that are actually frivolous. However, when it comes to the agreement and the dispute settlement they are not so frivolous because the panel rules against us.
Therefore, this subsidy issue is a very delicate one and very, very difficult to define. Our Canadian government always acts very sheepishly and non-aggressively in its dealings with the American government.
Dislocation of people is what we are talking about. The dislocation and the costs associated with the dislocation are nothing. They pale in comparison to what this At and East had accomplished since 1966.
Various people have mentioned the retroactivity of the bill. I have only been here two and half years and I only recall one other bill that was made retroactive. It is hard to imagine legislation that can be implemented retroactively. There is a great deal of legislation we would like to absolve or get rid of, take off the books retroactively, if only we could do that.
In closing, I apologize for my perhaps total lack of comprehension of this At and East subsidy and all the ramifications of cutting out this subsidy for eastern Canada.
I am beginning to comprehend it and I do understand the philosophy and the theories of this government that I know are detrimental not only to eastern Canada but to all of Canada.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I was not intending to speak on this bill but I have sat here for the last four hours listening patiently, together with my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood, to all the arguments against this bill.
I have not seen any Tories with the courage to stand up to defend Bill C-ll. If it is such a good piece of legislation, where are the Tories? Canadians have a right to know. If it is good legislation and if it is defensible then why are they not standing up and doing their job? They are getting paid big bucks to come to this Parliament to speak out on behalf of their constituents.
A good question is where are the Tories? Where are the ministers? We have two lousy Tories in the House.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: I am sure the hon. member for York South-Weston would want to rephrase that part of his speech.


John V. Nunziata: I understand it is unparliamentary to call a Tory lousy. I will withdraw the word "lousy".
The point is that we have four cabinet ministers from Atlantic Canada. Where oh where are they, the Minister of Veterans Affairs, the Minister of Public Works, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Employment and Immigration.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member for York South-Weston has been in this House as long as I have been in this House. He very well knows that it is not parliamentary, and should not be done in a speech especially when it is done as wilfully as it is now, to mention the presence or absence of members or ministers in the House. The hon. member is very well aware of that.
As he has been in the House for the last few hours, I am sure he could find some other way to talk about the bill which is now in front of the House, or the amendment which his House leader has put on the table.


