1991-05-28

["Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to several petitions.\n[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]"]
Mr. Speaker:: Tabling of documents. Statements by ministers.


Mr. Cooper:: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I missed my cue. Could we possibly return to tabling of documents?


Mr. Speaker:: I just want to say to the House that I am most delighted to be able to ask the House's indulgence to return to tabling of documents for the hon. parliamentary secretary.



Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to several petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.]



ENDANGERED AND THREATENED SPECIES ACT


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: for leave to introduce Bill C-209, an act respecting the protection and rehabilitation of endangered and threatened species.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this act intends to protect and rehabilitate endangered and threatened species. In essence, it attempts to identify, protect and rehabilitate
flora and fauna in Canada which are threatened or endangered by human activity; to develop and implement programs to restore the populations of threatened and endangered species of flora and fauna in Canada to self-sustaining numbers; and to provide legislative support to voluntary programs.


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


Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-210, an act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, this bill to amend the Human Rights Act is one that was introduced during the last session of Parliament. I am reintroducing it.
In his 1989 report, the Human Rights Commissioner recommended certain changes in the act. In order to support the Human Rights Commissioner in his excellent work, I had drafted the proposals that he put forward in this bill.
Therefore, the bill could be proceeded with. Hon. members can consider the matter when it reaches committee. I would ask that we proceed with the bill at an early date.


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

Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour and a privilege to once again present a petition on behalf of a number of petitioners from the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

May 28, 1991
Routine Proceedings
The petitioners are concerned about the government's decision to cut back on financial support for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They point out a whole set of concerns such as the possibility of increased levels of lawlessness as a result of the decrease in RCMP support by the federal government.
The petitioners are simply calling upon the government to restore proper funding to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.


Mr. Iain Angus (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour and privilege to present a petition signed by about 70 Canadians.
These Canadians come from diverse communities such as Surrey, Vancouver, Edmonton, Thorhild, Alberta, Burnaby, Redditt, Ontario, Kamloops, Kenora, Kitimat and Calgary.
All these petitioners are supporters of rail passenger services. They call upon Parliament to support the NDP plan to restore VIA Rail service which was cut on January 15, 1990, maintain and, where appropriate, upgrade remote service on which many Canadians rely, provide a legislative mandate for VIA Rail and make available to VIA the resources which it needs to become a modem passenger rail system in a class with those throughout the rest of the western world.
The petitioners want to put Canada back on track.
[Translation\


Mr. Jean-Guy Guilbault (Drummond):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36,1 wish to table a petition I received not long ago from a number of employees with Employment and Immigration Canada in the riding of Drummond, and this petition concerns the Pay Supplement Program. Your petitioners humbly pray and call upon Parliament to order the government as is its duty, to reverse its unilateral decision to abolish the pay supplement for health insurance, and do so retroactive to December 1, 1990, without loss of benefits.


Mr. Murray W. Dorin (Edmonton Northwest):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present a petition
signed by residents of Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer and Calmar, Alberta calling upon the government to enact legislation requiring manufacturers to list specific food ingredients and additives used in prepackaged foods and to require restaurateurs and food retailers to provide on demand to customers a list of all food ingredients and additives in prepared foods.
This is a petition I wholeheartedly support. I actively encourage the government to amend the food and drug regulations in order to prevent human deaths as a result of allergic reactions.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present another petition today.
The petitioners call for a bill to be passed by this House to make it an offence to destroy or desecrate the flag of Canada.
This petition is signed by numerous residents of Kingston and the Islands.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall all questions stand?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Orders of the Day.


Mr. Dingwall:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question on which I would like to have you adjudicate forthwith. My colleague from Kingston and the Islands will also wish to speak to this procedural point, as well as my colleague from Ottawa-Vanier.
We object to this particular motion being put-


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member could stand in abeyance for just a moment.
Thanks to the courtesy of hon. members, I am expecting a point of order. Probably I should ask for Orders of the Day to see what it is.
May 28, 1991



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, we object procedurally to the motion that the government seeks to put before the House.
There are three points that I wish to make, and I believe that any one of them is sufficient cause for you, Sir, to refuse to put the question to the House.
First, the motion is defective in that one of its paragraphs is precisely the same terms as the motion already disposed of by this House. This is the paragraph referring to the Crown corporations bill. It is a well-known procedural principle that a matter, once decided by the House, cannot be reopened in the same session. This point is clearly stated in Beauchesne's fifth edition, which I read:
416.(1) An old rule of Parliament reads: "That a question being
once made and carried in the affirmative or negative, cannot be
questioned again but must stand as the judgment of the House".
The paragraph in question was contained in a motion put by unanimous consent last week. The motion was carried and the bill referred to in the motion has been dealt with by this House. If the government had wanted to proceed with the rest of the motion, it had plenty of time to put down a new notice without this paragraph; but it clearly cannot now proceed with a motion that includes in my view the offending section.


Mr. Speaker:: I wonder if the hon. member could help the Chair. What you are saying is that the offensive part of the motion to which the hon. member is referring was in fact proposed with consent some days ago. Is that correct?


David Charles Dingwall: That is right.


Mr. Speaker:: But it remains in the existing motion.


David Charles Dingwall: The second grounds for refusing to put this motion is that the motion attempts to place before the House five completely separate and distinct legislative matters which do not lend themselves to being considered together.
Government Orders
The government should have given notice of five individual motions. This motion has a legislative effect and it seeks to do in a speedy way what would never be permitted in the normal legislative procedure. The matters dealt with in this motion would never be permitted to be considered together in one omnibus bill and therefore, I suggest, should not be permitted to be dealt with in one omnibus motion.
It is no remedy to permit the motion to proceed with debate being held as if it were one motion with the question being split for a decision. The motion should be divided into separate parts, each of which, if otherwise found to be in order, should be debated and decided upon separately.
Third and finally, I contend that the motion is in principle unacceptable in that it seeks to circumvent, indeed to subvert, the normal legislative process of this House.
In the past this kind of thing has been done only by unanimous consent. Now the government is seeking to establish an ominous precedent by attempting to force this procedure on the House. This is an offensive and dangerous departure from the practices of all parliamentary bodies and the Chair is, I believe in accordance with Beauchesne's citation 123.(1) and Standing Order 1, required to refuse to put the motion because of its unprecedented violation of the checks and balances written into the rules governing the normal legislative process.
If the government wishes to amend the rules, it should bring in a motion to amend the rules. It knew what it was doing to legislative programs when it prorogued last session. It had had the opportunity before prorogation to deal with those rules. It is entirely offensive for the government to attempt now to subvert the very rules that it claimed to champion only five weeks ago.
I submit, Mr. Speaker, that you have the authority to refuse to permit this transgression. On several grounds, three of which I have mentioned, you ought to refuse to allow the government to proceed with this motion.
My colleague from Kingston and the Islands, as well as my colleague from Ottawa-Vanier, would like to make references and interventions on this most important procedural aspect of this motion.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders


Mr. Speaker:: Perhaps the hon. member for Kamloops would defer to his colleagues on the Official Opposition side. I will hear that argument and then move to the hon. member for Kamloops, presuming that the arguments will be brief.


Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, of course I will be brief. I wanted to refer Your Honour to a couple of authorities that support the propositions put forward by the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond, but I have a couple more points that I wanted to urge on Your Honour in respect to this important matter.
First I draw Your Honour's attention to Standing Order 1 of the House which states that in cases not provided for in the rules or by any other order of the House procedural questions should be decided by the Speaker-I am paraphrasing the rule slightly-whose decision shall be based on the usages, forms, customs and precedents of the House of Commons of Canada. I stress that.
What is happening today is unprecedented in that the government is moving a motion under Government Orders for debate to reinstate bills in this session. I have searched precedents back to 1938 and did not find one where a motion of this kind was moved for debate. It was always agreed to by unanimous consent. Never before has a government moved to suspend the rules in effect and put bills back into their position at the time of prorogation of a session.
If the royal prerogative is to mean anything the prorogation ended those bills. They have to be reinstated in the usual course, but they ought to have been introduced and dealt with as new bills in this session. That is the proper procedure in the absence of unanimous consent.
The usages and procedures of this House have always been that unanimous consent of the House is required in order to suspend the rules in relation to the reinstatement of bills. That is my first and primary point.
Based on the authorities-and I would like to cite the 21st edition of Erskine May on this point-the obligation to determine the procedural regularity of this motion clearly falls on you, Mr. Speaker. The power is a substantial one and it is set out on page 181 of this 21st edition, and I quote from it:
It is the duty of the Speaker to preserve the orderly conduct of debate by repressing disorder when it arises, by refusing to propose the question upon motions and amendments which are irregular, and by calling the attention of the House to bills which are out of order (and securing their withdrawal).
Those are relevant words. I could go on if I were to take more time and read more of that paragraph. I commend it to Your Honour's reference on this very important point.
Second, I would refer Your Honour to- [Translation]
-Beauchesne's, Sixth Edition, citation 171-1 believe this is the first reference in this House to the French version of the new edition-and citation 171 reads as follows: "Foremost among many responsibilities, the Speaker has the duty to maintain an orderly conduct of debate by repressing disorder when it arises, by refusing to propose the question upon motions and amendments which are irregular, and by calling the attention of the House to bills which are out of order. The Speaker rules on points of order submitted by Members on questions as they arise".
This is more or less the same wording as Erskine May, Mr. Speaker. I think this is an important citation which gives a good indication of your authority.
Mr. Speaker, I will now refer to Beauchesne's, citation 566. In paragraph (5) of the citation we read: "Any irregularity of any portion of the motion shall render the whole motion irregular".
The author referred to the Journals of the House of Commons for May 31, 1954, at page 674. I found the quote, Mr. Speaker, and I have a copy here. The Speaker of the House at the time referred to this citation with great enthusiasm but did not follow it in his ruling. On that occasion he made a distinction.
So even if the reference is correct and the citation is favourable, I feel that the irregularity to which the hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond referred is an irregularity in the motion, and therefore the whole motion is irregular.

Finally, I would refer to the citation in support of the division of motions to which my hon. friend from Cape Breton-East Richmond referred so ably. There is another serious problem with this motion which I would

like to draw to your attention. That is the part of the motion that deals with the act respecting port wardens.
This is not really a motion to reinstate this bill in this House. The words in that section of the motion deemed this bill to have been passed and read at third reading in this House.
In other words, there is to be no discussion of this bill again. It is not put up for debate; it is not put back on the Order Paper. It is deemed passed by this House. That is completely beyond the scope of what a reinstatement motion can do in this House. It is not putting this bill back on the Order Paper. This bill will never appear on the Order Paper; it will be deemed to have been passed. I presume that if this motion were adopted in this form, the clerks would send a message to the Senate informing it that this House had adopted this bill.
For this House to adopt a bill without any debate, without any discussion at any stage, is completely irregular and improper. There has to be some limit to the powers which can be proposed in this place. The Speaker, as our presiding officer, must be able to say at some point: "This goes too far. This is beyond the ability of the House without unanimous consent".
With unanimous consent we can do anything in this place. However, for the Chair to permit a motion that circumvents all our rules in relation to a public bill is a very serious situation for the Chair to find itself in. Based on the authorities that I have cited, which give great authority to the Chair, there has to be some way to place restraints on what the government could do.
What is to stop the government then from introducing a motion saying: "In respect of the following 20 bills, they will all be deemed to be passed by the House of Commons"? Then they are all passed.
In other words, the government could introduce 20 bills on day one of the session, then introduce a motion on day two and debate the motion for two days and deem all of the bills passed.
That is the effect of this motion and that is contrary to constitutional law. That has never been done before. This is far beyond what is a reasonable limit on reinstatement of bills. I stress in the history of the customs, the usages and the practises of this House for over 50 years, according to my research, there has been no such motion ever introduced and passed in this House, except by
Government Orders
unanimous consent. The government itself exercised its royal prerogative on May 13 to bring this session to an end on May 12. The publication has been made of the Governor General's proclamation declaring the session at an end. He started it again.
It was the government's decision to do it. It cannot have it both ways and now bring one of these motions to trample on the rights of this House and in effect prevent us from debating these bills. I request that Your Honour declare the motion out of order.


Mr. Speaker:: I made an error. I am quite sure some hon. members noticed it. The hon. member for Kamloops, and I apologize to the hon. member.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I simply want at this point to echo the comments made by my previous two colleagues. That is, to consider this motion to be appropriate would be setting a frightening precedent and would be making in my judgment a mockery out of the work done in a serious way by hon. members in this House.
The government is attempting to do in a two-day debate what this House is charged with doing by other well established and traditional means. To reflect once again the views of my colleague who spoke previously, I ask you to think of the consequences.
The government is attempting by a simple motion to deem a series of bills that are not even on the Order Paper, introduced, approved in principle, studied in committee, concurred in at report stage, read a third time, and passed.
If this motion is in order, then surely other motions to deem other bills passed would also have to be considered in order. Conceivably, to take this to an extreme, the government could accomplish by this means its entire legislative agenda within a two-day debate. That is, as some of us have indicated, a result of the change in the attitude of the government.
If this motion is allowed to proceed, we could compress in a sense the entire government agenda, with all of its legislation passed, in a matter of hours or days as opposed to it going through the appropriate stages.
What could possibly stop this abuse? The only thing that could stop it, Mr. Speaker, is your intervention today.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
Are there any precedents on this motion? As my colleague who spoke previously indicated to the contrary, in past sessions the House has unanimously decided to revive certain bills from previous sessions, and it was only by unanimous consent that such motions were adopted. Again, I simply want to say that this has been used in this session. There have been some discussions and yes, as we know, a bill was dealt with earlier in this session because of the unanimous consent that it had received in order to enable it to proceed.
I simply want to say that Beauchesne's is clear on this point. In the fifth edition, citation 167, Beauchesne's states: "The effect of prorogation is at once to suspend all business until Parliament shall be summoned again. Not only are the sittings of Parliament at an end but all proceedings pending at the time are quashed. Every bill must", and I emphasize must, "therefore be renewed after prorogation as if it were introduced for the first time".
May is also clear. In the recent edition he notes that: "Proposals have been made for a provision either by statute or by Standing Orders for the suspension of public bills from one session to another or for resuming proceedings upon such bills notwithstanding a prorogation".
These schemes have been discussed in Parliament, carefully considered by committees, but by various considerations have restrained the legislature from departing from the rule that parliamentary proceedings are discontinued by prorogation.
The most recent publication we have as hon. members is the Precis of Procedure of our own House. Obviously a great deal of thought went into the wording to provide guidance to hon. members. It states on page 157 of our own Precis of Procedure'.
- any bill of a previous session, in order to be proceeded with, must be introduced again as a new bill. It is possible, however, with unanimous consent, to reintroduce bills in the new session at the same stage they had reached at the old session and to revive committee work in a similar manner with unanimous consent.
That is in our precis. This is what we use to guide us in our deliberations, in our process here. In my judgment the government is simply ignoring this in order to expedite its legislative agenda.
In summary, I just want to make six points. The motion is out of order in so far as it contains a question already decided by this House, as argued very aptly by my previous speaking colleagues.
Second, the government has had the opportunity to remedy this flaw in the motion and has elected not to do so. It is not the Speaker's job to facilitate the government's business by permitting the other parts of the motion to be put to the House now.
Third, the motion is too broad. It asks too many questions of the House. It should at least be divided for purposes of debate as well as for voting.
Fourth, the omnibus nature of the proposed motion sets a very dangerous precedent for the management of government business as it permits the normal, conventional, historical, and traditional review of legislation to be circumvented.
Fifth, the motion offends the parliamentary conventions surrounding prorogation. All the authorities and all the practices direct bills to die upon prorogation.
Last, there is no precedent for a government motion which lacks unanimous support of the House to revive bills.
I suggest humbly, Mr. Speaker, that this motion is out of order.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. The arguments made so far seem convincing, and I support them all because they are good arguments. It is true that traditionally, when after prorogation a government wishes to resume consideration of a bill at a given stage, unanimous consent is the usual vehicle, and we saw this in the House on May 23 when we gave unanimous consent for Bill C-73, which as you know, Mr. Speaker, has followed the usual legislative course and is now before the Senate.
In that case, I don't see why the government did not apply the same procedure to the other bills it wanted to reinstate. Mr. Speaker, there are two points I would like to make. First, I think we should consider the word "prorogation" and find out exactly what it means. Second, why do we use it and what are the consequences of doing so?
May 28, 1991

Mr. Speaker, so far, according to my references, prorogation-I will try to be as clear as I can-means that the government, with the consent of the Queen, decides to end a session of Parliament. All business is therefore suspended.
Usually, when the government decides to prorogue, this means it has exhausted its agenda and does not want to continue. What we have before us now is a government that prorogued the House, in other words, it decided to drop the proposed legislation mentioned in Motion No. 1, Bills C-58, C-73, C-78, C-82 and C-85 of this Parliament's second session.
Mr. Speaker, all the authorities I consulted, including Erskine May and Beauchesne, agree-I will read a few because I think it would be useful to know exactly what we are talking about. Erskine May:

"The effect of prorogation is at once to terminate all the current business of Parliament, not only the sitting of Parliament at an end, but all proceedings pending at the time are quashed except impeachments by the Commons and appeals by the House of Lords". And it goes on. All items are quashed.
We could go on to Beauchesne's. Beauchesne's is a little more explicit on prorogation.

Effect of prorogation and adjournment
Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, citation 167.
(1) The effect of a prorogation is at once to suspend all business until Parliament shall be summoned again. Not only are the sittings of Parliament at an end, but all proceedings pending at the time are quashed. Every bill must therefore be renewed after a prorogation, as if it were introduced for the first time.
What we have before the House, Mr. Speaker, is a motion that is faulty because it is inaccurate. Bill C-73 was reinstated with the unaminous consent of the House and has been withdrawn. The government did not remove the reference to this bill. My colleagues who spoke earlier mentioned this, and I think it is an important point to consider when the Chair will be asked to rule on this matter, Mr. Speaker.
We are now being asked to pass bills that were passed in whole or in part by this House. I think that Bill C-82, for example, had passed all legislative steps and been sent to the Senate. Now the government wants to start
Government Orders
all over, but in a very special way, the legislative procedure for the bill dealing with the authority to appoint a port warden for the Harbour of Quebec and so on.
I do not understand why, Mr. Speaker, on May 23, when they came with Bill C-73 requesting unanimous consent, they could not have proceeded in the same way with Bill C-82 or some other bill once consent was given.
I now oppose, Mr. Speaker, being presented with this jumble of legislation, some of which we seriously oppose and some of which we have agreed to. I cannot understand why this government, these government bullies now want to impose their will on the House of Commons through force of numbers and then would have us believe that they are sensitive to parliamentary reform and want Canadians to see this House work in a friendly, co-operative way.
We presented arguments, Mr. Speaker. I will not repeat them all because there are some good ones. There are good arguments that the government has no business proceeding as it is doing and that it is contrary to parliamentary reform and all political decency. Administratively, it may not be so different whether it is done unanimously or in the way the government proposes; the effect is the same-the House will have the bill before it. I say to the government that it is bad politically to proceed in this way and that we will regret it in this House. Canadians will again say that the government is again reducing proceedings in the House to the lowest level.
Mr. Speaker, something else concerns me too. Every bill must have authorization called the "royal recommendation". As far as I know, none of these bills has a royal recommendation. Each one of these bills will have to be printed separately and bear the royal recommendation. Mr. Speaker, I do not see how they can come to us with this package and tell us that once the motion is adopted, each bill will be printed and contain the royal recommendation.
Mr. Speaker, I think that is bad management, bad policy and, in my opinion, unparliamentary.


Mr. Speaker:: I am aware that some other hon. members wish to address the Chair. I will keep that in mind. For the moment I will hear the hon. parliamentary secretary.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, if you are intending to hear further argument, considering my role of responding to arguments, I would rather hear all the arguments and come at the end.


Mr. Speaker:: I accept the hon. parliamentary secretary's suggestion.


Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition and I will try to be brief.
I was not in the Chamber when the motion was formally put. Through the benefit of the modem technology of television, I had the set turned down low and heard a little and frankly could not believe my ears as to what was being proposed by my friend opposite, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the government House leader.
I am not going to repeat the arguments that have been made by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, the hon. member for Kamloops, let alone the hon. member who just spoke.
This to me, in the years that I have been here, would boggle the mind in terms of the effective working of Parliament. What really disturbs me, having spent a good many years on the opposition side, is that we know, and my former friends across the way know from when they were on the opposition side, that the prorogation date is sometimes used as the negotiating lever to get bills to move along. Under the tradition and history of the British parliamentary system, come prorogation, everything on the Order Paper died.
It was then incumbent on the government and the responsibility of the government in the new session to reintroduce the bills and/or try to work matters out by consent, as it often did.
Mr. Speaker, you have a good memory also. There were many times in this Chamber in which a deal was made before prorogation. Sometimes, by unanimous consent, bills which were on the Order Paper, certain ones being difficult to agree on perhaps, were nevertheless put together as a package even though prorogation was going to come that hour. In effect, these bills would
stay by formal motion in the House in the same position on the Order Paper as they were before prorogation.
To me, without repeating everything that has been said, and I understand what my hon. friend from Ottawa-Vanier mentioned about reform, I am all for the reform of this place. I am all for expediting the business of this place. I think we waste a lot of time in this place. There is a way to do it.
If this government is going to bring in an omnibus motion, in effect just lumping all the bills together that were at some stage in a previous session of Parliament, and then through a formal motion of the House where they know they have the numbers to have that the fait accompli for the passage of all the different items in the motion, then this will bode very poorly to say the least for debate in this Chamber in the future.
Why would a government really worry about the opposition's concern about various bills if it knows that come prorogation date the debate will be cut off and Parliament will be prorogued since it has a majority. In the new Parliament the government knows it will not lose anything anyway.
The government can bring in an omnibus package resolution which has never been done before, as far as I know. I have not had time to go through the authorities, I have not seen an authority to justify this yet. This might be the way for government to really move a lot of business along, to go through this prorogation charade. In a new session, it can put all these bills down on the Order Paper and have one vote because of a Notice of Motion.
I think this is a very serious matter. I know the Chair will give it the consideration it deserves because I can see real problems in the future. What disappoints me is that those who used to sit in the opposition know the few levers the opposition has to focus attention in a proper way on government bills.
I would humbly suggest that this type of precedent, if approved, will remove the lever that is the whole reason for this place.
The former hon. member for Prince Albert, John Diefenbaker would say: "This is a place to talk". We all know we talk too much from time to time and there is too much repetition. There is too much reading of speeches. I wish that would be corrected.
May 28, 1991

If that was corrected Parliament would not be bogged down in so much tedious rhetoric, taking the time of the House and the staff and costing the taxpayers so much money.
I have to compliment the parliamentary secretary, the House leader and the government for its ingenuity in doing things this way. My compliment, however, is a back-handed one. This type of move shows no respect at all for the whole basis of why we are here in a parliamentary institution. While I give it a back-handed compliment for the ingenuity of carrying out certain instructions or trying to move along with government business, which is commendable, this is not the way to do it. It would be a very invidious precedent. I ask the Chair to exercise the discretion and experience of all table officers in interpreting this motion to make sure it does not come to fruition.
If this happens then, boy, you can kiss goodbye-I mean our government would only be human; it will do it once and do it again-opposition discussion or debate and use a coming prorogation or summer recess as a time when people do come together. It is like the old proverbial hanging. There is nothing that focuses the mind better than when the man is marching up to the gallows. Someone said something classical to that effect.
We all know how this system works. There is a lot of time-clock running, yet there are certain events where there is a focus of attention. If this thing goes through, one can forget about the focus of attention and this place becomes, to me, sadly, even less of a chamber for real debate than it is at the present time.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, I want to make a few brief points.
First, on May 11, 1977, Mr. Speaker at that time ruled on an issue involving omnibus legislation, but it is important to note and I quote from Hansard of May 11, 1977, which referred to "different although related subjects". In other words, the only reason at that time that the omnibus legislation being contested before Mr. Speaker by members of the opposition allowed to proceed was based on the fact that it-was different yet related.
The legislation before us today is as follows: "An act to amend aeronautics, an act respecting exporting, importing, manufacturing, buying and selling of certain weapons, an act regarding the status of artists in Canada, and
Government Orders
another act concerning combating the laundering of proceeds of crime".
Even if one were to state that the precedent of 1977 was valid, it would only be valid if the bills were different yet related. The bills of course are not related at all. Therefore, any attempt by anyone to utilize that precedent as justification would be faulty.
Second, if we cannot do something by omnibus legislation we surely, as the hon. House leader for the opposition has stated, cannot do it by omnibus motion to pass a series of different bills together. If one is wrong, the other is equally wrong.
Finally, if this precedent is allowed to proceed, then what is next? I ask the question rhetorically. If one can resuscitate five bills with this motion, or four bills, what stops one from resuscitating all legislation from the past? Carrying it to the next level, what stops us from adopting a motion today deeming that all bills have reached third reading, every single bill that is before the House right now? What stops us from resuscitating a bill from 1977, saying that that particular bill has now reached third reading, and we are going to vote on it right now? As a matter of fact, we could actually pass a motion stating it has completed third reading debate.
What we are in fact doing is amending completely the rules of the House by adopting this motion, were we to do so, or were this motion to be ruled in order. The implications of ruling this motion in order would be such that I fear we could render-if a government wanted to, and I am not saying it does-this House of Commons totally irrelevant and redundant. We would simply deem everything and anything to have been passed, to have been at third reading, or to have been at any stage if for any reason the government did not want to proceed with other stages of the bill.
I would hope the Speaker would consider those additional points I have just raised.


Mr. John R. Rodriguez (Nickel Belt):: Mr. Speaker, I want to be brief along the same lines as the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants. This House is governed by specific rules, practices, and precedents.
As far as I can gather, it has always been the practice that when there is prorogation, all the bills on the Order Paper die. The practice of the House is that with unanimous consent, you can resurrect any bill at the point where it was when the House prorogued. That is the practice. That is the precedence. Not since Bram Stoker wrote Dracula have we been able to see this wholesale resurrection of zombies, which the government is attempting to do with this zombie amendment,

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
or this zombie motion. It is to raise the undead. All these bills are the undead bills, the zombie bills. It is attempting to do that with one motion.
The practices, the precedents and the rules of the House provide a check and a balance and there are certain provisions and certain practices and precedents such as the unanimous consent to resurrect a bill after prorogation which, in fact, is the check on the tyranny of the majority in the House of Commons. That is one of the checks that the opposition has.
Mr. Speaker, you can check the records, but in the past there has been unanimous consent for certain bills to be resurrected. In fact, even in the present session of Parliament there are a couple of bills that have had unanimous consent to be resurrected. I can think of Bill C-83, which is now Bill C-4.
I do not think that the government should be allowed to establish a new precedent. I do not think it should be allowed to overrun a balance that the opposition has had over these many years of parliamentary procedures, practices and precedents. So, I would ask you in considering, to rule this motion out of order and let us put these through the proper process.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I do want to spend a few minutes going through some of the arguments that have been put before you this morning and try and address them.
I would like to work backward through the arguments and, therefore, want to start with the comments of the hon. member for Prescott-Russell, the member for Annapolis Valley-Hants, and at the same time, the arguments of the member for Kamloops, because essentially, as I listened to them I thought the argument was, in all three cases, the same.
What was originally begun by the hon. member for Kamloops was that he tried to take the process we are undergoing today and paint his picture by taking it to the extreme. It is not an uncommon debating tactic. In fact,
it is one that the hon. member uses regularly in the House.


Don Boudria: Hey, hey.


