1991-05-14

Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to lay upon the table a copy of the Standing Orders of this House dated May, 1991.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Albert Cooper (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government responses to 37 petitions.
[Editor's Note: See today's Votes and Proceedings.] ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour and privilege to present a petition on behalf of a number of people from the Shuswap Lake area of British Columbia who point out that the government has cut back $19.3 million to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police services throughout Canada in the last fiscal year, resulting in a loss of $4.1 million for the British Columbia division alone. The consequence of these cuts, the petitioners say, has been the closure of detachments in smaller communities, resulting in an erosion of service and effectiveness of these communities' only viable police force. They point out a number of other concerns regarding the decreased ability of the RCMP to do its job and so are asking Parliament to urge the government to consider restoring proper funding to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police so it can fulfil its
mandate and role as the only visible police force for communities across British Columbia and to re-examine the government's decision to force the provinces either to increase funding for the RCMP, in many cases far more than they can afford, or decrease services and close detachments, leaving communities without an effective and visible police force.


Mr. Lyle Dean MacWilliam (Okanagan-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and present a number of petitions from literally hundreds of British Columbia citizens throughout the province. These citizens are concerned about the current application by Unitel and B.C. Rail and Light Rail regarding the long distance competition in the telephone-telecommunications market. These citizens are urging the Minister of Communications to oppose Unitel's bid to compete with Canada's telephone companies in long distance service. They are urging the Minister of Communications to consult with all affected parties, particularly those citizens living outside of Canada's urban areas who will be most severely impacted by this deregulation. They are also urging the minister to hold local hearings throughout our communities before deciding the fate of Canada's telecommunications system.


Mr. John Brewin (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I also rise to present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36. This is a petition which notes that the government as far back as 1986 accepted a report calling for an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act to ensure that sexual orientation is a prohibited ground of discrimination. It is from citizens right across Canada and calls on the government and this Parliament to bring forth an amendment immediately to add sexual orientation to the Canadian Human Rights Act.


Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour of tabling petitions by Canadians from the metropolitan Toronto area who believe that a great woman, Marie Sklodowska Curie, must be honoured for her scientific

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contributions to humanity. They believe that the gift of the discovery of radium to heal the sick deserves to be recognized by Canada and they call upon Parliament to honour Marie Sklodowska Curie by issuing a commemorative stamp on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of her birth which takes place November 7, 1992.


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.



THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Monday, May 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. Pronovost for an Address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session.
Hon. Jean Chretien (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my comments by congratulating the mover and the seconder of the motion before the House today.
I am delighted to see my successor in Saint-Maurice in the role it was my privilege to have in 1964, when I was quite a bit younger than I am today. I congratulate him, and I also wish to congratulate the hon. member for Regina-Wascana for seconding this motion. Quoting a passage from our history, he said that if a rural member who had the privilege of moving the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne happened to come from Quebec and followed Laurier's example, he would become prime minister.
I can inform the hon. member that I had the honour to do so in 1964, and I want to thank-

I am very happy that the member for Regina-Wascana has predicted that I will be forming the government. The people of Canada will be very happy with the wisdom he displayed yesterday.
Yesterday I was involved in an incident that was very, very interesting. While I was listening to the Speech from the Throne in the Senate there was a person there who, like many Canadians, could not stand it any more. She could not take it any more and she fainted. She was next to me and out of a sense of duty, I took her out of the chamber to give her some fresh air. It was the right thing to do. I will do the same thing for the Canadian people; I will take this government out of this Chamber, I will put this team on the other side of the House and fresh air will come back. Happiness and joy will come back to this nation. It is the call of duty. This is what was predicted by the member for Regina-Wascana and so I would like to thank him again.
I would like to start my speech by quoting one well known Canadian who not long ago said:
The problem with the Government of Canada as presently constituted is that it has lost the confidence of the people. Confidence is very fragile and difficult to define. Once you have lost it, you can never recapture it. Once you have betrayed your word and you have let the people down, you have an enormous problem ahead of you.
Those are tough words. They speak of betrayal and lost confidence. They speak of letting people down. The words I have quoted were spoken more than eight years ago in this House by the right hon. member opposite, the Prime Minister himself.


Some hon. members:: Oh, oh.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: The problem with the Government of Canada as presently constituted is that it has lost the confidence of the people. Those are the words the Prime Minister used in December, 1983 when he stood where I am now standing. In all honesty, I could not find a more fitting epitaph for this tired Conservative government, now drifting in its eighth year.
There is no doubt the government has lost the confidence of the Canadian people. To paraphrase the words of the Prime Minister himself, when you have lost the confidence of people, you are in deep trouble.
The Speech from the Throne yesterday is obviously the last will and testament of this government. Like any last will and testament, it is filled with some good
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intentions and some sober words. It is even filled with one or two ideas borrowed from this side of the House. In the end, however, it is a document written by a government which lacks the moral authority to carry the program.

The Conservative government has practically written its own epitaph, Mr. Speaker, but it is not Canada's epitaph. This government's utter failure to manage the economy and deal with problems relating to the Constitution does not mean the people of Canada have failed.
Granted, the country's morale has rarely been as low as it has been during the past few years. Buffeted alternately by sarcasm and despair, we felt confused, as though we were lost in a dense fog. People are angiy, people feel hurt and they are afraid. Canadians are right to be angry, just as they are right to feel betrayed. I use here the word used by the Prime Minister in 1983.

It is not difficult to see why people feel angiy and betrayed. Since this government made its debut seven years ago, not so much filled with promise as filled with promises, we have been hit with scandal after scandal, promise after promise broken and minister after minister has resigned in disgrace.
We have been hit by a made-in-Canada recession, a recession the Prime Minister has admitted the government induced. We have been hit with a GST that has pushed inflation up and sales down. We have been hit with cutbacks to medicare and post-secondary education.
We have been hit with shutdowns of Canadian forces bases, shutdowns at our rural post offices and we have seen shutdowns in our factories, fisheries and farms. We have seen shutdowns at CBC stations across the country. VIA Rail has almost disappeared.
The litany of despair does not end there. As the Speech from the Throne proves to anyone interested in reading it, not all of Canada's recent troubles have concerned economic matters.
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Recently, we have seen region pitted against region. We have heard angry words exchanged about language and culture. We have seen our national institutions cast in disrepute.
This is the government that got us into this constitutional mess. This is the government that rolled the dice. This is the government that brought us to the brink.
When we Liberals say we will work to bring the nation together once more, let us be clear: we will be working for the good of the country: we will be working for the nation's interests: we will be working to clean up the mess created by this government.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We, and the people of Canada, will not forget that this government is the author of our misfortune. At the end of the day, this government will be held accountable for having rolled the dice with the future of Canada.
In every region of the country-in the towns, the cities, the rural communities-Canadians have grown weary of our seemingly endless constitutional debates. They are just fed up with this debate. They are tired of the bickering and the cynicism. They want us, their political leaders, to get to work. They want us to get to work at finding solutions to the serious problems this nation now faces, such as the problems in the economy, such as the problem of competitiveness, such as the problems of the environment and social justice.
We in Canada are blessed with so much: beautiful land, prosperous lives, a proud history. What must the Kurds think of us when they see us devote years and years to this constitutional question? What must the people of Ethiopia and Bangladesh think of us when we spend millions of dollars on constitutional commissions and studies?
Beyond our borders, who could imagine that anyone would want to break up a nation that is the envy of the world?


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, we must deal with this problem and we must do so quickly. We must deal with our constitutional problems as soon as possible so that

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we can concentrate on the nation's real problem I mentioned a few moments ago: the economy, unemployment, the environment, social security-all those problems facing us now. Otherwise, we will still be talking about the Constitution. That is why, I repeat, we must deal with these problems quickly, fairly and effectively.
Our party is not afraid to take a stand. Three weeks ago, it presented a method and a program. We wanted the government to be able to put these proposale before Canadians on June 1, because we must realize the situation is precarious and that this has a negative impact on the economy. We must take the situation in the province of Quebec seriously. We may be faced with a referendum there as early as next year, in the spring.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Why wait until September 1? We will lose three months. It will be 1992 before we know it, and we only have five months of public hearings. Of course, that is the government's decision, the real reason being that, once again, it doesn't really know what to do. It is too afraid to offend. Oh, we cannot afford to provoke Mr. Bouchard. We can't afford to provoke Mr. Manning. I say it is high time we got this over with!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We must speak candidly to Canadians. The government agreed with the idea of having a committee of the House of Commons and the Senate study a constitutional proposal, and it is to be commended for its decision. However, this means it will no longer be possible to have a constituent assembly, because we will then have a concrete proposal, already put before Canadians after consultations across the country. Why this ambiguity? Time is of the essence. I agree, the provinces must be consulted and we have to consult with native groups, but we must start now, otherwise we will once again be caught with our backs against the wall.
What is the Prime Minister waiting for? We say, let the people decide. Last year and the years before that, the people did not have a chance to decide. After the Accord, we had committees travelling across the country, and part of their mandate was that they could not accept a single amendment. Why appoint a committee if no amendments can be made? We had one here in the House, a committee appointed at the last minute, which did excellent work, a committee chaired by the present Minister of the Environment, a committee that managed
to obtain the unamimous approval of this House. Not a single member rose in the House to speak against the committee.
It was a compromise which respected the five conditions set by Quebec. However, the Prime Minister, I'm not sure under pressure from whom, decided to set it aside, to ignore the work done by the House, for reasons as yet unknown. As a result, we had this disaster last June.
We say: Let's have a referendum early in 1992. Why a referendum? Because the time has come for people to speak. They will be asked to consider a proposal.

This project has to be the Canada round. We cannot try to solve the constitutional problem by dealing with the problems of one part of Canada before the others.
I say that in my own province when I am there. What would the reaction have been last year, or three years ago, if they had said: We will solve the problems of western Canada. We will come back here after that. It would have led to a lot of suspicion.
Let's have a Canada round. The Prime Minister and his ministers who are here are using that expression now and I am happy. We have a Canada round where everybody will feel comfortable. We do not have to have commissions to know that westerners want to have an elected Senate.
They want to participate, because the nature of Canada put the majority of the people in Ontario and Quebec. They feel rejected by a parliamentary system which, unfortunately, when your members are with the government, you feel that you are not well represented. So often they speak out in the caucus and they have to vote with the government in the House.
Having an effective Senate, they will have the feeling that they have been heard. Even if the decision is not according to what they wish, they will be comfortable because at least they will have been heard. They made their case and their elected people spoke openly about their problems.
We have to have the Canada round. Everyone knows that. When we have the package, the contents of which I will describe to you, there will be a referendum. Why do I want a referendum? Because this Prime Minister last year, in a very irresponsible way, for weeks and weeks and weeks created the impression that if the agreement
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were not to pass, English Canada was saying "no" to Quebec.
That was not true. Etaving created that impression in order to put pressure on everybody, it was no wonder the people of Quebec felt rejected.
If we have a referendum where we address all the problems of Canadians, what will happen? The very day that we have this referendum where we will say to the people of Canada that we need the majority of western Canadians, of Ontarians, of Quebecers and of the people from Atlantic Canada and it is acceptable, it will be a great day, Mr. Speaker.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: That day, the Canadian people who are not from Quebec will say: "No, we have been together for 200 years. We started as a small colony and have become a great country. We understand that it is possible and needed to be different and equal at the same time."
That day, everybody will be happy to say that to the people of Quebec. It will give an opportunity to the million francophones outside Quebec to vote on that issue. It will be the day when the francophones of Quebec will say: "We want to stay in Canada." It will be the day when the anglophones of Quebec will be able to say: "We are anglophones. We are Quebecers and we are Canadians at the same time."