John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, I was not commenting on their presence or absence in the House. I was commenting on their absence from the debate.
There is a distinction. There is a very clear distinction. I could pretend they are in the House but I cannot pretend that they have participated in the debate, which they have not. That is the point I am making, and that point is parliamentary.
I will speak to the merits of Bill C-ll. I will make some very brief comments and I would hope that some cabinet ministers will stand up on behalf of the Government of Canada to indicate the reasons so many people must lose their jobs as a result of the end of the At and East subsidy.
Perhaps they can explain to the people of Canada why the government has chosen to pass the bill retroactively. As other speakers have indicated, the subsidy in fact terminated some two years ago. The government, in the last Parliament, introduced Bill C-26. Then it decided to prorogue Parliament.
When a government prorogues Parliament, legislation that is on the Order Paper dies. Bill C-26 ought to have died. It was down. It was out, and the government tried to resurrect it. In fact, it did resurrect it through some type of parliamentary boondoggle or mouth to mouth resuscitation. It brought the bill back to life.
Here we are debating the bill now known as Bill C-ll at third reading stage. Not only has this bill been resurrected but in effect it will be retroactive to terminate a subsidy that has been in place from the mid-1960s until two years ago.
The government has not provided a reasonable rationale for terminating a subsidy that amounts to anywhere from $33 million to $35 million annually. Now, to some people that is a lot of money. Indeed, it is a lot of money. But it makes absolutely no economic sense as to why this government has chosen to terminate that particular subsidy, again, as part of a systematic plan to destroy Atlantic Canada.
Does the government not realize the impact that this bill will have on the economy in Atlantic Canada? My colleagues have very eloquently pointed out the negative
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economic impact that this bill will have in Halifax, for example, and in Saint John. Export grain shipments to Halifax and Saint John, as you know, have been stopped, and as a direct result the Saint John grain elevator has closed, putting 55 people out of work.
Surely the 55 people at the Port of Saint John, the grain elevator employees, have a right to hear from their representatives on the government side the reasons why they are out of a job today. The government does not have the courage to stand up and tell those people. The continued viability of the elevator at Halifax is in question as a result of this particular bill as well.
Will the government explain to the 27 employees at the port of Halifax who have already lost their jobs why it is that they are out of work today? This particular bill will suck out of the Atlantic economy not $35 million, but maybe five times that amount, perhaps ten times that amount, in terms of the economic spin-offs as a result of that particular activity.
It makes no sense at all to put some 500 or 750 people out of work when the Government of Canada will end up paying much more in terms of unemployment insurance, much more in terms of other types of subsidies, to Atlantic Canada, the parts of Atlantic Canada that are affected by this regressive and unconscionable piece of legislation. Those people, if they are working, will pay taxes. That is why this bill makes no sense at all, it puts people out of work. And when you are out of work, you cannot pay taxes. So the government says: we want to save $35 million and so we are going to end this subsidy that has been in place, that subsidizes the transportation of grain to ports at and east of Buffalo, as I understand it.
The amendment posed by my House leader, the House leader for the Official Opposition, makes eminent good sense. What does that amendment do? It would put on hold this piece of legislation for six months. I am convinced that if government members thought about this a bit, if they reviewed some of the documentation that I have reviewed over the last number of hours, if they listened to the opposition members who have spoken, they, too, will become convinced that it is the wrong thing to do, and certainly at the wrong time. Canada is in the midst of a recession and here the government is simply compounding the problem in an

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area of the country that needs as much assistance as possible.
As I indicated, this is not the first action of this government which has shoved a further nail into the coffin of the economy off Atlantic Canada. There have been others. My colleagues from the Halifax area, for example, and other parts of Atlantic Canada, have stood up time and time again to defend their constituents, indeed the constituents of Conservative members who do not have the courage to stand up and defend this piece of legislation, if in fact it is defensible.
Here it is, Bill C-ll. It is but two or three pages. What it does, the impact of these two or three pages of legislation, is significant, to say the least, in terms of the economy of two ports in particular and in all of Atlantic Canada.
I would ask, in closing, that the government reconsider this bill, to simply hoist it from the Order Paper for a six-month period as requested by my House leader, and in that period I am convinced that we on the opposition side will be able to convince government members that it is the wrong thing to do.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I sat here and listened to the excellent speech of the hon. member for York South-Weston and I note that the government introduced a motion yesterday to change the hours of sitting in this House to extend them to 10 p.m. throughout the bulk of the next two-week period.
The point of order, as the parliamentary secretary must know, is that there is not a single minister of the Crown in this House. While the rest of the members are forced to sit here until ten o'clock debating government legislation, the ministers go and tuck up in bed.
I resent that. The ministers have an obligation to be here. At least two of them should be here. They should not be home tucked up in bed while we are debating their crummy legislation.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The hon. member does know that this is not a point of order and I must say that I am amazed that he would even consider thinking where ministers are or could be.