Albert Glen Cooper: I am sorry. I listened. I would like an opportunity to make my arguments, Mr. Speaker.
What he is essentially saying is that if you were to find this motion in order, then it is the same precedent as the omnibus bill and, therefore, what the government could do is come in and make a motion and pass every piece of legislation and everything that the government may ever want to do in this particular session of Parliament.
Of course, we have heard the argument before. We heard the same argument put by the same member when we discussed the rule changes. He said this was the kind of power that was going to be given to the government. In reality, this is a very different situation. We are not, by this motion, cutting off debate. All we are doing is reinstating bills at the stage they were left at in the previous session.
No, we are not cutting off a third reading debate or a report stage debate. We are not cutting debate off. We are simply arguing, and I think very credibly to the Canadian taxpayer, that there is no need to repeat all of that debate that has already taken place.
For example, Bill C-26, one of the bills mentioned in this particular motion, had 12 hours and 35 minutes of debate in the House already. It is now at report stage. Is it necessary to repeat all of that debate? No, I do not believe it is. That is why we are proceeding with this motion.
This is not a case of a government coming in and creating some sort of omnibus bill that ends forever the need for Parliament. What we are doing is saving the time of the House by not repeating debate that has already gone before this House. The hon. member for Kamloops used as his document the Precis of Procedure. I want to make a quick comment on that because I want to deal with some of the other citations that were mentioned by others.
The precis is just that. All it is, in layman's language, is an explanation or discussion of the rules and practices of this House of Commons. It has never been used as a

Government Orders
binding authority. It is not Beauchesne's, it is not the Standing Orders. The language in the precis may be strong and very descriptive, but it is designed so that those of us who are not experts in the rules can have some sort of an understanding of the subject that we may want to have some interest in.


Don Boudria: That is a really strong argument.


Albert Glen Cooper: Perhaps it is a very strong argument.
The hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier as usual made a good argument in the House of Commons and as usual it was very persuasive for people who are watching the debate. What he essentially said, and he referred to Erskine May and other citations of other documents, was that all business of the House of Commons is quashed with prorogation. That was the thrust of his argument.
That is not true. We have plenty of precedents where business from a previous session prior to a prorogation has been reinstated. We have plenty of examples of that. It has not always been quashed. Maybe by another process, but bills, questions and all sorts of things-and you know the precedents as well or better than I do, Mr. Speaker-have been reinstated in this House of Commons. The process may have been different, but the precedent is very clear that in fact there is argument and precedent for reinstatement.
The member for Kingston and the Islands made four points, as I listened to his arguments. The first point was that what we were doing was unprecedented and therefore out of order. If we were to take the argument that any time a decision, action or process is new it is therefore out of order, or because it is different it is unprecedented and therefore it cannot be done, then judges, lawyers, the Speaker of the House, I, in my role as a parliamentary secretary to the House leader, the House leaders of the Official Opposition and the New Democratic Party would not be able to proceed because all we could do if we could rely only on precedents would be simply to follow what our predecessors have done. That in and of itself is not an argument. It is a basis for much of our arguments and in most cases a good reason. Simply because we are using a process or a practice that is not clearly precedented does not in and of itself assure that process is out of order or in some way in contempt of this House of Commons.
We have precedents. We have precedents of reinstating business in this House of Commons. We are dealing today with a different process but the precedents are very clear.
Second, the hon. member says that it is up to the Speaker to maintain order. I agree. I have no problem with that. That is the role of the Speaker. Let us be specific, and I want to raise this particular citation because it applies not only to the arguments of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands but also to the arguments of the Liberal House leader. It talks about the Speaker's right to rule on motions or processes before the House in order to maintain order. I want to read citation 411, page 149 of Beauchesne's fifth edition, subsection (3), the latter part of the paragraph:
There can be but one question pending at the same time, though there may be numerous matters of business in various stages of progress standing on the Order Paper for consideration during the session. The only exception from this citation occurs at the report stage of a bill, when the Standing Orders confer upon the Speaker the power to combine amendments or clauses for discussion and decision.
There were references made to the power of the Speaker in relation to motions. What this citation is saying is that power, the one referred to by my hon. friends, is at the report stage. It is not particularly in this case and there are plenty of arguments and reasons why the Speaker can find that this particular motion is completely in order.
The third argument the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands made was that any irregularity of any portion of a motion would therefore make all of the motion irregular. I believe what he was pointing to is the fact that Bill C-73, as named in this motion, had been previously adopted by the House of Commons by unanimous consent and has now a new number on the Order Paper and we proceeded with it last week, I believe.
He argues that because this particular part of the motion has already been dealt with by the House, the motion in and of itself should be null and void.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that if you check through your precedents you will find one which says that what has happened here is that the House has taken action on a part of a motion and therefore that part of the motion becomes mute, becomes silent.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
Before I proceeded in this way I did seek advice. I sought counsel from people who are experts in procedure. I talked to a number of people to make sure that what I was dealing with here did not require a second motion. I must say the advice I received, I think unanimously, was that what would happen is that all we would be dealing with is a part of the motion becoming mute but not in any way requiring a new motion or some sort of other method of dealing with it.
Mr. Speaker, if you check through practices in this House you will find that on a regular basis we will decide to do something in the House and yet we will continue to go through the process, the forms, even though there has already been a decision of the House. We do that because we recognize that we have a situation which has been changed by this agreement but we continue with that process to follow through with the form. I think that applies very much in this case. The fact that one particular element of this motion has already been dealt with by the House does not in any way make the rest of the motion irregular.
The final argument made by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, and he used the example of the port warden's bill, was that what is happening is we are cutting off debate, we are bringing it in at a stage that is not even a stage of the House.
We do not traditionally talk as a message to the Senate as being a part of our first, second or third reading process. We do not traditionally include it in part of the stages of a bill or a motion. Nevertheless, it is very much a part of our process. Our message to the Senate is a signal saying that we in this House have dealt with first, second, third, committee and so on stages of the bill and have sent a message off to the Senate and waiting for its reply. It is a part of our process. It is a part of our practice and to reinstate this particular bill at this stage is completely in order and is consistent with what I have said earlier, that in fact what we are dealing with is not a cutting off of debate but a continuation of a bill at a stage it was at prior to the prorogation of this House. The House leader of the Liberal Party made three arguments. First, he said that one paragraph has already been adopted by the House and therefore the motion is out of order. I think I have dealt with that at length.
Second, he said that there are five separate and distinct matters in this motion and therefore it is abnormal and should be ruled out of order. That is not the case. What we have is five distinct subjects within a motion, but they are not totally separate because of the thrust or theme of this motion.
The thrust or theme of this motion is reinstatement. What we essentially have is a motion asking for reinstatement at a certain stage and the particulars of that relate to particular bills. It is not unlike what we just went through in this House of Commons a short time ago when we dealt with rule changes. We had a motion to deal with rule changes but Private Members' Business and dealing with committees at great length were in that process. We had several subject areas that are unique and distinct in our Standing Orders but the motion that was being debated was the reform of the House.
That is exactly what we are in right now. We have a discussion of a motion before this House to reinstate the business of the House. Then what we have is only the particulars of that motion, the clauses of a bill if I can put it that way, which reinstate particular items at a certain point.
We are dealing with different items in a particular motion and to rule that motion out of order on that basis would mean no motions could proceed in this House of Commons because virtually every motion we deal with on the floor of this House contains in it different and quite often very diverse subject matters and subject areas.
I want to look at citation 751 of Beauchesne's. The reason I want to look at it is because I think it points out the processes of this House, the way that we as members deal with the processes and the way that the Speaker analyses and rules on those processes. Can one imagine a situation in which this House makes a decision on a certain subject and then immediately by motion reverses the decision?
Citation 751(1) of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition states:
When the motion that the bill be now read a second time is
negatived,-
In other words it is defeated:
-it is competent for a Member to move immediately without notice: "That the Bill be read a second time on -
May 28, 1991

And a date:
- next".
What we have there is a circumstance in which the House has made a decision and then by motion we can come at it again, at the same stage.
What I am essentially arguing is that what we are dealing with here are the effects of a prorogation, a precedent which has been established in the past with not a new process, but a process which is completely in order.
I want to conclude by making these four points. There is precedent for reinstatement of business in the House of Commons. We have done it before by suspending Standing Orders, by consent of the House. We have done it before by unanimous consent and we did it just last week by unanimous consent.
To bring business back into the House is clearly precedented. We are talking here only of process.
Second, citation 412, subparagraph (1), page 150 states:
The question is the subject matter of the motion, and on the
merits of that subject matter the House has to give a decision either
unanimously or by the majority of the members present.
In other words, there are two ways we can go on a motion. We can do it unanimously, which we do from time to time, or we can do it by division. The end result of that vote is the conclusion of the argument. In fact, that is what we are doing here today.
We could have done this unanimously. We could have saved ourselves an hour and fifteen minutes of House time. We could have been debating any one of these bills, for example. Instead, the House has chosen not to do it unanimously but to debate it and then divide on it.
Perfectly in order. A perfectly logical way of proceeding, and in fact that is what citation 412 of Beauchesne says. That is in fact what we are doing.
The third point concerns the argument that we are doing something unique and peculiar. One of the unique points of our particular Standing Orders is that from time to time we suspend our own Standing Orders, we suspend our own rules. We do that sort of thing regularly. In fact, if you look at the rules and forms of the House of Commons of Canada, with annotations, comments
Government Orders
and precedents and so on, from 1958, it says in Item X, which is the way it is designated on page 11, that: "The House may even pass an order prescribing a course of procedure inconsistent with the Standing Orders. A motion for such temporary suspension requires notice", and it goes into particular Standing Orders.
We have done that sort of thing before. We have the precedent, we have reinstated bills in this House of Commons before by suspending Standing Orders, by unanimous consent. We have another process. There is nothing wrong with the process that is before us today.
It really boils down to one simple argument. Yes, we could go back and go through these five bills again. We could debate them once more, at tremendous cost to the House in time, at tremendous cost to the taxpayers of Canada, who are saying to us as members of this House: "quit fooling around, get serious, do some business, cut out the partisan games". We have heard it on all sides of the House. What we have done today is not in any way to cut off debate but rather to allow this House to continue the debate at precisely the same point it had ended debate prior to prorogation.
I have listened to my friends. I listened to them carefully and quietly. I wanted to hear their argument. However, there has not been a single compelling argument that would allow the Speaker to proceed to find this motion out of order.


Mr. Speaker:: I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary and I thank other hon. members. I have listened very carefully to this debate. I hope it is going to help me in making a decision. The hon. members would not be surprised if I said that given the complexity of this and given the precedents that have been cited and the authorities that have been cited, that I should reserve. I will try to return to the House as soon as possible. In the meantime we should probably proceed with the debate.
I will do everything I can to return as quickly as possible with a ruling. The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I fully understand. I am sure that members in the House will want to co-operate with the Chair if the Chair wants to have time to reflect upon the interventions made by all members of Parliament, and I would concur with that.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
However, I believe, as it is germane to our discussions, it would be very difficult for those of us on this side to proceed with debate until such time as a decision is rendered by the Chair.
Perhaps by way of accommodating the Chair and my colleagues to the left, maybe there could be some disposition that we might adjourn to the call of the Chair in order that we may have the decision and then proceed. We are of the view, quite opposite from the government, that the motion is out of order. Until such time as we have an adjudication of the procedural argument, we do not believe that it would be prudent to proceed.
Therefore, I suggest that perhaps we could adjourn to the call of the Chair or until two o'clock.


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Kamloops and then the hon. parliamentary secretary.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I would concur with the point raised by my hon. friend, the Liberal House leader. However, I am also aware that we have a legislative agenda that we might wish to pursue other than government business item no. 1. This is a complex issue, as we have argued, and a critical issue in terms of the precedent that will be set for hon. members to consider in the future.
On the list of scheduled business is Motion No. 5, consideration of Bill C-5. I would say, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, that we are prepared to move quickly ahead with this. It is an important piece of legislation and we would be prepared to begin debate on that immediately.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. members with care. They will know that in order for the House to proceed with business, there are a lot of people involved. Therefore, to change the business quickly is always a difficult thing.
We have been in this situation before in this House, on several occasions, when we have been waiting for a Speaker's ruling. What we have done in all cases was to proceed with the debate and wait for the Speaker's ruling, certainly in all the cases that I can think of at the moment.
I would ask that we do continue with the debate. I am quite confident, having listened to the arguments today,
that the time of the House in debating the subject will not be wasted.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Mr. Speaker, just to perhaps help the Chair in deciding, and without getting involved in the cross-fire on the order of business, I understand the problems on both sides of the House.
I listened to the parliamentary secretary in a rebuttal in support of the motion. I am just wondering if I could pose a question to the parliamentary secretary who argued very persuasively on some of the points. I am not going to try to rebut his argument. It stands on its own merit and there are several points that I agree with which rebut some of the points made by the opposition.
Regarding the compelling nature of the precedent, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary this question. In law, we usually never ask a question unless we know the answer. I did not hear the early procedure and perhaps I will be thrown down by my own question. My question to the parliamentary secretary in talking about a compelling nature is: Because there is only one issue here, as far as I am concerned, not all the other more refined arguments about motions in order or out of order and/or some parts of the motion staying mute because the House has already deliberated, and I tend to agree with the parliamentary secretary on that but in his discussions for counsel before he introduced the motion and/or what he said earlier today, and I missed part of it-can the parliamentary secretary give us any precedent from the Mother of Parliaments, where there has been a prorogation and a similar motion was introduced in an omnibus package to reinstate a certain number of bills in a certain form?
If he cannot, will the parliamentary secretary tend to agree with me, although he might not want to, that we can have such a compelling practice and tradition in the procedures and processes of this House that we do not try to make white black and black white by introducing this type of motion? In other words, is there another precedent for this?
When I first heard the argument upstairs on television,
I could not believe it. The only argument that the parliamentary secretary made, and I understand the subtlety of the argument, was that there were ways to reinstate bills. I agree with that, but part of my question concerns the fact that, as far as I know the only way to reinstate a bill that was killed in prorogation, is by unanimous consent. I ask the question this way that
May 28, 1991

compelling procedures and practices apply. Can the parliamentary secretary tell us if he found any precedent in any House of Commons for trying to do what he is doing here today?


Mr. Speaker:: I do not want to cut the parliamentary secretary off, but I have listened very carefully to the arguments. I can assure hon. members that the Speaker is not in any doubt whatsoever about the issue that is in front of us.
If the hon. parliamentary secretary wishes to respond,
I certainly will hear him. We have heard very full argument, and I do not want to keep this going all day.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I think your point is well taken. There has been long and effective argument. I will let my case rest at that.


Mr. Speaker:: I am going to have to ask for the co-operation of the House. Under the circumstances- and it is not the first time we have done this by any means at all-I am going to ask the House to carry on with debate on this matter. I will try to return to the House as quickly as possible with an appropriate ruling.


Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (for Mr. Andre) moved:: That, notwithstanding any Standing or Special Order of this House, the following Bills introduced in the Second Session of the Thirty-fourth Parliament be reinstated forthwith in this Session as follows:
An Act to amend the Railway Act (grain and flour subsidies), be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, referred to and reported by a Legislative Committee with an amendment, concurred in at report stage with an amendment and ordered for a third reading (Bill C-26);
An Act to amend the Young Offenders Act and the Criminal Code, be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, referred to and reported by a Legislative Committee with amendments (Bill C-58);
An Act to provide for the dissolution or transfer of certain Crown corporations and to amend certain Acts in consequence thereof, be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, referred to and reported by a Legislative Committee with an amendment (Bill C-73);
An Act to establish a federal environmental assessment process, be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, and referred to Legislative Committee C (Bill C-78);
Government Orders
An Act to amend An Act to provide for the appointment of a Port Warden for the Harbour of Quebec and An Act to amend and consolidate the Acts relating to the office of Port Warden for the Harbour of Montreal, and to validate certain fees and charges established pursuant thereto, be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, referred to and reported by a Legislative Committee without amendment, concurred in at report stage and read a third time and passed (Bill C-82);
An Act to provide for certain matters respecting official languages, employees' pensions and labour relations in connection with the transfer of certain airports, be deemed to have been introduced, read the first time and ordered to be printed, read a second time, referred to and reported by a Legislative Committee without amendment (Bill C-85); and
That the evidence adduced and documents received by any Legislative, Standing or Special Committee of this House, in the Second Session of the Thirty-Fourth Parliament in relation to these bills, be deemed to have been referred to a Legislative or Standing Committee in this present session.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I will not take a lot of time in this particular debate because what I essentially want to do is put on the record of the House of Commons just a quick discussion of the five bills that are part of this motion, not in a substantive way, but to address what we are trying to do with this particular motion, which is to bring them back at the stages they were at prior to prorogation.
Bill C-26, which is an act to amend the Railway Act, grain and flour subsidies, is an issue that has had a significant amount of time in this House. In fact, it had some three days at second reading stage, for a total of over nine hours. That ended, Mr. Speaker, on April 30. It was then in committee until somewhere around June 5, 1990, that bill came back and had three and a half hours at the report stage. The bill deals with a situation that is already in practice. What we are simply trying to do is to bring the legislative powers up to speed or up to date with what is already being practised. We, therefore, are anxious to continue with the report and third reading stages of this particular bill.
Bill C-58 is an act to amend the Young Offenders Act. It is a very important issue and one that is very much on the minds and in the thoughts of Canadians today. I saw an article in the newspaper just last week talking about the concerns people had with the opposition not allowing or, as it publicly stated, not co-operating with the speedy

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
passage of this particular bill. The bill is at the second reading stage. It has had just a little over two hours debate at this point, but obviously there is much work to be done and much discussion needed yet and we, as a government, are anxious to proceed with those discussions and those debates. We look forward to doing just that because we believe it is an issue that the Canadian public is concerned about and wants to see a decision of this House.
Bill C-78 is an act dealing with the environment. Of course, Mr. Speaker, I do not have to tell you or anybody in this House that that is very much a topical issue, an issue of a great deal of concern to Canadian people. At the second reading stage of that particular bill we had nearly 13 hours of debate, spread over some six days here in the House of Commons. This is an issue that the Canadian public and the Canadian taxpayers want us to work on now. They want us to discuss the issue of the environment. They are anxious for this House to pronounce itself on things such as the green plan and the legislative agenda that the government has put forward through Bill C-78 and other vehicles.
Bill C-82 is an act to amend an act to provide for the appointment of a port warden for the harbour of Quebec.
In some ways, this probably demonstrates best the need for this particular motion that we have before us. In fact, what happened on Bill C-82 is that on November 5, 1990, the House took exactly 45 minutes to debate second reading.
Of course, as you or anyone who watches the House regularly would know, Mr. Speaker, it then went on to committee. It returned to the House on December 14 for the report stage and third reading. It took exactly two minutes of House time because the House supported the thrust of what was going on here.
The House was ready to decide. As a result of that, to reinstate the bill and all those stages would unnecessarily delay a bill for which the House had already indicated a pretty strong degree of support.
By proceeding with this motion, I think we are doing the taxpayer and Canadians in general a favour.
Bill C-85, the last one in the motion, is an act to provide for certain matters respecting official languages, employees' pensions and labour relations, et cetera. At second reading stage to this point, there has been a total of four hours and 45 minutes on this issue.
There are several important stages before the members of this House that we are going to have to continue in the debate relating to this bill. We have the full committee stage. We have an issue that is important not only to members but to a number of employees, employers and people across the country who are very concerned about this issue.
What we are asking by way of this motion is that this particular bill can continue at the stage it was at, which is either at the end of second reading or just having completed second reading and being ready to go on to committee.
We are anxious, as a government and as members on this side of the House, to get that issue before the committee, to discuss it, to look at whatever amendments may be necessary, and we look forward to doing just that.
I want to conclude my remarks by saying that at the moment we have before us some five bills, all of which are important to the Canadian public and to members of this House of Commons. I would hope that we could proceed with this motion as quickly as possible.
The government does not want to in any way tie up the time of the House or to waste taxpayers' money, but rather it wants us to spend our time debating the substantive issues, which are these particular bills. They would be reinstated at the stage they were at prior to prorogation on the successful completion and adoption of the motion before the House at this time.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with considerable interest to the parliamentary secretary. I must say that we participate in this debate on the substance of the motion with some degree of reluctance.
I think one could refer to our participation as participation under duress. There is quite a cloud, in my view, hanging over this Chamber today. We have had a motion, the procedure of which has been questioned by many

members in this House. Of course, the Chair is in the process of making an adjudication on its acceptability.
Notwithstanding that, the government nevertheless intends to proceed with debating the substance of the motion while the cloud vis-a-vis its procedure is still in serious doubt by members who are on this side of the Chamber.
I make those remarks not to reflect upon any decision of the Chair, but to make it very clear that our participation is done so under reluctance and under duress because we believe an adjudication forthwith would be the most appropriate. If not that, the parliamentary secretary would have availed himself of the opportunity under the guise of co-operation in facilitating legislation in this House, perhaps for a short adjournment in order for the matter to be adjudicated.
Notwithstanding that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has made reference to taxpayers' money and their concern, with his hand to his heart-the only thing he did not have was a tear in his eye-with regard to these particular bills. It was not my decision, nor was it the decision of the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier, and it was not the decision of the House leader of the New Democratic Party to adjourn the House for an entire month. It was not our decision. It was the decision of the government that was so concerned about money, concerned about taxpayers' expenditure. I think it ought to take that into account.
It was not the Liberal opposition or the New Democratic opposition which finally came to the decision to prorogue this House. If Bill C-26 was so important to the legislative and economic thrust of the government, why did it prorogue? Is it because it could not get its members here to debate the substance of the bill? What was it? It is utter nonsense to hear the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader make such references to the fact that these bills have now come back to the House and they ought not to start in the ordinary legislative process.
I find it very unacceptable that statements of that particular nature have been put on the record by the
Government Orders
parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, knowing full well that that is incorrect. I would go on to say much stronger words, Mr. Speaker, but let me say this. The hon. member is very careless with the truth.
The motion before us today in its substance is totally unacceptable to any serious parliamentarian. In my view and in the view of my party, this motion is designed for the sole purpose of subverting the legislative rules of the Parliament of Canada. These rules have been developed over the years and in fact over centuries, not as an impediment to the enactment of legislation, but as a delicate system of checks and balances designed to weigh the need for expeditious decisions on proposed legislation against the need for full examination and discussion of the proposals both in Parliament and in the public.
At the beginning of a session, the government outlines its legislative intentions and in the fullness of time it gives 48 hours notice of specific bills which are then given first reading and printed. After a delay of at least a day, the bill is debated at second reading and then is referred to the appropriate committee to hear evidence about the effect of the bill and to adjust the details. It is then returned to the House for possible further technical adjustment at the report stage and for final debate and approval at third reading. The bill is then considered in a similar process by the Senate and when it has been passed in the upper chamber and by both Houses of Parliament, the bill is then granted Royal Assent.
It is the responsibility of the government to introduce its legislation and to manage it to assure its conclusion by the end of the parliamentary session. The government alone, and this point must be made for members opposite, controls the timing of the ending of a session. Prorogation is entirely an executive act. The government arranges to prorogue a session in full knowledge of which bills will not have been completed in the legislative process. It is utter nonsense for the parliamentary secretary to make reference to Bill C-78 with regard to sustainable development in the environment.
If the government was so bent on having that particular piece of legislation, it had every opportunity to arrange a schedule of this Parliament to have further examination and then a resolution made by this House.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
If a bill is so late in introduction or so poorly conceived that its legislative progress is unusually slow, the government alone bears that responsibility. It has more than adequate rules to assist it in taking on this particular responsibility. If a bill has not been passed by the end of a session, its death is thrice the responsibility of the government opposite.
First, the bill was not introduced in a timely way. Second, the government did not properly manage the legislative process of that bill. Third, the government alone had the power to end the session and thereby terminate the life of that bill.
From time to time in recent years some non-controversial government bills and some bills of great detail and national importance, but of little partisan account, have not been completed at the time of prorogation. In such circumstances, the House has been disposed to give its unanimous consent in the new session of Parliament to restore these items to the stage at which they died at the time of prorogation.
Let it be clear to those who are viewing today's proceedings that we have had two examples of such bills in the present session. One of these was the Crown corporations bill, an administrative proposal that, because of an important local interest, was subject to more extensive debate than some items of a similar nature. When the government asked to restore this bill to the stage at which it died in the previous session, we in the opposition recognized that it would be in the interests of the taxpayer and good public policy to expedite the measure, and the required unanimous consent was forthcoming from this side of the House. The bill has now been introduced and passed and consummated by this particular Chamber.
The other bill was the trust and loan companies legislation which is part of the major overhaul of the laws governing financial institutions in Canada. This bill had an extremely extensive committee stage, during which many diverse interests were asked to express their views, resulting in many amendments to the bill. The legislation has moved forward and forward in a spirit of non-partisan collaboration, an attitude that continues. The opposition had no difficulty whatsoever in agreeing to restore this bill so that the valuable work, not just of parliamentarians but of interested citizens and the general public as well, would not be ignored.
In this case the opposition probably was more eager than the government to agree to restore as, in our view, the government has been far too slow in proceeding with the financial institutions package. We are eager not just to finish the trust and loans bill, but to proceed with the other elements of the financial institutions package, especially the Bank Act revisions.
Unanimous consent to restore items such as these is always forthcoming. These bills in the last session were reasonably fairly handled by the government, I might add, and while we could not agree with the government on all of the policies put forward in this legislation, we believed the public interest would be best served by expediting this particular passage.
This is not the case with the legislation dealt with in the motion before us today. The most important of these bills is former Bill C-78, the environmental assessment bill. This legislation is as important as any placed before this Parliament as it addresses a subject of vital interest to the future of every Canadian from coast to coast. We in the Official Opposition co-operated with the government in moving the bill to committee. The government repaid us with vagueness, evasiveness and temporization. It has been unwilling to deal in substantial terms with possible amendments and it has been unreasonably reluctant to give the public any insight into how vital regulations under the legislation might be framed.
My colleague from Davenport will make reference to those specifics when he takes the floor shortly thereafter.
While the subject matter of the bill is important and the need to legislate in the area is essential, we see many flaws in the bill. The bill fails to incorporate any concept of sustainable development. The terms of the bill are vague and general where they should be firm and specific. Many of the factors proposed for governing environmental assessments and reviews are weaker than those under the existing environmental assessment and review order. There are loopholes in the bill that could lead to favourite individuals or companies being able to evade the provisions of the legislation.
There is undue discretionary power permitted the minister. Not that the minister will be bad, but when one person has that kind of power, there must be some
May 28, 1991

limitations and some restrictions regarding large amounts of discretionary power.
There is inadequate protection offered to native communities. The bill fails to give the environment minister sufficient authority vis-a-vis other ministers whose pet project endangers the environment. The bill does not give Parliament adequate authority over the creation or alteration of regulations. The bill is not specifically applicable to all relevant departments, agencies and their legislation.
In short, the bill is full of holes and the government's response to criticism in committee has been completely and utterly inadequate.
Under the circumstances we do not believe that the House of Commons ought to be asked to expedite the passage of the bill. We believe that the new Minister of the Environment ought to be asked to go back to the drawing board and produce a new bill.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


David Charles Dingwall: We do not want to be hoodwinked by some cheap political trick, trying to reinstate legislation which has fallen dead as a result of the government's own ineptitude and subsequent action with regard to proroguing this Parliament.
We have similar difficulties with other legislation in this motion. Some of my colleagues will be dealing in detail with these later in this debate. However, I want to outline some of them now. The former Bill C-26, the Railway Act amendments, which we in Atlantic Canada refer to as the At and East bill, is in my view and the view of my party just plain bad legislation. The bill will further endanger the rail transportation system in Atlantic Canada. It will cost jobs in Atlantic Canada and in southwestern Ontario as well. It will unduly increase the costs of livestock and poultry industries of Atlantic Canada and it will have a destructive effect on the export of Canadian flour.
Those .are the reasons why we oppose both the substance of this particular bill and the procedural gymnastics of the government to try to reintroduce this bill through its motion.
The government puts this bill forward as a so-called expenditure reduction, but its disastrous impact on both the agricultural and transportation sector, especially in Atlantic Canada, will be so destructive to the economy
Government Orders
that in the long run it will only lead, in my view and in the view of my party, to greater costs.
The opposition cannot co-operate in the passage of bad legislation.
The former Bill C-58, the young offenders legislation, is also a bad bill that no reasonable opposition could be expected to expedite. This bill represents a terrible step backward, away from a concept of rehabilitation and back to a concept of not just punishment but even revenge. The bill does not address the conditions that lead young people to crime and has been judged by experts to be far more likely to reinforce rather than rehabilitate criminal tendencies. The legislation has been universally denounced as a nearly Dickensian retrogression.
The bill should not be advanced. The government should do the honourable thing and withdraw it.
The former Bill C-82 appears to be an administrative bill, but it is of great significance to the shipping industry. Its hasty passage through this House in the last session led to it being slowed down in the Senate.
The government refused to allow the House committee on the bill adequate time to consult the industry on such matters as ceilings on fees under the bill. The bill is also inadequate with reference to verification, audit and accountability; again another reason why this particular motion ought not to be proceeded with and ought not to be adjudicated in this particular House, not only on its substance but on the procedural gymnastics of the government opposite.
The government is now asking the House of Commons again to abandon its right to look into all of these issues. It wants us to leave these important questions to the Senate, its favourite upper chamber. This, I suggest, is a strange proposal coming to us from a well-known foe of the Senate, the government House leader. It is a proposal with which the opposition cannot and will not agree.
Finally, the motion deals with former Bill C-85 regarding the privatization of airports. Our concerns with the bill in the last session revolved around the protection of employee benefits, something that obviously members opposite do not seem to be too concerned about. But, when it affects workers and ordinary Canadians, we on this side are concerned as to what happens with those individuals. We are concerned with the protection of

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
jobs, the equitable sharing of cost and the maintenance of services in both official languages.
In the last session the opposition attempted to approach this matter in a very collaborative manner, but it was rebuffed by the former minister's petty, I might add, mealy-mouthed and duplicitous manner. We believe that the new minister ought to be given an opportunity to correct this situation by starting this bill all over again.
As a supporter of the Speaker in the chair, I want to make it perfectly clear to you, Sir, as occupant of the chair that we do not oppose this motion for the sake of being difficult. As I have already indicated, the opposition has clearly behaved in a reasonable and co-operative manner when presented by reasonable conduct of desirable legislation. We cannot be expected to co-operate either in the passage of inadequate or downright bad legislation. We most especially cannot be expected to co-operate in this attempt by the government to subvert the parliamentary process, to evade parliamentary scrutiny and public input, and to shirk its responsibility.
This motion represents yet another move backward in the government's march toward parliamentary reform.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I say to you and to the members who have participated in the procedural aspects of this motion and who will now participate in the substance of the motion as ordered by the Chair, that we feel very strongly that this has subverted the legislative process which has been codified in the Standing Orders of the House and referred to in Beauchesne's, Erskine May and other sources as referred to by all hon. members on both sides.
Let it be said and let it be understood that we on this side of the House will fight under the provisions of the Standing Orders and parliamentary tradition. Whenever there is bad legislation which is not in the best interest of the public policy of this country, we will oppose, we will amend and we will do our best to get a fair deal, an appropriate deal for all Canadians wherever they live.