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: That very day, the francophones outside Quebec-

-the constituents in the riding of Beausejour, those one million francophones across the country who have a lot more trouble staying French than any fellow citizen born in Quebec. One million francophones will be able to say: I am an Acadian, I am from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. This is my home; I am a francophone and I am proud of it! I am proud to be from New Brunswick and I am also proud to be a Canadian!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: If we look at our country's history, we made some very important decisions. At the very heart of the decisions that built this country was the will of francophones to keep and build this country. We refused to join the American Revolution. If we had, perhaps Canada would never have existed.

I hope the people in English Canada know that. If we had decided to join the American revolution, this country might not exist today. If in 1812 de Salaberry had not been at Chateauguay to push them back, we would not be in Canada today. They should know that. The people of western Canada should know who opened the west. It was the voyageurs who left Trois Rivieres-La Veren-drye, Radisson, Des Groseilliers-who went there to open the west. Otherwise that part of this country would not be part of Canada. These were Quebecers who did that. In a referendum were all the people who believe in Canada, and I know that the people on the other side believe in Canada.
I was happy to hear my successor in Saint-Maurice talk about Canada the way he did yesterday. I congratulate him for that. With all the federalists and all the people who believe that we have built a country here that is the envy of the world will shake hands the day of the referendum. We want to give Canadians a new constitution so that we have the instrument we need to face the 21st century as a proud and independent country.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We will be united. It will be a great day when the myth that Quebec had been rejected is gone forever. It will be a great day.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We have to let the people speak. But we cannot let the people speak without giving them a program. We, in our party, after a lot of discussion, have put the proposition forward.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Papineau- Saint-Michel who worked very hard last fall as our

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party's representative and the voice of this Parliament before the Belanger-Campeau Commission.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: He represented us before the commission but, at the same time, he had many long sessions with members on this side of the House, resulting in the presentation we made before the Belanger-Campeau Commission on December 18. This presentation already contained elements of the proposal we submitted in Montreal three weeks ago. I would like to take this opportunity to explain them today.
First, we should make a statement on the nature of Canada. This statement would indicate the will of all Canadians to live in this country, in the federal State that is ours. It would also set forth the values we share, including our attachment to both official languages and our commitment to our multicultural heritage. It would recognize the crucial role played by the aboriginal nations in our society and the distinct identity of Quebec society.

It will also be a good occasion to again recognize our unwavering commitment to equality of men and women in our Constitution because there are some doubts in the minds of a lot of Canadians.
Second, we will make sure the Charter of Rights and Freedoms continues to be the cornerstone of our Constitution. Why? Because we look forward to the next centuiy. In the next century, the majority of Canadians will not be from either French or English backgrounds. What can we guarantee the people who have a different colour, a different language or a different religion? What better can we guarantee to them than their individual rights in their Constitution? It will be clear.
The third element of our proposition is the economic union in Canada. By 1992 there will be more mobility in Europe than we have in Canada. We recognize, and we want it to be in the Constitution, that we have a common market in Canada. We are starting to have a common market with the United States and Mexico, and yet we cannot sell products among Canadians. There is a producer in Dorchester in Beausejour, two miles from the border of Nova Scotia. He who cannot sell his
product to the Government of Nova Scotia because he lives two miles from the border. We do not have the mobility of people like they have in Europe. The time has come to have mobility of people, goods, services and capital in Canada.
The government in the Speech from the Throne talks about it, but it says in the Allaire report it will not happen until 1995. Even those who virtually do not want any link with Canada recognize the need to have a real common market in Canada, so why wait until 1995? Put it in the Constitution right away.
As I said before, and repeat, reform of the Senate is extremely important. I believe in it. I was on the other side long enough to know that sometimes we are driven by the heat of the moment, the push of bureaucrats and so on, and reassured by the support of our troops, quite often saying: "Try that, minister. You are a good guy, try that, show you are strong". However they do not think enough at times about the reaction of the people. The members of the caucus have virtually no choice. If they shut you down, it could cause an election.
On the other hand, if in the Upper House there would be another vote-it might be veto, a suspension of veto and in come cases an absolute veto-the politicians of this House and the minister would have to reflect twice. They would have to compromise when they go there, they do not want to compromise in this House. That would give a lot of satisfaction to the people of western Canada and Atlantic Canada who think they do not have the numbers of their side. This system works in Australia, Germany and in many other nations. Why not have it in Canada, and quickly?
The other point I want to make concerns the natives of Canada. I was Minister of Indian Affairs for more than six years. I have always felt terrible about this social problem. We have to deal with it quickly. We have to do something that they have asked for, in my judgment, for a long time. In 1981 we started to put aboriginal rights in the Constitution. We have to make progress. Whenever I talk with aboriginal people in Canada, they tell me they want aboriginal self-government in the Constitution.
I think it should be done. Progress will be made. We have made enough mistakes concerning natives. We should let them make a few mistakes. They have the sense of dignity that they need. They were here before
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we arrived. Unfortunately, we have not given them the place that they should have in our society.
I have met people from outside of Canada who watched the international news last summer. I tell you, that on the channels in Europe, the next item after the war news was the fate of natives in Canada. It was not a good story for Canadians.
This has to be corrected, and quickly.
I am happy that Mr. Justice Dickson is going to be working on this problem, but what puzzles me is that this seems to be a royal commission to draft the terms of a royal commission. I do not know why we have a government. He might be able to deal with the whole problem, but this is a royal commission to establish the terms of reference of a royal commission. What kind of government is that? I am happy with the choice of Mr. Justice Dickson and I know he will do his best. I hope this process is not being used by the government to allow it to drag its feet because it does not know what to do. We do not want a repetition of the problems we had last year in Canada, action is needed now, urgently.
I would now like to talk about the six points of our proposal.

The sixth point is the distribution of power. As I told the Belanger-Campeau Commission last year, there is nothing sacrosanct about the present division of powers.
We must look for a division of powers that best serves the interests of the people, all the Canadian people. This is an important point, and I would have specific recommendations to make on this subject.
The Fathers of Confederation did a good job when they drafted the Constitution. They drafted it however in the context of 1867, based on the realities of 1867. Now, the time has come for us to review how the powers are divided, but we must do so with the interest of the people in mind. The basic premise should be this: who can do the best job, the federal government or the provincial governments? It should not be done in the interest of ministers who want bigger and larger departments or bureaucrats who want to be in charge of a greater number of civil servants. We must ask ourselves what, in
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the interest of the people, is the most efficient way of ensuring this country will be competitive in the years to come. That is what the key consideration should be in this negotiation. It should not be a question of who is going to win or loose.
The winners should be neither the federal government nor the provincial governments, but the people. That is how it should be done!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Therefore, we recommend a functional approach, because it is possible, as I explained in my speeches of the past couple of days, to solve problems, possibly with additional legislation.
In the case of the environment, for instance, there could be national standards and we need such standards, otherwise a provincial government could offer a manufacturer to set up shop in the province, with the privilege of polluting, which is an enormous advantage.
So, if we had national standards, pollution could not be used to attract nor to reject investors. We do not need two separate groups of civil servants to enforce these standards. The provinces could very well administer them based on local priorities and needs. No administrative duplication is necessary. The same could be done for manpower training.
The Prime Minister mentioned manpower training in the speech from the Throne yesterday. It is an important issue. If nowadays four out of ten Canadian citizens are hindered by a lack of education and training, that is a problem indeed. We must not forget, however, that education is a provincial jurisdiction according to the Constitution.
So, what should we do? The needs of the people can easily be recognized by this Parliament. These are objective standards, including manpower training, but they do not have to be administered by Ottawa, so long as the national objectives are met.
The same is true of regional development. In that case, national standards are needed to take money from the central government and apply it to the regions as well as to account for taxpayers money from across Canada being used just for Northern Manitoba, the

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Gaspesian Peninsula, the riding of Charlevoix or the St-Maurice Valley instead of Toronto or Hamilton. We must have national criteria but, once those criteria have been clearly established, we don't need this bureaucratic duplication of services to implement the program. We can let the regions take care of regional priorities, instead of having the central government manage the day-to-day implementation of the program.

Certain principles have to prevail because this is a very important element. Specifically, any change in the distribution of powers should guarantee the rights and freedoms of citizens.

Any review would have to ensure that our two main linguistic communities are maintained and strengthened. This principle is fundamental to Canada's existence and should be generously endorsed by all levels of government. Furthermore, Quebec must be recognized as the linchpin of the French fact in this country.

Any change in the distribution of powers must guarantee respect for and the growth of aboriginal peoples. Any change to promote the rights and growth of cultural communities, any change in the distribution of powers should maximize the quality and standard of living of all Canadians. Any change should facilitate the working of the Canadian economic union. Any change in the distribution of power should ensure, on a national scale, the pursuit of social justice through the sharing of resources between regions and citizens.

Any review must ensure that governments remain sovereign within their respective jurisdictions. We must try and clarify the situation and ensure there is less duplication than was the case in the past.
Any review should consider the diversity of this country's regions, including the distinct identity of Quebec society.

I have said many times that the Cullen-Couture agreement between the federal government and the province of Quebec, concerning the problem of population in Quebec, should be constitutionalized. It has
worked well for a long time and now should be given a constitutional guarantee.
We have to talk about sharing the spending power. We all agree that there is a great temptation to sometimes abuse the spending power in this Parliament and everyone has agreed for a long time that there should be limits. It would be simpler to have a more functional division of powers, while ensuring that the national objective can be met. Otherwise how can we compete in the world of tomorrow? We should not abuse our spending power. We need to have limits. This issue has been on the table for a long time. It was there 20 years ago and it has to be resolved. It is not complicated. All the taxes have existed for generations. We only have to put them together to have a package.
Take the Supreme Court. It is a request of the provinces, particularly Quebec, that they be able to recommend people to sit on the Supreme Court. As the Supreme Court is more and more a constitutional court, I agree that we should have more input from the provinces. As Minister of Justice, I know what any Minister of Justice is looking for when he appoints a judge to the Supreme Court. He wants to appoint the best person he can find. This is how he eventually will be judged by his peers. Any Minister of Justices takes pride in being instrumental in the appointments to the Supreme Court.
When I was Minister of Justice there were two appointments, Madam Justice Wilson-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: -whom I can talk about because she is not there anymore. I take a lot of pride in being instrumental in the appointment of that lady as the first woman on the Supreme Court. Not only that, she was a fantastic judge. And I did not even know for whom she voted before I asked her to be a judge. That is the way it should be.
We need a deadlock-breaking mechanism. We need it. Otherwise there would be a paralysis of the court if there is a conflict between provinces and the federal government on appointments.
We should have objective criteria but we should have a deadlock breaking mechanism. There is nothing worse than if we were to start using the Supreme Court to play