Rey D. Pagtakhan: Madam Speaker, I, too, would like to join the debate at this late hour and wish as well, like my colleague, that the ministers from the government side would be here and listening to
our points. What is raised in this debate is about the Canadian value of caring, about the Canadian value of fairness and equality for regions.
Bill C-ll, an act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), also known as the At and East bill, is indeed an indictment, an indictment of our set of Canadian values.
Let me just tell the government opposite, the few members who are here, that to me, Bill C-ll poses hazards to people's lives, poses hazards to the citizens of the Atlantic region in particular, and indicates to me that this bill is an index of contempt by the government in this great institution, Parliament.
Why is that? Bill C-ll was introduced during the previous Parliament, as we know, as Bill C-26. It died on the Order Paper at third reading. Showing contempt for Parliament, showing contempt for Canadian citizens represented here in Parliament, the Tory government resurrected Bill C-26 following the commencement of the new session. The bill was resurrected at the same stage, trying to bypass the series of readings and debates so that Canadians may know more of the ills of this particular bill.
The government, I also submit, is showing contempt for Parliament as the rail subsidy for grain shipments was terminated in July 1989 and today, two years later, they are trying to pass legislation to legitimize what then was not legitimate.
I recall a fundamental teaching in high school that one of the principles in law-making is you do not pass a law that makes an act punishable that at the time was not. In other words, you do not pass a retroactive law.
What will prevent government in the future if we allow this bill to dictate on the events of the past by usurping the power and authority of law-making.
Export grain shipments to Halifax and Saint John have stopped and as a direct result the Saint John grain elevator is closed, putting 55 people out of work.
Perhaps 55 people in the eyes and minds and hearts of this government are not many but every citizen that suffers a job loss has to be taken care of by the government. There is no excuse. That person has a family to support, that person has a family to feed.
June 11, 1991

Truly, the economic impact on that part of our country will be devastating if we allow this to proceed.
Moreover, this bill in a sense reflects the mismanagement of agriculture by this government of agriculture. In a sense, it also tells of this government's undermining of orderly marketing in the country. It removes the storage option for grain, forcing the producer to sell at harvest time, producing a glut in pricing. We know the consequence of that.
It also will have a very serious effect, a negative effect, on our export capacity to export grains and flour.
When we recall that three government studies have seriously questioned the wisdom of removing the At and East bill, how can we tell Canadians that this government is listening to experts in the country? I think it shows the arrogance of this government.
As I said in the beginning, this bill is an indictment of the Canadian values of caring for our citizens wherever they are, of ensuring that there is fairness from east to west to north in Canada. We should really entrench in our thinking as parliamentarians the principle of equality of regions, the equality of provinces irrespective of their size. They are Canadians.
About a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting Saint John's and I was impressed by the beauty of that area. I was impressed by the sense of belonging and community in that part of the country. Let us continue to preserve that. Let us give hope for the citizens of the Atlantic region. I from the west, from the province of Manitoba, also a have not province, truly feel the pains of the citizens from the Atlantic region.
In conclusion, the Liberal Party wants to give Atlantic Canadians fairness. As a result, we have proposed an amendment that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following therefore:
Bill C-U, an act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour
subsidies) be not now read a third time but that it be read a third
time this day six months hence.
Why is that? Why have we proposed this amendment? It is because we would like to give this government a last chance, a time to reflect and avoid regrets in the future, a time to repent and avoid remorse in the future, a time to retreat for this government so that Canadians may preserve their Canadian values.
Government Orders


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and participate in the debate. I am glad that my point of order a few moment ago, which Your Honour said was unsatisfactory as a point of order, has produced results and ministers have appeared. I am delighted that the ministers were here to hear the comments of my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North and I am sure that the ministers will stay to hear my comments on this bill, in peril of having another point of order raised.
I know the Minister of Supply and Services-despite his penchant for the telephone, which I am sure is provided by his department-will want to remain and hear my remarks. I was polite enough to hear him out in Kingston the other night when he spoke at a meeting of the Kingston Historical Society honouring the 100th anniversary of Sir John A. Macdonald's death. I know the hon. minister who was there on the occasion was pleased to be in attendance. I was delighted to welcome him to my constituency and hope he will pay another visit to Kingston in the near future.
The hon. member says definitely, he got to listen to me as well. I know he found it a treat then as he is finding it tonight.
What I wanted to mention about this particular bill was my concern with the way the government has proceeded with this legislation.