Mr. Rod Laporte (Moose Jaw-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to this motion today. I would like to focus my comments on one particular bill, Bill C-26. Before doing so, I would just like to say that in a general
sense the debate taking place today goes to the heart of parliamentary democracy in this country.
We have seen example after example of this government ramming through its own legislation, ramming through its own wants and desires without proper consultation, without following rules, I would suggest, and in a fashion that causes people in this country not only to wish for but demand some major parliamentary reforms which are long overdue, given the attitude and the actions of a government in its second majority mandate.
With respect to Bill C-26, I think it is a microcosm of many of the problems that exist with this government. I have a personal interest in Bill C-26.1 was the person for the New Democratic Party who was on the legislative committee with respect to that bill.
With respect to Bill C-26, the government has ignored Parliament, the people, experts, reports and now it is going to finally ram through a piece of legislation that was removed from the books two years ago.
The history of this bill is very interesting. The At and East bill is a bill which allows the export of grain and flour through the ports of Halifax and Saint John, through a subsidy program and that is that during the winter months when the seaway cannot be used it is very expensive to transport grain to those two ports. This program was put in place to offset that cost to allow the usage of those ports. Those ports are important to western Canadians like myself with respect to the Canadian Wheat Board when grain is shipped for export. It is important to have open seaports and those are the only two ice-free seaports on the eastern seaboard. It is important to maritimers, to eastern Canadians with respect to livestock, poultry, cattle and so on in terms of getting some cheaper rates for their feed. It is important to places like Dover Flour Mill which rely on the elevator for storage of their grain.
The interesting thing about this program is that the government ignored reports from the maritimes. The Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, back about 1985 or 1986, approached the government and said: "Look, you are spending too much money on this program. You are spending $40 million a year. Here is a
May 28, 1991

method where you can spend something like $20 million a year and still have the same effect, keep it so that these ports will be competitive."
The government ignored it. There was a major report done. The government ignored it completely. In 1989, it was announced during the budget speech that the At and East program would be removed, effective July 15, 1989,
I believe, without even consulting the APTC and without even looking at what it had said. The government ignored it completely and removed the whole program without thinking of the consequences, without looking for alternatives.
The interesting thing about this is that it removed the program and it was never brought up in the House until February 1990, after our party had raised the matter in the House asking what had happened to this program. The next day, bang, it was in second reading.
As this matter went through second reading, it became very clear that the government had paid no attention to the reports of the experts, had paid no attention to the needs of the maritimers and had paid no attention to the needs of the Canadian Wheat Board. It simply saw it as a way to save $40 million; a very narrow minded and short sighted view of a program that has contributed a lot to regional development in the maritimes.
As it went through committee stage, group after group, representatives from the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission, livestock groups from Atlantic Canada, people from Dover Flour Mills and others pointed out the frailties and the weaknesses of removing this program and putting nothing else in place. They pointed out that in fact it is going to cause problems with the Saint John elevator and it did. It is closed now. They pointed out that it was going to put the Halifax elevator in jeopardy and it is in. jeopardy. They pointed out there were going to be jobs lost and there have been jobs lost. They pointed out that in fact it was going to threaten the livestock industry.
The Canadian Wheat Board came before us and said that the closure of Halifax and Saint John elevator may well mean the loss of wheat sales. We can ill afford in this country a loss of wheat sales. We are having a tough enough time competing with the Americans and the Europeans. The reason they said we would lose them is because nations in warmer climates, such as Cuba, would
Government Orders
prefer to pick up their grain from an ice-free port than sail to Montreal to pick it up.
The Canadian Wheat Board said that, all things being equal, if Cuba had to go to Montreal, it may well lose grain sales. It appears that has been the case.
That is something that we in western Canada simply find unacceptable, given the nature of the grain industry today.
The interesting thing about this debate is that unlike many bills and many programs in which there is a straight philosophical difference, in this one there was an alternative. There could have been put in place a well thought out and well researched alternative.
When I came to the government, being the naive person I suppose I am, I thought there was a realistic possibility of actually maintaining, not the At and East bill as it exists now, but a revised At and East bill. It needed updating. It had not been changed since its implementation in the early 1960s. The government ignored that completely and discounted the arguments.
The one thing that was accomplished out of our committee reports and committee hearings was that the government reluctantly, after getting pressure from all these various groups, and the media started picking up on some of the problems, agreed to do a study on the effects of the loss of the At and East program and on the grain elevators in Atlantic Canada.
There was a report prepared and completed in November 1990. It is a fairly extensive report looking at all the various aspects of grain handling in eastern Canada. It comes to some interesting conclusions, which I am afraid the government again seems to have ignored.
I am quoting from the report of the grain elevators in Atlantic Canada, Grains 2000 Study. On page 41 under conclusions, it states:
The principal finding of this study is that an increase in export grain is required for the Halifax and St. John elevators to achieve financial viability. If incremental flows of export grain are not achieved, the Halifax elevator could face closure and the Saint John elevator would be unable to reopen. The loss of an elevator with water receiving capability will be significantly detrimental for the Atlantic livestock industry. As shown in the analysis, the cost of feed grain in the region could rise by $10 per tonne or more.
What this is saying is that the elevators in Saint John and Halifax are beneficial to the livestock industry because they provide some form of competition for the railways which also bring in feed grains. There is not

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
enough business coming out of the livestock industry to sustain those elevators. They need some increased export trade.
The Canadian Wheat Board is not in the business of supporting elevators. It is in the business of providing the best return it can for its prairie producers and therefore it is going to sell its grain where it can get the best dollar for the prairie producer. The Canadian Wheat Board has said unless there is some sort of program, we are not going to be sending grain out to Halifax. It has said it will do what it can.
During the summer months it does send grain out to Halifax. During the winter months when the seaway is closed, it does not even send a bushel because it is simply too expensive to send by rail to Halifax. The Canadian Wheat Board is doing what it can, but it is not going to do it at the cost of prairie producers.
This report says that unless there is some increase, and it does not need to be a huge increase in export grain, the one elevator of the two still operating will close and neither will reopen.
It also says the general conclusion is that changes to various government programs and so on will not result in a significant increased flow of feed grain through the elevators on a sustained basis. This largely explains the study's finding that to ensure long-term viability of the Halifax elevator and to re-open the Saint John elevator, the flow of export grain must be increased. I have commented on that already.
At the present time, the Atlantic elevators must compete as an eastern point of export for Canadian grain with elevators in the lower St. Lawrence. The primary disadvantage the Atlantic elevators have is the higher transportation costs to move grain to their facilities relative to the lower St. Lawrence. It is more expensive to ship the grain from Thunder Bay to Halifax than it is to ship it from Thunder Bay to Montreal. The ports find themselves at a major inconvenience. There is a more serious problem in the long run and a more serious problem to national unity in this country. It is much shorter to ship the grain through American ports than it is to ship it to Halifax. Canadian Pacific Railway has
already purchased lines in the eastern United States and has the capability to bypass Canada completely. It has indicated that it has no qualms in doing so if the economic situation warrants. The plans are in the works for that very purpose.
If that happens, what is going to be the purpose of having a rail line in Atlantic Canada? The At and East Program, which would bring grain along on CN tracks through to Halifax, has already been taken away. VIA Rail has been cut and that has cut movement on those lines and those lines are becoming economically non-viable. The next step is to remove those lines completely. What is that going to do for national unity? What is that going to do for the economy of the maritimes? What is it going to do when you look at moving grain from western Canada to eastern seaports? The American seaboard is going to look very attractive. Those are some of the results of this program.
The report says to achieve some competition, "a freight equalization program will need to be designed so the Atlantic and St. Lawrence elevators are equalized from the Canadian Wheat Board perspective." In other words, this report, set up by this government, says that unless there is an equalized payment, some sort of At and East program in other words, those elevators cannot compete. When those elevators close we lose ice-free ports, we jeopardize the very shaky livestock, poultry and beef industry in Atlantic Canada, we lose hundreds of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy and we ultimately threaten Dover Flour Mills, a very efficient flour company which has been competing under very adverse conditions and has been doing very well. If the Halifax elevator closed, Dover Flour Mills would be put in danger.
What do we come down to? We come down to something that is extremely illogical because from a straight, economic point of view, to remove this $40 million program is going to save this government $40 million or $35 million, depending on the year, in its deficit but it is going to cost many, many times that much resulting from the loss of that program: all sorts of unemployment insurance, loss of jobs and loss of economic revenue. For a short gain the government is sacrificing a major long-term loss. It is totally illogical.
May 28, 1991

I remember challenging some of the members, ministers and others to justify that logic. I asked them to show me where my logic was wrong and they could not do it.
After pressuring them they decided to have a study done. What have they done with this study? They have done nothing with it. This study is concluding basically what the Atlantic Provinces Transportation Commission was saying all along, that there has to be a program.


An hon. member:: And what you were telling them too.


Rodney Edward Laporte: What we as a caucus were telling them. The reason my caucus and I do not want to see this bill passed is that the cost is going to be too high for this country, both in economic and social terms.
We are asking this government to put forth a realistic alternative. That is all we have been asking right from the beginning. In fact that is all the maritimes have been asking for the last seven years, and this government has ignored them.
This government talks about national unity. It goes on and on about the Constitution, from which I do not want to detract because it is a very important issue. But the government seems to fail to realize that it is doing more to tear apart this country than it has ever done to put it together.
We have fought for 125 years, since the existence of our country, to maintain an east-west relationship despite the strong pulls of the north-south which in many ways naturally draw us.
We now have a government that has just cut those east-west ties one after the other: communications, transportation, telecommunications and the media. It goes on and on.
I was talking to some maritimers last week. They were saying: "Why should we worry about western Canada when we cannot get our grain from there? It is too expensive. We do not seem to get the benefits from central Canada. We would be better off dealing with the Americans". When we hear people talking that way, it is a very frightening statement to hear being made by serious people.
I really hope and plead with this government to reconsider its position on this bill. There is no area of this bill that makes any sense. It defies logic. The only place it makes sense from the government's point of view
Government Orders
is that it is a cut in the deficit, a very short-term gain, which in reality is no gain at all.
I just want to make a few concluding remarks. I concur with many Canadians in that what we need is some sort of parliamentary reform or change. We cannot continue operating this nation the way it is with the sort of attitudes of this government.
It is with a lot of frustration that I speak on behalf of many people from the maritimes who feel very frustrated and disillusioned with this government. It seems to be ignoring their wishes. I can identify with that, being a western Canadian because this government has certainly ignored the needs of western Canadians.
Small business people, family farms, fishermen and others who are simply trying to maintain a living are being attacked continually by this government, and Bill C-26 is just one example of that attack.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Davenport: Mr. Speaker, from this side of the House we are asking ourselves what would cause the government or any government to reintroduce six pieces of badly written proposed legislation and insist that it be examined further.
It is beyond our ability to understand why the government would do that. I will focus on the one of the six bills which I know a little bit better. I am asking myself what is the reason the government insists on presenting Bill C-78 for re-examination. Is it because of political ideological bankruptcy? Is it because of political indifference or even perhaps political ineptness? I do not know which of the three.
Bill C-78 has a very unique distinction. In listening to the witnesses from interested organizations and individuals who appeared before our committee, the bill was criticized by virtually every one of them. It was, in addition to that, amazing that both industry and environmental organizations and spokespersons would agree that they would prefer to operate under the present guidelines on environmental assessment, that they are better off under the present guidelines than under the proposed bill.
That is a rather unique feat, to manage to produce a bill that gets criticized by everyone affected. I wonder about the political sensitivity or political bankruptcy of this government because any cabinet, any political organization called a party-as the so-called Progressive Conservatives like to call themselves-would, in the light of what has happened to Bill C-78 since last June,

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
certainly be glad to have an opportunity to put forward a revised bill. However, the government did not. This is what is so astonishing.
Second, one wonders about the indifference of this government when it has heard speaker after speaker, witness after witness, with some very rare exceptions-I would say one out of 10 witnesses-indicate that his or her organization was pleased with the proposal. In most of the interventions that we listened to, they said: "Please give us another measure or leave us under the present guidelines".
One has to wonder what it is within the machinery of government that makes it so insensitive to the input that has been collected by the committee process. This is what troubles me profoundly. What happened to Bill C-78 is that the government and the chairman of the committee in charge of Bill C-78 did not call one meeting between December and April of this year. This led us to conclude that the submissions made by witnesses had made a point, that they had registered and something was happening.
The previous minister in November and December indicated on a number of occasions that he was going to produce some regulations for us to look at to show how the bill would work, and that he would produce a package of amendments. Fine. We were glad to hear that.
Come January, nothing happened. The same in February, March and April. Now, after all these months, we discover that the government's silence was not due to the fact that it was elaborating on the input received by interested parties as a result of the committee process- which under the old rules was one of the best in the world, we are now heading toward a system that is very narrow because we will hear and admit only technical witnesses-that having heard all the witnesses and receiving that input, the government was elaborating and proposing changes.
We were hoping that the government would introduce a new version of the environmental impact assessment legislation as a result of that. Instead, we discover in the motion we are debating today that actually that has not happened.
The government is blindly, in an insensitive fashion, proceeding as if nothing had happened in 1990. As I mentioned a moment ago, it also decided to remain inactive on this bill for four solid months. This is unusual behaviour on the part of this already decrepit and bankrupt government, as seen in so many other fields of policy making. This was demonstrated by its behaviour on this particular bill which was intended to be a demonstration of the imagined Progressive Conservative commitment to the environment and to sustainable development.
That was the foundation. It was going to be the pillar of Conservative commitment to the practical application of sustainable development as embraced by the Prime Minister at home and abroad on a number of speeches, and by four subsequent environment ministers at various gatherings internationally.
The Government of Canada was committed all the way to sustainable development and the environment. Here we see that when it comes to putting into practice words and rhetoric, this government has fallen flat on its nose.
I would not want to end with only a general statement. I would like to substantiate what I am saying with a very precise analysis, in the time available to me, of our serious reservations about the old Bill C-78, which is now being forcibly reintroduced. Also I would like to explain why we thought that, as a result of questioning and representations, the government was thinking it over and was going to reintroduce a better version.
There is nothing wrong with introducing bills that are poorly written. It can happen to anyone. We know that. What is wrong is the blind indifference to the input received in a process which is intended to improve the quality of the bill. That is the point.
Let me bring to your attention a few sections. In general, one has to say that the objections to the bill were threefold. One, it gave too much power-it still does because that is what we are debating here today-to the department which initiates a certain project.
Second, too much is left to the regulatory power of cabinet. Third, there does not seem to be anywhere in the bill an explicit authority given to the Minister of the Environment allowing him or her to reject a specific project.
May 28, 1991

As for specific questions, the wording of clause 4 is very weak. It ensures only that environmental effects receive careful consideration before actions are taken. In addition, it is not the purpose of this act to ensure sustainable development despite many theoretical declarations to this effect.
As for section 5, we have to conclude that there were two profound concerns with this section. One, it is weaker than the current regulations. Second, tax breaks are specifically excluded by this legislation as a possible reason to refer a project to a federal environmental assessment review. This, while it may seem to be a dry, technical point, has very serious implications for many energy and natural resources projects.
We then looked at section 6 in particular and found to our dismay that it gives the proponent powers that are virtually unlimited. We felt that clearer rules instead should be introduced and established to remove the notion that the proponent forms an opinion about whether or not a project is to be referred for a review or not. In other words, the powers given to the proponent under Bill C-78 are far too great.
Again, within the same section 6, we felt that the second half is confusing. It begins with the very grandiose statement "for greater certainty" and then by the time one finishes reading that particular section, one wonders what it is all about. In other words, it is a section that badly needs clarification. The section was written and intended to offer the reader clarification. This is a very amusing contradiction.
Moving to section 11, we found that while it lists the factors to be studied by a panel created by the implementation of this legislation, we felt that it did not heed the consultation process of 1988 and that that consultation process is not required in this bill. In addition, the bill does not require the review of alternatives to the proposed project or to native claims.
When we looked at section 11, again we had to conclude that actually the fox is still in charge of the chicken coop. Because, under this legislation the Minister of the Environment does not have the unfettered authority to set the terms of reference and scope of the review panel. We, and a large number of witnesses, felt
Government Orders
that this was one of the major flaws of the bill. We are now being asked to re-examine it, in the full knowledge that it has these serious weaknesses.
Concerning section 16, there is a reference there to the "responsible authority". This is the initiating department or proponent. It makes all the decisions as to whether to proceed or refer the project to mediation or to a review panel, or involve the Minister of the Environment if you like. Whatever action is taken hinges, however, on the opinion of the responsible authority, namely the initiating department.
Even more interesting, I submit to you, is the fact that the cancellation of a proposed project is not an option. The responsible authority must withhold approval if the project is referred to a panel, but the bill does not include a rejection of the project even if the project is likely to cause significant adverse effects that cannot be mitigated. At this point I would ask, at section 16, whether any fair-minded and intelligent politician would not think here is something that we must re-examine, something is obviously not coming together.
But this is not all. I must refer you to section 20 where, in the opinion of a responsible authority, a project is described on the mandatory list. The Minister of the Environment has certain powers to deal with the initial environmental report and the minister may do a number of things, which I will not put on record because of limited time. In this section we find a fundamental problem with the approach the government has taken to this legislation. What better reason I ask, within the framework of sustainable development, to reject a project than if it is likely to cause significant problems that cannot be mitigated.
However, we find that the Minister of the Environment does not have that option. In the opinion of this government, such projects may deserve study but they cannot be cancelled. To make matters worse, it is the proponent or proposing department that has a major say in writing the terms of reference for the study of the appointed panel.
When it comes to discretionary powers which, as you well know, are very important, section 24 gives the Minister of the Environment the authority to refer a project to a mediator or a panel under certain conditions.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
Well, we find that the Minister of the Environment can only do those things after consulting with the responsible authority. The minister is continually fettered in responding to proposals that have significant environmental impacts. Even under this section the most the minister can do is refer the projects to panels or mediators. The minister does not have the authority to reject any project as unsound from an environmental or sustainable perspective.
I do not know, Mr. Speaker, whether you want me to go on and examine other sections because this report is becoming more and more depressing as we explore in depth the quality of this bill. You can see, however, the point I am trying to make. I do not want to become too tedious, but with the time still allocated, I would want to bring to your attention section 25, which seems to be aimed at environmental groups which intervene in projects.
For example, in section 25, Ottawa-based national groups would be excluded from mediation on any project except one taking place in Ottawa. A national organization could not comment on something happening in Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal or Quebec City. Thus, to be at the mediation table you must live on or own land or otherwise be directly affected by the proposed project.
There are weaknesses in sections 26, 30 and 31. Mr. Speaker, I see you have already pointed out to me that I have only a couple of minutes left.
Let me bring to your attention section 34 which deals with the decision of responsible authority. It is the heart of the bill because it deals with the response to the report prepared by a mediator or a panel. Following the report of a mediator or panel, the responsible authority shall approve the project, under certain conditions of course. Where, in the opinion of the responsible authority, the project is likely to cause impacts that cannot be mitigated or justified, it shall not permit the project to be carried out.
Finally, we find in this section that a project can be rejected, but not by the Minister of the Environment, only by the proponent. Even then, within the same section there is permission that a project can proceed, no matter how serious the impact, if it can be justified. I ask you, what does the word justified mean in section 34? Obviously it means if you can make a good case, I suspect a political case in cabinet, if you are the proponent of the particular project and you are eloquent and articulate
and you can perhaps demonstrate that in the short term, that project shall proceed.
I submit to you that this is a very troublesome concept. I would like to take you through the balance of this bill to reinforce what I hope I have achieved in these 20 minutes, namely to convince you that Bill C-78 should not be reintroduced in its present form.


Mr. Jack Whittaker (Okanagan -Similkameen-Merritt):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member. I know he is most erudite concerning the environmental situation in Canada. He has spoken up many times in that area in this Parliament and I have seen him in past Parliaments when I have been a viewer from the outside looking in and I want to compliment him on his commitment to the environment.
In looking at this bill, I would like to ask the member to expand a little bit on one of the parts of the bill that concerns me somewhat, and that is the section where the cabinet decisions are exempted from the legislation. I look at any section of any bill where there are certain exemptions, or the cabinet gets the opportunity to make policy outside legislation, in particular, in my own province of British Columbia, where the agricultural land reserve bill allows cabinet to review certain processes and applications and then override its own legislative body in coming up with decisions. I wonder whether he sees this particular provision in the act as being fair, or does he anticipate that it could lead to some abuse, particularly when pressures are put on the cabinet by various lobby groups or political friends who want a fast track approval in some area?
I would further ask whether there are any safeguards or means of assuring that environmental decisions are given proper weight in these cabinet decisions referring to this and other cabinet decisions where they have discretion.


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank the member from the Okanagan Valley for his very generous and kind words. The question which he puts is very central to the spirit and the heart of Bill C-78. Under the bill as written now, cabinet would be fully in command of whether or not it approves a proposal. It would not be bound. It would not be directed by the Minister of the Environment of the day in rejecting a specific proposal. The way it is drafted, the allocation of powers is such that the environment minister is virtually in the hands of the initiating department and minister throughout the entire process. Therefore, the role of the
May 28, 1991

Minister of the Environment is unlike what one would expect from this bill. It is very marginal.
The Minister of the Environment is not the main actor under the terms of the bill under discussion. To answer the hon. member's question, cabinet could be exempted. The process would not even require an exemption because the process is designed in such a manner that under very rare circumstances could the Minister of the Environment put his or her foot down and say no to a project. There is impotence here in the implementation of environmental principles.
That should take care of overriding in their own legislation because it would not be necessary to override. To use a common expression, you could drive a truck through this bill as it is designed.
What safeguards are in the opening portion of the bill, in the preamble? There is good rhetoric but in essence the operative sections of the legislation are written in such a manner that to talk about environmental safeguards, we must go outside the bill itself. The weakness of the bill is that the political responsibility to be discharged by the Minister of the Environment is marginalized by the design of the bill which attributes so much power to the initiating department, which could be the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, the Minister of Finance or the minister of any other important agency which operates at the federal level.
I hope that this gives a sketchy answer to the question of the hon. member. We were surprised, as I pointed out in my intervention earlier, that the bill itself was criticized by virtually every witness. There was not one sector in society affected by this bill that persistently came forward and said they liked it. Usually, from our experience, there is a polarization before committee. One sector of society says it is good and another one says it is bad. In this case, we had a uniformly negative response from virtually all witnesses, except one or two.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment my colleague, the member for Davenport, for giving an extremely succinct and penetrating summary of the weaknesses of Bill C-78. He speaks with authority, as we
Government Orders
all know, from his long experience on environmental matters.
I want to ask the member, and I know we have very little time left for him to reply, not on the substance of Bill C-78 which, as he has outlined is so severely flawed, but about the process. That is, this motion once again undermines the ability of members from all sides of this House to contribute constructively to legislation because the government refuses to take into account the suggestions made as a result of the committee stage of legislation.
We have a great example with these bills, not only Bill C-78 but the others that are before us, of a government which is ignoring the worth-while suggestions that have been made and an opportunity to improve very necessary legislation.
I would like to ask the member if he would just outline for the record the suggestions that have been made to improve Bill C-78 or to improve the whole process of environmental assessment which are in the public domain and which the government could have drawn upon to redraft this very important piece of legislation.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, on both points the hon. member is quite correct and I agree with him. The process in committee is being very seriously damaged in its credibility by motion No. 1, which we are debating today. It makes a mockery of all that work and, particularly in the case of Bill C-78, it in essence rejects the input that we received from the public. The public interest is seriously affected by this move on the part of the government.
As for the second question, yes, the government in essence is saying that the input provided by members is not relevant. This is, in part, easy to understand because under this system one does not pay much attention to the opposition.
We know that. We live with that every day. However, when this message is articulated, not in relation to opposition members but to public organizations, to witnesses, to associations from coast to coast which take the trouble to make a submission and then see their

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
submission being ignored, then it is a very serious action on the part of this government.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, we in the Official Opposition participate in this debate very reluctantly. Obviously, we are not sure that this motion is in order; we have submitted arguments that the Chair is considering.
Nevertheless, since the debate is under way, Mr. Speaker, without prejudging it, but if the motion is ruled out of order or unacceptable, we must say that this whole debate will have been rather academic. That is how we feel about this. As a matter of fact, having stated the reasons why this motion is defective, I might add that this procedure is contrary to parliamentary tradition and is unprecedented in Parliament. Usually, when the government wants to revive a bill or put it back on the Order Paper following the prorogation of the House, it proceeds by unanimous consent.
Prorogation, as I explained earlier Mr. Speaker, puts an end to everything. It is not us, opposition members, who say so, but the very definition of the word "prorogation". It puts an end to everything and all items on the Order Paper lapse. And the government which-let's be candid about it-controls the agenda, as it controls the debates and the bills, knew full well that, if the House adjourned in May for almost a month and then there was a prorogation, these bills would be lost.
These are no doubt contentious bills, Mr. Speaker. We believe that some of them have been debated well and, so that the Canadian people will know, vigorously. We have tried to get across to this government that major amendments were required. We succeeded in some cases, but in others, we failed. It has to do with the way Parliament works and the rule of the majority where by the majority decides. So, the government does as it pleases.
Bill C-26, Mr. Speaker, is a bill intended to amend the Railway Act.