political games, or to put the operation of the country at a standstill with that.
It is easy to do. There are dozens of mechanisms proposed in documents that I saw when I was in the job of the hon. member, the minister of constitutional affairs. That is a package that is easy.
I am convinced and we on this side of the House are all convinced that not everybody will be happy. However, it will meet a lot of the preoccupations of the people of the north. It will meet the preoccupations of the first citizens of Canada, the native Canadians. It will meet the aspirations of the people of western Canada who feel very strongly about an elected Senate.
It is the same for the people of Atlantic Canada who feel that with the small number of people they have, it is not the way it should be. They will be happy with that.
Most of the conditions that were the traditional conditions of Quebec, plus the mobility that was in the Allaire report and the principle of the sharing of powers, should receive very large support from the people of Quebec.
We are proposing an amending formula, that is the Victoria formula, which was agreed upon in 1971. Unfortunately the Quebec government walked away from it for the wrong reasons, and it should now come back. The policy of this party since 1971 has been that we have always accepted that it was the best amending formula, giving a veto to the regions.
This country is made of four big regions, and we have to respect that reality. In contrast, the unanimity rule that the Prime Minister offered last year was no amending formula at all.
In 1931 that was the debate: Should we have an amending formula or not? At that time the Prime Minister and premier refused unanimity. This proposition came back last year. That made no sense because the people of Quebec feel that they are one of the four parts of Canada. It is a reality.
We should have a formula that in the long run foresees what Canada should be 100 years from now. I urge the government to look at the possibility of defining what is a region.
I am willing to offer a suggestion. It might be that Quebec should be the base. If one province 100 years from now is bigger than Quebec, it could be the fifth region. I do not know if it is a very good idea, but we have
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to make sure that this country is more balanced than is seen today.
An amending formula like the one I proposed, the Victoria formula, will give a great sense of security to the people of my native province. For me, it will be the package that we will be proposing to Canadians.
I am sure that if it is done with good will, if everyone in Canada wants to resolve that problem and to accept some compromise-life is made of compromises-we could have a new Constitution within a year. That would be a real reconciliation because it would not be a reconciliation based on political motivation to win an election.
It would be a reconciliation to build a country that would be a great, independent and proud country with which to enter into the 21st century. That should be the goal of this government.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I am telling the Prime Minister that one thing which is very important is that the debate on the Constitution should not be a program to try to win an election. A government should be judged on its activity as a government. It should not play tricks or try to divide the people in an election.
There is a limit where we will not go as a party, because we believe that we need a country that works. This country needs a strong federal government. If there is to be a devolution of powers, we might as well separate right away.
We have to have principles and stand by those principles. We will help the government if it does the same thing. If the government starts to play politics, we can do politicking too. We will tell the Canadian people that we will not accept the dice being rolled a second time with the future of this country.
When we have resolved that, as quickly as possible, we will be able to deal with the economic problems of this nation. This is why we say we need to act quickly: there is nothing worse than political instability. One million dollars does not speak English or French but it walks very fast. Political stability is extremely important for investment and jobs.
What is needed today is for 1.5 million Canadians to get jobs, but this political instability is not helping. The Prime Minister must know a lot of stories of political instability causing problems in Quebec and elsewhere.

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We feel that it is very important to solve this problem because these people need jobs.
There are 186,000 children in Canada who go to bed hungry every night. Can we accept that in a country like Canada?


Some hon. members:: No, no.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: There are 19,000 Canadians who in the first three months of this year have lost their assets through bankruptcy. What about their dignity when they go home at night? Do you not think that we have to do something? We have to move on this problem quickly.
We see the former Minister of Finance coming to his seat. We heard brave words on the debt of Canada. The government was elected to reduce the deficit. It was another great promise. The government blamed everybody. In seven years it has accumulated more debt than in the previous 117 years of this Confederation. It is because the Minister of Finance made a lot of mistakes by always believing his own predictions. The first mistake he made was when he went abroad to borrow because he could get a better interest rate. A big part of the debt is now in the hands of foreigners. That is why he has very little flexibility.
After that, because he had predicted that interest rates would go down, he shifted the long-term debt to short-term debt. A big part of the debt is in treasury bills which are coming on the table every day and every week. With that error, it is no wonder that he has to maintain high interest rates and a high dollar. He does not want people who have invested in Canada in short-term money to run away with the money.
When I was Minister of Finance I could have borrowed money at 2 per cent in Switzerland. We could have if I had rolled the dice with the economy. I would have looked good in the short term. Who would have paid the capital 10 years later-perhaps three times the capital? No, we were responsible.
When I read the phrase in the Speech from the Throne "Finances have been put on a sound base", who are they kidding? What a joke.

There is 13 per cent unemployment in the riding of Charlevoix. The Prime Minister told them: I am going to create jobs, jobs, jobs. Thirteen percent unemployment in his own riding!

In Windsor last month, almost 13 per cent of the people were out of work. This is the Prime Minister who promised jobs, jobs and jobs. Where are the jobs for those 17,000 people in Windsor today?

In Montreal, again 13 per cent. Today, more than 200,000 people in the Montreal area are jobless. Where are the jobs the Prime Minister promised them during the election campaigns in 1984 and in 1988?
In Saskatoon almost 13 per cent of the people are out of work. This is the Prime Minister who promised jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are the jobs for those 12,000 people in Saskatoon?
In the city of St. John's, Newfoundland, 13 per cent of the people are unemployed. This is the Prime Minister who promised jobs, jobs, jobs. Where are the jobs for those 11,000 people in St. John's, Newfoundland today? It is always more bad news: decline in output in January by 1.2 per cent; inflation 6 per cent; retail is down by 4 per cent; automobile sales are down by 7 per cent.
We can talk about problems of this nature for hours. Some of my colleagues will get up in this debate and give a lot of these problems to the government to solve.

Mr. Speaker, the facts are quite clear. If you are a person living on a low income, you cannot rely on this government. If you are a young person, you cannot rely on this government. If you are an elderly person, you cannot rely on this government. If you are sick, you cannot rely on this government.

If you own or work on a farm, do not count on this government. If you work in fisheries, it is the same
May 14, 1991

problem. Small factories across the land are closing every day. Nobody can count on this government. This government has turned its back on all the people who are having problems in Canada.
These days the only people who can find work are Tories who work for committees and royal commissions.
We know what has to be done. We have to make sure we have an interest rate policy that makes some sense. We might have to accept a lower Canadian dollar.
What is the problem with the business community today? Look at its situation. Five years ago the dollar was at a more competitive level according to the reality of Canada. That means that today 20 per cent have lack of competitiveness because of the high dollar. The interest rate is 4 points higher on average than the United States. If it is 10 per cent it means that on the item of interest rate for any business the Canadian businessman and producer have to pay 40 per cent more than an American in interest rates. No wonder they cannot compete.
I was in northern Ontario last weekend. In the lumber business sawmills are closing down one after the other. It is the same in Quebec and New Brunswick. Why? Because now we have an export tax imposed on Canada by the American government of 15 per cent. So when you add the 15 per cent plus the 40 per cent for interest costs plus the high Canadian dollar it is no wonder factories and sawmills are closing by the dozen.
I see the minister is now in his seat. He has changed jobs. In research and development we are now 17 out of 23 in the OECD.
The Prime Minister said to Canadians in 1984: "I will double research and development". We went down from 1.42 per cent of GDP in 1984 to 1.28 today, a decline of more than 10 per cent, and the Prime Minister said he was going to double that.


An hon. member:: Shame, shame.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I can go on and on. The former Minister of Finance, the one who caused all these problems, is coming to clear the air. He is the one who created the problem. How can he make Canadian industry competitive when he is the one who caused the decline in research and development? How can he make Canadian
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workers able to compete in the world when he is the one who cut education year after year after year?
How can we be the best in the world when they have made cuts in training year after year after year. The Prime Minister has put the fox in charge of the chicken coop. No wonder this government is now fourth in the polls.
I said at the beginning of this speech, and I repeat, we are at a crossroads in this land. We want to help the government to solve the national problems and quickly. I am very disappointed that it is waiting three months, because by the end of January there will be a lot of pressure on it to postpone and postpone. I have been there before. I remember very well one time we were to solve a problem and we had from September to December 1980 in which to do it. It took longer than that. We listened to the people. We accepted many amendments to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms because we listened to the people and to the parliamentarians and to the groups. It took longer.
The problem is that if the Prime Minister does not act quickly, we will again have our back to the wall. The problem of the economy will not be solved in that time. Political instability will grow in Canada and investment will dry up because the government is not accepting its responsibilities. We are willing to help. We are willing to help because we believe that, as Canadians, we are very privileged people, including the people who sit there. When you are a Canadian, the best asset you have in your pocket is that little piece of paper that says you are a Canadian citizen. It is the greatest asset we all have.
If Canada had not existed, Quebec would not exist anymore. Look at what happened to the francophones in Louisiana and in New England. Here in Canada, at the time of Confederation, we were one million francophones.

There were one million francophones in Canada at the time. Now there are 6.5 million of us.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: There are more francophones outside Quebec than there were in the Canada of 1867. In Quebec, 84 per cent of the people are francophones, Mr. Speaker, and 94 per cent of Quebecers speak French. All

May 14, 1991
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this is possible because Canada existed. Those are the facts!
When I see people in this House ignore those one million francophones outside Quebec, and when I hear people over there saying they are as good as dead, except for the death certificate, I think they should go and visit some of the counties in New Brunswick and see the Acadians who were deported and came back, and who will never lose their language because they believe Canada is the answer.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: It is our duty to keep this country together. Thanks to this country, we are proud to be francophones, and thanks to this country, we are where we are today. Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that if the Prime Minister acts now, he will have our co-operation, because in my many trips across the country, I have found a fantastic reservoir of good will and tolerance.

There are some people who complain about the com flakes boxes. There are some people like that. If they do not like it, they should turn the box around or pretend to read it if they do not want to talk to their wives during breakfast.
We have to fight for this country. We are unique. Very soon in Europe, everybody will speak three languages.

Mr. Rocard, the French Prime Minister, said in an interview with Le Devoir not long ago that he was looking for ways to ensure that every European spoke at least three languages. This means that if you are French, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, you would have to learn either English or German, or a germanic language, and of course the opposite would apply to people who speak English, Danish or German. Here, we already have two languages.
I think that pretty soon, it will be possible for every Canadian in this country who graduates from university to speak not just two but three languages. This would mean that we as North Americans would be able to compete, to travel throughout the world and show that
we are just as good as the Europeans, especially with the added benefit of two official languages. This is a heritage our country may be proud of.
Hundreds of thousands of young anglophone Canadians will leam French today because they know we have two official languages, and that because we have two languages, we are different. This is one of the most important things that differentiate us from Americans.
I therefore urge the Prime Minister to act quickly, because Canada is far too great and noble a country to be allowed to fall apart. All of us are going to work on this together, and Canada will survive!


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I move, seconded by the hon. member for Hamilton East, that the following be added to the address:
This House regrets to inform Your Excellency that your
government is incapable of providing leadership and direction in the
constitutional and economic affairs of the nation, and that it has lost
the confidence of this House and of the Canadian people.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Dingwall:: Mr. Speaker, a point of order. It is my understanding that since 1957, the Leader of the Official Opposition has always been the first speaker following the mover and seconder of the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
I believe that on each and every one of those occasions, with the exception of 1989, the right hon. Prime Minister was the individual who would take his place and respond on behalf of the government.
As I stated, I think the exception was in 1989 when the right hon. Prime Minister, either for lacking courage or political will, did not-


Mr. Speaker:: The hon. member for Cape Breton-East Richmond rises on an alleged point of order. I think the comments of the hon. member are observations. Of course, there is no order binding the government, or for that matter other members, in a particular order that ministers will respond to the Leader of the Opposition.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, may I just take a moment to comment because I think it is very important as we begin this debate?
May 14, 1991

This is the purpose of the throne speech. Some of the discussions on the throne speech have been to call on this House, as much as possible, to rise to the occasion and be non-partisan. I am disappointed this has not happened.


Mr. Speaker:: I would ask hon. members to co-operate with the Chair. I have said that it is not a point of order. I listened to see whether there could possibly be a point of order from the hon. parliamentary secretary's point of view, and it is not a point of order.
I recognize the minister.