Lyle Vanclief: It is disgusting.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member for Prince Edward-Hastings says that it is disgusting. That is a very close description of the procedures that have been followed with respect to this matter.


Fred J. Mifflin: Despicable.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception uses the expression despicable. All expressions perhaps would suit in this case but I am restraining my language and am trying to use the words that I used before in this debate when we discussed the question of the admissibility of the motion that the government used to bring this bill back before the House.
This bill has a chequered history. It was introduced during the last session of this Parliament and proceeded through all stages to the third reading stage. It had not started debate on third reading. Indeed, the government was reluctant to call the bill at third reading during the

June 11, 1991
Government Orders
last session because it knew there would be a protracted debate and probably a very vigorous debate, mounted particularly by those members who are from eastern Canada. It is not to be forgotten that the electors of eastern Canada saw fit to throw out most of the Tory hacks who were representing them in this House for the years from 1984 to 1988 during the 1988 election.
The hon. member for Bonavista-Trinity-Conception, my hon. and gallant colleague, is living proof. If any more is needed I could cite many others who were elected in Atlantic Canada to represent the interests of that region in this House. This bill is anathema to Atlantic Canada. It proceeded through all stages but third reading during the last session and now we are faced with a situation where the government, instead of calling for third reading and sitting an extra couple of days and enduring a couple more Question Periods, decided the best thing to do was get the House adjourned and then prorogued and start a new session and commence debate on this bill again.
It was quite unwilling to go through first reading, second reading, report stage, and committee stage with this bill. It decided it had better reintroduce it at third reading so it did not have to go through those other stages and listen to arguments that it regarded as tedious and dull. Rather than introduce it in the normal way, it decided to do something completely unprecedented in the history of our Parliament.
The hon. Minister of Supply and Services wags his head. I tell him this was completely unprecedented. If he would take the time to look at the precedents, he would agree with me. Never ever before has a government moved unilaterally to bring bills back into the House at a stage and ignoring all previous stages.


Patrick (Pat) Anthony Sobeski: Tell us about the bill and not the procedure.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: The hon. member says: "Tell us about the bill and not the procedure". Never mind the procedure, he says. I remind the hon. member that procedure is a very important thing in this country. Arthur Meighen lost an election because of procedure. He called it constitutional froth and was defeated at the polls, and I remind the hon. member of that. It is a remembrance that might serve the hon. member well come 1992 or 1993. He may find that the procedures that he and the
government he supports have adopted have resulted in such an abuse of the privileges of the members of this House that the Canadian people are sick to death of that kind of abuse and will throw this government out. The government will be lucky to hold as many seats after the next election as the Bloc Quebecois now has.
I do not want to get on to the next election. I would rather deal with the present, and I want to deal with the procedural aspect of the present. That is the argument that this bill has been brought before us in a way that is clandestine and wrong. The government has never ever before proceeded to introduce a motion to reinstate bills at any stage in the proceedings of the House without the unanimous consent of the House.


Mr. Dick:: See how reasonable we were when we were in opposition.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Always, on previous occasions, unanimous consent was given.
The hon. member says: "See how reasonable we were when we were in opposition". Consent was very rarely given because it was very rarely asked for.
In the days when the hon. member was in opposition, we had a government in Canada that knew how to run the House of Commons. It organized its affairs. It organized its affairs so that when a session was prorogued the business was done and it started a new session with a new agenda and a new program, completely contrary to the situation we are witnessing today in this House.
There is no new agenda. There are no new programs. We are debating these old bills and they are being reintroduced by a short-circuit method to avoid legitimate debate and legitimate criticism in this House and in the country. That is what is going on in this case and that is what has gone on in several other cases. Five bills were introduced by this outrageous technique, a totally unprecedented technique.
We had the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader make-


Madam Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. Am I to understand that the hon. member has not concluded his remarks?
June 11, 1991