The purpose of the bill was for the termination of the At and East grain and flour subsidy announced in the budget of April 27, 1989, and put into place on July 16,
1989.
The whole subsidy aspect of Bill C-26 was questioned by many of us when the bill started first reading on June 16, 1989. That is some time ago, two years ago. We have had second reading speeches on February 12, 1990, February 20, 1990, April 30, 1990, and then it was referred to a legislative committee which reported back to the House about a month later, on May 31, 1990. It was debated again on June 5, 1990, and that was it. We never heard about it again. The government comes in after taking its decision to prorogue the House and says: "Well, even though the bill has been here for two years, we could not see ourselves able to take a few weeks or a few additional days during May or April to debate that bill. We would rather adjourn the House and go home." That is what happens when the government does not pay attention to its agenda. It misses sometimes and it is sometimes responsible for the slowness of this House.
The other one is Bill C-58, which was alluded to by my friend, and probably will be the object of great concern to many of us. The bill in question was first read on December 20, 1989. The second reading was on May 30,
1990.	It was referred to a legislative committee on June 14, 1990. It was reported to the House on December 10,
1990.	Nothing has happened since. That is more than six months ago. The government prorogued, yet it did not give a dam about what happened to that bill.
Here is the government again trying to tell us that the opposition is preventing legislation from going through. TTie government controls the agenda. It proposes the agenda to the House. We, the opposition, can only dispose of it in due course. It did not propose and we could not do anything about it.
Bill C-73 I think has already been taken care of. If my memory serves me right, C-73, by unanimous consent, was re-tabled or taken up where it was left off and is now called Bill C-8. That is the only bill on which the government came to us and said: "Would you agree to unanimously replace this bill on the agenda?" We did and the act was passed here last week on May 23.
Why could the government not at that time include the other bills with it? Why could it not ask for unanimous consent on the other bills? It did not ask. It picked one, Bill C-73. As far we are concerned, as the argument put by my House leader here today showed, this motion is irregular and out of order because it still contains an item on which this House has passed judgment. This House has decided that C-73 would be passed. This
May 28, 1991

House has decided that it should be adopted and it is now in the Senate.
The motion is weakened by having Bill C-73 taken out of it.
We have C-78, an act to establish a federal environment assessment process. We just had an eloquent speech by my colleague, the member for Davenport. Those remarks I endorse. We have had a long process. I could give all the dates: from June 18, 1990, when it was first read to the House, until its referral to a special committee on October 30, 1990.
I then come to Bill C-82, an act amend an act to provide for the appointment of a port warden for the harbour of Quebec and an act to amend and consolidate the acts relating to the office of port warden for the harbour of Montreal, and so on. This bill was first read in the House on September 26,1990. We went on to second reading. On November 5 it was referred to a legislative committee. It was reported to the House without amendment on November 22. The bill was concurred in at report stage on December 14, read the third time and passed by this House December 14, 1990. That has been dealt with.
Here we have a government which says that because of its friends on the other side in the Senate, proper study was not given to this bill. It wants us to start over again. I just do not understand. This bill has been passed and adopted. It would seem to me kind of a heavy procedure for the government to reinstate that with a Royal Recommendation and do it all again. It is not our doing, it is the government's doing.
I want to talk in the few minutes remaining about Bill C-85, a bill which touches the official languages; a subject I find very important. The purpose of the bill was to allow for certain employees' pensions and labour relations in connection with the transfer of airports in Canada and that is a very important bill that we should talk-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: When we resume, the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier will have 11 minutes left.
It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock.
The House took recess at 1 p.m.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS The House resumed at 2 p.m.

Mr. Lyle Vanclief (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my disappointment at the decision made by Hiram Walker Allied to close its Corby's distillery facility at Corbyville, Ontario, in my riding.
Corby's will continue to employ its 170 person staff until September 30 of this year, when the plant and the facility will close down completely. This plant has been a well respected pillar of the Quinte region's corporate community for 132 years. It is deeply regrettable that the rather dramatic market shifts have resulted in this unfortunate business decision. Corby's unparalleled tradition of product excellence and community service as a large employer and generous corporate citizen will be sorely missed in our area.
Although times have been tough for all of us lately, I know that all members will share with me in the hope that we will not see more Canadians continue to lose jobs and go through the suffering and shock that these Corby's employees are now experiencing.


CFB SHILO
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I want to state clearly to this House that I am strongly opposed to any proposal which may exist at any level to either downsize or close CFB Shilo. Should the German army deeide not to renew its training contract at Shilo or should National Defence Headquarters recommend the relocation of any of the present personnel, Canadian units currently stationed elsewhere in Canada or at Lahr, Germany, should be relocated to Shilo in order to maintain the strength of the base.

May 28, 1991
As CFB Shilo is the principal army base between London, Ontario and Calgary, the strength of this base must be maintained to ensure that adequate forces are available to meet any emergency which may arise. In addition, the presence of the base and the civilian jobs which it has created make an immense economic contribution to western Manitoba, which our region cannot afford to lose.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister of National Defence to take whatever steps are necessary to protect the future of CFB Shilo and to reassure my constituents who understandably are worried by the speculative newspaper stories of recent days.


AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the 30th anniversary of Amnesty International to pay tribute to this internationally respected human rights organization, with more than a million members in over 150 countries around the world and over 1,000 dedicated staff members.
Amnesty International's work on behalf of prisoners of conscience, over 42,000 since its founding in May 1961, and its tireless advocacy of an end to torture and the death penalty have been an inspiration to all Canadians.

As an Amnesty International representative said, after 30 years we are sure of only one thing: It is now much harder for governments to cover up their crimes and avoid paying the political price.

Amnesty International has noted that two out of three people are ruled by governments that torture and kill their citizens and that political opponents are held in more than half the countries in the world.
Therefore, in congratulating Amnesty International, let us rededicate ourselves to a world in which fundamental human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights, are respected in all countries throughout the globe.


TRIBUTE TO YVES LAFOREST
Mr. Clement Couture (Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, on May 15 this year, Mr. Yves Laforest, a resident of my riding, hoisted the flag of Quebec on the summit of Mount Everest. Mr. Laforest is the first Quebecer to reach the highest peak in the world, at 8,848 metres.
Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people of my riding and on behalf of all Canadians, I wish to pay tribute to Mr. Laforest and congratulate him on his success.
Now that is an example of endurance and determination!


NATIONAL ACCESS AWARENESS WEEK
Mr. Jim Jordan (Leeds -Grenville):: Mr. Speaker, this is National Access Awareness Week in Canada.
Of the 3.3 million Canadians with disabilities, 60 per cent are unemployed.
Access Awareness Week is an attempt to have the public develop an appreciation of the problems associated with disabled people. Access to employment, access to education, access to better housing, access to recreation, access to a better quality of life; these things which most Canadians take for granted as their basic rights are often denied the disabled.
As Canadians, let us support National Access Awareness Week in our communities in order that disabled Canadians will be able to enjoy the same level of services that all other Canadians enjoy.


TAXATION
Mr. A1 Johnson (Calgary North):: Mr. Speaker, the federal tax system is unfair in its treatment of the family. There are a number of family organizations which have made significant contributions toward strengthening the family. Their work demonstrates that the tax system discriminates against the family. Organizations such as the Vanier Institute, the Kids First Association, and VAlliance pour la justice fiscale have made in depth studies of different aspects of the tax system and have
r



*<

1 -
May 28, 1991

found that there are rules and regulations that provide disincentives to family life, to marriage and to home care for children.
The Prime Minister and our government are committed to reviewing our policies in relation to the family.
I would therefore urge the government to work with these organizations and to use local networks, such as the Family Life Education Council of Calgary, in developing a fair, effective and efficient tax system that treats all families equally and enables them to make the choices that best meet their particular needs.


AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: "To freedom." Those words resulted in seven years imprisonment for two Portuguese students, which prompted Peter Benen-son to found Amnesty International 30 years ago today.
The original objectives of getting the right to freedom of speech and belief for all, and the aims of getting the release of prisoners of conscience who have not used or advocated violence, having fair and prompt trials, and stopping torture or execution of prisoners have all been upheld.
Now, with more than 1 million members in over 150 countries, Amnesty International has established political neutrality and global credibility while investigating some 42,000 cases, from the killing of children in South America, to beatings in Sri Lanka, torture in Senegal, mass imprisonment in Chad and executions in Iran. In 1990 alone, 72 delegations were sent to 49 countries, including the Middle East, Nepal and Romania.
Without Amnesty International, the tyrants would be celebrating. Instead, we celebrate and look for the day when all people have basic human rights.


ADVERTISING
Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert):: Mr. Speaker, Labatt's Breweries announced recently that it was making major changes in its advertising strategy. Instead of
using sex to sell its products, Labatt intends to appeal to people's intelligence. Mr. Speaker, it is high time our breweries stopped insulting the intelligence of Canadians by associating sex with the consumption of alcohol. I hope that other big companies will take the same approach and that soon we will no longer see the kind of advertising that exploits female physical attributes for purely commercial gain.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, today VIA Rail is being hauled before the courts for thumbing its nose at the Official Languages Act and language of service provisions. For thirteen years, VIA Rail has been the target of comments, recommendations, exhortations, and warnings, all of which were meant to arouse the corporation out of its lethargy.
Since 1978, in the Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto triangle, the Commissioner for Official Languages has received many complaints about bilingual service at VIA Rail. That is why today, the Commissioner saw it as his duty to file a notice of motion with the Federal Court of Canada, ordering VIA Rail to ensure that the public is able to communicate and receive services in either official language, where there is significant demand for the use of that language.
It is also high time VIA Rail implemented the provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with respect to official languages, by making sure that all Canadians can depend on both official languages being used upon arrival in the stations, in security, ticket collecting, general announcements and security services on board trains and in the stations, and in all other communications between VIA Rail employees and travellers.
Mr. Speaker, VIA Rail, or what is left of it, is still too important to Canadians to be allowed to neglect its linguistic duties. It is time VIA Rail did something about this. Otherwise, the courts will have to order the corporation to behave in a way that is more Canadian and more respectful of our Constitution.

May 28, 1991


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, an editorial in this Monday's Globe and Mail, if accurate, poses some real challenges to Canada's new defence minister. Mr. Dale Grant states that "Few Canadians know that in terms of personnel versus the size of the defence budget, Canada has perhaps the most expensive armed forces in the world."
It has more generals than tanks, more officers than privates. I understand that the fragmentation of the military has led to this excessive management growth. Today there are nine lieutenant-generals, who get $131,000; there are 29 major-generals, who get $100,000 each; 84 brigadier-generals who get $94,000; 3,700 majors who get $64,000 and 7,500 captains who get $51,000 each.
If I were the minister I would cut, cut, cut this bulbous management team to an affordable and sensible number.


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Steve Butland (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, when does construction of buildings increase by 40 per cent in Seville, 169 per cent in Algiers, and 200 per cent in Buenos Aires? When do furniture costs increase by 500 per cent in Japan over four years?
It occurs when External Affairs is involved in overseas projects.
It is not a new development. The Canadian embassy in Washington had a projected price-tag of $28 million in 1984, but it opened in 1988 with a final cost of $82 million.
What could be the reason for these over-runs? The government says that currency fluctuations are to blame. Not so. For example, the Argentinian austral fell against our dollar an astonishing 155,000 per cent. These costs should be declining and not galloping out of control.
Meanwhile, 50 per cent of our diplomats and headquarters staff are over-spending their hospitality budgets, with little concern for cost accountability.
The total cost over-run of these five projects is an astonishing $102 million. External Affairs has become a sink-hole of taxpayers' money. I call on the minister to get all of her houses in order.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Garth Thrner (Halton-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, some people over the last few days have been trying to build a controversy between the Prime Minister and the NDP Government of Ontario.
This is not the kind of bickering that Canadians want to hear. The time for various levels of government bashing each other is past. The 1990s, if Canada is to survive economically and politically, will have to stress compromise and common ground.
Right now, Canadians are struggling in a sea of debt. That debt has come to mean high taxes, and high taxes are sucking the life out of the middle class.
The only way around this is to reduce government spending, government deficits and, ultimately, the taxes that all governments impose.
I rise to ask everybody to chill out, tone down the rhetoric, and concentrate on our common enemy.
There is no question what that is. It is called debt.



Mr. Gilbert Parent (Welland-St. Catharines-Tho-rold):: Mr. Speaker, in the past week or so, I had discussions with representatives of the Canadian steel industry and of the Canadian trucking industry.
It is no secret that they are going through some very difficult times.
I am dismayed, and so are many of my constituents, to learn that Canada Post has awarded a huge contract for post office box keys to a U.S. company. It seems to me that if the postal boxes can be made in Canada, it is equally possible for the keys to be made in Canada, thereby protecting jobs and our industries which, as I said, are in difficulty and distress.
May 28, 1991

I deplore this type of action by the Canadian government. In addition to the two industries which I have mentioned, my area is suffering from cross-border shopping.
It is with a great amount of regret that I see that the Neilson chocolate company-all the kids eat chocolate bars-is sending loads of chocolate bars to the United States where they are sold 20 cents cheaper per unit.
I urge the government to consider some of its actions and to provide economic relief for my area and my riding.


HUMANITARIAN AWARD
Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I inform the House and also congratulate you on receiving the Humanitarian Award on Sunday from the Jewish community in Vancouver.
It was given to you for the work you have done over the years in assisting Jewish immigrants from Soviet Russia and the reuniting of many families and giving of new hope for many more.
It is interesting to note that from the original one's and two's, hundreds of thousands of Jews are now leaving Russia primarily to make new lives and homes in Israel, and also elsewhere.
It is also interesting to note this event was in the same week as the miraculous air-lift of 15,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. This completed Operation Moses, which was started over three years ago.
Congratulations on your well deserved award.


CITY EXPRESS AIRLINES
Hon. Herb Gray (Windsor West):: Mr. Speaker, in June 1986, Rick Brennan of The Windsor Star filed a request under access to information to get the safety records from the Ministry of Transport for City Express Airlines. He got these documents only after a delay of almost five years recently the longest delay in the history of the Access to Information Act.
The request did not relate to personal information about an individual. Instead, it was about the record of safety of an airline used by thousands of people every week. Surely they and the public generally had a right to know promptly if the airline was meeting federal government safety standards and, if not, what the government was doing to enforce them.
The material that was finally released last week showed that City Express did not have a good record. More troubling, the information appeared to show that the ministry was not as vigorous as it should have been in ensuring that the airline lived up to these standards.
Also troubling was the admission by the lawyer for the Department of Justice that she did not vigorously pursue efforts to have this information released. This situation shows a need for a review of the existing law. It also shows the need for the government to begin actively applying the existing law.
Mr. Brennan and the Windsor Star are to be commended for their persistent efforts over the past five years, but these efforts should not have been necessary. The travelling public and all Canadians deserve better.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the minister in charge of constitutional reform is saying that he wants to involve the aboriginal people in the special committee next fall on trying to get a consensus on the Constitution. I think that is a very good move. I would like to see the minister elaborate in the House as to in what way or how he is going to involve the aboriginal people on that committee.
I also want to say that this establishes a bit of a precedent in that if we have the aboriginal people on the committee, I think we should expand it into a true constituent assembly and involve all kinds of other people that under-represented in our present system, such as visible minorities, the women of this country, poor Canadians and many other Canadians who are under-represented in the kind of political system that we have. If we are to have a true national consensus on the Constitution of this country, we can achieve that by having a truly national constituent assembly.
Oral Questions AST CANADA INC.

May 28, 1991


Mr. Harry Chadwick (Bramalea-Gore-Malton):: Mr. Speaker, I am always pleased to learn that a new company is opening in my riding, but the recent opening of AST Canada Inc. had particular significance not only to the riding but to the rest of Canada.
AST Research Inc., a leading North American manufacturer of high-performance personal computers, has maintained a sales presence in Canada since 1986. AST's fiscal 1990 revenues surpassed $.5 billion U.S.
AST Research Inc. proves that North American companies are staying in Canada and are continuing to invest in our economy. The recent opening of AST Canada Inc. is a reflection of the confidence in the global importance of Canadian business. The fact that AST Canada Inc. is fully staffed by Canadians indicates the depth of the commitment AST has to Canada.
With expansion continuing to include regional offices in Montreal and Vancouver, AST is demonstrating the kind of positive attitude toward partnership that is necessary as the world and Canada adapt to an increasingly global market.



ORAL QUESTIONS


Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister.
The vast majority of Canadians do not approve of the excessively high deficit Bob Rae has inflicted on Ontario. However, we believe the people of Ontario will be able to deal with this problem three years and four months from now, when an election is held and they will be able to elect a Liberal government in Ontario once again.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I therefore want to ask the Acting Prime Minister why the Prime Minister raised this matter in Asia? Why is he washing Canada's dirty linen in Japan?
Why is he giving the impression that a large part of Canada does not want foreign investment?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I think it is quite unfortunate that the hon. Leader of the Opposition wants to dwell on this particular issue because he knows as well as anyone else that the public finances of any nation are of important interest to Japan, which invests dollars in Canada. The fact of the matter is that there are concerns about it.
Just to set the record straight, and I want to assure the hon. member and other members of the House, the Prime Minister has been in Japan promoting Canada, all regions of Canada: Ontario, western Canada, the Atlantic region, the north, Quebec.
If there was any suggestion over the fact that the Japanese were not interested in the public finances, all one has to do is read the Globe and Mail this morning which says in an article by Edith Terry-


Mr. McCurdy:: Who is she?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: She happens to be in Japan with the Globe and Mail. She is not sitting here, making assumptions, guesses and interpretations. This is what she said: "However, participants at the summit said the Japanese had raised the issue of Canada's public finances before Mr. Mulroney arrived at the meeting". So, obviously his comment was appropriate.
I think what is most important is to summarize the words of Mr. d'Aquino, who said: "I have not heard the Prime Minister say anything that was not terribly bullish".
We have just heard a comprehensive speech, an excellent speech. To suggest there was anything partisan in it would be searching, Mr. Speaker.


REFUGEES
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, a lot of us in this House have had the occasion to visit refugee camps. There is nothing more tragic than the plight of a refugee, someone who is homeless and too often without hope.

Why did the Prime Minister promise while in Hong Kong that Canada could take in more refugees when the fact is that the budget for settling refugees in Canada has been cut by 20 per cent?
Does the Prime Minister not realize that it is cruel to raise the hopes of people who have neither a home nor a country, just to use them for a photo opportunity?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the record of Canada in terms of immigration and in terms of welcoming refugees to Canada is more than a photo opportunity.
The hon. member should remember and look at the figures because he presided, with his colleagues, over a government that was welcoming people into Canada at the rate of maybe 70,000 people a year a few years ago.
This government increased our commitment to immigrants and we now welcome to Canada over 200,000 people a year, and that is a record that the hon. member should recognize.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, after what happened in Hong Kong and Japan, will the Acting Prime Minister send an urgent telegram to the Prime Minister and ask him to make a real contribution to Canada's reputation abroad-by coming home right now?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, that is a suggestion similar to that which the hon. Leader of the Opposition made when we sent our troops to the Persian Gulf to fight a war. He said: "Bring them home". We did not do it then and we will not do it now.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Alfonso Gagliano (Saint-Leonard):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Last Sunday, more than 5,000 Canadians in the Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands gathered to make themselves heard and demand that the government put an end to the depressed state of the economy in their region. According to Statistics Canada, the unemployment rate in the area is over 27 per cent. When will the government table economic policies that will give some hope and create
Oral Questions
employment for these people who want to stay in then-region? When?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, my answer will be very short.
I would ask the hon. member to listen carefully to what people say after my visit to the Gaspe Thursday morning.


Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, we are very anxious to hear what the minister has to say. However, considering his record since 1984,1 don't think there is much hope.
The Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands rank second among the regions in Canada with the highest unemployment rates. So again, my question is: When will the government introduce policies to deal with this? We don't care about the minister's photo opportunities. We want concrete measures. When are we going to create durable jobs in this region, the most beautiful region in this country?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, again, I would ask the hon. member to listen carefully to what we say on Thursday to the people of the Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands. I met these people 8 months ago. They made some proposals, and I intend to give them an answer on Thursday. The hon. member will see how we deal with problems. That part of the country was just as beautiful in 1984, and we know how you dealt with the Gaspe and the Magdalen Islands at the time.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. We have all been witnessing on television today the clumsy attempt at damage control. What Tom d'Aquino said yesterday the embassy officials are getting him to deny today. What Mr. Nukazawa said yesterday they are giving him the script to deny today. Having bad-mouthed Ontario on this touted mission to increase trade and development in Canada, having misread the collective minds of Japanese businessmen, and having behaved as a narrow political partisan, and having blamed the journalists for his negative comments about Ontario, are the Prime Minister and this government now prepared to apologize first of all to his hosts for misreading the minds of Japanese

May 28, 1991
Oral Questions
businessmen and to the people of Canada and the people of Ontario?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, if there is any apology necessary it should come from the premier of Ontario who has now acknowledged the fact-


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: -that the Prime Minister is out there promoting Canada, all parts and regions of Canada, all provinces of Canada, and it is unfortunate that the opposition fails to recognize, as I quoted from The Globe and Mail this morning, that in fact the Japanese happen to be concerned about the fiscal problems in Canada, the deficits, and that was acknowledged in the report by Edith Terry who said participants at the summit said the Japanese had raised the issue of Canada's public finances before Mr. Mulroney arrived.
That is not only the public finances of Ontario but indeed all of Canada and of course the hon. member should recognize that.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Deputy Prime Minister. It is a matter of record that this Prime Minister has been bad-mouthing Ontario in Hong Kong and in Japan. As Premier Bob Rae has pointed out-


Some hon. members:: Oh, Oh.


John R. Rodriguez: Now you are listening. I have their attention, Mr. Speaker. As Premier Bob Rae said, when the Prime Minister is travelling abroad he is not a Conservative, he is the Prime Minister of all of Canada. In the Prime Minister's own speech in this House during the debate on the Speech from the Throne, he pointed out that it is time to move beyond special interests. Now is the time to speak for the national interests.
In this spirit, can the government give the assurance that the Prime Minister will not bad-mouth any province on any future trips, not make bad jokes about refugees, will not practise mind-reading in public, and will act more statesmanlike?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, it is really unfortunate that the NDP gets very sensitive when they are subjected to a bit of criticism. For example, the treasurer of the province of Ontario went to Wall Street and he got a blast for his budget. While we are talking about criticism, in a recent interview, Mr. Atkinson, the chief economist of the Bank of Montreal said there would be a tremendous price to pay for the fiscal and budgetary policies of the province of Ontario.
I quote what CTV said: "So Bob Rae's budget is costing people who borrow money for mortgages a half a point a year". Mr. Atkinson replied: "That's the estimate we are putting on it".
Members of the New Democratic Party cannot hide the fact that the budget that was brought down by the province of Ontario is an economic disaster. They should accept that fact, accept reality, and get on with the business of running the province.


John R. Rodriguez: Mr. Speaker, it is to be noted that the Deputy Prime Minister did not answer the questions I posed to him.

We know that the Prime Minister intends to continue travelling in the coming weeks.
Can we have the assurance that in his coming travels, the Prime Minister will set aside his partisan comments and positively represent the interests of all parts of Canada?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Again, Mr. Speaker, I have had a chance to read and listen to what the Prime Minister has been saying. This is what Mr. d'Aquino stated.


Some hon. members:: Oh, Oh.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The hon. minister.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: It is May 27 and I understand that hon. members quoted quite freely yesterday, so perhaps I might be given the same privilege today.
Mr. d'Aquino said: "The only thing that I heard at lunch was the Prime Minister making a very strong pitch
May 28, 1991

like I just heard him make today as to why Canada is a place that the Japanese should be spending more time both investing in and why we should be having much closer economic and political relations.
I think that is spoken like a true Prime Minister and I am proud of him.


STEEL INDUSTRY
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Science and Technology-
The minister knows that the government's high dollar and high interest policy has been devastating for the Canadian steel industry. I want to ask him specifically today about the thousands of jobs reported to be sacrificed at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, which would destroy the livelihood of thousands of families and devastate the entire community.
What specific assistance is the minister prepared to give today to save jobs and help this community?


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague is well aware, we have been part of discussions that involve the company Algoma Steel, the union, the shareholders of Algoma Steel, Defasco, as well as the bankers in the province of Ontario, to try to assist in ways of seeking adjustment to the company so that it can continue in business.
I am sure my hon. friend is well aware of the very serious financial conditions of Algoma Steel. He is also very much aware that if the federal government provides specific monetary assistance to the company, it will very seriously affect its capacity to sell into the United States market.
That option is not open to us, but we are talking to the company to try to assist in ways that will allow it to move into a new regime, possibly helping out in the training and retraining of individuals who would lose their jobs.


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the Minister of Labour.
The minister knows that there have already been thousands of jobs lost at Algoma Steel and there are plans for further lay-offs. Many of them are older workers.
Oral Questions
Is the Minister of Labour willing to give a commitment today to designate Algoma Steel workers eligible for the Program for Older Workers Adjustment so that they can be provided with an adequate and respectable early pension?
The chances of these older workers finding jobs in today's recession are almost nil. Would the minister give a commitment today to designate this industry and this community for assistance under the Program for Older Workers Adjustment?


Hon. Marcel Danis (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend knows that POWA, to which he is referring, has specific rules. A committee made up of representatives from Government of Ontario and the Government of Canada is actually meeting and will make a recommendation to both ministers. I hope that recommendation will be favourable.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: Mr. Speaker, since January 1, 1989, Ontario has lost 144,000 or 14 per cent of its manufacturing jobs. Employment is down 19 per cent in auto parts, 21 per cent in steel, 26 per cent in machinery, and 33 per cent in furniture. Because of this government's deliberate policies, many of these jobs are lost forever.
When will the minister responsible for industry help Ontario export something other than jobs?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that my hon. friend speak to the person immediately to his front and left. He would find out that I am actively helping Ontario companies find new business through trade opportunities in the Middle East.
The member for Etobicoke North and I were on a trade mission. He has just very kindly sent to me a report that he wrote for The Financial Post on the trade mission. He neglected to mention my name in it, unfortunately.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I just wanted anyone who read that article to know that I was the minister who was leading that trade mission, helping Ontario companies, helping Quebec companies, helping companies from Newfoundland right across Canada to British Columbia

May 28, 1991
Oral Questions
find business in a very important part of the world, a part of the world where we can find good new business.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I suppose the minister is suggesting that he should stay abroad and bring the Prime Minister home. Perhaps that would help.
On November 24, 1988, the Prime Minister in Toronto promised: "to ensure innovative and generous adjustment and retraining programs with the chief priority being the well-being of the individual Canadian worker and his family". Yet today tens of thousands of unemployed Canadians are waiting for retraining.
When will this government honour this promise? When will this government start retraining these unemployed Canadians so that they can be part of Canada's future and not part of its past?


Bernard Valcourt: It is a bit ironic, Mr. Speaker. That member's party in this House fought Bill C-21. It targeted over $800 million which we wanted to invest in the work force of Canada and is exactly the kind of thing the member is calling for.
I can tell him that the labour force development strategy board is having its first meetings yesterday and today. It has been entrusted with finding ways where we can apply these hundreds of millions of dollars and invest in our work force so as to improve its skills and performance.
What he is asking for is already happening. He should come of age.


NATIONAL UNITY
Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, the Acting Prime Minister was quoting Mr. d'Aquino in support of the Prime Minister. Of course Mr. d'Aquino was part of the delegation. It was the Prime Minister who said: "You dance with the one who brought you".
My question is for the minister in charge of national unity. The premier of Ontario has said that the Prime Minister should speak on behalf of all Canadians and not as leader of the Conservative Party.
Does the minister believe that the words and actions of the Prime Minister overseas are a contribution to his efforts to strengthen national unity?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister Responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Yes, Mr. Speaker, although it is obviously important that Canadians who are interested in national unity and in the strength of the economy read what the Prime Minister said and not simply listen to the cast put upon his words in this House.


Howard Douglas McCurdy: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
Millions of Canadians have heard about the Prime Minister's morbid premonition and of his efforts to solicit the votes of 4,000 Vietnamese refugees. They have also seen him bad-mouth Ontario in Hong Kong and Japan, then blame the press, and then have the gall to ask the premier of Ontario for an apology.
Is it appropriate for this man who has so obviously lost control of himself to be in charge of a country?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the province of Ontario or the people of Ontario. What is wrong is that the Government of Ontario is mortally flawed in its attempt to deal with the pressing economic issues.
Quite frankly Ontario happens to be, through the leadership of its government, the odd province out. At a time when all governments, with the exception of Ontario, are attempting to deal with the fundamental problems affecting our economy, namely inflation and deficit reduction, it is going in the other direction. That does not augur well and does not look well in the eyes of international investors.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Len Hopkins (Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.
May 28, 1991

Two weeks ago Canada's defence minister announced major cuts in defence expenditures and set off a time bomb for more to come. It is called mass destruction.
All regions of the country that have bases, thousands of military personnel, the Royal Canadian Legion and millions of Canadians are worried about the future of the Canadian forces and the great name they have made for Canada around the world.
Why has the government adopted such irrational cuts to the Canadian forces at a time when it has no defence policy? It seems determined to destroy a large part of one of the great institutions of our Canadian fabric, namely the Canadian forces.