Hon. Michael Wilson (Minister of Industry, Science and Technology and Minister for International TVade):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to support the Speech from the Throne as presented yesterday by the Governor General.
I listened carefully to the comments of the Leader of the Opposition as well as the House leader just now, and I regret to say that one important element of the Speech from the Throne has been totally missed by the opposition parties. We are trying to gain a greater degree of non-partisanship and a common approach towards some of the very key problems that we are facing as a country. Two of these I propose to discuss today; unity and prosperity, particularly prosperity.
The Speech from the Throne does present two overarching themes, two over-arching concerns of Canadians today, one of these being national unity, the other being economic prosperity. National unity, at a time when Canadians are re-examining some of the fundamental institutions and approaches that have served us for generations. Economic prosperity, at a time when Canadians enjoy great benefits but face tremendous challenges to maintain and improve their way of life.
We stand at a crossroads, Mr. Speaker. One road leads to the creation of a new Canada; a Canada whose prosperity has a firm foundation in our ability to meet the demands of the international marketplace; a united Canada whose institutions, revitalized and renewed, will provide a legacy for generations to come. The other road leads towards disunity and economic decline, toward a fading power, a Canada no longer able to take its place at the table of leading economic nations, a nation whose
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balkanized parts have neither the influence nor the strength to provide an environment for prosperity.
Future generations are going to look back to this Parliament as a time when Canadians faced squarely their problems and challenges and built confidently for the future.
But we do have a choice, Mr. Speaker. Do we turn up the road towards prosperity and unity, or down the road to decline and division? Each of the paths that we can choose from has two tracks. Our economic program and our progress in constitutional renewal are linked as if they were two wheels on one vehicle. Our desire for unity grows from our pride in Canada. But it is nurtured by our desire to prosper. Our social safety net, our standard of living, and our ability to seek fulfilling employment anywhere in one of the world's most envied economies provide powerful reasons for the country to remain united.
A united Canada has economic potential that a balkanized Canada will inevitably lose. This is a powerful argument against those who would pull this country apart. It is an argument against which the separatists have offered no reply. The shared desire to build upon our prosperity helps us see beyond any differences in language, race or partisan affiliation. Both keystone issues of the government's agenda, unity and prosperity, transcend the partisan barriers that regularly divide this House. We cannot afford to let our partisan differences interfere with our drive towards shared prosperity, any more than we can let political affiliation stand in the way of our efforts to unite this country.
We will debate about how we will get there, but both sides of this House agree on the final destination: a prosperous and united Canada.

Let there be no misunderstanding. Choices have to be made. We have gone beyond the point of no return. In our quest for prosperity and unity, there is no room for the past and its less complicated realities.
The choice cannot be between a bold approach and one that is easy and familiar. The past is the past. Old approaches would not be suited to the present situation, both as regards national unity and the economy.

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The Address
However, some basic truths have remained unchanged since Confederation and even since the Colonial days. The prosperity of our nation has always been linked to trade.

Trade built this country, whether the export was fish or furs, timber or wheat, autos or engineering services and telecommunications. Trade has kept food on our tables, clothes on our backs for over 300 years. Trade has helped build the high standard of living and the enviable social safety net we enjoy today.
Trade with the world must be the foundation of our prosperity for generations to come. And the removal of our inter-provincial trade barriers within Canada must be a feature of our initiatives towards a new unity. We will work with the provinces to achieve this by 1995. This is not an overly ambitious agenda, because with the work that is being done in the European Community to achieve the same objective by 1992, an objective they have been working on for a few years now, but one that is accepted by 12 countries with 10 different languages. Surely, we in Canada, as one country with two languages, 10 provinces that should be working together in a more aggressive and more effective way, can achieve this by 1995.
Today, the whole world is trading. Competition is tough. We did not make it that way and we cannot wish it away. A failure to trade is a failure to compete and the inability to compete would mean failure to trade. That is a circle that cannot be broken. It is a reality that we cannot ignore. But the environment in which we trade has changed as dramatically as the world has changed since the age of Cartier and Cabot, or Borden and King.
We can no longer rely upon the abundance of our natural resources to provide our standard of living. Nor on the buoyance of our automotive industry. These have been great strengths for us as a country. They have been the source of our prosperity and the build of our trade, and they will continue to be important components of our trade. But now there are new challenges. We must reach further to provide the high quality, high value-added products and services that will support a continued improvement in our standard of living and our quality of life.
We cannot and should not compete in products that are produced by low-wage countries where the level of education, of training and of technology is much lower than ours. That is not our market niche. That would not support our current standard of living.

The challenges of the global economy are impressive. The Canadian people are aware of that fact which was further reinforced by the recession.
It is more difficult to make ends meet, to buy a house and to carry out both personal and family plans.
The same is true for the Canadian economy. Our productivity has increased very marginally over the past decade. We have been outranked by our main competitors.
To meet our needs, we have asked for wage increases which our country could not afford.

This government recognized these developments when it came to power in 1984.
We set upon a course of helping the Canadian economy respond to the demands of the global marketplace. An agenda for economic renewal was introduced in my first economic statement as finance minister and has provided the broad plan that we have followed consistently ever since.
We have introduced new policies to encourage investment, reform the tax system and lessen the burden of government on the economy. Much progress has been made. We eased the regulations that had hampered the ability of businesses to provide for economic growth. We privatized over 20 Crown corporations that no longer serve a public function. We eliminated the taxes on manufacturing products which impeded our ability to sell abroad. Now we must reach further. We must become more competitive as a nation.
I know that some believe that greater competitiveness means lost jobs and lower wages, but in fact the reverse is true. Greater competitiveness means more jobs and higher incomes. Being competitive means smarter jobs, more skilled jobs and greater investment in technology to give people better tools to work with.
May 14, 1991

Being competitive lets us trade. Trade also makes us more competitive. Competitiveness and trade are not optional extras for the Canadian economy. They are at the core of any modem economy. They make an economy modem. They make it succeed. That is not argument or ideology. It is reality.
I doubt whether there is anyone in this House who would dispute that. Nor can anyone deny that the Canadian market is small, larger than many, but small compared to our main competitors. Twenty-six million people cannot sustain a prosperous economy in the modem world by selling only to themselves.
That simple fact of life has made us one of the world's great trading nations. Many of our companies have been great success stories internationally. They know they must compete abroad to be successful at home. This trade generates revenue. This revenue is spent on research and development, technology acquisition, growth and training.
The success of these companies shows how Canadian industry can meet the challenges of the international economy. But in order for Canada to prosper in international trade we need to expand our access to new markets and secure our access to traditional ones.
Through the growing global initiative Canada will penetrate new markets in Europe and the Pacific Rim and take advantage of market opportunities in the U.S.A. The free trade agreement with the United States was a quantum leap in securing and enhancing trade with our largest trading partner.
In 1988 just prior to the FTA implementation, the net direct investment outflow, that is outflow from Canada, was $2.5 billion. In 1990 Canada had a record net direct investment inflow of $4.3 billion from all countries. That was the first time in 16 years that there was a positive inflow of net direct investment.
Our trade surplus with the United States has grown from $14 billion in 1988 to $17 billion in 1990. Since the FTA was implemented exports to the United States rose by approximately 7 per cent in spite of the recession.
What kind of exports? Commodities like cereals and zinc, manufactured goods such as electrical equipment and railway rolling stock, and high-tech equipment such as aerospace equipment, and scientific and professional instruments. In many sectors we are undergoing an
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export boom since the FTA. But we cannot rest on our laurels.
Our ability to compete in the global marketplace continues to be severely tested. There are disturbing signs that Canada is losing its competitive edge. We must respond to this.
According to the World Economic Forum 1990 World Competitiveness Report our over-all competitiveness ranking is fifth, but we rank only thirteenth in industrial efficiency, fifteenth in international orientation, and sixteenth in future orientation.
The world is not going to wait for us to dither and deliberate over the various options to improve our productivity any more than it will wait for us to solve our constitutional issues.
We must act quickly. We must rethink our old ways of doing things. We must adjust our business attitudes and practices to fit the new trading environment.
A number of key factors contribute to the construction of a vigorous, competitive Canadian economy that can thrive in the global market.
First, we must improve our science and technology capabilities and apply best practice technologies in the work place. The level of research and development performed by private industry in Canada is significantly lower than the industrial R and D of our competitors. We are about the same in the level of R and D performed by governments, but we are lagging in the private sector.
We must build networks and alliances among the research communities in industry, the universities and government. We must help industry adapt and adopt new technologies that will sharpen its competitive edge.
The second building block of competitiveness is a highly skilled, quality labour force. Not only does this mean helping the educational system provide the skills that are essential for a modern industrial economy. It also means helping business to sponsor continuing training for its employees. This is all part of the continuous learning experience that is referred to in the Speech from the Throne.
The third factor necessary for international competitiveness is capital markets that are responsive to the needs of our entrepreneurs and our inventors. Lower cost of capital investment means that companies can

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afford a longer time horizon for pay-back on their investments, including investment in research and development.
The fourth factor is that competitiveness requires a business climate that supports enterprise and an efficient domestic market. This climate includes such measures, as I have already mentioned, as deregulation, privatization and tax reform, measures that flowed from the agenda for economic renewal. We have also streamlined and modernized our intellectual property laws and our patent laws and have brought our competition policy into line with the demands of a modem industrial economy.
Fifth, business needs better access to foreign markets and better information about market opportunities wherever in the world they are to be found. We have made historic initiatives in multilateral, trilateral and bilateral trade. We are following up these initiatives by providing services to businesses that will help them tap markets in the United States, Europe and the Pacific Rim, as well as in the Middle East where I had the opportunity to lead a trade mission of some top business people, gaining some new business in the Arabian Gulf area.
Sixth, Canada must reinforce the values, beliefs and attitudes that affect the way we do business. We need to build a business culture that encourages initiative, entrepreneurship and stakeholder partnerships. These are things that cannot be decreed by governments. They must be built through a change in attitude and a change in the environment in which business works today.
Finally, we must continue the course that we have set in maintaining a strong and positive economic environment through lower deficits, low inflation and lower interest rates. This combination of policies will bring real benefits. Our objective, as set out in the Speech from the Throne, is to work with business, labour and provincial governments to generate 2.5 million new jobs by the year 2000 and raise real incomes by 25 per cent.
I list these factors only briefly, but our government will invite Canadians to consider them in detail. In a few weeks, we will release a paper to promote a national
discussion on the factors essential for Canadians' prosperity.

I hope that Canadians across the country, from all sectors of the economy and all walks of life, will be receptive to this working paper. After all, it is the Canadian people as individuals that will ensure our success. It is the workers and managers of the industry who run the economy, along with the contractors who take advantage of an opportunity when it comes their way and the scientists who achieve scientific and technological developments in their laboratories to give us a competitive edge.
Teachers, from elementary school to university, play a role in developing the skills and the culture needed to foster growth and prosperity.
Our success, as a nation, depends on our will to succeed as individuals. That is why we must improve our potential.

I speak of individuals, but individual efforts have much more impact when in concert. Working together, individuals can overcome the fragmentation that results when so few people are scattered across a country so immense.
Overcoming that fragmentation has made Canadians masters of the technology of communications and transportation. It has made us masters of conciliation and consensus.
It has led us to create partnerships, joint ventures, alliances and networks that help span the country in interconnected grids.
It has given us some of the tools we need to take on the global marketplace. It has given us the ability to keep a transcontinental economy moving. It has given us the ability to preserve and revitalize a transcontinental nation.
In conclusion, we must continue to work together to build and strengthen our economy and to renew and strengthen our unity as a country.
It is a strong economy that will give us as individuals the confidence necessary to succeed. This renewed confidence in ourselves will give us greater tolerance and vision to bridge the differences that will always be a part of such a diverse country as Canada.