Adjournment Debate


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Certainly not. The time, it seems, has run out.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Madam Speaker, I would like to discuss a matter I raised the other day here in the House. Canada is now experiencing one of the worst recessions in its history, further aggravated by the fact that it was created by the same Toiy government that was elected to protect and enhance the well-being of Canadians. It is clear this government has failed miserably, Madam Speaker.
I rise in the House this evening to draw the attention of government members to the fact that some regions in Canada are worse off than others in these difficult times, and the Liberals are not alone in feeling this is so. The Conference Board of Canada also believes that Quebec has been affected more severely by the recession than other provinces.
On June 4, the Liberals spent a whole day drawing the attention of the government to the disastrous economic situation in the Montreal region which has been severely hit by the recession. One example is the manufacturing sector, where plant after plant is closing its doors. I am thinking of General Motors in Boisbriand, and Henkel in Ville d'Anjou, my former riding, right next door to Saint-Leonard. Pascal, one of the oldest hardware chains in Montreal, has closed its doors, and I could go on with a whole list of companies and plants where jobs have been lost, Madam Speaker. It is particularly ironic that we should be talking about employment today, considering that this government was elected in 1984 on a promise to create jobs.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. That was the slogan of the 1984 Tory campaign and look what happened today.

Montreal's hotel industry is also suffering the negative impact of this recession. In Montreal, more than 4,000 jobs have been lost in this sector since 1988. Last April, the unemployment rate in the Montreal region, a densely populated area, was 4 per cent higher than the unemployment rate in the Toronto region. Madam Speaker, this government has created a recession, and that is intolerable.
Perhaps we should also consider the Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands, one of the most beautiful regions in Canada, which now has an unemployment rate of over 27 per cent. What hope do young people have for the future in an area which offers no opportunities for durable employment? We can't expect to revive the hope and confidence of these young people with the kind of empty shell offered by the Minister of National Health and Welfare at the end of last month.
The Tory member from Gaspe is well aware of the problems in this region. Unfortunately, he didn't have the courage to defend the interests of his constituents. I am referring to an article that appeared in the Quebec City newspaper Le Soleil on March 7.
The privatization of bait plants by Fisheries and Oceans and Public Works seems to work in favour of producers, at the expense of fishermen. Nevertheless, this industry forms the basis of the region's economy.
Madam Speaker, how can the Minister of National Health and Welfare expect to convince the residents of this area that his recent announcement will help them, when he is doing nothing to support the economic base of this region?
I would also like to know what the government intends to do to prevent an exodus of young people looking for durable jobs because there are no opportunities in this region.
Madam Speaker, you are signalling that my time is up. Thank you very much.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I would like to take a few moments again to tell the government's involvement in regard to regions of Canada and the objectives in reducing regional disparities throughout the territory.

Adjournment Debate
In order to reach our goal, we have created different ways and means, including the financial assistance program. It was within a concept of the Canadian government to announce nearly two weeks ago a series of measures which we intend to implement in order to lead support to economic development in the Gaspe-Magdalen Island regions and promote job creation.
I would like to tell once again the nature of the endeavours. The measures are related to the setting up of Gaspe-Magdalen Island Economic Development Corporation. This corporation, besides promoting economic development in the area will also be involved in prospective activities, investment and promotion of the fields of industry and tourism, not only in Canada but internationally:
Our government will assume the operational costs of the corporation during the next five years through contributions totalling $1.7 million. The government even goes one step further in offering a grant of $2 million to the same corporation, enabling it to sponsor a newly created organization known as Gaspe and Magdalen Island Investment Registration.
This limited partnership will invest blocks of capital between $50,000 and $400,000 to develop into expanding companies. Occasionally it may invest in a start-up stage of a corporation operating in the manufacturing or service sector. This investment will ensure healthy capitalization in most of the promising enterprises.
A new loan insurance program will also be announced. It will be an acceptable organization of the Gaspe-Magdalen Island region. This new program will allow the carrying out of many important projects which will be named and drawing the boards of inadequate funding.
The government will have a loan guarantee of $6.4 million between now and March 31, 1993.