Hon. Mary Collins (Associate Minister of National Defence and Minister responsible for Status of Women):: Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is confused about two different issues.
The announcements that were made several weeks ago by the Minister of National Defence were the reallocation of our existing spending and a reduction in some of the procurement programs which were no longer considered to be priorities, to fit within our existing budget over the coming years.
The second issue, which we are now addressing, is the longer term defence policy review to look at the future roles and the future needs of our Armed Forces throughout this country.
I want to remind the member that the objective is that we will continue to have an Armed Forces, men and women who are professionals, well equipped and are relevant to tomorrow's world. That is the commitment we have and that we will continue to fulfil.


Leonard Donald Hopkins: Mr. Speaker, it sounds as if the minister has backed off and there are going to be no base cuts as announced.
Canadian forces bases cuts would take place in the regions of the country already hard hit economically by the government's own created in Canada recession. Mass destruction is no way to reward the Canadian forces for their outstanding contribution both inside and outside Canada.
Why will the government not bring in a defence policy paper and allow discussion on this issue before it implements its mass destruction of the Canadian forces
Oral Questions
and the economy of the Canadian countryside? Are there going to be cuts or are there not?


Mary Collins: Mr. Speaker, I think my hon. friend knows quite well that the work is ongoing. It has involved many people having input, many experts in defence areas, to discuss the future of our Armed Forces.
I think the hon. member also recognizes that there is too much infrastructure at the moment for the size of the force and the composition of the force, and that we will be looking at making changes and adjustments to the costs in order that we can maintain a capable, efficient Armed Forces for the future.
All these decisions will be made by cabinet in due course with opportunities, we anticipate, for the public to review and be involved in this process as we continue through the coming months.


IMMIGRATION
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Winnipeg South Centre):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
On May 14, the minister released what she then said was a comprehensive and accurate report on the Al-Ma-shat affair, stating that: "no conspiracies by any individual or government agency, either Canadian or foreign, was involved in this case".
How, then, does the minister reconcile that statement, the fact that Mr. John Bums, an FBI agent, travelled twice to Vienna to meet with Mr. Al-Mashat during the time his application to come to Canada was being processed?


Hon. Barbara McDougall (Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I stand by the statement I made. We in my department are unaware of any connection between the FBI and Dr. Al-Mashat.
There certainly was no attempt by any foreign power to influence any decision on our part or on the processing of the immigration application.


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, I note in passing that the minister did not deny that such visits took place. If they did take place, it is

May 28, 1991
Oral Questions
clearly a contradiction of the report she issued on March 14.
In keeping with the minister's commitment made to this House about full disclosure of relevant information in the Al-Mashat case and given that the standing committee on external affairs is having its organizational meeting this afternoon, will she agree that there can be no real inquiry until we have a full and proper production in public of all relevant documents?
Will the minister agree today to release all those documents, the list of which I sent to her office this morning, so that we can have a proper and full and honest inquiry?


Barbara Jean McDougall: Mr. Speaker, the process so far, including the statement made by my hon. colleague and myself, has been an honest one. I think it is regrettable the hon. member has made allegations that are totally unfounded.
Let me say as well that we have agreed there will be an open and honest inquiry. We are going through documents and we are looking at the privacy provisions and at security provisions. 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.


NATIONAL UNITY
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the government House leader. I have in my hand a whole list-


An hon. member:: What is your credit rating?


Nelson Andrew Riis: I will come back to the comments made by the Minister responsible for Canadian Unity and some of the cat-calling he has been doing in a minute. I have a number of quotes that he has made, that the Deputy Prime Minister has made, that the Minister responsible for Canadian Unity has made, and that the Prime Minister has made, all calling for a non-partisan approach to the House of Commons.
The Deputy Prime Minister was screaming a few moments ago to my colleague about his concerns regarding one of the provincial governments. Is this what the government House leader means by a non-partisan approach to the House of Commons?


Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: No, Mr. Speaker. What I meant was that we should adopt as a practice that which was the practice in this House of Commons being an opportunity for members to ask questions, not make accusations, not make representations.
I would ask that we all take a look at Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 407, which describes how Speakers have suggested we behave. If we follow that, those watching in the galleries and those watching TV would have a lot more respect for all us than they apparently do.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, this is an interesting comment coming from a member of the government who not long ago rushed your chair with their rule books in their hands and brought the House to-


Mr. Speaker:: If the hon. member has a question, would he please put it to the minister?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question to the Deputy Prime Minister and concerns his response to my hon. colleague.
Would he not have to admit that the Rae government introduced a number of policies in response to the fact that the fiscal and monetary policies of this government have resulted in rack and ruin in the province of Ontario and right across Canada?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member gives me an opportunity to explain to the Canadian people just what is going on with respect to spending across the country.
The Government of Canada has kept its program expenditures increase to an annualized rate of about 3.7 per cent since we have been in office. The Government of Ontario introduced a budget that provides a 13.4 per cent annualized increase in one year. That is inconsistent with the co-ordinated policy that is needed in this

May 28, 1991

Oral Questions


NATIONAL ACCESS AWARENESS WEEK
[Stage Direction]
country if we are going to get at the root causes of inflation and fiscal consolidation and bring about strength and durability in the Canadian economy. That is what we are all trying to achieve.
Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs.
Will the minister advise the House and the people of Canada if he and the Prime Minister have now absolutely and without question rejected and ruled out the concept of a constituent assembly other than this House of Commons and the Senate?
If he has, will he give this House his undertaking that the recommendations of this Parliament of Canada will be accepted by the government without modification that the whole matter will be dealt with in an open way and that there will be no changes made behind closed doors.


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I think most of us who went through the Meech Lake experience will agree we are past the stage in which we want to have proposals put forward that have to be accepted without modification.
I certainly will be interested in the recommendations of the Beaudoin-Edwards committee. I think the whole House will be, and I will be looking for ways in which those can be applied.
With regard to a constituent assembly, the view of the government is known. We believe that it would be unfortunate to put aside a parliamentary system which by and large has worked in the country.
However, we recognize that this system has not earned the respect it requires. What we are proposing for the joint committee that would be established and operating in the summer and in the fall is a parliamentary base composed of members of this House and the other place, but using such elements of a constituent assembly or such other means that reach out to the people of Canada to ensure that we have the broadest possible participation in a process that will recommend the decisions that should reshape this country.


Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State.
This is National Access Awareness Week and the theme is "Access is a Right". However, for blind people accessibility is obviously not a right.
The only money provided by this government through the CNIB for Braille services, talking books and teacher training for the blind is less than $50,000 a year.
Does the minister really believe that $50,000 out of a federal budget of $160 billion this year is fair to the blind people of Canada?


Hon. Robert de Cotret (Secretary of State of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to briefly refer my hon. colleague opposite to the statement that we made in the Speech from the Throne.
We will be coming forth with a comprehensive package of measures dealing with accessibility for all disabled in this country: accessibility to housing, to employment, to transport, and to recreation.
The program is well in its definition phases and I hope to be able to make an announcement in the near future.


Elizabeth  (Beth) Phinney: Mr. Speaker, people are sick and tired of patronizing statements. What disabled people need is not sympathy. They need support.
In the United States, the federal government has taken the lead in the production and distribution of Braille and talking books. Is it not about time the government got serious and provided this essential service to blind Canadians?


Robert René de Cotret: Mr. Speaker, the government is working very closely with the disabled to elaborate this five-year strategy that will be announced.
I have been dealing with them on a regular basis. The plan is coming along very well, and we will be able to announce it in the very near future.
Oral Questions AID


Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for External Relations.
The United Nations development report is all about global human development. The 1991 report released last week states that the quality of Canada's aid program is poor. To quote its principal author, Mahbub ul Haq, "it is a cause for concern that only 5 per cent of Canadian aid ends up in the basic human survival programs".
Given that the first priority of Canada's aid program as stated in the minister's own strategy paper is poverty alleviation, can the minister assure us that all new trends in CIDA will not benefit Canadian contractors as a priority but will directly address and correct Canada's poor record in alleviating global poverty?


Hon. Monique Landry (Minister for External Relations and Minister of State (Indian Affairs and Northern Development)):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure my colleague that the strategy defined in "Sharing Our Future" is still what guides our aid programs and sets out our policies.
Therefore I can assure her that our programs are still directed to offsetting poverty and especially to furthering social development. In this regard, I would tell my colleague that CIDA estimates approximately 40 per cent of its funds have an impact on people's social development in health, food, education and even job creation that in the long run can help women and families.
I can assure her that we will continue to direct our programs toward those objectives.


Christine Susan Stewart: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.
The United Nations development report says, contrary to the minister, that Canada's aid program failed in adequately alleviating poverty and instead was focused too much on the provision of self-serving economic development and technical assistance. It is well known that direct poverty alleviation is best implemented overseas through our non-government organizations and their Third World partners.
Will the minister assure us today that she will cancel all budgetary cutbacks to Canadian non-government organizations and instead provide them a growing proportion of funding according to their program capacity?


Monique Landry: Mr. Speaker, I would again reassure my colleague about the orientation of our programs. We have clearly stated that all our Canadian partners, be they non-government organizations, institutions or even the private sector, helped us deliver the kind of aid required for Third World development.
I would also tell my colleague that of course non-gov-emmental organizations are essential and do outstanding work, but I also believe that the private sector too can contribute to the economic growth of developing countries. Our partners in all Third World countries ask us to develop employment and thus contribute to their people's welfare.
For this, we will continue to use all our Canadian partners in the development of Third World countries.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Garth Turner: Mr. Speaker, the Japanese government has now officially apologized to those brave Canadians who were interned during the Second World War. In the wake of this action I have a question for the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
What does this government plan to do to compensate those Canadians for the suffering they went through at the hands of their captors? Will this government help those veterans with their claim for some financial compensation to go along with the apology that we have heard today?


Gerald Stairs Merrithew: Mr. Speaker, what happened yesterday was certainly an extraordinary event for Canada and the Canadian people and particularly the Hong Kong veterans in receiving an apology from that government after 45 years. It would certainly have to be termed a diplomatic success by any standard.
Nothing can ever really compensate the POWs, the Hong Kong veterans who spent four years in the prisoner of war camps of the Japanese. It is for this very reason
May 28, 1991

that Canadian governments, not only this government but previous governments, have gone a long way to help try to compensate those people. In fact, we have paid over $50 million in prisoner of war compensation to those 2,000 people who were taken prisoner back in December 1941.
Nonetheless, there is a claim before the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations put forward by the veterans groups themselves. They have asked us as a non-government organization to refrain from direct entrance into that particular debate.


PORT OF HALIFAX
Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Transport.
A year ago, officials from the Halifax-Dartmouth Port Development Commission warned the government that unless action was taken to address the imbalance between Canada and the U.S. rail rates, the port of Halifax would be in deep trouble.
In December of last year, the same organization presented a list of options for the government to consider.
What is the government going to do to protect the port of Halifax? What action is it going to take to ensure that the port remains viable and that the employment levels remain viable as well?


Hon. Shirley Martin (Minister of State (TVansport)):: Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, I met with members from the port of Halifax last week. I will be in Halifax on Thursday and will be at the port at that time. We will continue to work with all those people involved to ensure the viability of the port of Halifax.
Points of Order PRESENCE IN GALLERY


Mr. Speaker:: I wish to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of parliamentary delegations from the Republic of Bulgaria, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Romania, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of members of the Bundestag Committee on Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, led by Mr. Siegfried Homung, Chairman.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Speaker:: I wish also to draw to the attention of members the presence in the gallery of the Hon. George McLeod, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health of the Province of Saskatchewan.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


POINTS OF ORDER
Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, in light of the response of the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs to a question in the House during Question Period and as a member of the Beau-doin-Edwards committee which is sitting until ten o'clock each night making deliberations on a report, would the minister be willing to make a ministerial statement on constituent assemblies tomorrow morning?


Mr. Speaker:: I am not at all sure that is a point of order. The hon. member, no doubt, can speak directly with the minister.


COMMENTS DURING QUESTION PERIOD
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
During every Question Period backbenchers from all sides want an opportunity to ask questions concerning constituents back home and the concerns they have.

May 28, 1991
Points of Order
I am wondering if you would check the "blues" today of the hon. member for Nickel Belt who had six sentences of preamble, making no representation, asking no question. I think you will find in Beauchesne's that is out of order. Would you kindly check?


EXTENSION OF QUESTION PERIOD
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, concerning the point made by my hon. friend and in the spirit of the question, I want to say right now that an opportunity should be provided to a number of people who do not make Question Period.
May I suggest that starting tomorrow we extend Question Period for an extra half hour to allow more people to participate in this process?


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I just want to set the record straight that during discussions last year with both parties in terms of rule changes, I offered opposition members an extra 15 minutes a day. They turned it down.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to explain that what the government House leader has said is not true. He should have explained that it was part of a large package.
I would like to say that what he has indicated-if people are listening in or watching they will get the wrong impression-was never offered. I am suggesting that starting today I am prepared to offer at least half an hour, if not more, to add to Question Period every day.


ALLOCATION OF TIME DURING QUESTION PERIOD
Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken: Mr. Speaker, I heard the parliamentary secretary make his suggestion that somehow there was something wrong with Question Period when members on the other side could not get recognized for questions.
Part of the reason why they and the rest of us do not get recognized for questions every day is the windy answers we get from ministers of the Crown.
I want to make it very clear that the Deputy Prime Minister gave a four-minute answer to the question of the Leader of the Opposition. I have never heard so much drivel in four minutes in this House in my life.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I want to address that point of order very quickly by suggesting to the House that yes, from time to time answers on this side are too long and from time to time questions from that side are too long.
Perhaps what we can do later at our committee this afternoon is come up with a solution that would be acceptable to both sides of this House.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, in order to facilitate the concerns of the members opposite, perhaps they would concur with the suggestion which has been made by my colleague, the leader of the NDP in this House.
Perhaps we could extend, if there is consensus, this particular Question Period for another 10 or 15 minutes to give members on both sides an opportunity to ask more questions. I am sure members of my party would concur with that particular resolution.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, I know we are usually chastised for negotiations on the floor of the House.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Albert Glen Cooper: I made a serious offer a couple of moments ago. We have a meeting of the management committee in 53 or 54 minutes. I hope to start on time. Perhaps at that time we can come up with a really good solution for all members of this House.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Chair could give some direction. There was a motion to seek unanimous consent of the House. I did not hear anybody deny that, so I am assuming that we are going ahead with a continuance of Question Period. Is that correct, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Speaker:: I might be getting into pretty dangerous ground if I assume that.
The hon. member has indicated that there is a motion before the House to continue with Question Period. Is there agreement?


Some hon. members:: No.


Some hon. members:: Yes.
May 28, 1991



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. John McDermid (Minister of State (Finance and Privatization)) moved: that a Ways and Means motion to amend the Excise Act and Excise Tax Act, laid upon the table on Friday, May 17, be concurred in.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), I have the honour to lay upon the table a copy of a notice of a Ways and Means motion to amend the Income Tax Act and other legislation.
I ask, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 83(2), that an Order of the Day be designated for the consideration of the said Ways and Means motion.


EXCISE TAX ACT
John Horton McDermid: that Bill C-10, an Act to amend the Excise Thx Act and the Excise Act, be read the first time and ordered to be printed.


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

Shirley Martin: that Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act,
Government Orders
be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
She said: Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise for the second reading debate on Bill C-5, namely an act to amend the Aeronautics Act, to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act. I hope that we do not have to soon put forward a further amendment to this act or else the title will be almost impossible to deal with.
As many hon. members will know, I was personally involved in the development of increased fines for aircraft noise violations, so I am particularly happy to speak to this bill today.
These amendments to the Aeronautics Act are being brought forward to update the existing legislation to deal with the issues that have arisen since the act was last amended in 1985. They will also provide the legislative framework for the implementation of undertakings of this government regarding penalties for noise violations and federal-provincial recommendations with regard to airport zoning.
First, I would like to address the section which will provide for an increased maximum for administrative monetary penalties. The 1985 amendments introduced the concept of administrative monetary penalties, which authorized the minister to assess a penalty to a maximum of $1,000 for the contravention of certain provisions. These provisions are designated in regulations which also established the maximum penalty with respect to each provision subject to the limit of $1,000 set out in the act.
In some cases this $1,000 limit has shown to be ineffective as a deterrent, especially with regard to the violation of noise abatement procedures at larger airports, such as Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International.
To overcome this problem, the act is being amended to increase the maximum penalties to $10,000 for corporations and $5,000 for individuals. Bill C-5 will allow the regulations to be amended, increasing the maximum penalty for those offences where such an increase is warranted.
Second, a new section is being added to the zoning provisions of the act, authorizing the minister to make agreements with local zoning authorities that will allow the local authority to make and enforce zoning regulations for local airports, using provincial procedures. This amendment is based on a recommendation of a federal-provincial working group on aerodrome zoning. It met to

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
explore methods of increasing federal-provincial co-operation in preparing and enforcing zoning regulations on lands surrounding airports.
Height zoning around aerodromes comes within the exclusive power of the federal government since it relates to aviation safety while the provinces have the authority to zone such areas for other purposes. Additionally, zoning procedures under the existing Aeronautics Act are more complicated and expensive than those followed by many provinces.
This amendment establishes a system whereby provincial zoning authorities will be able to make height zoning regulations apply to airports at a time and in a manner that will be in accordance with other zoning regulations applying to the area.
If the local authority does not wish to make such an agreement, it is not obligated to do so and the airport may eventually be zoned by the federal government if it comes within zoning policies.
Bill C-5 also proposes amendments to the Aeronautics Act to allow a more expeditious response to urgent safety recommendations.
Occasionally, a body investigating an aviation accident or incident will make a recommendation to the Minister of Transport that requires immediate implementation in the interests of aviation safety.
A new provision being added to the act will allow the minister to make interim orders that will give these recommendations an immediate mandatory effect, while the formal regulation is undergoing the normal process. The interim order will remain in effect until the regulation is completed, or for a maximum of two years.
Another provision of the bill we now have before us will give the minister a new power in the act to withhold, suspend or cancel a Canadian aviation document where, in the minister's opinion, the past record of the document holder justifies this action. This would also apply to any principal of a company which holds the document. This will enable the minister to deal appropriately with situations where an operator, whose certificate has been cancelled, attempts to continue his or her operation by starting a new company or by buying an existing one.
If the minister suspends or cancels a document on this basis, the decision can be reviewed by the Civil Aviation Tribunal.
Two new provisions expanding extraterritorial jurisdiction to the act are being added. The first will make all the provisions of the Aeronautics Act apply, as appropriate, to passengers as well as crew members on board Canadian aircraft operating outside Canada. For example, requiring the use of seatbelts.
The second provision will authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations implementing obligations that Canada has already accepted in principle in ratifying Article 3 "BIS" of what is known as the Chicago Convention, for instance, setting out requirements for aircraft that may be intercepted while over-flying another country's territory.
Last, but not least, Bill C-5, provides for amendments to the security provisions in the act to implement the system of establishing security measures to be carried out by air carriers and airport operators. Instead of security measures being "approved" by the minister, specific ministerial orders will establish those measures that must be carried out by the air carriers. This system will overcome certain legal objections to the earlier method.
Mr. Speaker, I have given only a broad picture of the amendments that Bill C-5 proposes to make to the Aeronautics Act. I look forward to discussing all these facets of the bill with my colleagues when we reach the committee stage.
I am confident that all hon. members will find these amendments worthy of their attention and allow us to bring this most helpful bill through the legislative process in an expeditious manner.
After consultation, I would like to move:
That Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act, be referred, after second reading, to the Standing Committee on Transport.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The House has heard the motion moved by the hon. minister. All hon. members opposed to the motion please stand.
May 28, 1991

And fewer than five members having risen:


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The motion is deemed to have been adopted, pursuant to Standing Order 13(3)(b).


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the bill in front of us today, as the minister stated in her introduction, is to amend the Aeronautics Act.
Much of the bill is in a sense housekeeping. It is to correct various inconsistencies and dated provisions in the existing act. The important element in the act from the point of view of the official opposition is the provision for increased fines for noise violations, in particular, at Canadian airports.
This is an important provision. It is one that is long overdue. It is one which the opposition has been urging for some time in parallel with the proposal for improved noise monitoring systems at our major airports. Certainly the increase from $1,000 to $10,000 in way of a fine for noise violations is in itself a modest enough improvement, but it is at least a step in the right direction and we welcome that provision in the bill.
We also welcome the provision permitting the minister to make an interim order at any time when the safety of the public appears to be at risk.
At the present time, as the minister would know well, the procedures transport investigation bodies are required to follow has meant that the enforcement of regulations has been a long and time-consuming process, a process that has meant the delay of necessary corrective measures. We welcome a step that would enable the minister to proceed in a prompt and effective fashion to ensure that violations of the Aeronautics Act and particularly those relating to noise abatement are dealt with in an effective manner.
Having said that, I want to spend a moment on the question of the general problem of noise abatement and violations at our major airports, particularly at Pearson International Airport in metro Toronto. The impact of
Government Orders
the airport in a variety of ways on the surrounding communities has been a constant problem which has continued for a number of years and it seems we are no closer to a solution than we were several years ago.
I say that because we on this side of the House, the Official Opposition, have attempted on a number of occasions to set forward alternative policies for the government to consider and implement as a means of ensuring that the health and the environmental safety of the members of the surrounding communities are not adversely affected by the operations of airports.
Some members will recall that members on this side took an initiative to form a task force under the direction and leadership of the member for York South-Weston and submitted a report to both community groups and to the government recommending a variety of steps to ensure that real progress would be made in coming to grips with the problems at Pearson International Airport.
In that connection, I would refer particularly to the recommendations of that report, which is now more than a year old, which related to various alternative airport use alleviating the heavy pressures on Pearson International Airport. The recommendations with regard to the safe and effective use of the total airport facilities in the Toronto area included an assurance that the facilities of Buttonville airport would remain available to general aviation use.
The issue of how Mount Hope airport at Hamilton might be further used to offset the extreme pressures on Toronto airport and the possibility of even using London, Ontario airport more efficiently and effectively have also been canvassed in our report. The possibilities offered by Toronto Island airport should also be further developed.
None of those issues have been addressed by this government. None of those possibilities have been explored in a systematic fashion, nor has the possibility of the construction of another airport, which the task force under the leadership of the member for York South- Weston suggested, been addressed.
We see a situation in which the federal government has a very large parcel of land available in Pickering for the development of a second major airport for Toronto and yet no progress, no effort has been made to utilize that opportunity. Instead, funds have yet again been channelled into the expansion of Pearson airport.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
The possibilities also exist of the development of land transport, particularly fast rail transport between Quebec City and the Windsor corridor. Again, the government has shown no initiative, no progress in exploring the two proposals that the private sector has come forward with to develop that fast rail service, patterned in part upon the highly successful rail services in Europe and in Japan.
This would alleviate many of the pressures on Pearson International Airport but we have had no indication from the government that that initiative, that possibility, can be given a fast-track treatment and we have no assurance to offer to the people living around Pearson International Airport that the rail facilities will be so developed as to lessen some of the pressure on Canada's major airport.
With regard to the situation at Pearson International Airport today, the noise problems are the paramount environmental question but there are other problems which I want to turn to in just a moment.
With regard to noise abatement, the report which the Liberal Party brought forward is quite clear about the need for more effective monitoring of noise pollution at Pearson airport. As I said at the beginning of my brief statement, we welcome the very modest step that was offered today in the way of fining those who systematically violate the existing noise regulations.
The fact remains that those regulations are not in themselves adequate to ensure that the people of the surrounding communities, whether in Malton or in Mississauga or in Etobicoke, have a healthy and enjoyable environment.
I would salute my colleagues from Mississauga East and from York West along with the member for York South-Weston for the leadership that they too have provided in attempting to convince the government of the necessity for pursuing more actively and energetically noise abatement procedures at the airport. In the bill before us only is there the provision for increased fines. Welcome though that may be, it certainly does not address the question, for example, of night flying, a problem that is becoming increasingly acute at the airport where services are now offered on a regular or scheduled basis after midnight and before 6.30 a.m. or 7
a.m., with an impact on the residents that you can well imagine.
The fact is that a number of the schools and public buildings as well as individual citizens are deeply affected by the constant noise of the airport. There are health problems. And, of course, there are certainly property value problems which are pervasive throughout the area.
I would suggest that steps should be taken, even at this late date, to look again at the installation not only of additional monitoring equipment but additional sound barriers and more stringent restrictions on night flights, on full power take-offs and on engine testing at the airport, especially during what should be the quiet hours from midnight until 7 a.m.
Despite those and a variety of other recommendations offered by the Official Opposition, the government has not brought forward any substantial response. It has not indicated the directions of its thinking other than to propose that there be three additional runways built at Pearson airport.
Quite obviously the traffic numbers which the government has brought forward to justify the expansion of Pearson airport by the construction of three additional runways ignores completely the possibilities offered by the greater utilization of the neighbouring airports which, as I have already suggested, might well be expanded and tied in together to a total network of airports for the metro Toronto region.
The impact of the airport, not only in terms of noise but in terms of the adverse effect it can have on ground water from the pollution caused by dumped fuel or by de-icing solutions, has not been adequately addressed.
The impact on wildlife remains a very real problem for all those who are concerned about the adverse impact of the airport on the natural environment. Again, we have had no indication of leadership from the government in those issues despite the reassurances of a succession of transport ministers. I believe there have been something like six in the past few years.
The growth at the airport in traffic has not been matched by any real effort to address the questions raised by the opposition and indeed by my colleague from Dartmouth who has done some notable work regarding the expansion of rail services in Canada and the direction of public funds to that expansion as one
May 28, 1991

method of helping to offset the adverse impacts of airport expansion.
The response of the government has been to undertake an impact study. An agency has now issued an environmental impact statement, the summary of which I have here but which, in total, is several massive volumes. A large amount of public funding has been spent on various studies that compose burden of this report, but what do we have in the end? We have the bald recommendation that the "proposal for three additional runways at Lester B. Pearson International Airport provides the solution that best serves the community at large".
The view of the citizens who live in the area of the airport, the many hundreds of thousands of Canadians who live under the flight paths or, indeed, in the surrounding communities, is to the contrary. They feel that the construction of three additional runways is merely going to compound what are already very serious problems.
I note that as part of this environmental impact process, Transport Canada has invited comment on the report up to July 12 concerning the way in which the impact survey was conducted, but not on the findings of the survey itself. The public's reaction to the survey will necessarily be a more protracted process. It will presumably continue late into the summer and through the autumn, and there will indeed be opportunity for everyone with an interest in this highly important question of airport expansion to offer their views.
The fact is that without some leadership by the government, without a clear indication that it is pursuing the development of alternative methods of transport, thereby ensuring Canadians who live around airports that their concerns and needs are being taken fully into account, I am afraid the process itself is unlikely to offer much confidence to those who have been so adversely impacted by the expansion of Pearson airport.
Equally, if the question of night flights, the question of regulation at the moment is not adequately addressed, then too confidence in this process will be open to serious question.
Government Orders
I want to conclude by stating that while we in the Official Opposition will support the bill, we regard it as a mere drop in the bucket, as it were, of what is required with regard to regulation of air transport in Canada, and particularly with regard to the deleterious effects that a major airport can have on the way of life, the quality of life of the people who have the misfortune of living under the flight paths of a major airport.
I hope the government, in bringing forward this bill, is making a very real commitment to ensuring that those other questions, and serious questions that they, are also being addressed in the most expeditious and sensitive manner.