We all share the vision of the Speech from the Throne for a prosperous and united Canada. I invite hon. members from both sides to join us in implementing the measures that will keep that vision alive, and make it a reality.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Mr. Dennis Mills (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, through you, I would like to say to the new minister that I listened to his words carefully.
There was hardly a sentence that I did not disagree with. How does the minister expect this competitiveness, this globalization and all the things that he described in his speech to happen? How does he expect them to happen when we have a dollar that is inflated, when we have interest rates that are crippling us and when we have a tax system that most businessmen in the world think is the most complicated?
How does he expect fairness, conciliation and action to come about in our economy when we are faced with underpinnings that are so difficult to work with?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I am delighted to hear that the hon. member does agree.
I know from the discussions that he and I have had on a number of occasions that there is a lot of common ground between us.
He has raised issues about the Canadian dollar and about interest rates. He knows that the policies we are following of decreasing the deficit and controlling inflation are key to lowering interest rates.
We have to ensure that Canadians can look forward to lower deficits. The Leader of the Opposition talked earlier about the problem of debt. He and I agree on the problem of debt.
The only way to decrease the debt is to decrease deficits. That requires some tough decisions, but decreasing those deficits will help us lower interest rates and place Canadian businesses in a position where they can compete.
The key point that must be remembered here is that we cannot only focus on some of the issues that the hon. member has mentioned and forget about the issues that I stressed in my remarks such as science and technology, education, training-the continuous learning experience-the environment, the relationship between business and labour, incentives for investment, and all of these
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things which are very important elements in the competitive position of a country.
If we only focus on some of these high profile issues and forget about the others, then we are going to lose the game. That is going to be the essence of the discussion paper and the consultation process that flows from that: how we as Canadians working together can improve our performance in that regard.
It is not just governments that can do that. It is business, labour, educators, provincial governments, municipal governments all working together with one common objective of improving our competitive position.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the minister's comments in terms of making a case for the need for increased competitiveness for the Canadian economy and his reference particularly to support for retraining and education and research and development.
I thought back a few weeks to when we had lobbyists on Parliament Hill from universities, particularly in terms of educational funding for universities and research in a whole variety of areas. Their comments were that over the years the government had actually cut back on the traditional support that it provided for post-secondary education in terms of limiting transfer payments and so on.
I suppose the minister is serious, but does he not think there is a certain hollowness in his comments when he stands and says that this government now is concerned with doing all of these things? Yet would he not have to admit that its record shows that this government has not followed through in supporting research and development, that this government has not followed through with support for post-secondary education and retraining programs.
I know that in my own constituency we have a long list of people who want to get retraining programs launched and there is simply no money there.
While I say the minister is not necessarily being insincere, it must be recognized that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy in what he is saying.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. friend would agree that we have to get interest rates down. Interest rates have come down about five percentage points since this time last year, but we have to get interest rates down further. One of those ways is

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getting the deficit down and getting inflation down as well. There has to be a balance. We cannot get deficits down without making some pretty tough decisions on spending.
I acknowledge that there are people in the community who would like us to be spending more money on a number of policy areas, some of which he has referred to just now. I also say to him that the amount of moneys that the federal government is spending as a percentage of our national income compares favourably with Japan, with the United States, with Germany, with France. It is a question of encouraging the private sector to also match that performance in investing research and development moneys.
We have a tax system that is being judged by objective outside observers, not the Government of Canada, as being the best of the major industrialized countries in support of research and development.
My friend talks about training and says that some people in his constituency are having difficulty in getting access to training moneys. I ask him to think back to 1984. There was practically no money available for training, no money at all. We have built that up through the Canadian Jobs Strategy to $1.7 billion prior to the changes in the unemployment insurance system. Through the changes there, we are redirecting some of those unemployment insurance system moneys into training, which will add another $550 million this year, growing to $750 million in a couple of years' time.
While there are people who want more training moneys-and I fully support that as a point of view-we have made a good deal of progress backing up the commitments and the priorities that we have established as a government since 1984.


Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace):: Mr. Speaker, the Speech from the Throne and the minister's speech are full of good words, soft, soothing, positive words. The rhetoric is spectacular but it is a fraud because the action is to the contrary. Just a few weeks ago, in a budget that he brought down as Minister of Finance, he cut by millions of dollars the training programs in Canada. The training moneys in Canada now are less than they were in 1984 in real dollars. They cut them by 32 per cent between 1984 and 1988 and then they changed the unemployment insurance program to
recuperate some of those dollars. In the recent budget they have cut them again, and they have cut moneys to post-secondaiy education.
The minister says they are doing that to get interest rates down, but you do not get interest rates down and you do not cut a deficit on the backs of education and training dollars. You never do that. There are other places to cut.
The minister and the Speech from the Throne speak with a forked tongue, in favour of education and training, and then they cut them back in the very next action they took just a few months ago.
I want to ask him how can any Canadian sincerely believe what he says in his speech this morning. How can they believe what is in the Speech from the Throne? We are getting double-talk from this government all the time.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, this type of rhetoric used by the hon. member does not help anybody develop a better understanding of the issue. If my hon. friend would go to OECD papers, the Organization of Economic Co-operation Development papers, he would see what has happened over the course of the last six and a half years. We had practically no active job-training moneys at that time. We had one of the largest passive income support programs of the OECD countries, but we were not putting nearly enough of it into training and education.
We have made a significant degree of progress in that, as I outlined in response to my friend from Kamloops, but more can be done, more should be done. What we are trying to do in the course of the consultations that will flow from the agenda for prosperity paper that I referred to in my speech is seek out the ideas of Canadians as to how we can do this working together. It is not just government training moneys. It is also getting a changed attitude on the part of business so that we have businesses themselves spending more money on training of their own employees.
There are some very powerful numbers which show that Canadian businesses do not spend nearly as much as their competitors in the United States, Germany, or Japan, and we must change this. It is a change in attitude, that continuous learning experience that was referred to in the Speech from the Throne, that is the
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essence of what we are trying to achieve as a government, but much broader than that, as a people.


Mr. Steven W. Langdon (Essex-Windsor):: Mr. Speaker, all of us who have been in politics a while have learned to have modest expectations about throne speeches. Throne speeches are almost inevitably vague. They usually lack focus because they cover such a wide range of subjects.
In judging any throne speech, you start with modest expectations and you look for those fresh and creative ideas, those bright and sensitive responses to our many problems that make a good speech stand out from a disappointment.
I have to say, despite the efforts of the previous minister to dress up this speech, there were no fresh and creative ideas in this throne speech. There were no sensitive responses to the hundreds of thousands of people across this country who are hurting because of the government's policies, policies which have been in effect and policies which will continue to be in effect, as expressed by this throne speech.
This speech was not just uninspiring, it was full of bland ideas recycled from the past. As a banner to unite this country the speech is a disaster. As a hope for our economy and the people in our economy, it really is a shameful disappointment to Canadians. If we look around at the reality of our economy, it is a reality which is grim and tough for many, many people.
I have here the report of Statistics Canada which came out last week, May 10, 1991. It shows that over the past year in our country, we have lost 418,000 full-time jobs. The government talks bravely about creating 2.5 million new jobs by the year 2000. It does not recognize at all, in what was said in the speech, that it has devastated this country with these kinds of figures: 418,000 full-time jobs lost in just a year. That kind of devastation is something that a country cannot take. With that number of full time jobs eliminated, one cannot expect people in this country to keep faith in their government and in their political system.
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That is why across this country, and I have been travelling across it, one hears so much in the way of cynicism and despair about our government, about our political system.
It is not because people have come to distrust politicians in general, as this government would have us believe. It is because this government has lost the trust and the faith of Canadians across this country in policy area after policy area, whether we talk about the environment and the fact that the much heralded green plan was actually cut back in the last budget, or we talk about social services, so crucial to many people in this country in the middle of a recession. This government has lost the faith of people because it has refused to pay its previously agreed share of the Canada Assistance Plan benefits going to British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.
Then this government has the nerve to say to a government like that in Ontario, when it keeps faith with the promises to give people health: "Terrible, you are spending more money". The reason more money is being spent is because the people across this aisle, the people who now come to us and ask for a non-partisan attitude, have destroyed the sense of trust that people in this country can have in their federal government. It has broken not just election promises made before an election but signed agreements with the provinces on which people throughout this country counted and as a result of which they are now suffering.
I say "suffering" not to exaggerate, but because it is an honest reflection of what we have heard in communities across this country. Our economic recovery tour has crossed Canada, has visited community after community, has heard from poverty groups, has heard from community development groups and has heard from city social services groups. It has heard of the way in which the unemployment changes that this government put into effect have forced people on to welfare, have forced municipalities to pay for that welfare, often devastating the tax base of those municipalities and destroying the dignity of the people who are forced to experience such welfare, very often for the first time in their lives.
We can talk about bankruptcies. Again we can look at the latest figures which have come out for March of this year. They show a record. This government has not given

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us record growth. It has given us record bankruptcies of small businesses and of people across this country: 6,258 in March of this past year. That is up 52 per cent from a year ago. Ontario has suffered an increase of 78 per cent.
We all know that for every single bankruptcy of a small business there are at least two other small businesses that simply shut their doors and lay their people off. The jobs and the hopes those small businesses had disappear.
The Conference Board of Canada, usually a friend of this government, came out this past week with a relatively unbiased source of information, indicating that this government and this country will have the worst growth record of any industrialized country in the entire western world; another record for this government to think about.
Did you see, Mr. Speaker, any of this harsh reality in the throne speech? Did you see any statement which recognized that we are in a recession? Did you see anything which indicated that we have lost 418,000 full-time jobs in the past year, that we have lost 6,000 in the past month? Not a thing, just brave words about prosperity.
This economic disaster is a tremendous challenge to our unity as a country. It is a challenge which this government is not meeting and will not meet with the empty words in this throne speech. It talks about a paper on learning with absolutely no detail, a suggestion that of course it does not take money to do anything about learning. There is no recognition that it is the government's very own cutbacks in financial support for the provinces, through Established Programs Funding, money which goes to education, which is creating the educational crisis across this land.
The government talks again about free trade and how wonderful free trade has been. I would have thought that the government would at least not have had the effrontery, the gall to stand up in this Parliament and talk about how free trade has helped this country in the face of 418,000 permanent job losses in the past year.


Mr. McCreath:: Where did you get that figure?


Steven W. Langdon: Right out of Statistics Canada.


Peter L. McCreath: And how many new jobs?


Steven W. Langdon: How many new jobs? There have been
109,000	new jobs, all of them part-time, in the past year. The total loss of employment in this past year has been well over 300,000, even if you include part-time jobs, which most people in this country are not looking for. They are looking for full-time jobs.
I suggest to members across the way that if they are not prepared to believe me, they should look the statistics up in the daily Statistics Canada, May 10, 1991. It states that full-time employment decreased by
418,000.
There is a great deal of talk in this throne speech about the need to be flexible and the need to be able to adjust in this country. The previous minister talked about this need. Yet this government's promise of the veiy best adjustment policies ever to be seen in any western country disappeared the day the election ended in 1988 and we have not seen any of it in the House of Commons since.

I have never heard such an empty Throne Speech! There is simply nothing in it. Lower interest rates are mentioned, but the job is left entirely to the private sector without any kind of assistance. To help and reassure the people, the government has promised some more major economic restructuring, this time with a free-trade deal between Canada, the United States and also Mexico. That is supposed to make us more competitive on global markets. The government also talks about improving education opportunities and promoting job training. But how can we trust a government that keeps on cutting funding in that field?