IMMIGRATION
John V. Nunziata: Madam Speaker, as you know, I have had the opportunity to ask the government a number of questions concerning the case of Mohamed Al-Mashat. He is the former Iraqi Ambassador to Washington who was fast-tracked into Canada.
We were in the process of investigating this particular matter when the government decided today to shut down the process. We had the opportunity to invite a number of witnesses before the committee. We had the opportunity to ask questions, and obviously we were getting close to the truth. The result is the government today decided that it has heard enough and it no longer wishes the inquiry to carry on, notwithstanding the very explicit promises of the government that it was calling the inquiry in order to get to the truth of what happened, to understand how it was possible for a former ambassador of a country with which we were at war, to gain access to Canada as a landed immigrant, within a matter of weeks, when it takes others months and at times years to enter Canada.
We embarked on the inquiry. A number of cabinet ministers were embarrassed as a result of some of the evidence that was heard. I guess the government is no longer interested in understanding completely what happened in the Al-Mashat matter.
We do know that the government has presented several versions of what happened. We had version A, then version B, then version C and then version D and we really do not know how many other versions are out there. We do know that on the evening of May 13, the former Secretary of State for External Affairs, the former Minister of Immigration, and several other ministers were present at a meeting with officials. At that particular meeting they decided to blame the nephew of the leader of the Official Opposition, Raymond Chretien, who happens to be the second in command at the Department of External Affairs.
They also decided at that particular meeting to blame Mr. David Daubney, a former Conservative member of Parliament and the Chief of Staff to the former Secretary of State for External Affairs. Mr. Daubney himself gave evidence at the committee that he was blamed for reasons of symmetry. In fact, that was the terminology that was used at that particular meeting. The government has not, in any way, allowed the opposition to understand completely what happened at that meeting on May 13. We do know that a report was rewritten by individuals in the Privy Council Office with apologies already in the report that a fellow by the name of Shortcliff was sent to visit Mr. Daubney and Mr. Raymond Chretien to tell them that they had apologized. In
June 11, 1991

fact, Mr. Chretien indicated very clearly to the committee that he had nothing to apologize for and that he did not apologize.
Madam Speaker, I note that my time is up. Perhaps, the hon. member opposite can explain to the people of Canada why the government is shutting down the inquiry when it promised we would have a full inquiry into this matter.


Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, it has been a long day and I appreciate your patience in the chair, particularly in re-answering questions that have been so often answered in this House.
I am responding now to questions raised in the House on May 30 by the hon. member for York South-Weston on the Al-Mashat case.
In an exchange with the Secretary of State for External Affairs, the member asked about differences in the chronologies released on May 14 and on May 30. Since the parliamentary committee first began hearings on the Al-Mashat case, this question has been answered on several occasions by both ministers and officials.
I should emphasize that the government has responded to requests from the committee for documents on this case. I understand there is still a standing offer to Privy Councillors from both the Liberal and New Democratic parties which would allow them to pursue Mr. Al-Mashat's immigration file.
For the benefit of the hon. member, let me briefly summarize the facts. Auditors from both the Department of External Affairs and the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission were appointed as soon as minister Valcourt stated that an investigation would take place into this matter. This audit was completed on the basis of corroborated evidence and facts which could be confirmed at that time.
Following the release of the first chronology on May 14, new information became available as a result of public statements, some factual inaccuracies also were found in that document. This was acknowledged by the Secretary of State for External Affairs before the parliamentary committee on May 30.
Adjournment Debate
As a consequence of these acknowledged inaccuracies, ministers requested additional information and further interviews were carried out by auditors, including with persons outside of government. This resulted in a fuller chronology released on May 30, which provided a more detailed account of the handling of Mr. Al-Mashat's case and noted inaccuracies contained in the earlier chronology.
In a supplementary question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, also on May 30, the member for York South-Weston had pointed out one such factual error between the two chronologies. He asked the Secretary of State for External Affairs on which date the defectors committee decided Mr. Al-Mashat was not a defector.
Again this question has come up before the parliamentary committee, but I would answer the question as follows:
The chronology released on May 14 unfortunately left out a key word. The defectors committee had determined on March 1 that Mr. Al-Mashat probably was not a defector. A final determination could be made by the defectors committee only after Mr. Al-Mashat had been interviewed by officials at our embassy in Vienna. This interview took place on March 5.
Vienna sent its assessment of Mr. Al-Mashat by telex, which was received in Ottawa on March 7. On that day, the defectors committee met to consider the report and concluded that there was insufficient intelligence value present to consider Mr. Al-Mashat as a defector.