Iain Francis Angus: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate today in the second reading debate of Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.
We have had a chance to visit this legislation in the past, and we are now proceeding to make even more appropriate changes to the legislation that not only affects the mechanics of airline operation and aviation, but protects the safety of those who use the services and those who live beside the areas served.
The act makes a number of very important and positive contributions. I want to go through them very briefly and then deal with some of the areas where I feel some additional improvements can be made within the context of the direction that the government is taking.
For example, the increase in the fines for violations of noise abatement procedures is a good step. If my memory is correct, when we were dealing with this section back in 1986 we argued then that the amounts were too small. This particular bill increases the maximum fine for an individual to $5,000. The maximum fine for a corporation is $10,000.
I want to reiterate the arguments I made then. It is still an unfair relationship. Five thousand dollars to a mechanic is a lot different from $10,000 to Air Canada. I think that the ratio between the fine available for an individual-and let us remember it may be an individual who is only doing what he or she is told, as opposed to

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
the fine for the corporation who may have issued the instruction to violate the noise abatement procedures- is quite out of balance.
Let me add that I am pleased that the minister has recognized the appropriateness of sending legislation to the Standing Committee on Transport. We had agreed prior to it that that would be something we would support. When it gets into the standing committee, I hope we will take a serious look at perhaps finding a new formula.
Perhaps we should be dealing with a percentage of income-the percentage of a pilot's income, the percentage of a flight attendant's income, the percentage of a mechanic's income, the percentage of a ground staffer's income-on one hand or on the other hand the percentage of the company involved-the gross revenue of that airport for that year-so we can put some fairness into that kind of approach. It is really to prevent it from becoming a licence to charge, a way in which to get around the legal requirements.
Ultimately what we really want is to ensure that the noise abatement procedures, whether they be in terms of the ground support, the baffles, what have you, or in terms of the use of certain types of engines in modem airplanes, can be achieved.
The second area is the added authorization between the Minister of Transport and provincial zoning authorities to deal with the enforcement of zoning regulations for airports. There has been a long outstanding need for this kind of correction.
We have a situation in the city of Thunder Bay which has grown up around the Thunder Bay International Airport. I can remember back in the mid-seventies when I was a provincial member having to deal with the realities of the noise contours as applied in their relationship to land development and pressure from the land owners who want to develop and have put pressure on the municipality to agree to it.
It is still before the various levels of government, the OMB, the city, and the province. I believe that this kind of change will facilitate proper zoning controls so that we can protect both the airports and the surrounding residences from encroachment by either one of them.
The new power to make regulations to implement the provisions of the convention on the International Civil Aviation Act is a positive step. It should have been done a long time ago.
The same is true with the provision for interim orders. Where a safety recommendation comes from a body such as the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board charged with the investigation of aviation accidents comes forward, the government can act immediately. There is a built-in notification procedure. We may wish to take a look at some of the mechanical parts, but I believe that the provision of an interim order is a very good step.
We have to be able to react quickly. We all saw the very graphic results on the day it happened and the results of the interim report of the royal commission studying the Dryden airplane crash, the Air Ontario crash. The government had to have the ability to make reactive steps in order to learn from that accident and to protect passengers and crew members on future flights.
There is also the new provision to give the minister the power to withhold, suspend or cancel a Canadian aviation document where in his or her opinion the past record of the document holder or any principal of a company which holds a document justifies that action.
This will prevent the cancellation of one and having it resurface under another name, under another group of owners. It is designed to protect the public.
We have to make sure that within the legislation before us there are sufficient safeguards for the appropriate appeal mechanism for the individual who may find him or herself caught in the situation, but believes that they have been unfairly denied their right of due process, unfairly prevented from having an aviation certificate issued on their behalf.
I have had one one case that went to the aviation tribunal where an individual was found to be innocent of the decision that was handed down against him. However, there was no mechanism to have his record stricken, it remained a black mark even though the appeal had overturned the initial decision.
So we have to make sure that as we review this particular legislation that we put in place the components that will protect all players, not just the travelling public, not just the government, but those charged with
May 28, 1991

the responsibility and the authorization of transporting people or cargo from place to place. They, too, must have their day in court.
There are a number of other very worth-while changes. They bring us into the 21st century by adding computers to aeronautical products, the software, some language clean-up.
There are two areas that I want to spend a bit of time on because I think they are very important in the context of what is happening today, this month and last month.
The first one deals with changes to section 4 which sets out the extraterritorial application of the act that will make it apply outside of Canada.
You may remember that not too long ago I rose in this House during Question Period, back before prorogation, and raised a question with the then Minister of Transport-in fact, it was the last question to the previous minister-about the ability of airline employees to exercise their right to refuse to work in an unsafe condition that was occurring outside the country.
Let me give a bit of background. Back in April a Canadian Airlines flight attendant refused to board her scheduled duty flight bound from Pearson International Airport to Lima, Peru. She cited section 128 of the Canada Labour Code which allows an employee to refuse to work when they believe it reasonably constitutes a danger.
This flight attendant exercised what she believed was her legal right to refuse to leave Canada to go to a country that, among other things, was suffering from a cholera epidemic. The Department of External Affairs had been sending around a travel advisory for Canadians warning them about this particular situation.
Four days before, in the same destination, a colleague of hers was abducted 300 yards from his hotel by four men who identified themselves as police. He was taken in a car, roughed up and robbed.
Canadian Airlines flight attendants have layovers, or rest periods, as long as 30 hours in Lima. They are taken from the airport to their hotel in a battered bus staffed by an armed security guard. Canadian Airlines pilots who have agreed to extend their duty day times beyond then-contract maximum do not lay over in Lima, but are flown
Government Orders
to Mexico at the end of their flight duty, one can only assume because they feel unsafe in that particular environment.
The crowning point of this woman's argument was the fact that the day that her flight, the one that she was scheduled to be on, landed in Lima, Peru, there were 30 buildings bombed in that city. This included the Canadian embassy and five other foreign missions. That woman did not get on the plane that night, but her colleagues did.
Labour Canada, which investigated that evening, found she had no reason to refuse to work, and I am advised that that decision has now been upheld in that particular case. But part of the argument from Labour Canada at the time of the initial investigation was that Canadian employees did not have the right to refuse to work in another country. A flight attendant who leaves Canada, travels to another country, remains an employee of the airline, is under the direct control of the airline while in that other country. They are restricted in their travel movements. For example, in Lima, Peru, I believe they cannot travel more than 150 kilometres from the airport. They have their meals and accommodation paid for by the airline.
One of the things I want to address in committee is to ensure that this legislation extends, by eliminating any ambiguity whatsoever, the provisions of the Canada Labour Code across our borders; to the men and women who, in effect, represent Canada. They have the right to a safe and healthy working environment.
My colleague from Mission-Coquitlam is concerned about a decision by NationAir which allowed, the captains of NationAir to let the passengers light up if the flight is delayed. This is in violation of an act of this Parliament, the Clean Air Act or the act that deals with smoking on airlines. We have to look at that.
We have also got to look at the provisions in this legislation that may clarify, once and for all, whether or not the flight attendants, or the crew, have the same restrictions on the length of their work day as the pilots do. There are a couple of reasons for that.
First, it is not something they should have to negotiate at the bargaining table.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
Second, the prime purpose of having flight attendants on aeroplanes is not to provide us with drinks or to hand out coffee or snacks or to sell duty free goods. Their reason for being on those airlines is for your safety and mine, primarily at the beginning and the end of the flight. If you have a staffer who has been forced to work for 14 hours non-stop, that staffer is pretty tired. Yet, they are the ones who have the responsibility, in the event of a crash-landing-let us put it bluntly-where there are survivors, to try and open the doors. They have to be well rested. They need to have all their senses about them.
If they have spent 14 hours, either waiting in airports or pushing carts up and down the aisle, or in some cases dealing with individuals who have had too much alcohol, they are not going to be able to perform. So it is important that we clarify this legislation to ensure that there is a legislated mandate for a restriction on the length of time that flight attendants can work while in transit.
I assume my time is almost up, but correct me if I am wrong.
My final point is another area this bill deals with, the question of security. This bill makes some changes in the manner in which security is to be provided at airports in Canada. It also makes some changes in terms of conditions that we expect at the other end, in the other countries our airlines are serving.
But the point I want to raise with regard to this is that we have an ongoing battle between the contract people who provide security at our airports. Transport Canada does not provide security services at Terminal 1, Terminal 2, Terminal 3, Vancouver, Thunder Bay or Halifax. Those are provided, based on the authority of the Minister of Transport, by the airlines themselves. The airlines, in turn, contract out those services and we end up with situations like we have today in Toronto at Terminal 1 where the company that had the contract, in order to regain that contract, bid at a rate that requires them to extract $2 an hour from their existing employees.
We should not be using contract employees, low minimum wage ghetto employees, to provide for the safeguarding of our air travellers in Canada, into Canada, and out of Canada.
We have got to take a serious look at this bill. I believe that within the context of Bill C-5 the opportunity is there to correct a wrong. In the bill itself the minister is losing the power to set the standards and they will now be done by regulation. The bill is dropping the provision for the airline companies or the airports themselves to provide the security. In part, they have gone half way. At the very least, within regulations, it can be changed to decide that they be employees of Transport Canada, or in the case of some of the devolved airports, employees of the local airport authority. But I think we have to take a very serious look at this because we have a responsibility both to the people who provide this service and the people we are providing the service for.
My final point, and again it is an area that I will pursue within the Standing Committee on Transport when this bill comes before it, is that there is wording in Bill C-5 that makes reference to planes being registered in other countries being required to meet the security provisions for Canada. I want to look at that clause because by my interpretation it still leaves a loophole for some airlines that travel within Canada to not have to expose their passengers to the kinds of security measures that all of us go through on an almost daily basis, whether at Pearson or Montreal airports or wherever. If we are to have a secure system, we must make sure that no one has an opportunity to take anything aboard any plane leaving Canada or coming into Canada that can do harm to the passengers and the staff on that plane or harm to the people in the area around them.
I look forward to the work of the committee. I think we can make a good bill that much better and I know the government is listening.


Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to make some brief submissions with regard to Bill C-5. We are presently debating this bill at second reading and I wish to reiterate the position of the Liberal Party that we support this bill in principle.
Unfortunately, its predecessor, Bill C-76, died with prorogation a number of weeks ago and this bill has been brought up for consideration. We consider it to be a good bill, a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the bill was not brought forward sooner, but in any event the Liberal opposition looks forward to the opportunity to consider the provisions of Bill C-5 in minute detail at the committee level.
May 28, 1991

As was indicated by the two previous speakers, Bill C-5 is generally considered to be a housekeeping bill. It is entitled an Act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an Act to amend the Aeronautics Act. As you know, a few short years ago, the original act, the act we are amending, was passed by this Parliament.
Over the course of the last number of years, it was deemed necessary to introduce some amendments to correct some minor problems with the original legislation. As well, it updates some of the provisions in Bill C-76.
However, there are some veiy important changes to the bill. Among the most important changes are the provisions which increase the fines for designated offences within the bill. Fines are increased from $1,000 to $5,000 for individuals and from $1,000 to $10,000 for corporations.
That would include airline companies operating in Canada and other airlines that use Canadian airports. In particular, it would include provisions dealing with noise abatement and contraventions of the provisions dealing with the restriction of noise.
I had the privilege of chairing the federal Liberal caucus task force on Pearson International Airport a few years ago. In fact, the committee rendered its report on June 12, 1989, some two years ago.
Since that time, the report has been circulated widely. We have had numerous requests for copies of this particular report. It was a comprehensive report that studied the workings of Pearson International Airport and all the problems associated with it. The report made a number of excellent recommendations.
The task force consisted of a number of my colleagues, members of the Liberal opposition. It spent a number of days at Pearson International Airport touring the facilities there. Then it listened to a significant number of witnesses who came forward to express their concerns about matters affecting Pearson International Airport.
We heard from the pilots' association, for example. We heard from representatives of the major airlines. We heard from representatives of smaller air carriers. We heard from citizens' groups and politicians from other levels of government. All had veiy important and significant concerns to bring to our attention.
Government Orders
The report that was released on June 12, 1989 includes a section on noise abatement and hours of operation. This particular section of the report is relevant in considering Bill C-5 which has, as one of its main provisions, the increase of fines.
In this report two years ago we recommended that fines be increased in order to deter and dissuade airline companies from breaching noise by-laws. We believe that with a significant increase in the fines that can be levied, airlines will think twice about breaking curfew provisions at Pearson International Airport and at all airports across the country.
We fully endorse and support the increase of the maximum penalty for breaching noise abatement provisions. As I indicated, the maximum penalties would be increased from $1,000 to $5,000 for individuals and to $10,000 for corporations.
I would ask the committee to consider not only maximum penalties for breaches of noise abatement provisions, but minimum penalties. We know that when we establish a maximum penalty, that is the limit. If we do not provide a minimum penalty, a suspended sentence for example, no penalty at all could be considered an appropriate penalty.
If this Parliament wishes to send a very clear message to those who at times, in a callous fashion, breach noise abatement provisions then the committee should consider incorporating minimum penalties within this legislation.
Once it is proven that a particular company or individual has breached a particular section-and I refer again to the noise abatement provisions-then there would be a minimum penalty that that person or company would be subjected to.
There are a number of MPs from the Toronto area who have a significant number of constituents who are directly affected by Pearson International Airport. The task force heard, of course, that there are problems at other airports in Canada, in particular at the Vancouver airport in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I am sure there are problems at other major airports in Canada. The mandate of the task force that I chaired though was simply to investigate the problems at Pearson International Airport.
I represent a riding that is east of the airport, York Southwest, and I know that the former Minister of Finance, now the Minister for International Trade, represents the riding of Etobicoke Centre and his

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
constituents are very concerned about what is happening at Pearson. A number of my colleagues as well, from Etobicoke North and York West and others from Mississauga, also have constituents who are directly affected. In fact, the task force heard that over 300,000 residents living near the airport are affected by problems at Pearson International Airport.
The residents who have written to us, appeared before the committee or have called our constituency offices have consistently and persistently pointed out the problems emanating from frequent take-offs and landings at Pearson International Airport. In fact, at task force hearings the most animated, the most passionate submissions came from community groups which expressed their serious concern about noise problems at Pearson.
The problem continues. The complaints continue. Unfortunately, this government and its officials believe that the answer is simply to build new runways. We do not believe that is the ultimate answer.
The task force report points out that before there is any consideration of increasing the runways at Pearson, the government should consider increasing the usage of other airports in and around Toronto that are under-utilized at present. For example, the airport at Hamilton. We heard a significant amount of evidence about the under-utilization of that particular airport.
The taxpayers of Canada have spent millions of dollars to update that particular facility and for some reason the government has chosen not to require different airlines to move their operations to the Hamilton airport. A lot of the commercial traffic could be moved to Hamilton. Hamilton is not that far away from metropolitan Toronto. Indeed, it is at times more convenient, or would be more convenient, for people to travel to Hamilton rather than to Pearson International Airport.
We also recommended that, for example, the use of the Buttonville airport, the Island airport, the London, Ontario airport and the Oshawa airport could be increased. Also, we recommended that the government introduce measures to require companies and others to use those airports to draw away, to siphon off some of the very heavy traffic at Pearson International Airport.
Regarding the problems of noise, especially noise in the early morning hours and in the evening hours, the task force recommended that there should be no easing of the restrictions placed on late night flights at Pearson International Airport.
We also recommended the appointment of an independent airport ombudsman to investigate and report on noise complaints at Pearson International Airport. Unfortunately, the government has not yet adopted this recommendation and perhaps at the committee level the members of the committee will consider same. The problem is not going to disappear, although the operators of different airlines suggest that with the advent of quieter aircraft the problem will eventually diminish and go away. That has not yet happened and the task force heard that the fleets of Air Canada and Canadian International Airlines have a small percentage of quieter generation aircraft.
My time is limited. At the committee level the Liberal members of the committee will certainly bring to the attention of the committee the section in the task force report dealing with noise abatement and hours of operation at Pearson International Airport. The problems are well known. The report is extensive; the recommendations are good and I believe the committee can make excellent use of the summary of all the evidence that we heard two years ago. That evidence is still relevant today. That evidence includes the tremendous increase in the number of complaints at Pearson International Airport over the last five years.
We were told at the task force that in the period 1985-88 the number of annual complaints rose from 500 to over 3,500, an increase of over 700 per cent. At the same time, the number of aircraft movements increased from just over 250,000 to just under 350,000, an increase of approximately 30 per cent.
The problem of noise at Pearson International Airport is significant. A community group called the Citizens Against Airport Noise appeared before the committee and I would suggest that perhaps the standing committee that considers this bill would consider inviting this citizen group and others before the committee.
Different citizen groups and community groups have called upon the government to undertake an effective noise abatement program. There is still a lot that can be done. Some has been done over the last number of years but we believe there is still a lot that can be done in order to give some peace of mind and tranquillity to all
May 28, 1991

those who have invested in homes around Pearson International Airport. Believe me when I say it is not pleasant, especially in the summer, for people in a lot of communities around Pearson to have to listen to the aircraft landing and taking off. Some people suggest that the homeowners there purchased their homes knowing that the airport was there but the problems have increased over the last five or ten years because of the increase in air traffic at Pearson.
We recommended in this report, in order to deal with these concerns strict curfew hours, the installation of noise monitoring equipment at the airport, the erection of noise barriers, restrictions on noisy models of aircraft and the imposition of severe fines for violators of noise regulations. This bill does deal with the last point, and that is an increase in fines.
The task force listened to a company called Consult-Air, which advanced a number of noise abatement proposals. We believe some of the proposals had a lot of merit. One of the proposals was the establishment of an ombudsman to investigate and make public recommendations on noise and other complaints related to airport operations.
As I indicated earlier, the aviation industry is taking the position that the new generation of stage three aircraft such as the A-300, A-310 and A-320 series as well as the Boeing 757 and 767 represents the eventual solution to the noise problem.
"There is little doubt that from the standpoint of noise generation, fuel efficiency and environmental protection,"-I am reading from the report-"these new generation aircraft are vastly superior to older, noisier aircraft such as the DC-9, Boeing 727 and 737, the Lockheed L-1011 and the older models of Boeing 747."
While the air carriers are touting the merits of the new generation of stage three aircraft, if we look at the fleet of Air Canada and Canadian, for example, we see that the stage three aircraft are rather limited in those fleets.
In the Air Canada fleet there were 116 aircraft in 1989. There were six McDonnell Douglas DC-873s, the cargo plane, 36 McDonnell Douglas DC-9s, six Boeing 747s, 14 Lockheed 1011s, 33 Boeing 727s and 21 Boeing 767s.
Government Orders
The only aircraft that can be characterized as the quieter generation of stage three models are the 21 Boeing 767s and the six re-engined DC-873s. That is a total of 27 aircraft, 23 per cent of the entire Air Canada fleet.
While it is a significant percentage, it is not enough to lead one to conclude that these quieter generation aircraft are the answer today. It will take a significant number of years before the stage three aircraft constitute a significant majority of the fleet of both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines.
I note that my time is almost up. There are a number of other provisions in this bill that we consider to have merit. One of the provisions in section 4 is to extend the workings of the act to passengers on board aircraft that are not over Canadian air space. That would enable the prosecution of passengers who refuse to buckle up while a Canadian aircraft is landing in a different country.
At present, the bill does not apply to them. Passengers could not be prosecuted even though those passengers could pose a significant safety problem to other passengers when they do not buckle up or follow the provisions of Bill C-5.
In closing, let me say again that the Liberal Party supports Bill C-5. We will make every effort to expedite the considerations of this bill at committee. We hope to participate in a very complete way in trying to make this bill a better bill at committee.


Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address certain issues with respect to Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.
Let me say at the outset that we, on this side of the House, agree in principle with the legislation. There are certain sections that require clarification or improvement.
I would like to bring these issues before this House and certainly before it reaches committee at third reading.
First and foremost among our concerns is the fact that the Minister of Transport is given extra added powers to make interim orders to implement safety recommenda-

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
tions of bodies such as the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board.
I want to ensure that this legislation will also allow the minister to implement air safety recommendations from other institutions and from other committees.
I speak primarily of an ongoing inquiry: Mr. Justice Virgil Moshansky's investigation into the air tragedy at Dryden, Ontario. We understand at this stage that Mr. Justice Moshansky has completed his hearings into this matter and is in the process now of forming his final recommendations.
The report is in its final stage and should be released some time in June.
We are further aware from the information that we have been able to gather that Mr. Justice Moshansky's inquiry went to further in depth studies, not only in the events that led up to the Dryden crash, but in the ability and the competence of those entrusted with the responsibility in Canada of investigating not only airline disasters but airline incidents.
We are also led to believe that problems with the air-side operation at Pearson International Airport will be addressed in his lordship's report.
I compliment the former ministers of transport who were in office during the Moshansky inquiry for implementing the interim recommendations made by the justice, especially the recommendation that affects so many of us in Canada with respect to airline procedure on de-icing.
I want to ensure, and I will pursue in committee, that the recommendations that will be forthcoming and that have been so long awaited from the Moshansky inquiry will receive priority of the highest order and that the legislation that we are in the process of implementing through committee and through final reading will be implemented at the earliest possible time for the betterment of the travelling public in Canada and for international countries that use a Canadian airline service.
The other area that I hope this legislation will implement and allow us to have more of a rapid input into safety measures which affect Canadian air travellers is with respect to safety and security. In light of the events that have happened in the last few days with respect to
an international airline, I am told that the X-ray procedure on baggage for all Canadian airlines does not follow the X-ray procedure requiring all baggage to be X-rayed before it gets on an aircraft.
We are told that only the baggage that is carried on by the individual through the security gates at all airports in Canada is subject to X-ray investigation.
I would like to urge today and with this opportunity to speak before the House and in regard to recent events that all baggage which goes on to any airline in Canada not only follow the present procedure that it must be on the same airline as its owner, but that it be X-rayed for suspicious materials. I would like to see that recommendation implemented at the earliest possible time.
My colleague from Toronto spoke at some length on environmental concerns and noise abatement, and quite capably gave the concerns of those areas around Pearson Airport which will be influenced by the increased traffic that we presently experience in the hub of Canada which is Pearson International Airport.
In this bill we will question the environmental concern which will be expressed through the assessment which is presently going on of the contemplated addition of the two extra runways to handle the expanded traffic Pearson is not only receiving now but is expected to receive in the next several years as it becomes the hub of Canadian air travel in Canada.
Needless to say, we should not avoid what the report of the environmental assessment hearing will recommend to us involved in transportation and to the government with respect to the two additional runways which may be added.
I am advised that even with the environmental assessment review with respect to the two runways, an Order in Council can do away with the environmental assessment hearing and its recommendations. The process of adding the two additional runways at Pearson International Airport is a fait accompli, and regardless of what the environmental assessment review will show, the two runways are now in the planning stage at Pearson International Airport.
I caution this government that the noise abatement and noise procedures should be enhanced and given proper consideration at this stage before those two runways are completed.


May 28, 1991

My colleague has also addressed the noise abatement issue. This legislation draws to our attention another very important deficiency, not only in air transportation in Canada, but in all transportation needs.
What we see in this House day after day is a lack of a comprehensive national transportation policy which not only will guide Canada and its transportation needs in the next two or three or five years, but will bring Canada into the 21st century to be more competitive on the international scene, as we are all trying to do, and to provide a facility within Canada for the ease and convenience of Canadian travellers.
We see, rather than a national transportation policy, an erosion of surface transportation in this country which is really cause for concern. We noticed last week right here on the Hill a lack of transportation policy which for every trucking company in this country, every truck driver and every independent owner is cause for serious concern about the future viability of his and his family's livelihood with respect to certain taxation measures that prevent them from operating in a competitive way with his American counterparts.
We see almost a complete erosion of another surface transportation need; the passenger rail service within this country. I know that in my riding of Thunder Bay, and as I travel across this country and talk to people in many communities across this country, that the erosion of passenger rail service has been one of the key factors in the unity debate which we presently find ourselves in. The national transportation passenger system which brought us all together is now being disintegrated, and that has caused this country great concern. A national transportation policy would be one of those areas in which we could address the need for a national transportation system within this country.
We talk about environmental concerns. We do not use the natural waterways, the Great Lakes system and the Great Lakes seaway to their advantage. If we do not start using the seaway for the transportation, not only of goods, but of persons in the near future, it may well be on its last leg as a viable transportation entity within our country and we would not want to see that happen.
Our highway situation across this country is in a state which requires federal intervention. I was talking to one
Government Orders
of our colleagues from the United States this weekend at the United States Inter-Parliamentary Session and any interstate highway system is funded 90 per cent by the federal government. In Canada this national transportation policy is left deficient.
With the lack of a national transportation policy, we see that this act before us today, Bill C-5, is another piecemeal solution to the problems that confront Canada and all Canadians with respect to deficiencies and transportation requirements we so sorely need within this country.
As I said at the outset, we will support this legislation, but we on this side of the House will continue to research, promote and put forward a national transportation policy which will meet the needs of Canadians in this generation and will bring Canada into the 21st century with the transportation requirements that are so sorely needed but deficient from the lack of leadership we are seeing today.
I appreciate the opportunity to make those remarks.


Ms. Joy Langan (Mission-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the spirit of Bill C-5, the Aeronautics Amendment Act. What I think is important is that there are some very good amendments coming forward in it. However, some of the amendments fall a little short of what is needed for those people who work for the airlines.
Some of the hon. members who have spoken before me have spoken quite extensively about the important amendments that are coming for those who live and work in the vicinity of an airport. Some hon. members have risen and spoken about those who are the travelling public.
I would like to address my remarks to what would be helpful in this bill-if there were additional amendments-for those who work for the airlines.
To illustrate my concern I would like to give some examples. My first example is a woman who the hon. member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan referred to earlier when he spoke. This woman, who works for Canadian Airlines, was scheduled to board her flight from Pearson International to Lima, Peru in early April. She refused to board, citing section 128 of the Canada Labour Code,

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
which allows an employee the right to refuse work when they believe it reasonably constitutes a danger.
Here are the reasons this woman refused to board that aircraft. Lima is the capital of Peru. It not only currently suffers from a cholera epidemic, but it continues to be the scene of continual rebel and terrorist violence. Only five days before this woman refused to fly to Peru, on April 1, 1991, a Canadian Airlines flight attendant was abducted 300 yards from his hotel by four men who identified themselves as police. He was taken in a car, roughed up and robbed.
Canadian Airlines flight attendants currently have layovers or rest periods for as long as 30 hours in Lima. They are taken from the airport to their hotel in a battered bus manned by an armed security guard and dropped off. However, the pilots, who have agreed to extend their duty day beyond their contract maximum, do not lay over in Lima, but are flown to Mexico at the end of their flight day.
The day after this woman exercised her right to refuse unsafe work, terrorist bombing incidents occurred at more than 30 buildings in Lima, Peru including, I might add, the Canadian embassy and five other foreign missions.
In its March 1991 travel advisory for Peru, the Department of External Affairs warns that both street crime and terrorism are serious problems in several cities and regions. Since the conflict in the Persian Gulf, there has been a marked increase in the attacks made against foreign diplomatic missions, restaurants, cultural centres, businesses and public areas in Lima. The notice also urges visitors to consume only food prepared under hygienic conditions, carefully cleaned fruits and vegetables, peeled and preferably cooked, bottled water or water purified by boiling it for 10 minutes if possible.
Canadian Airlines own guidelines for the cholera epidemic include no fish, no salads, no showers, and no water that is not gasified and sealed.
Within hours of this woman's refusal to board that airline, two Department of Labour safety standard officers investigated her claim on site at Pearson airport. A verbal rejection of the claim was given, with a written decision to follow, on the grounds that there is no danger or risk from cholera and that the foreign nature of the job site and the security threat put her beyond the jurisdiction of the labour code.
Yet, there is clear and present danger. I have illustrated in my remarks the clear and present danger that led this flight attendant to refuse to fly to Lima, Peru. Forcing workers to go to Lima is not in the spirit of how we all believe our workers in Canada should be treated.
To provide for this worker the airlines could provide layover flights to Mexico, but they have said they will only do so if the attendants extend their duty days even longer than 14 hours. That would be simply replacing one safety hazard with another. Overtired, overworked flight attendants are not safe.
It would be very useful in this legislation to have an amendment that would restrict the duty days of flight attendants to reasonable and humane hours. In addition, we would expect that either the Minister of Labour or the Minister of Transport, or both, would work to resolve how a worker is to be treated when he or she leaves the country.
One of the other areas that I would like to address regarding this legislation, and another where I would suggest an amendment would be useful, is the whole question of security at airports. I rose in the House last Thursday and made a statement regarding one security firm at Pearson airport which is undercutting another security firm to secure a contract with the airport for its airport security. This is not, I might add, isolated to Pearson. In fact, this is happening at a number of airports across the country. We have recently seen the outcome of such a situation with the dispute that went on at the Edmonton airport.
The particular situation that I am speaking about concerns Terminal 1, where the security firm Aeroguard is demanding a wage cut of $2 an hour from its employees as well as elimination of the group insurance plan. The company is threatening the 100 passenger screening agents with layoffs if they refuse these cuts so it can get a renewal of the contract, so it can win the bid.
This kind of tactic invites raiding, it invites instability in that work group and it does not even provide reasonable job security. There is certainly no reason to develop any job pride. Without pride, without continuity of service, the ability to do a good job as a screening agent is hurt. I think we would all agree, certainly the members in this House who fly thousands and thousands of kilometres a year would agree, that it is very important that these people are very skilled and very committed to the work they do and should be encouraged to develop pride in
May 28, 1991

their work. This is another area where we feel an amendment to this amendment would be useful.
I was hoping today to rise in the House during Question Period, and I did not get the opportunity to do so. However, I certainly will raise the issue now concerning the whole question of who is in charge of enforcing regulations relating to health and safety matters on aircraft. Labour Canada appears to establish the regulations. However, in the case I am going to discuss Transport Canada is charged with enforcement.
The question I was going to raise concerned how on earth Transport Canada could override an existing law under the Canada Labour Code by permitting NationAir to amend its flight safety manual to allow smoking on a non-smoking flight while that flight is delayed on the ground.
Why is Transport Canada circumventing that law? Why is it permitting one carrier this special treatment over the expressed concerns of flight crews about their health and safety?
We have even moved that in this precinct which encompasses the House of Commons, and those of us who smoke have honoured it, the people around us should not have to be recipients of our side-stream smoke, that we should not have staff who are required to work in the same workplace with smokers, that smokers should not be allowed to smoke in the workplace. Yet Transport Canada has allowed this airline, NationAir, to permit smoking if the flight is delayed. Not only are we suggesting that airline flight attendants are subjected to inhaling this smoke. Certainly passengers who do not smoke are being exposed to it. In addition, one small factor in a recent incident with NationAir was that the alarms were all set off in the washrooms by the huge cloud of smoke in place on the aircraft because of the delay.
It would seem to me that this is another area the government might want to think about, including an amendment to this act that would be helpful.
There are four areas where I would suggest we have amendments. In conclusion I would like to point them
Government Orders
out: first, an amendment that also protects workers on international flights and their right to refuse what they believe is unsafe work; second, an amendment that would limit the hours of work of crew members of an aircraft that is operated by air carriers, and of the crew members of an aircraft that is in fact carrying passengers; third, an amendment bringing security staff at airports under the employment of Transport Canada; and, fourth, an amendment that will not allow Transport Canada to overrule labour, health and safety regulations.
We look forward to this bill going before committee and we are sure that after our persuasive argument the Minister of Transport will agree with us that those kinds of amendments are also very important.