What should this speech have said? There should have been action in it for small business especially. There should have been serious hope of a government loans program that would help small business across this country. There should have been bankruptcy reform which small business has been pushing for for years and which this government still has not delivered. There should have been responses to farmers across this country.
I have just returned from a trip across western Canada in which farmers talked to me about their unhappiness with GRIP. They see the Gross Revenue Insurance Program as something that would simply not respond to
May 14, 1991

their immediate needs and would not give them any serious long-term hopes for the future because there was no reflection of cost of production in the formula that was used to set the basis for support in GRIP.
We have the previous minister talking about competitiveness. We believe in a competitive economy. It is our only hope for the future as a country. However, the question is how do we build competitiveness. Do we build competitiveness by destroying factories and jobs with a free trade deal? Do we build competitiveness by cutting back $100 million in training in the last budget? Do we build competitiveness by reducing support for the National Research Council? Surely not.
What we should do to achieve competitiveness as a country in the future is build a country based on the abilities of its people. To do that, we must end poverty in this country. We must do something to give us more equality in Canada. We must change financial support to give people a sense of security in their health and educational support.
What else? There should have been a commitment to reduce the value of the dollar, a commitment to establish an economic recovery fund which would respond to local community-based initiatives, a commitment to investment in the future of our country.
The speech talks about setting partisan motives aside. This government has not set aside a single one of the partisan commitments which it has forced down the throats of Canadians in this past seven years. It has not rejected the free trade agreement. It has not questioned the GST. It has not questioned the tax changes it has made to benefit the rich. It has not questioned the cutbacks in VIA, the cutbacks in the CBC, the cutbacks in institution after institution that are crucial for our country's future.
Yet it says: "Come on guys, be non-partisan, give us a break". This country has no business giving this government a break. What this country should do is give this government the boot, not give it any kind of break, because it has jammed partisan objectives down the throats of Canadians which can simply not be accepted.
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I therefore move a subamendment to the previous amendment as follows. I move, seconded by the member for Skeena:
That the amendment be amended by adding the following words after "economic affairs of the nation" in the previous amendment: "as demonstrated by the absence of any new initiatives to respond to widespread human distress caused by your government's economic policies and by the reliance on yet another parliamentary committee in the next round of constitutional discussions".


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend from Windsor. There is something in his remarks that leaves me a little confused and I would like to put a question to him with respect to this.
He frequently speaks of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and seems to feel that this has had a negative impact on the Canadian economy, something which I have some difficulty understanding. It is my understanding that possibly my hon. friend feels that, in fact, the Canadian market within itself is large enough to meet all the needs of Canadian manufacturers such that we need never sell anything outside of Canada.
It is my understanding that the way trade opportunities go is through mutual accords of one sort or another. Therefore, if the means to the growth in the Canadian economy, if the means to the creation of substantive employment possibilities is in having access to markets that will allow our businesses and industries to grow, the logical means is to set up trade accords that give us access to those markets. They reasonably are going to want access back to ours.
Therefore, my question to the hon. member is this. If it is his intent that Canada should not open up trade with other countries of the world, if Canada should not access the opportunities for growth and expansion in competitive Canadian industries, how does he propose to have the Canadian economy grow, if we are going to confine ourselves to having higher and higher and higher walls put around our country?


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I must say that is a remarkable question for somebody to put, given the debate which has taken place in this country over the trade deal for many years. It has been our position

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throughout that debate that by locking ourselves into an accord with the United States, we were, in fact, making it more difficult for us to deal with trade opportunities in other parts of the world.
For ourselves, we certainly see the goal of economic policy as, of course, trying to create as prosperous a country as possible, while trying to see to it that environmental goals are met within that framework. In that context we are also trying to expand our trade with not just the United States but the Asian Pacific countries which are growing so fast. The European countries, in particular eastern Europe, is changing dramatically and offers a great many trade opportunities to countries that are prepared to get in there.
I think that where this government made its mistake was to set up a special set of trade rules with the United States which gave every incentive to companies to locate in the United States and export into Canada, instead of locating here and exporting into the United States. In our particular community, for instance, we have seen in the past year 40 factories which have shut up shop and shifted to the United States or to Mexico.
That, Mr. Speaker, is not what prosperity for this country is about. Prosperity is about those plants staying here, exporting to the United States but also exporting to other parts of the world.
I want to suggest too that the member's part of Canada from which I have just returned is going to feel much of this damage now that the doors have been opened to wheat exports from the United States into Canada.
Many farmers who I have talked to in western Canada said that this was going to be just as serious a disaster for the west as the free trade in manufactured goods has been for Ontario.


Mr. Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt):: Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to look at the throne speech very carefully. There are some excerpts in it that I would like to read:
-that the Government of Canada represents all Canadians; and
that change can be achieved only through reasonable compromise
and enlightened accommodation of the interest of all Canadians;
As we are talking right now, 37 per cent of our Canadian population is made up of Canadians who, if we want to call them ethno-Canadians, are people who have
come to this country since 1947. Statistics Canada states that by the year 2000, 58 per cent of the Canadian population will be other than an anglophone or a francophone.
If we were to look at what constitutes a francophone or an anglophone, an anglophone could be somebody from the British Isles, an Irishman or a Scotsman. Nowhere in this throne speech do we see precisely and clearly something addressing the needs of the people of this country who have come here in the last 50 years.
Nowhere in the speech are we inviting people who have come to this country in the past 50 years to sit at the negotiating table to look at Canada's future.
My question, through you, Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member is: Does he not agree with me that if we do not invite the ethno-Canadians to sit at the negotiating table to talk about Canadian unity, we could run in the year 2010 with small interest groups all over different parts of our country saying that they were not invited. Therefore, we would like to sit down and negotiate out future in Canada now. We could be in the midst of renegotiating the Constitution 20 years from now. Why are we not looking 20 years into the future and inviting those groups now?


Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, I think that it is a very important question which has been put.
Next week the Canadian Ethno-Cultural Council is meeting with all parties. I am never quite sure which category I fall into. I suppose as somebody from the Celtic fringes of Ireland, it makes me either British or anti-British, I am never quite sure.
It certainly makes it important for us as parliamentarians to recognize that our country is changing. In my view, it is changing very much in a positive way in bringing together within our country a wider and wider variety of people.
In my constituency, there is a very large Chinese population. There is a large Sikh population. There is a large Hindu population. We have many different European countries represented. We are seeing an increasing number of people from the Middle East; from Lebanon, from Iran and from other countries in my constituency. I think this is something which is a tremendous boost to us as a community and to us as a country.
May 14, 1991

What disappoints me most about the constitutional elements in this throne speech is that the parliamentary committee which was made the centrepiece of the new constitutional moves within this document is not going to permit such diversity to be reflected in the decisionmaking process about our constitutional future.
If we could start to look seriously at a constituent assembly and see it as something that needs to be built for the future, it would be a mechanism which could bring in a wide number of the different groups within this country which are not as fully represented in this Parliament as they should be and, hopefully, as they will be after the next election campaign.
Certainly in our legislature, the New Democratic legislature in Ontario, there is very strong representation of such groups and I hope that will also turn out to be the case in this Parliament after the next election.


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Etobicoke North):: Mr. Speaker, the government, in presenting its Speech from the Throne and in dealing, in particular, with Canada's recent economic performance and economic prospects, offers, briefly, five points as the foundation for its further leadership in the economy. First, the government, in the Speech from the Throne, says quite flatly that economic recovery depends on reducing interest rates. The other four nostrums that the government presents are deficit reduction, tax reform, free trade, and productivity growth. I want to deal with each of those five points in order. I want then to turn to the prospects that Canadians face when they ask themselves what is this government's real commitment to create the circumstances in which our economy can flourish.
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medicine of high interest rates was the only possible solution to that problem facing all Canadians.
But what have we seen since then? What has happened? In the last budget the government suddenly decided that its policy was in error. It decided that it was wrong, that it had pursued the incorrect monetary policies, that in fact by imposing on Canadians high interest rates it had hobbled the further development of Canadian industry. It had imposed on Canadians the inability to provide themselves with adequate housing. It had denied the Canadian people the opportunity to participate more actively in the greater global economy.
What did the government do? It suddenly decided, and it was very sudden, that high interest rates were no longer desirable, that the made-in-Canada recession which it had itself brought about by pursuing high interest rates was no longer desirable and that it was a mistake. Now the government says that we are going to have reduced interest rates.
All Canadians must welcome that sudden conversion, but the assurance that we are going to have reduced interest rates cannot be accepted without a certain grain of salt, a certain scepticism, when we see the recent performance of this government.
In the instance of its monetary policy, one can only regard the Speech from the Throne with some real scepticism. On deficit reduction equally, the government has throughout its term of office since 1984 assured Canadians that it would reduce the debt and reduce the service charges on that debt. That was a primary goal the government would pursue to ensure further economic growth in our country, to ensure that the costs of servicing the debt was not a burden on the Canadian exchequer or on the prospects of Canadians as they entered the last decade of this century.
As I have just noted, the government has stated flatly what has happened with debt and deficit reduction is, that economic recovery depends on reducing interest jn fact>
qUjte the contrary. The government somehow rates. This is a new-found goal for the government. It is ]ost its courage. It made some initial efforts to reduce not many months ago, indeed it is only a matter of two government spending and, therefore, to reduce the debt months or so ago, when the Prime Minister and his and deficit, but it soon lost its courage and nerve. The colleagues extolled higher interest rates as the most result is, today, that, as the Leader of the Opposition effective public policy instrument for combating infla- pointed out earlier, since coming to office the govem-tion. The government told Canadians that inflation was ment has driven up the debt to unparalleled levels. It has the worst possible threat that could face them. The harsh imposed more and more debt-servicing charges on