THE ENVIRONMENT
Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Madam Speaker, last week I asked the minister of health if the government would be willing to accelerate the phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons and other ozone-depleting chemicals from the present schedule of 1997, instead to the year 1995.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment replied and said, "no". Perhaps, if reasons are provided this evening, the government might agree to 1995 instead of 1997.
According to medical forecasts, more than 46,000 Canadians are likely to develop skin cancer this year. The incidence of melanoma, the most dangerous form of

June 11, 1991
Adjournment Debate
skin cancer presently known, has, in addition to that, more than doubled in the last 20 years.
The Canadian Dermatology Association says that these figures do not yet reflect the impacts of a thinning ozone layer, and that the risks of skin cancer will continue to rise into the 21st century. Our young people are particularly at risk.
In April of this year, scientists with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States released new data showing that ozone depletion was occurring at twice the rate previously predicted. This has allowed the United States Environmental Protection Agency to conclude that ozone depletion over the United States will result in approximately an additional 6 million cases of skin cancer and 200,000 deaths over the next 50 years.
Compared to 10 years ago, there is now on average, according to the scientific community, 5 per cent less ozone in the stratosphere over southern Canada.
These findings therefore have veiy serious public health implications. The ozone layer is the earth's only natural protective shield against the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation. Increased exposure to such radiation will increase the incidence of skin cancer and eye disease, weaken our immune systems and also decrease the yields of certain important agricultural crops.
Now, to return to the cause, which is chlorofluorocar-bons. The Canadian government currently plans to phase out chlorofluorocarbons in 1997. Other countries are moving faster than Canada.
Germany will end its chlorofluorocarbon production in 1995. Australia, Norway and Sweden will all have eliminated 95 per cent of their chlorofluorocarbons by 1995.
In the light of these developments, the question is will the Minister of the Environment or the minister of health and welfare or someone on their behalf phase out by the year 1995 ozone depleting chemicals, specifically chlorofluorocarbons, halons and methyl chloroforms, to protect the health of present and future generations of Canadians?


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Madam Speaker, the satellite data on ozone layer definition and the agreement with the data from Canadian stations do
not significantly change our understanding of the state of the ozone layer but reinforce the need for strong international action.
Canada's consumption of ozone depleting substances is decreasing faster than required by the Montreal protocol. The 1990 Canadian consumption of CFCs was 33 per cent below that of the 1986 level used as the benchmark for the Montreal protocol.
We are committed to zero consumption of CFCs by the year 1997, three years ahead of the international schedule.
The objective is the ozone consumption by the year 2000, five years ahead of the international schedule. From the ozone depletion substance in general, we are now more than two years ahead of the international schedule.
Large decreases are occurring in several other industrialized countries as well. As a commitment in the green plan Canada will continue to work on the domestic reduction and recycling initiatives of CFCs and partnerships with the provinces.
The National Research Council is working with the industry to evaluate CFC alternatives. Our regulation program eliminates specific use of ozone depleting substances as adequate replacements become available.