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The minister of National Health and Welfare, on a point of order.


REINSTATEMENT OF BILLS
Benoît Bouchard: In accordance with Standing Order 57, Mr. Speaker, I give notice that at the next sitting of the House, immediately before the Order is called for resuming debate on government motion No. 1 to reinstate certain bills introduced in the Second Session of the 34th Parliament and on any amendments relating thereto, I shall move that the debate shall not be further adjourned.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: 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 Dartmouth- Goods and Services Thx; the hon. member for Winnipeg Transcona-Canadian Pacific; the hon. member for Saint-Leonard-The economy; the hon. member for Carleton-Charlotte-Canada Post Corporation; the hon. member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso- Canada Post Corporation.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Cape Breton-The Sydneys):: Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the hon. minister has given notice of limitation on Motion No. 1.
On behalf of my party I take great exception to the minister's notification, and I want to advise the minister that his motion certainly comes at a very inappropriate time with His Honour, Mr. Speaker, considering the ruling that was placed before him this morning.
I would like to advise the minister that we will be debating this motion, and we feel that the government is certainly not correct in moving this notice at this particular time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I wish to point out to the hon. members of this House that the minister is complying with the Standing Orders in giving notice of this motion, although the Chair has taken under advisement the issue of whether Motion No. 1 on the Order Paper is in order.
The Chair takes note of the motion of closure that the Hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare has just tabled.


AERONAUTICS ACT
Mr. Howard Crosby (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure my colleague from Nova Scotia will bear with me. I merely want to make a few brief remarks on Bill C-5 which amends the Aeronautics Act.
As members are well aware, many of the provisions of Bill C-5 relate to the security measures that are taken in airports across Canada for the travelling public. The bill is also concerned with the safety of passengers. It is just to those two points that I would like to direct a few brief remarks.
I believe that the regulations and procedures that are most acceptable to the public are those that appear to be reasonable and rational and solve the problem of security in the processing of airline passengers. However,
while I am no expert on aeronautics, I am an expert on airline passenger services, having travelled for over 10 years back and forth to my constituency in Halifax West and various other places.
I would like to make a few remarks in the hope that officials will read the record and pay some attention. While I endorse wholeheartedly security measures at airports across Canada, I am not always satisfied that the rules are effectively and properly administered.
Let me just give one rather easy example between airports. As you approach the Ottawa International Airport security area, you simply take your choice of two or three avenues in which to have the required inspection carried out. On the other hand, in the Montreal airport, that is Dorval, you are channelled through one gateway on to the security at which your boarding pass and other credentials are inspected. At Halifax International Airport, you are channelled through one gateway but no pre-inspection is carried out.
Just very simply observing those three airports, there is no question that the most effective inspection method is to channel all passengers through one entry, inspect their boarding passes and any other credentials they are required to have, and then go on to the inspection.
Time and time again I am sure other members have experienced at the Ottawa International Airport where you are simply allowed your choice of inspection stations. There is always confusion about boarding passes. People are held up. In many cases they are asked to check metal objects and so on.
Why could the authorities not simply have a system employed at all airports whereby there is pre-inspection of credentials where passengers are told that they should remove metal objects from their pockets or purses and put them in a container and other information about the inspection process?
This pre-inspection would also allow those poor people whom I encounter sometimes-and I must confess that on occasion I have been one of them-who are late arriving, possibly and hopefully through no fault of then-own, and are unable or unwilling to jump ahead of the line and therefore may risk missing their flight.
I think all of us can have mercy on people in that position and through some pre-inspection process allow them to proceed on a priority basis. There ought to be enough humanity among my colleagues to endorse that
May 28, 1991

kind of process, especially for people who are not accustomed to airline security and air transportation.
In pursuing the authority that we in Parliament are giving to the minister and to the government to enact regulations, my plea is simply to have sensible regulations applicable on a uniform basis at airports throughout Canada, regulations that people will understand, appreciate, respect and therefore observe so that in the end we will have a more effective administration with which to achieve the purpose of the safety and security of airline passengers.
I have another point because the bill deals with the safety of aircraft passengers. It is a matter that is also subject to federal regulation, that is the carriage and storage of goods and baggage on board an aircraft.
How many times have you got on an aircraft with a bag which is within the regulations and found as you take your seat that the overhead compartment, which is the proper place to store the bag, was occupied? It could be pillows, equipment, flight attendants' baggage and so on. Consequently you move as a passenger to the next storage area, which means that the passenger arriving after you finds your bag in his or her storage area.
Surely this is a matter that can be regulated in some sensible way so we do not get this ludicrous loading of an aircraft where everybody is searching for a place to put their hand baggage, and then when the journey is completed there is a great mix-up as passengers try to retrieve their baggage.
I do not know exactly how the storage of baggage relates to safety, but the regulation is designed to ensure safe conditions aboard the aircraft. That is why we have the regulations in the first place. Having told airline employees and officials that baggage has to be stowed away, the govemment.must come up with some sensible rules or a system whereby baggage is properly stowed away so that it will not create havoc in boarding and debarking from aircraft.
I know there are no provisions in Bill C-5 specifically relating to security measures at airports or to safety on board aircraft. The fact of the matter is that we in
Government Orders
Parliament are giving that authority first to officials to draw the regulations, second to the minister to put them forward, third to the government to enact these regulations as law. My plea is simply that when this power is being exercised some common sense principles should be observed. This common sense element will ensure effectiveness of the regulations.
In justification for making this intervention, because I know my colleague from Cape Breton will be annoyed that I held up what I am sure will be an impressive delivery in the House of Commons, Bill C-5 makes it very clear that people who contravene the regulations may suffer all sorts of severe punishment pursuant to this regulatory authority. Whether they contravene them in Canada or abroad it does not matter because the bill provides that a contravention that occurs outside Canada can be punished within Canada.
The act is very clear on the obligations of Canadians and others as passengers on Canadian aircraft. I want the authorities to be equally clear about the methods, the systems, the processes and the procedures that they put into operation through the regulations which we in Parliament are empowering them to make.


Joseph R. (Joe) Comuzzi: Mr. Speaker, I was not going to intervene, but there are two issues that my colleague from Halifax West raised which I think deserve comment with respect to his government's position.
The first is the uniform safety and security precautions that he was asking for that would be consistently applied throughout the country. That is an area that we on this side of the House have been asking the Minister of Transport and his government to implement. That is simply a uniform security measure applicable throughout Canada, from anyone catching an airplane in Victoria, British Columbia right through to St. John's, Newfoundland. They should be as equally applicable in St. John's and Victoria as they are in Ottawa.
We all know, as our friend has just stated, that procedures are not the same in all airports. One issue that the ministry of transport should address is the security precautions within this country, particularly at this time, with a uniform application of security measures not only on luggage which is checked through

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
before boarding but luggage that is taken on the aircraft. This was the second point of his argument.
The reason for my question is that we have had several recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Association, what used to be the National Transportation Agency, to the minister with respect to carry-on luggage on aircraft in Canada.
In 1988 they made a recommendation with respect to what luggage a passenger is allowed to take on an aircraft. This was fine when Air Canada and Canadian Airlines offered fairly good and fairly large planes throughout the country. However, the airlines have down-sized and now just operate between the major cities and have connector flights between all the small and remote communities in this country. Those smaller flights are with smaller aircraft. Yet, we have not changed the rules concerning carry-on luggage on these aeroplanes.
What might have been acceptable on a DC-9 or a 727 is no longer acceptable on a small Dash-8 or a 25 or 30 passenger aircraft. We have not addressed that critical safety issue in the regulations that should be imposed on the travelling public in this country.
The Ministry of Transport is responsible for not making and not implementing the recommendations made consistently to their ministry, not only by the National Transportation Agency but the Canadian Aviation Safety Board.
I would ask my friend from Halifax West to comment on why his government has not implemented those recommendations from the responsible agencies within this country.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, I do not see any need for me to respond for the government. Unfortunately, I am not a member of the cabinet and am not privy to these decisions. However, I can say that airport security is an evolving process. I hope that in this bill we can contribute to the evolution of that process. Now, as a result of remarks that have been made, officials will have an opportunity to review those remarks and perhaps the government can make some of those changes.
Rome was not built in the first day. It took time to evolve and airline regulations take time to evolve. I do
not see any real difficulty there. We can always look and hope for improvements. Recommendations from other organizations are always welcome if they are improvements.
I hope the member will realize and recognize that I am simply making a contribution, an intervention that I think could be helpful if it is looked at and reviewed in a positive light. I hope that will be the decision of the officials and the government.
I have to endorse what he says about cabin baggage. People will go to the limit of the rules. They will take aboard an aircraft whatever baggage they are allowed to take, because it simply aids their travelling capacity as they will not have to wait for luggage at the end. At the same time, they will observe whatever rules are put in place.
I agree with the member that there is a burden on the government to have, as I have already said, effective and sensible rules governing these areas so we all know what the rules are and we can all observe them with some relish.


REINSTATEMENT OF BILLS-SPEAKER'S RULING
Mr. Speaker:: As hon. members are aware, we have had a series of comments concerning a problem in the House. Unfortunately, it was impossible to produce a judgment with all the requisite reasons, but I acknowledge the urgent nature of the issue raised by hon. members and the need for handing down a judgment this afternoon.
Consequently, I am now ready to render my decision. [English]
A point of order was raised this morning relating to government business No. 1, which concerns the reinstatement of certain bills from the Second Session.
After hearing representations from several hon. members, I took the matter under advisement and have been deliberating on the points raised, intending to render my decision tomorrow.

However, I have now received representations, as I have just said, on behalf of the three House leaders requesting that the Chair render its decision this afternoon.
Accordingly, to accommodate this request, I will now render my decision. I will return later to explain the rationale behind it. I should say-and I think hon. members can understand this-that I am trying to accommodate certain necessities and I would hope that it would not become the practice to give a judgment and file the reasons later.
The Chair, of course, knows full well the effects of prorogation on the business then before the House. The Chair must also acknowledge, however, that the notion of reinstatement of business in the subsequent session is well established in our practice.
While this has hitherto been done by unanimous consent, the Chair can find no compelling reason to preclude proceeding by way of notice of motion, nor am I persuaded to reject the motion outright.
The theme of the motion is the reinstatement of certain bills. While the six bills are all distinct, the purpose of the motion is clearly to reinstate the bills at various stages. Therefore, the Chair has decided not to divide the motion for the purpose of debate.
That being said, however, the Chair does have some difficulty in accepting the argument that a member in casting a single vote, can adequately express his or her opinion on six distinct pieces of legislation.
Therefore, government Motion No. 1 will be dealt with in the following manner. There will be a single debate and five separate questions will be put, namely on the reinstatement of Bill C-26, Bill C-58, Bill C-78, Bill C-82 and Bill C-85. No question will be put on Bill C-73 as this matter has already been disposed of by the House. The enabling final paragraph of the motion will, as appropriate, form part of each question put.


AERONAUTICS ACT
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Corbeil that Bill C-5, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act and to amend an act to amend the Aeronautics
Government Orders
Act, be read the second time and referred to a legislative committee.
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands- Canso):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words on this legislation, an act to amend the Aeronautics Act.
It will be very difficult to live up to the advance billing that has been provided for me by my colleague from Halifax West.
As my colleagues who have spoken earlier this afternoon have already mentioned, the Liberal opposition basically supports the legislation that is before us. Its main substantive provisions concern increasing fines for airline offences relating to the contravention of the airport noise restrictions and expand the power of the Minister of Transport to deal with airports' emergencies under certain circumstances.
The Liberal Party certainly supports the thrust of this legislation, which is to reduce noise pollution at our major airports and to increase airport safety. In fact, members on this side of the House, particularly those representing constituencies in and around Toronto, have called upon the government to take action to deal with the problem of airport noise arising from over-flights and the take off and landing of large jets at the Pearson International Airport.
I am informed that a task force study by the Liberal opposition called "The Report on the Pearson International Airport" cited some rather shocking statistics concerning the number of flights landing around the residences near Pearson International Airport. For example, 747 jets land and take off, waking up residents who live near the airport, at 3 a.m., 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. There are some 300,000 people are living in that area.
Certainly the problem of noise pollution and frequent flights over Pearson International Airport is a serious problem. It is good to see that the members of the opposition have been vigorously representing the concerns of their constituents faced with those difficulties.
In fact, what surprises me about the debate on this particular piece of legislation, in light of the motion introduced earlier by the government, is the fact that Bill C-5, which we support, was not included among the pieces of legislation that the government chose to include in its motion for reinstatement of outstanding legislation from the previous session.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
It does not bode well in terms of increasing the degree of collegiality and credibility among members who work diligently in committees to try to improve legislation for the government to reintroduce flawed pieces of legislation which we on this side of the House have opposed and against which we have presented arguments from many people who have consistently demonstrated flaws in the legislation. It does not bode well for the government to reintroduce those pieces of legislation without cleaning them up, without improving them, as this government proposes to do with this motion, and not reintroduce legislation which the opposition members have already agreed to support.
Bill C-5, which was introduced in the previous session as Bill C-76 in June 1990, was not proceeded with any further after that. This is a piece of legislation which, as I have just mentioned, concerns a large number of people living in and around Pearson International Airport and concerns the safety of passengers travelling at airports across this country.
With the government proceeding pell-mell with legislation over the opposition of many interest groups, while at the same time stalling on other worth-while pieces of legislation, it is not hard to see why Parliament is looked upon with such scepticism by so many Canadians.
That is the first point I would like to make in general about this piece of legislation.
Now, hon. members may wonder why a member from a rural riding like Cape Breton Highlands-Canso would choose to speak on the subject of airport noise, airport congestion and the safety at our major airports. Certainly noise pollution from jets landing and taking off is not one of the most pressing concerns facing the constituents in my riding.
It certainly does not compare with the problem of the lack of job opportunities which we face. The airports that we have, and we have some which could accommodate additional aircraft-in fact, we have an airport which could quite well accommodate a regular airline service which would improve the ability of the area including my constituency to attract job opportunities-have not been able to convince this government to provide the necessary support for that kind of regular airline service.
I certainly hope that this government will see fit, since it is beginning with this bill to address certain transportation issues, to address that particular issue.
Unfortunately, and this is one of the real ironies which I want to draw to the attention of the House concerning this piece of legislation and the context in which it is being introduced, at the same time as the government drags its feet in dealing with the noise pollution facing our overcrowded airports, such as Pearson in Toronto, it is simultaneously placing additional costs and additional discouragement on the use of other less congested, less crowded airlines across the country, particularly in regions such as Atlantic Canada.
I am speaking in particular of moves by the Minister of Transport to dramatically increase airport landing fees. These are a considerable disincentive to some of the regional carriers to use the airports in Halifax and in other places in Atlantic Canada. These fees are an additional discouragement to development in Atlantic Canada.
This is occurring at the same time as the government is dragging its feet in dealing with what is a really serious safety and noise pollution problem at Pearson International Airport. Why the government would not work toward diverting some of the traffic away from overcrowded Pearson into other parts of the country, why it would not encourage aircraft to land in less congested parts of the country and at the same time spur development in those areas is beyond me.
Certainly, I hope that while the government considers this piece of legislation it will see that we have to improve airline services. We have to provide better service in some of the outlying regions of Canada. Airline transportation is definitely the most used mode of transportation, and is becoming more and more relevant for an increasing number of Canadians, even those who live in the rural areas, especially those who live in the rural areas.
I hope that the Minister of Transport will begin to stop discouraging airline transportation and airlines from operating in our regions and that this can be done at the same time as he is increasing the safety of airlines in places like Pearson.

*
May 28, 1991

In conclusion, I support, as do my colleagues on this side of the House, the thrust of this legislation. Naturally we will want to have it studied carefully in committee to see where it can be improved. I note that it is housekeeping legislation from 1985 which obviously was not completely fool-proof. I hope that we can tidy it up in committee. At the same time I want to make the point, and it is a general point since this is the principle surrounding this bill, that the government should act to make it easier for regional carriers to operate in Atlantic Canada and to encourage the airline transportation infrastructure we so badly need in that part of the country.


Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina-Lumsden):: Mr. Speaker, I am anxious to take part in debate on this bill. Here we have the largest or second largest department in the whole government and neither the Minister of Transport nor the Minister of State for Transport are in the House. It seems to me that it should be a requirement in any self-respecting government or cabinet that when a minister has a bill before the House, he damned well should be here for the whole debate. If he is not available, tough cookies. We will inform him about that kind of responsibility he has if and when we get to see him in front of a committee.
I want to mention something about an item in Bill C-5. It concerns security. I do not know where this new minister and the new minister of state have been and how much homework they have done, but it is understandable. I have been through 13 or 14 Ministers of Transport since I came here. My hon. friend from Halifax talks about how many flights he makes. Well I have done over 900 in 25 years. I think I know a little bit about it.
Three generations of my family have been in transportation. I am sure as heck no expert, but I want to remind the House and remind both ministers, if we can find them, that the transport committee went to Europe three or four years ago and we submitted some unanimous, all-party recommendations. We looked into ports, railroads and airports. We spent over three weeks on it. When it comes to airports, we went to Heathrow in London, Schiphol in Amsterdam, the airport in Frankfurt and Orly-Charles de Gaulle in Paris.
The one thing we found in those four locations, and you would have to admit that they are all at least as big as Pearson International and it did not matter what kind of government they had, is that they were not going to leave airport security up to private enterprise. They were not going to leave the safety and security of the travel-
Govemment Orders
ling public and the airline employees up to whom could get by the cheapest. In every instance the security operations were run by the equivalent of our Department of Transport.
The transport committee made a unanimous recommendation, all parties, that airport security should be operated and run by the Department and Ministry of Transport.
Now that was not easy to come by. We all met sort of half way and we learned from what we found out in those places. So the conclusion remains, as the committee found, that it cannot be left to the airlines to contract for and implement security because they will get by as cheap as possible to cut down costs. Thanks to deregulation they are going to cut comers. They always have and they always will. When you see the spectacle of 60 per cent, 70 per cent or 80 per cent turnover in personnel and security staffs of various and sundry security companies that operate in this country at various airports, it makes you wonder how well trained they are, how good they are at their job, what they get for pay and fringe benefits and what they get for on and off hours because it is a very demanding and boring job.
They get the minimum. My friend had better not say that to me because he ain't been there.
If you put this under the Ministry of Transport, it is responsible for staff, staff training, pay and benefits, a less rapid turnover in personnel. It is deplorable what has been going on at airport after airport across this country. You cannot call that the maximum or best kind of security.
The ministry can bill the various airlines at any given airport on a pro rata basis for the costs for that security, and the costs will likely be higher than they presently are. I have yet to hear any taxpayer or voter complain about paying an extra few dollars on his plane ticket to be assured of the best possible security. Anyone who would suggest otherwise does not know what he is talking about.
I would like to move to another item-airport expansion. There is a fundamental principle about airports. The government, under three or four different ministers of transport, did exactly the opposite of what you should do in transportation economics, airline economics. The stupid mistake was that it went and expanded terminal capacity before it expanded runway capacity. It did it backwards; it had Terminal 3 built by the private sector.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
The runway capacity would not handle the traffic from the two terminals already in existence.
I do not know what dummy persuaded the minister of the day to accept that. You cannot do it that way if you are going to have any kind of chance for success. On the second day of the operation at Terminal 3 I flew from Regina to Ottawa on Canadian Airlines International. I landed in Toronto and taxied up to Terminal 3, a very nice building. They welcomed me into the Canadian-plus lounge and then we boarded the plane, taxied out on the tarmac and sat there for 15 minutes waiting for a takeoff slot. Then we got the takeoff slot and went down to where the planes line up to take off. We were plane number 14 to take off and it was 10.30 at night. You could not call it a rush hour. Here was Canadian International Airlines, the new civilized way to travel. Well, nothing had changed, not a damned thing. What is the difference whether you got on at Terminal 1 or Terminal 2 if you still had to sit for 30 or 40 or 50 minutes before you could even take off?
It proves to me, and I hope to you, Sir, that the government did it backwards.
Now let us get to runway expansion, airport expansion. I heard the hon. member for Etobicoke North mention Pickering. My God, did he not learn anything from Mirabel? Is the Official Opposition proposing to go that route again?


An hon. member:: Do you not want Pickering?


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: He proposed it. If you had listened to him-I listened to him carefully. He was worrying about not using up all the land the government still has at Pickering. Maybe he should start up a chicken farm or something. I do not know.
I want to say that when it comes to airports I have gone through this myself. I bought a house in Regina at Lakeview in 1973, which was right at the end of the east-west runway of Regina airport. The Regina airport was in place 20 years before that house was built. I bought it and knew full well. When the wind was the wrong way the aeroplanes went right through the bedroom, especially a cargo flight for Canada Post at 3 or 4 in the morning. The Armed Forces did their touch and
go landings at three, four and five o'clock in the morning out of Moose Jaw Air Force Base. We put a stop to that nonsense.
What do we find at Heathrow? It put in two more runways. It paid for peoples' homes to have double and triple glazed windows, insulated. It put up massive concrete barriers to deflect noise upwards and it put in half a mile deep row of trees all the way around that airport.
What do we do in Canada? We let developers build houses, warehouses and whatnot right beside the bloody runway when we should be safeguarding the area required for an airport in today's age and with the kind of aircraft we have.
It was done backward at Pearson. It can still be corrected. Two more runways must be built immediately. It would be cheaper to buy those peoples' homes and give them a fair market value than it would be to move the whole operation to another airport like Pickering.
If you have not learned anything from Mirabel, you will never learn anything else.
I want to say something else to my hon. friend from Hamilton. I have listened to him for a couple of years about using the Hamilton airport. He still has to find somebody who will use it.
I believe the ministry of transport could order cargo flights and Canada Post mail flights to use places like Hamilton and Buttonville at two, three or four o'clock in the morning, and they would not have to use Pearson. That is not more than 10 or 15 per cent of the total traffic at Pearson International. The difference it would make does not amount to anything.
I am sorry to say to my hon. friend that if Hamilton or Buttonville or Oshawa has visions of grandeur, of becoming some kind of big international airport, he is dreaming in Technicolor. It is not going to happen. You find me an airline that will be prepared to change its national and international schedules to land and take off from Hamilton, Buttonville or Oshawa, bypass Toronto completely, and I will buy you a cigar. It is not going to happen. There is not a single national or international airline prepared to do that.
May 28, 1991

The ministry and the government could order them to do it. They are not going to do it. When you consider that it is bad enough getting from Pearson to downtown Toronto, can you imagine from Hamilton? Holy mackerel, you have champagne ideas with a beer market. That is your problem.
Do not peddle this Chamber of Commerce hype about air transportation and airports to me. It will not wash.
I do not see how, unless the government moves into the whole area of airport security, takes over complete control and operation of it and bills the airlines on a pro rata basis. Unless it does that, we are going to continue to have the spectacle of the lowest bidder with Air Canada, which by the way represents 18 other airlines at Pearson. It does the negotiating on behalf of all the other airlines, and my hon. friends are not aware of it. But Air Canada as the biggest operator does the negotiating. It gets the cheapest bid. Then we have the spectacle of an even larger turnover in security staff and a demand by the employer for those people to take $2 an hour less pay. At present they are probably getting an average of $8.
If people try to live on $8 an hour these days, if they have a mortgage, a wife and two kids, forget it. The government cannot leave things like airport security, the safety of human beings, to private enterprise. It is going to get by on the cheap. It is going to cut comers. The government cannot allow that. It cannot play fast and loose with the safety and security of travellers and the employees of those airlines. It has to put an end to it.
That is why I started off by saying that it was the unanimous recommendation of the transport committee some three years ago, which has been totally ignored. I do not even know if anyone in the department read it, but we were very proud of it. We worked hard for those three weeks in Europe looking into all the matters that we were given the authority to look into. We learned some things. There is nothing wrong in seeing what others do and then applying the elements that can be used in our country, and do it.
Nobody is 100 per cent right or wrong. If the ministry thinks it has solutions to all the problems, it is dreaming. It has left out decisions made in the transport committee, and our unanimous report. As far as I am aware, it
Government Orders
did not even reply to our report. It was the first and only time the transport committee was allowed to go overseas and see what is being done in other places.
It reminds me of the story of the rooster running a chicken coop. He went out for a walk one morning and came across an ostrich nest and in it was a big egg. He rushed back to the chicken coop, rounded up all the other chickens, herded them out there by the nest and said: "Look girls, I am not complaining but I just wanted you to see what they are doing in other places".
I hope that the government will be amenable to accepting amendments to the legislation in committee that will allow for the implementation of some very obvious things, allow for airport runway expansion in a sensible and fair manner, and allow for the total responsibility by the ministry for airport safety and security.
We cannot have it any other way. If we do it any other way, we are taking a lot of chances.


Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West):: Mr. Speaker, this gives me the opportunity within the confines of my debate to address the issues just raised by my hon. friend from Regina. He spoke of a large egg. The member has certainly laid an egg, because we now have it on record that it is the opinion and policy of the New Democratic Party federally that it is against airport expansion at Hamilton. That is just terrific. He asks: "Why expand Hamilton airport? Why would we bother to expand Hamilton airport? Why do we not just add more runways to Toronto Pearson International?"
People do not fly to Pearson International. People have to drive there. The member is from Regina. I have to drive to Pearson International Airport. I have to get on Highway 401 or the 403 at the godforsaken hour of 6 a.m. in order to get there at 8.30 a.m. because of the congestion on the highways, because of the pollution. I mean, it is all jammed up, Mr. Benjamin. It is jammed. So what do we do?
We have to look at a way of moving the passengers or the cargo, of dispersing it a little. Take it away. Take the pressure off Pearson International Airport. Move it around. Why not move it to Hamilton? It is logical. JFK and LaGuardia airports work hand in hand in New York. There is San Francisco International and Oakland International. In fact, there is even San Jose International.