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Canadians which have become a real straight-jacket on our further economic growth.
In its second goal of economic management, one has to conclude again that the performance of this government has been a failure. Canadians will regard, with real scepticism, the phrase in the Speech from the Throne that the government, in the time ahead, will be committed to deficit reduction.
On the first two counts, we have to regard these commitments, brief as they may be, and I understand why they should be brief given the government's record, with real scepticism, as we must regard the third element in its economic program for the time ahead: tax reform.
This government came to office promising major tax reform, tax simplification and tax consolidation. What in fact do we have? We have today a tax system which is at least as complicated as it was when this government came to office. So much for tax reform. The fact is that by adding taxes on 32 occasions since it came to office, this government has not only imposed an increasingly heavy tax burden on individual Canadians and on Canadian business, most recently of course in the case of the goods and services tax, but in so doing it has also complicated the tax system and rendered it even more complex than it already was.
The opportunity for Canadians to benefit from a tax system which would offer incentives to those of an entrepreneurial character, to those who want to improve their own skills, to have the full opportunity to participate in our national economy, to move freely in our country, has been denied by the government's consistent failure to fulfil its promise both to simplify our tax system and to reduce the tax burden on individual Canadians and corporations.
That is the third of the major areas in which one can only view with real doubt the degree of commitment the government is making in the Speech from the Throne when it repeats yet again that it will reduce interest rates, that it will reduce deficits and commit itself to real tax reform.
I want now to turn to a fourth major area in which the government has identified a priority in the Speech from the Throne, the area of international trade. Here the government limits itself in fact to the free trade agreement and to the prospect of a North American free trade
area. We look in vain for any evidence in the Speech from the Throne that the government has committed itself to a truly global approach in our international economic relations.
Canada has prospered since the end of World War II by its commitment to a global economy in which tariffs have consistently been reduced or eliminated, and Canadian governments, recognizing that Canada is a major trading country, have sought to give further prosperity to Canadians by pursuing the global route in our economic relations.
This government has chosen instead to adopt a conti-nentalist approach. It has, as it were, chosen to place our economic interests even more in the U.S. basket, as it were, than it did in the past. In the Speech from the Throne, the government justifies its commitment to continentalism by stating that the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement has helped to secure the Canadian economy in difficult times.
What evidence does it offer for this bald statement? All it offers is more that foreign investment-according to its statistics-has come into Canada to a greater degree than has been the case in the recent past.
What is the government claiming by saying this? Is it saying that the investment has been in those areas of high economic growth internationally; that it is rendering Canada more competitive? It offers no evidence of the benefits to Canada of this particular growth in foreign investment. Aside from that particular point, is this the final justification for the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement? When the agreement was first mooted, we were all assured that secure access to Canada's major market was the principal goal of those committed to the negotiations.
In fact, that realization of secure access has not been there. The government knows this. The government knows that the free trade agreement is only half completed. Under the terms of the agreement, the whole question of subsidies, a major difficult, complex question, has been left aside. The government says nothing about this in the Speech from the Throne. Yet it must know that during the course of this new Parliament, which we have just embarked upon, the question of subsidies, that is the other half of the U.S.-Canada free trade agreement, will come to a head. It will necessarily have to be dealt with.
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What is the government's commitment? What is the government's policies? What does it propose to do to bring to completion its own free trade agreement in a way that can offer some hope that Canadians can benefit from this continental approach that the government has decided to pursue?
That realization of any benefits of free trade with the United States-if indeed there are substantial benefits in a free trade agreement which has not embodied in it any agreement on subsidies-will also be limited by the fact that this government has not offered, and does not in the Speech from the Throne offer Canadians any real opportunity to benefit from the increased global competition through providing them with adjustment assistance.
My colleague from the other opposition party has just drawn attention to the consistent failure of this government since the free trade agreement was adopted to provide Canadian workers and Canadian students with the opportunity to equip themselves to compete either in a continental free trade area or in the freer trade of a global economy. What in this respect is the government offering Canadians in this Speech from the Throne? It is certainly not the best adjustment policies in the world, which the Prime Minister so glibly offered during the free trade debate. It offers nothing to justify the statement in the Speech from the Throne that "the next logical step" is the negotiation of a North American free trade area.
Any Canadian knows perfectly well that the reason the government has entered into negotiations with the United States and Mexico of a North American free trade agreement is that it had little other option. Once the government had committed itself to the free trade agreement with the United States, then by extension, it had to be at the table with Mexico. Is that the government's priority in trade policy? Is our trade policy now largely that we shall enter into a free trade agreement with Mexico? Is this the priority of the government? We look in vain to the Speech from the Throne for any evidence of a real commitment to a global economic policy, to a commitment to trade on a global level. What is in fact this government's trade policy?
It is the year 1991. We are on the eve of a European community of yet greater vigour and integration. We
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face the prospect of eastern Europe coming into a wider association with western Europe. Throughout Asia, the economic growth offers new opportunities for Canada. Why are we not told by this government that it will seek new trading relations, freer trading relations globally? Indeed, why not seek free trade with the European community and with those Asian countries willing to negotiate? Why not go to those countries and seek the global markets which this government says it is committed to, while the whole time it pursues mainly a continental trade policy?
We look in vain to this Speech from the Throne for anything but a rather stale and doubtful commitment to the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement which, as I say, has not been completed and, in any case, which the government says leads on to the "logical step" of Mexico. In fact, there is no such logic at all.
The logic of the government's trade policy should be to take the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement as a basis, in an urgent way, to seek freer trade agreements with countries outside the North American continent.
The government does offer, in a rather indirect way, the creation of a true economic union in Canada as one way in which Canadians can hope to achieve higher standards of living and to better compete internationally.
There is nothing new about such a commitment. Indeed, the question is rather: Where has the government been? Many issues the government raised in the Speech from the Throne are to be dealt with in further studies. We are told that more commissions are required, but in most issues the work has already been done. The Canadian people know what the problems are. There is no need for further studies and further commissions.
From the days of Confederation in 1867, there has been a commitment in this country, at least in theory, to a true economic union. In 1991, the government says: "We need further study. We will look at the question some more and by 1995 we may have something to say about it".
The opportunities are here now. What leadership is the government providing with the provincial governments? Does it seek an agreement with them on a timetable for the reduction and elimination of internal barriers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people?

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Does it set out a timetable and then reach agreement with the provinces on a monitoring agency so as to assure the Canadian people that real progress is being made?
In any event, is this commitment to an economic union-as welcome as it is and as belated as it is-compatible with political decentralization which the government has been talking about? Is it compatible with the continued federal regulations which act as an impediment to a true economic union in Canada?
One could go on. Obviously, the whole area of greater productivity and competitiveness is one that can also be studied to death. The government, in the Speech from the Throne, offers it to the Canadian people as if it were a new found land. What is astonishing is that it has taken the government so long to identify the need for Canadians to be competitive.
Education is clearly a major part of any such competitive initiative, yet the government offers nothing specific. It simply says: "More study, more commissions. Let's look at it. Let's consider it further. Maybe some time in the distant future, we will come back to you with more specific proposals."
Mr. Speaker, I would submit to you in all these instances and in others the Speech from the Throne fails to provide Canadian people with a clear policy or a clear indication of what this government intends to do in the time ahead.


Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise two questions with my colleague who has just given a rather insightful analysis of some of the problems that exist in the throne speech.
From my particular perspective, I believe that the Speech from the Throne ought to be a document of hope and one that inspires Canadians with a certain amount of confidence with regard to the problems that we now face.
I have two questions. The first one: Does he believe that Canadians who are dramatically affected in a negative kind of way by Canada's current economic situation have any reason for hope as a result from this Speech from the Throne? I am talking about Canada's almost 5 million poor, most of whom are women and many of whom are children.
As we speak today, there are 2 million Canadians who are on welfare, 1.8 million Canadians approximately who will be fed by food banks and 40 per cent of whom will be children during the next year, unemployed who number over 1.5 million and bankruptcies that have gone up by over 6,000 this month.
If one compares this with a year ago, the number is up over 50 per cent. Is there any hope for any of those Canadians who are among those groups?
My second question recognizes that the deficit is in excess of $30 billion-in fact, it is $30.5 billion-and it has been hovering at about that amount for the last several years and that the debt is almost $400 billion today, it is an increase from almost $168 billion in 1984? Should Canadians have any confidence in this particular Speech from the Throne?


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the questions of my hon. colleague from St. Boniface.
He draws attention to the absence in this Speech from the Throne of any evidence that the government has found the resources or, indeed, the commitment to deal effectively and urgently with the real problems that confront the poor.
Many women and children remain in a state of destitution in a country of extraordinary affluence. You would look in vain to this Speech from the Throne for such initiatives to counter the poverty.
Would it not have been possible for this government to offer, since it seems so committed to studies, commissions and reports, an examination of our social policy programs? Should we, for example, be moving in Canada toward a system of a guaranteed annual income-or a negative income tax, if you prefer to call it that? Should we be examining the further potential of the tax system to provide those Canadians whom my hon. friend has rightly described as living in deprivation with the adequate resources they need to live in dignity and with the opportunity to provide more for themselves than they are able to do in the circumstances which the government has created?
Demand side economics stands back from the provision of those services in which Canadians can be equipped to help themselves. It is time that priority be given more to supply side economics where the govern-
May 14, 1991

ment realizes its role in offering the individual Canadian the opportunity to fully realize his or her potential.
On the hon. member's second question, of course the answer has to be no. We have seen no real commitment on the part of this government to bring down the debt and the debt servicing charges, that is to say the deficit, during its years in office. It made a show of doing so in its first years in office, but it got cold feet as a result of pursuing the wrong policies in debt reduction. It then gave up the fight.
To make matters worse, in the election of 1988, in promising the earth, the sky, the moon and the sun to all Canadians, it promised that a decreased level of government spending would bring prosperity. What in fact the government did, despite the denials of the finance minister of the time, was to drive up government spending further. As the hon. member points out, we are now in a situation where the debt is approaching $400 billion.
There is no real commitment in the Speech from the Throne and indeed from the government generally to put its fiscal house in order. It is part of the general tone of this wholly inadequate Speech from the Throne that the government, while touching on the point, glosses completely over what it intends to do to make any real commitment to progress in that area.


Mr. Bob Speller (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his comments. I am not sure if you are aware, Mr. Speaker, but the hon. member has taken it upon himself, along with my colleague from Winnipeg, to study our international trade situation.
The hon. member heard what the Speech from the Throne said about Canada's trading future, that we are going to tie our trading future to a trilateral deal. The hon. member has studied the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. I know he had a big role to play in the committee study of the Canada-Mexico-U.S. future trade deal. I know that he has done a lot of work in looking at hemispheric trade.
I am wondering if he could comment on the Speech from the Throne's proposition that Canada should limit itself by tying itself to a trilateral free trade deal. I am
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wondering if he could comment on where he thinks Canada should go in this area.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising what is of course a fundamental question in this Speech from the Throne. The fact that this government has committed itself in trade policy to largely a continental direction is bad public policy. It was wrong in the free trade agreement and it is wrong in the negotiation of a free trade area with Mexico. Wrong in the sense that it is limiting, that it provides a barrier, as it were, to the full realization of Canada's role as a world trader.
What does the government say in its Speech from the Throne? It says that the free trade agreement has helped to secure the Canadian economy in difficult times. That would come as a surprise to most Canadians. I think they would be quite astonished to read that. In fact, most Canadians would think that the free trade agreement probably exacerbated, made worse, the difficult economic times to which the government refers.
The reason that the free trade agreement has made our recent economic circumstances worse is really threefold. One is that the government has pursued monetary policies which have almost certainly rendered the free trade agreement of limited or no present benefit to Canada. The government has pursued a monetary policy of high interest rates which attract foreign currency and drive up the value of the Canadian dollar, rendering Canadian exports non-competitive. The Canadian manufacturing industry-steel, for example-has a very real problem in exporting when the Canadian dollar is at 85 or 87 cents.
The free trade agreement, whatever one's view of it, might or might not work to some benefit to Canadians with a 75 cent dollar. I cannot believe anyone thinks it is going to work effectively with an 87 cent dollar.
So, high interest rates and a high Canadian dollar have rendered the free trade agreement of little or no benefit to Canadians, if indeed it has any benefits for Canadians.
Third, of course, the government, as I mentioned, has not offered the adjustment programs which could help to make a reality of Canadian competitiveness in a world economy. We in Canada need to equip ourselves to trade with the world, not just with Mexico, not just with the