HOUSING
Alan Redway: Madam Speaker, I want to tell you about a constituent of mine named Hyacinth Vernon.
Ms. Vernon is a single mother, she has four children and she goes to work. Until recently, she and her children lived in an apartment near my constituency office on O'Connor Drive but she had to move because, quite legitimately, her landlord wanted to move relatives into her apartment.
There are very few places for a Canadian who is a single mother of four children and who is a member of the working poor to go to live these days. The vacancy rate until recently in metropolitan Toronto was less than 1 per cent. In fact, it was about .3 per cent. She had been on the waiting list for public housing in the metropolitan Toronto area since 1986, some five years. She was forced to move in with her cousin, the husband of her cousin and her cousin's two children in one bedroom.

There you are, we had three adults and we had six children in a one bedroom apartment. We know that that could not go not go on very much longer. She had to move out. Where could she go then? There was still nothing available in the rental apartment market, there was still no public housing available. Now she is in a one-room motel room in the Americana Motel on Kingston Road in Toronto with her four kids.
She continues to work every day. She hands her weekly cheque of some $283 net over to the social and community services department, the welfare department. They pay the rent on the motel, then hand her back enough bus tickets to get her back and forth to work every day and they give her $26 a day to feed, clothe and look after herself and her four children.
Now I am told by the welfare department in metropolitan Toronto that Ms. Vernon is only one of about 100 similar cases in metropolitan Tbronto right now. Why in heaven's name Ms. Vernon does not just throw in the towel I do not know, but obviously she is made of pretty good stuff.
Ms. Vernon cannot get into public housing because she is one of some 17,000 Canadian citizens and landed immigrants who are now on a waiting list for public housing in metropolitan Toronto. On top of that, the Ontario Minister of Housing, because of a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, has now said that he is going to admit refugee claimants to public housing as well. There are some 90,000 refugee claimants in Canada at the present time, 60,000 of those are in Ontario. They are now available for public housing.
Where in heaven's name are we going to put these people? Refugee claimants are the responsibility of the federal government. CMHC has no money. Employment and Immigration has no money. Where in heaven's name, Mr. Minister, are we going to put these people when refugees are a federal responsibility?


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my colleague on the question of refugees benefiting from the security of government-assisted housing.
Adjournment Debate
The hon. member is aware that the federal government, through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, shares responsibility with the provinces in the delivery and support of low-cost housing.
The National Housing Act in no way restricts these benefits to Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. In fact, putting restrictions in place would contravene human rights legislation.
The hon. member is quite correct in noting that demand for government-subsidized housing is great, especially in the Toronto area where so many refugee claimants reside. I am pleased to advise the hon. member that officials of CMHC, the Ontario Ministry of Housing and Canada Employment and Immigration are already working together to identify the extent of the demand and its impact on the availability of subsidized housing.
Throughout Canada, family members, church groups, multicultural societies and other non-profit organizations are working to improve the living conditions of recent arrivals to the country. We have seen remarkable examples of communities rallying to the aid of those driven from their own homelands by war or oppression.
The hon. member may recall the dramatic footage of a boat load of Ihmils who had arrived on the rocky coast of Nova Scotia. The people of the nearby villages found them. They were sheltered, clothed, fed and given every possible form of aid and help.
These are genuine expressions of kindness and concern. It is a very direct and personal response to the need.
As the minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation mentioned in his earlier response, when the Vietnamese boat people arrived in this country a number of years ago, they were desperate for housing. At the time, CMHC had some vacant apartments in housing administrations. Mortgage insurance operations with refugees are settled there.
It is interesting to note that very quickly they became established in the community and were able to find their own housing. In fact, it has been reported that some of the people who were helped in this way treated their assistance as a temporary loan and paid the government back.

June 11, 1991
Adjournment Debate
I am pleased to be able to respond to the hon. member's question.


Madam Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the
House is now deemed to have been put. Therefore, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m, pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 10.24 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, June 12,1991