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
Three airports working in concert, transferring and shuttling passengers back and forth.
In London, England, there is Heathrow Airport and Gatwick Airport. Those are major airports. Gatwick certainly did not start up all of a sudden as a big, major international airport. It was the size of Hamilton.
Do you know what it was that made it work? It was the vision. It was the policy that said let us look at this situation in a multi-modal approach to transportation.
Let us look at the situation, not try to funnel hundreds of thousands of millions of people a year into Pearson International Airport and then have our hon. NDP friend sit in a plane for an hour to take off, because our airports cannot accept all of the planes everywhere at one time. Planes are going to have to wait to take off because they do not circle any more. Why not offer those people an alternative? I am suggesting that Hamilton is the alternative.
I want to get back on track because we are discussing Bill C-5, amendments to the Aeronautics Act, including the increase of the maximum penalty for breaching noise abatement provisions. I do not have a problem with that. In principle I agree with Bill C-5. We will see what will happen when it is brought before a committee on which I will be a participant.
Where I take great exception is with the piecemeal politics being pronounced by the Minister of Transport. I say piecemeal and I will explain. The Minister of Transport, and my hon. friend, have sat on the transport committee for two years because the government did not want us sitting for almost a year. Six ministers of transport in six years. The latest Minister of Transport already-we have not even sat down with him yet-has begun to walk the same well-worn path that his five predecessors have worn thin. To my way of thinking, what is of paramount importance is consistency, consistency of security and consistency of vision.
It is incumbent upon this government to examine transportation and its policies in totality, a multi-modal transportation policy sensitive not only to the environment and to the quality of life of individuals and families
living near and around airports but to any other mode of transportation.
I have great difficulty understanding the direction or purpose of conflicting back to back aviation studies released by Transport Canada. Conflicting, you ask. I have a report before me, Aviation in Southern Ontario, a Strategy for the Future. Then across my desk just last week was Airside Development Project, Environmental Impact Statement Summary 1991. We have a Transport Canada study of January 1990 and we have one for 1991.
I said conflicting because the January 1990 study outlines the current problems at Pearson International Airport. It examines the existing capacity of the facility and suggests options for congestion relief at Pearson International, among them diversion of aircraft movements to other airports. The document referred to the many-I think there are 52-land based airports within 80 kilometres of downtown Toronto. At least five airports have a potential role in resolving the congestion problems at PI A. That is what the 1990 study said.
The 1991 study just crossed my desk lists. Page 9, point 3, under "Diverting Traffic to Other Airports", refers to the airports at Hamilton, Toronto Island, Oshawa, But-tonville and Downsview. It says in conclusion that Hamilton airport has received significant investment infrastructure in recent years, and we are all aware of that.
It then goes on to say, if you can believe it:
The fact remains however that airspace conflicts with LBPIA, lack of ground transportation to the Ibronto market, consumer preference for LBPIA-
All these reasons and the reasons stated for other airports in the area:
-preclude these sites from offering any appreciable airside capacity increase to southern Ontario-
Imagine, one report a year ago saying "let's look at the alternatives, let's look at the other airports surrounding Lester B", and on my desk last week a 1991 study saying "forget the area airport; it is just not going to work".
That is where I start to think that politics are starting to enter into this thing somewhere. The government to my way of thinking has to start to build a case for Pickering. It makes sense. It has an airport three-quarters built in Hamilton worth millions of dollars, but it is
May 28, 1991

going to build Pickering from scratch and funnel a few million more cars and all the pollution that transportation creates to a brand new airport at Pickering.
This 1990 report acknowledges that Toronto Island Airport has limited potential to relieve congestion at PIA. The main reasons for this are that jet powered aircraft are prohibited from using the facility and that no new runways or extensions to runways will be permitted. Toronto Island Airport has three runways, the longest of which is 1,220 meters, so it is out of the running. Oshawa airport has two runways, the longest of which is 1,060 metres in length. It has the facilities to accept several types of aircraft with limitations due to runways and navigation aids. The study notes that the facility is severely limited in terms of growth and is not equipped to serve increased traffic, especially commercial passenger traffic. Oshawa is out. Buttonville is a privately owned facility which has two runways, the longest of which is 1143 metres in length.
The report states that the facility is not amenable to expansion given the urbanized periphery. That figures. There are a lot of houses around there. You are going to have to spend a lot of money to buy all the homes around that airport. You are not going to be able to land planes into Buttonville without being sensitive to the environment and to the quality of life of those individuals who live in and around Buttonville.
The report states also that even if lands were available for the extension of the runway, Highway 404 would have to be realigned and some of the terminal buildings would have to be removed. You can imagine the expense there.
Then it talks about Hamilton Airport, the preferred airport to Pearson International.


An hon. member:: Why is the NDP against it then?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Preferred. I mentioned you were out taking the phone message and it mentioned it. Can you imagine the NDP being against Hamilton? Study after study concludes that Hamilton is the logical alternative to Pearson International, a venting for Pearson International, a reliever of congestion for Pearson International.
The study notes-this is the 1990 study of Transport Canada-that Hamilton has the facilities to handle all
Government Orders
types of aircraft but that the distance that can be flown from Hamilton by various aircraft is limited due to the length of one principal runway. We have three runways.
The study agrees with the recommendations of the Hamilton-Niagara federal Liberal task force on Hamilton Airport in that with comparatively minimal expense to upgrading Hamilton could accept traffic from PIA.
I spoke earlier about the need for a multi-modal approach to transportation. GO Transit which operates a station at Malton, a mile away from PIA, has confirmed it is giving serious consideration to a link-up with Pearson.
Such a network of transportation would not only help solve some of the congestion at Pearson International but could ultimately be used to transport passengers with connecting flights to or from Hamilton Airport.
In addition, a new GO Transit station is currently under construction at Aldershot, Ontario; 15 minutes by GO bus to Hamilton Airport.
Access to Hamilton Airport from Pearson International and the southern Ontario region is quick and efficient although the Government of Ontario could play a greater role in the development of Hamilton Airport by improving road access to that facility.


An hon. member:: That is the NDP government.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Yes, the NDP government. We need help. We have a chicken and egg scenario, as I like to refer to it. As other individuals have said, Hamilton is prepared. The city is prepared. The Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth is prepared. The residents of Hamilton are prepared to accept an expanded, versatile and modem facility at Hamilton Airport.
The only thing that is holding us up is that the major commercial carriers, whether it be cargo or passenger, say: "We can't go to Hamilton because there is no access". There is this one little two-lane stretch of road that branches off from the 403, a major highway with its exit ramp already in place. I think it is about five miles from 403 to the airport. They say: "We can't do that until that is fixed up". Then the NDP government says: "We can't fix that up until the commercial airlines indicate to us that they are going to use the airport".

May 28, 1991
Government Orders
It is a chicken and egg. Somebody has to play the right card and say: "Listen, the feds say we have trouble at Pearson, too much traffic. We need to put in a couple of more runways".
Nonsense I say. Just create at a minimal expense some multi-modal approach to transportation between Hamilton and Toronto.
Travellers are aware of the difficulties associated with departing or arriving on time at Pearson International. Many have waited on the tarmac as my hon. friend from the NDP has indicated. The clock ticks by either for take-off clearance or for a space at the gate.
Considering that it would take roughly the same time to travel from Hamilton Airport to downtown Toronto as it would from Pearson International Airport to downtown Toronto, one has to acknowledge how Hamilton Airport could play a positive role in alleviating air transportation congestion in southern Ontario.
I will refer to the second report here. This latest report to cross my desk is in contrast to the first report that crossed my desk a year ago. As this Transport Canada environmental impact statement summary outlines, Hamilton Airport is too close to Toronto.


Don Boudria: I thought it was too far.


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: It is too far because a person has to get on a bus to Toronto airport.
This report says: "It is too close". There are other examples of dual operating airports in the world, as was explained a little earlier, which function with great success. They are meant to compliment the services of each other.
Hamilton airport, 60 kilometres from Pearson International, is much farther than the 16 kilometres which separates two of the world's busiest airports, JFK International and LaGuardia. LaGuardia basically serves domestic flights, although American and Canadian carriers fly into the facility from Canada.
Passengers regularly land at LaGuardia on domestic flights and transfer by shuttle bus to JFK. Conveniently licking up the two airports in New York is an interstate highway.
In California, passengers transfer between San Francisco International and Oakland International on a regular basis. The two airports are some 90 kilometres apart straight across San Francisco Bay. A shuttle bus transfers passengers with baggage from one facility to the next facility in an hour.
Passengers also transfer from San Francisco International to San Jose International. There are three principal airports in sunny California.
Passengers arriving at or departing Heathrow International in London also transfer to flights in Gatwick, some 45 kilometres from each other.
Transport Canada must encourage the development of Hamilton airport as the second principal airport in southern Ontario and must co-operate with the province of Ontario to similarly develop an effective means of ground transportation between Pearson International and Hamilton. We cannot say it enough.
I have only a couple of minutes remaining, so I will conclude my remarks. There are other concerns related to Bill C-5 and to the over-all strategy which I think this government has failed to implement. It is an over-all vision for the future of transportation in this country. It is something that incorporates not just talking about planes today and cars on the highways tomorrow and the trains next week.
All of this has to be co-ordinated. The Open Skies agreement will surely increase pressure on that already over crowded Pearson International.
Testimony from the Dryden inquiry from Transport Canada indicated that because of delays at PIA, planes which are de-iced in the winter risk recurring ice contamination while sitting on a tarmac waiting to take off. There is that risk.
I talked to the airport management. It is already talking about putting one of those de-icing machines at the end of a runway. We will see.
We have agreed that in order to realize the expansion of Hamilton we need a commitment from Transport Canada and the Ontario government.
I want to conclude on a final note. Sometimes people think: "Keyes, you are just an opposition member blowing in the wind". The reality is that you are in opposition and have to oppose the government policies.
May 28, 1991

What I am trying to do is not oppose government policy because, really, there is not any. What I am trying to do is to try to help it create a solid policy for the distribution at that busy airport at Toronto.
It is not just me speaking. Transport Canada has mismanaged the nation's airports and has failed to plan for aviation deregulation.


An hon. member:: Who says?


Stan Kazmierczak Keyes: Says who? Says the Auditor General, Ken Dye, on October 31, 1991. It was in all the papers. It is not just Keyes saying that they do not have it, it is the Auditor General who says: "They ain't got it." Let us get on with it and let us have another look at Pearson and Hamilton.


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


Some hon. members:: Question.


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


Some hon. members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Transport.

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

Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to continue with the question that I posed to the minister responsible for Canada Post on May 24 of last week.
The question that I asked the minister concerned the rental of a box at the Skydome that Canada Post took upon itself to rent or lease. I raised it at the time because I do not think it is the type of signal that Canadians want to see Canada Post sending out at this particular time.
I would like to know what the exact dollar figure is on the rental of that box. The minister, obviously, did not
Adjournment Debate
give me the answer to that. However, I am led to believe that it was sub-leased from another corporation. The corporation from which Canada Post leased that box or sub-leased it paid in the vicinity of $200,000. Whether it is $200,000, $100,000 or $50,000, the point is that it is money that Canada Post should use for other purposes, such as reducing postal rates throughout Canada. It is just a symbol of the arrogance that Canada Post, from time to time, has displayed in this country.
I raise this because I have been in some of those communities in my riding that have felt the effects of the policies that Canada Post impose on some of smaller communities in Canada.
There are rural communities in my riding that no longer have the services they used to because Canada Post has taken it upon itself to remove those services. There are areas like Seal Cove, Grand Manan, Meduc-tic, and Castalia, as well as many other places throughout my riding, that are suffering because of some of the arrogant policies of Canada Post.
While I am on my feet, I do want to give the minister some credit for what he has done. I know that he, himself, cannot be responsible for all the day to day activities of Canada Post, but I do want to give him some credit.
In 1984, we made a commitment to the people of Canada that Canada Post would cease to be a burden to the Canadian taxpayers. We as a government and the minister responsible have lived up to that commitment. We have taken a $500 million deficit and turned it into a $149 million surplus.
However, we have paid a price for that turnaround. Much of what we are doing, we are doing at the expense of rural Canadians. The problem, the mismanagement of Canada Post, is not at this rural level.
If the truth were known, I think most of it is at the corporate level. Rural Canada is certainly not solely responsible for some of the difficulties that Canada Post has got itself into in past years. Yet the small, usually poorer areas of Canada receive the brunt of every government policy.
I want to quote, before I finish, and I hope you, Mr. Speaker, give me the opportunity to finish on this note. There is a suggestion that the first class postal rate in this country is too high. That we are in fact subsidizing some

May 28, 1991
Adjournment Debate
of the other services that Canada Post offers. So, if I may:
Glen Smith, President of UPS Canada Limited says-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: Order please. Your time is up. You only have four minutes.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport for two minutes.


Mr. Lee Richardson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, Canada Post was established as a Crown corporation in 1981. This action had the support of all parties in the House of Commons as well organized labour, business and consumer groups. The post office needed purpose and direction. It was time that business values were applied to the operation of postal services in Canada.
By applying sound business management, increasing productivity and streamlining its operations, Canada Post has turned deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars into profits for the past two fiscal years. I hope it continues the same trend.
The Canada Post Corporation has achieved this goal through the hard work of its employees, which has promoted the growth of mail volume in a competitive environment.
Like many other Canadian corporations operating in a competitive business environment, Canada Post is active in the promotion of sporting events and is winning new clients because of it. Canada Post rents box seating for the sole purpose of conducting business. These rentals and the hosting of customers are normal business functions that help the corporation improve volume and revenues, acquire new customers and retain existing ones.
These activities increase revenues by promoting volume growth thereby ensuring the financial success of the corporation and job security for its employees. As well as being an active member of the business community, Canada Post contributes to Canadian society by supporting community, sporting and cultural activities. Canada Post participates in community activities such as Winter-lude, Camivale du Quebec, and the Calgary Stampede; in arts and culture activities such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the opera, the Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra and the Music '91 Festival in British Columbia; and in sporting activities such as the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, the P.E.I. Canada Winter Games, the Canadian Football League, professional baseball and the games for the disabled.
As well, Canada Post helps disadvantaged Canadians through its funding of literacy organizations.
The elimination of postal deficits has removed a burden from Canadian taxpayers and Canada Post profits now help the government reduce the deficit through the payment of a dividend.
In 1981, Canadians were wishing that the post office was run like a business, making money instead of accumulating a $600 million deficit. Well, now the corporation is and Canadians can be proud of that.


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg Transcona):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pursue a question that I asked the Minister of Transport in the House on Friday. It had to do with the fact that the Canadian Pacific Railway is intending to divert its unit coal trains through a place called North Portal, Saskatchewan, through the northern United States and up again to Thunder Bay, thus bypassing entirely the province of Manitoba.
I asked the minister whether or not the government was aware of this intention by CPR to bypass Manitoba. The minister said she was not aware of CPR's intention but said that even if she was, she would not do anything about it because it was strictly a business decision.
I do not think this is strictly a business decision. This is a decision made possible by policies adopted by this government, going back to the adoption of the Freedom to Move legislation in 1987, the transportation deregulation policies of this government which make it more possible and more permissible for Canadian railways to use American lines.
We predicted at that time that transportation deregulation-which, I might add, had its origins with a Liberal Minister of Transport, now the member for Winnipeg South Centre- would lead to the use of American lines and the disappearance of railway traffic in western Canada, and for that matter in Canada generally.
This attempt by the CPR to get a waiver of compliance from the FRA in the United States for its bathtub coal cars is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a precedent for what could become very widespread use by Canadian railways of American lines. This would have its effect not
j

only on Manitoba, as in this case, but on other areas of the country and ultimately on Canadian ports.
This concern has been expressed not just by me but by many who are concerned about the future of Canada's transportation system^ The trend toward the use of American railway lines, because of the disadvantage Canadian railways now find themselves in vis-a-vis American railways, could lead not just to the loss of jobs in the railway system but also in Canadian ports.
We need to have a hard look at the ways in which railway transportation in this country is being disadvantaged by the tax system. In the meantime we need to call on the railways, particularly the CPR in this case, to act like good corporate citizens-perhaps for the first time in CPR's history-and maintain the use of the Canadian rail lines and the Canadian rail system, until such time as the government wakes up to what is happening and addresses the various ways in which the railways are being put at this disadvantage-whether it is through provincial fuel taxes or other issues the railways may have a legitimate point about.
I think they do have a point, for instance, with respect to fuel taxes. In many cases fuel taxes had their origin as a tax to pay for highways. The railways, by having to pay the fuel tax, are not only paying for their own roadbed, which they have to pay for exclusively out of their own revenues, but they also have to pay for highways, in other words for the roadbed of their competitors, through these various taxes.
I think the railways all have a point, just as individual Canadians might have a valid reason for cross-border shopping. However, they have a responsibility to seek changes in their own country rather than opportunities in other countries. That is the solution, not what the CPR is intending to do now.


Lee Richardson: At the outset let me say that I am pleased to have this opportunity to set the record straight regarding the alleged diversion of potash and coal traffic from western Canada to the United States destinations. What began as a sound business decision on the part of
Adjournment Debate
CP Rail to reduce operating costs has been distorted by many parties.
Let me explain. For many years now CPR has moved potash from mines in Saskatchewan and coal from south-eastern British Columbia to trans-border gateways either in Saskatchewan or in Manitoba.
From there these commodities are carried onward to destination points in the United States by interconnecting American railroads or from the mine sites entirely over Canadian Pacific lines to the port of Thunder Bay for vessel loading and delivery to ports on the Great Lakes.
There is no intention on the part of CPR to change these traffic routes. The real question deals with the fact that part of CPR's coal car fleet is made up of bathtub gondola cars that were manufactured in Canada and used domestically to export coal to the west coast. They are also used for the transport of low sulphur coal to power generating plants in Ontario, and CPR has a surplus of this equipment. These cars are cheaper to operate than the equipment currently used in transborder coal and potash service, so CPR applied to the U.S. regulatory authority for approval to operate these cars in the United States.
This approval is necessary because the cars were built in Canada and do not satisfy all the U.S. specifications. CPR has applied for a waiver of compliance on these specifications. The specifications do not compromise the safety of the rail car but are technically outside the United States design criteria.
It is looking for a waiver to avoid paying for the modifications solely for the sake of modifications. CPR's actions are a response to competitive advantages enjoyed by U.S. railroads.
I am sure the hon. member would be further interested to learn that CPR feels that its proposal to use these bathtub cars should not result in the loss of any Canadian railway employment. Indeed, if the proposal is accepted, CPR will generate increased traffic levels. To repeat, the use of the bathtub gondola cars is clearly an attempt to reduce the operating costs for the traffic in question.

May 28, 1991
Adjournment Debate
Cost reductions of this nature will ultimately benefit Canadian exporters as they help Canadian rail carriers to remain financially viable and thus, capable of providing rail service at competitive prices.
The minister and his government support the efforts to assist Canadian shippers to be competitive in U.S. markets.


THE ECONOMY
Alfonso Gagliano: Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House this evening to defend once again the economic interests of the people of the Montreal area.
It is not the first time I have raised this important issue, but in the light of the current situation, I think it deserves our undivided attention, Mr. Speaker.
During Question Period on May 22, 1991,1 quoted the new provincial economic forecasts published by the Conference Board of Canada. According to the forecasts, the economic situation in Quebec was worse than expected and the recession's impact was more severe than in other provinces.
If we compare the unemployment statistics of the two most heavily populated provinces in this country, we will reach the same conclusion as the Conference Board, Mr. Speaker. In April, the unemployment rate in Ontario was 9.4 per cent, while in Quebec it was 12 per cent. And if we consider the two largest cities in the country, in Toronto the unemployment rate was 9.1 per cent in April, while in Montreal it was around 13.1 per cent.
Actually, Mr. Speaker, when we look around the Montreal area, the picture is even gloomier. As the hon. member for Papineau-Saint-Michel remarked yesterday, Montreal looks like a war zone. Because of the severe impact of the recession on the Montreal area, I felt I had a duty to take part in this adjournment debate and ask the government to pay attention to the figures I am about to quote.
Mr. Speaker, 22 per cent of the population of Montreal, which means about one out of four, lives below the poverty line. We cannot tolerate this kind of situation. In the province of Quebec, 2,097 bankruptcies were recorded in April 1991, 62 per cent more than in April last
year. And 79 per cent of these were personal bankruptcies. The remaining 449 bankruptcies were filed by businesses, the highest figure in Canada, Mr. Speaker.
That is why this problem requires special attention from the Conservative government. Even more discouraging is the Conference Board'j forecast that the economic situation in Quebec will continue to deteriorate and that during the coming year, the unemployment rate will not drop below its current level, which averages 12 per cent across the province, Mr. Speaker.
I am here this evening to ask the government to table concrete measures for the economic recovery of this region. When will the government unveil its action plan to provide durable, full-time jobs for 223,000 unemployed workers in Montreal, Mr. Speaker?
On the weekend, 5,000 people in the Gaspe held a meeting to sound the alarm. They want to stay in their region, they like it there, but there are no jobs, there is no economic activity. In that region, and in the Montreal region as well-we saw this last weekend and it happens every weekend-busloads of people to leave to go shopping in the United States. Something has to be done. The situation is critical. I think that if the government fails to come up with a comprehensive solution to deal with our economic problems, we will lose jobs that will never be recovered.


Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board forecast mentioned by the hon. member for Saint-Leonard for the Canadian economy is similar to the forecast contained in the February budget. Its forecast, like ours, is for a resumption of economic growth this summer and for healthy economic growth to continue during 1992. I should point out that the Conference Board does not say, as I think the member said in his question, that the Quebec economy will continue to deteriorate. Its forecast is that the Quebec economy, like the Canadian economy, will as a whole begin to recover later this year.
Short term interest rates have declined by some 500 basis points over the last year and are continuing to decline. The differential between Canadian and U.S. interest rates has narrowed by over 250 basis points over the same period. This is helping to create the conditions
May 28, 1991

for the economic recovery that we and a consensus of private sector forecasters expect to begin in the very near future.
There are abundant signs that the economic activity is beginning to firm both in Quebec and nation-wide. Housing starts have risen and resale activity has picked up sharply. Export growth resumed in March and car sales have picked up more recently. Employment increased significantly in April after stabilizing in March. Business confidence has strengthened.
The Conference Board's business confidence index rose by over 20 per cent in the first quarter. These developments are consistent with a recovery in the second half of the year since they are precisely the indicator that one expects to respond first to a decline in interest rates. It obviously takes time for some business people and households to make specific plans for major new purchases once they see lower interest rates.
New orders in turn generate new production. This is why we are now seeing and will continue in the coming months to see a marked increase in economic activity in response to lower interest rates. The Quebec economy will obviously share fully in this pickup. The policies of this government will continue to create the conditions that will permit sustainable and non-inflationary growth.


CANADA POST
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Francis G. LeBlanc (Cape Breton Highlands-
Canso): Mr. Speaker, I wish to come back to a question I asked the minister responsible for Canada Post last Thursday, regarding the imminent closure by Canada Post of some 200 rural post offices across Canada, including the post office in Mabou in my constituency.
The following day one of the minister's own backbenchers, the member for Carleton-Charlotte, asked the very legitimate question: why at the same time as Canada Post is jacking up postal rates and closing rural post offices has the corporation rented a penthouse box at the Toronto Skydome for its corporate friends? I am told that the rental on this box amounts to somewhere between $100,000 and $225,000 per year.
Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting question and one that the minister cannot so easily slough off by saying that his government no longer interferes with the business of this Crown corporation. It was his government that approved
Adjournment Debate
the corporate plan which is leading to the elimination of hundreds of post offices across Canada, including the one in Mabou.
The minister himself has been free with his opinion that Canada Post ought to be privatized completely.
This is one of the most short sighted and wrongheaded Tory government's policies, policies which are effectively leading to the decimation of infrastructure and the government presence in rural Canada.
What galls the residents of Mabou and Avonmore, Ontario, St. Redempteur in la Gaspesie and all the other places that have lost their rural post offices recently is not so much losing their post office, though that is bad enough.
It is the way Canada Post goes about it. It is the complete lack of consultation and candour. It is the trampling of the interests of the people in the communities Canada Post is there to serve.
It is Canada Post calling the residents of Mabou to a public meeting to tell them that Canada Post carried out a 12-month review and did not talk to anybody in Mabou.
It is telling the residents of that community, who are 100 per cent satisfied with their post office and their postmaster, that the closure is to provide better service but that keeping their post office and their postmaster, with whom they are 100 per cent satisfied, is not an option that is available to them.
It is calling a meeting to consult the communities after the decision has been made and telling them that the decision they are opposed to is irreversible. Some consultation that is.
It is this unbelievable arrogance that the mandarins of Canada Post know better than do those communities they are supposedly in business to serve, what is best for them. If they would just shut up and take it, later on they will like it.
The people of Avonmore, Ontario, of Mabou, Nova Scotia, and St. Redempteur, Quebec are not backward hicks who are totally resistant to all forms of change. They are proud and educated people who want a postal communications system that does not treat them as second class citizens. They are willing to work with Canada Post toward orderly methods of delivering on the Canada Post mandate.
[Stage Direction]
May 28, 1991
Adjournment Debate
In a meeting last week with senior officials of Canada Post the citizens of Mabou showed that they are willing to consider alternatives to achieve savings for Canada Post while providing quality service.
What they will not accept is to be patronized and marginalized by this corporation and by this government.
Lee Richardson: Mr. Speaker, like many other organizations that provide service to the public, Canada Post has had to adopt new methods of providing service to respond to the evolving needs of Canadians. Canada Post is committed to making postal products and services more accessible. In rural Canada, the corporation is achieving this goal by using the resources and expertise of local business to increase significantly the number of places that offer postal products and services.
Canada Post is therefore changing the way it provides postal service in many rural communities. In contrast to some other service oriented businesses which have adjusted to changing times by withdrawing services, Canada Post makes every effort to maintain its retail presence in the community through its century old partnership with local business.
In order to do this, Canada Post has implemented a program which has been the subject of many misconceptions, the conversion program: converting from a corporate operated outlet to one operated by local business in a rural community. These outlets provide all of the retail postal services currently available, such as the sale of money orders and posting or picking up parcels and signature items.
Mail delivery is maintained within the community through a variety of methods such as postal boxes in a retail postal outlet, postal boxes in a postal delivery centre, or community mail boxes at one central site or at individual sites. Canada Post ensures that the community maintains its unique postal identity. Customers continue to be able to send and receive mail locally.
The retirement of the former postmaster of the Mabou Post Office in March last year gave Canada Post
an opportunity to review postal service in this community. Customers were notified in writing on March 28 that changes would be made to postal service. A public meeting was held on April 30, where in addition to explaining the process and responding to local questions, Canada Post encouraged community input to assist it in determining the best type of mail delivery for the community. Canada Post is currently accepting applications from local businesses interested in the opportunity to operate a retail postal outlet.
In communities where changes have been deemed necessary but which are unable to support local retail operations, or where community efforts to retain the status quo affect the corporation's ability to maintain retail services, Canada Post has no other option but to offer these services from the nearest existing retail outlet. I can assure the hon. member that this option is clearly not one favoured by the corporation, and I urge residents to support local businesses should they apply to operate a retail postal outlet in Mabou.
Surveys conducted yearly since 1988 by independent research firms, the most recent being an October 1990 Decima survey, indicate that over 90 per cent of rural Canadians are satisfied with retail postal services offered through local businesses in their community.
Canada Post is a business and, like all businesses in any community, it must manage in an effective manner if it is to succeed. The conversion program achieves this and benefits the customer, the community's business base, and the corporation. When over 90 per cent of customers surveyed have expressed approval of postal services provided by retail postal outlets this government supports this program.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBIois):: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6.24 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 29,1991