May 14, 1991
The Address
United States. We need to pursue adjustment policies to corporations and workers that would strengthen Canada's role in a global trading economy.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in this throne speech. I would like to compliment the government on this visionary throne speech which puts forward several ideas that point the direction Canada should be taking as we head toward the 21st century.
I am pleased to see the high profile given to education. Education is the basis for the future, and education is the key that unlocks the door to economic opportunity for all individuals.
I am pleased to see the emphasis on renewing the effectiveness and the responsiveness of the government, and on continuing the excellent innovations that were made toward the end of the last session with respect to how this place operates.
However, the two initiatives that are by far and away the most important include the initiative to respond to what is called the unity crisis in Canada, to look ahead and set in place a process whereby this country can come together and build and strengthen itself and renew confederation as we head to the 21st century. Also, at the same time, there must be the very important recognition that economic prosperity, economic recovery and economic strength are the real keys to unity in this country, bringing together these concepts of political or constitutional unity and economic unity and economic strength. That is the secret to the future of this country. That linkage is very important.
One cannot help but notice in these recent months that increasingly there is a tendency, as we look at this whole issue of national unity in Canada, to see a polarized focus on Quebec on the one hand and on western Canada, particularly Alberta, on the other hand. We see that in those two parties which seem to have very similar goals, the Bloc Quebecois on the one hand and the Reform Party on the other.
I am a member of Parliament from Atlantic Canada. I asked myself as I read this throne speech, as I listened to the debate throughout the nation and read the various
articles in the newspapers and watched television, where is Atlantic Canada in this agenda? Where is Nova Scotia in the context of not only the national agenda generally but the agenda of the government of the day?
As I read the throne speech and look to the direction that we are heading, I ask myself where do we as maritimers, where do we as Nova Scotians, fit in all this?
I think it is important. It is a time for reflection as well as a time for looking back. We cannot ignore our history. Some may choose to abuse our history but it can be instructive. It is important to remind this House and to remind Canadians as they head into this continuing process of national renewal that my province of Nova Scotia did not come willingly into confederation. Indeed, it could be said that we came kicking and screaming into confederation.
It is important to remember that in the first election following Confederation, out of 19 members of Parliament, Nova Scotians elected 18 who were separatists, who were anti-Confederates. It is important to remember that we have not always felt welcome and comfortable within Confederation. It is important to remember that there was a separatist movement in 1886 and 1887 that elected a separatist government in Nova Scotia. It is important to remember the Maritimes Rights Movement of the mid-1920s, a movement that resulted in the establishment of the Duncan commission which reported that Atlantic Canada did indeed have a valid complaint with the way Confederation had operated.
I think it explains, if one looks more closely, the tendency throughout the last 50 years for the maritimes to be represented in this House predominantly from the opposition benches. There is a message in that. Why do maritimers tend to vote for the opposition party? The answer, quite simply, is there is a long-standing feeling, rightly or wrongly, that Atlantic Canada has never been at the centre of the decision-making process. It has never been at the centre or in the forefront of the minds of those who lead our country from the cabinet offices.
In a sense, we do ourselves an injustice if we compare the voting patterns of maritimers with the voting patterns of Quebec. Quebec has tended to vote as a block, tended always to be represented predominantly in the government benches and, consequently, to be represented in very large numbers at the cabinet table.

We, on the other hand, as maritimers, tend to send opposition members. As a result, our voices are not as numerous and not necessarily as strong as those of other regions of the country. When I go to caucus on Wednesday morning, I see four fellow Nova Scotians in the room. At the same time, I see 55 or 56 members from Quebec. It is incumbent on us as Nova Scotians to speak up loudly to make sure that our voices are heard.
That is why I stand in this debate and welcome the opportunity to participate early, to raise my voice, not only on behalf of Canada which we are all here to represent, but particularly on behalf of my own province of Nova Scotia, as we look at the two goals of economic prosperity and the quest for national unity.
Economic issues are not only the key to unity, but they are foremost on the minds of Nova Scotians today. When I am in my constituency, or travelling in different parts of my province, I find that while there is passing interest in the unity debate in Canada, the preoccupation is with economic issues.
We are in the midst of, and have been for some time, difficult economic times in the maritimes, precipitated in part by the difficulties in our fishing industry, which is still our largest industry, and also by difficulties in our forest products industry because of burgeoning disputes with the Europeans and concern about what may happen with a memorandum of understanding in softwood lumber, and other issues.
We have not been well served, quite frankly, by the medicine that has been given to the Canadian economy to respond to the overheated situation in Ontario. We have not been in an overheated situation, therefore, we have not benefited from the high interest rates over the last couple of years, or from the high dollar which makes our exports more expensive. In the south-west of Nova Scotia we are an export economy and we have not benefited from a high dollar.
Quite frankly, as I travel from one end of the south shore to the other, I am distressed at the number of businesses that have gone out of business or that are bankrupt.
Looking at unemployment insurance statistics, although recently they appear to have become more favourable in Nova Scotia, I suspect that if we were to examine the number of people who have withdrawn
themselves from the labour force, that may well have impacted those rates.
It is important for people here in Ottawa to understand that whatever arguments may be made about various economic and fiscal factors, whether they be good or whether they be bad, the perception that exists in my province right now is that times are tough and that we have been negatively impacted by the economic medicine that has been targeted primarily at Ontario and Quebec.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are giving me the eye so I guess I will have to wait until after lunch.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being one o'clock, I do now leave the chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m., the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mrs. Shirley Maheu (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make the House realize of the concerns shared by the Armenian community of Canada, who are gravely offended and angry about the most recent acts of violence perpetrated by the Soviet security forces.

Financial assistance should not be provided to the Soviet Union if it does not immediately halt the violence against the Soviet-Armenian population. It is time for the U.S.S.R. to act as a responsible power and facilitate a peaceful solution of this crisis.

It is extremely urgent that we express our great concern and anxiety to the central authorities of the Soviet Union. We must demand an immediate end to these criminal acts.

May 14, 1991



AIR INDIA FLIGHT 182

Mr. Derek Blackburn (Brant):: Mr. Speaker, in 1985 the largest mass murder in Canadian history took place, yet not a single charge has been laid against anyone concerning the Air India Flight 182 bombing, this despite one of the costliest investigations undertaken by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
There have been reports of bungled surveillance, erased tapes, and in-fighting between the two agencies. They were supposed to work in concert on this investigation, yet they have produced nothing.
So far the government has refused every request to look into the investigation. Now that the trial of Mr. Reyat in Vancouver is over, there is absolutely no reason for the Solicitor General to refuse to undertake a full judicial inquiry into this whole matter.
The lack of results in the Air India bombing, where 369 innocent people were killed, begs the question "why", a question which will only be answered by a full and impartial judicial inquiry.



THE THRONE SPEECH

The Hon. Jean Lapierre (Shefford):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we heard a Throne Speech which is totally unresponsive to the reality in Canada, and especially in Quebec. Today, there was a general outcry throughout Quebec, in opposition to the government's intention to interfere with education. Even Maurice Duplessis must be turning in his grave. The federal government is insensitive, just like the leader of the opposition who agrees that Ottawa should interfere with job training and education.
Mr. Speaker, today, the Quebec minister of Education said that this is not acceptable. He thinks the Canadian government is using tactics of provocation, and calls it an irresponsible government. The people opposite have lost control. They ignore historic realities, and in particular the importance of sovereign provincial powers, as specified in our present Constitution, Mr. Speaker. They do not even respect the Constitution.



VIA RAIL

Mr. Guy Saint-Julien (Abitibi):: Mr. Speaker, from January 1,1989 to February 10, 1990, VIA Rail's management in Montreal prepared the elimination of passenger trains in Abitibi. VIA Rail eliminated 81 trains out of 174 in that area, 69 of those for lack of equipment and/or crew. It seems odd that this information was not passed on to travellers. Usually, VIA Rail's passengers are informed of transfers on the schedule. Why make an exception for Abitibi? The service reduction by VIA Rail followed the traditional model of progressive reduction and deterioration. The same thing happened with the service between Senneterre and Rouyn: transfer to Senneterre, followed by elimination.
That is the kind of work that the president, the board of directors and public relations officers of VIA Rail in Montreal do to the detriment of travellers, without telling anybody.



NATIONAL TOURISM WEEK

Ms. Catherine Callbeck (Malpeque):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of National Tourism Week, an event which is very important to my province of Prince Edward Island.
Tourism is the Island's second largest industry, responsible for 10 per cent of the provincial income, the largest of any province in Canada.
The government of Prince Edward Island, the provincial tourism industry, and others are planning a big celebration for tourism week. This year we celebrate our Scottish heritage. The Road to the Isles celebration will include many community events and clan gatherings, including the fourth international gathering of the clans in Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
Visitors to the island will always be treated to our warm hospitality, our rich culture and heritage, delicious seafood, beautiful beaches and landscapes.
I want to take this opportunity to invite all Canadians to Prince Edward Island this summer for a vacation experience second to none.



RESPONSIBILITIES

Hon. Alan Redway (Don Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, every day we hear Canadians talking about our rights. Very few talk about our responsibilities. We have a Charter of Rights. We need a corresponding charter of responsibilities.
We need a charter expressly declaring that every Canadian has the responsibility to vote in an election, to work to pay their own way, to contribute to society, to solve as many of their own problems as possible without automatically looking to government, to get an education, training or trade, to pay attention to their own health since it affects all society; to do the best job possible of raising their children, to treat others with decency and respect, to keep their temper, to be fair, to set a good example for others and to give more than they get.
It is these responsibilities along with our rights and freedoms that make up the fundamental values of our society and that bind us together as Canadians.



NATIONAL POLICE WEEK

Mr. Bob Kilger (Stormont-Dundas):: Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of National Police Week, I would like to thank law enforcement officers across Canada for the excellent work they provide the public.
I would also like to give particular recognition to those officers who will be participating in the 1991 Law Enforcement Torch Run for the Special Olympics.
Sponsored by the Canadian and provincial chiefs of police, this year's run will have over 8,800 officers covering a total distance of 15,000 kilometres, and is expected to raise $1.1 million.
The money collected from the torch run will go toward promoting sport, physical recreation and fitness programs for the mentally handicapped.
On behalf of this House, I wish to extend our appreciation to Canada's finest for their efforts on behalf of the Special Olympics and also to police forces throughout the country for the dedicated service they provide their communities.



S. O. 31 TRADE

Steven W. Langdon: Mr. Speaker, the United States today moved one step closer to approving fast-track negotiations for a Mexico-Canada-U.S. free trade deal.
This is not good news for Mexico. As the opposition leader there says: "We consider that this particular deal will consolidate the subordinate relationship Mexico already has with the U.S. economy."
Nor is it good news for Canada. In the last year, we have lost 418,000 full-time jobs in this country, mostly due to the present deal we have with the U.S. An extension to Mexico will just make things worse.
In my community alone, 40 factories shut last year, with most plants shifting to the U.S. or Mexico.
This government still has the chance to listen to the majority of Canadians who oppose this new deal. I urge them to do so for the sake of fair economic relations and Canadian jobs.



THE ECONOMY

Mr. Greg Thompson (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, finally there is light at the end of the tunnel. That was the finding in a recent survey on business confidence conducted by the Conference Board of Canada.
Results of the survey indicated that 47 per cent of the 400 companies polled by the Conference Board indicated they believed an economic recovery would begin within the next six months, the highest level since 1984.
Restored confidence, as outlined in the Speech from the Throne yesterday, means new investment. New investment means meaningful jobs and a better way of life for all Canadians.
This government has taken the tough decisions on fighting the deficit and holding down inflation. This news from the Conference Board of Canada confirms that while our decisions are not always popular, they are in the long-term good for the country.

May 14, 1991



FOREIGN AID

Mrs. Christine Stewart (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, although Canadians across this nation are suffering from the present recession, which is affecting hundreds of thousands of families very personally, many of us can still acknowledge how fortunate we are in comparison to the populations of a growing number of countries, including Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopia and Bangladesh. Canadians realize that we must put our own house in order, but at the same time our tradition does not allow us to turn our backs on those in great need in other lands.
Our government very quickly found additional funds to wage war in the Middle East, yet today it is running out of funds for emergency relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation for millions of individuals living in apocalyptic circumstances, many of them victims of the war we helped wage. Fortunately, the war ended relatively quickly, leaving Canadian war commitments unused. I ask the Government of Canada to reallocate these funds to CIDA to be used to relieve the famine and misery of those countries in such dire need today so that the development funds of CIDA can be used, as budgeted, to meet the pressing needs of global poverty alleviation, environmental degradation and population explosion.



THAMES BEND FARMS

Mr. Felix Holtmann (Portage-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, today thousands of Canadian hog farmers are producing the world's top quality pork and superior genetic breeding stock.
This standard of excellence and the millions of dollars returned to Canada's economy can be attributed to elite farmers such as Richard and Warren Stein, owners of Thames Bend Farms of Tavistock, Ontario.
On this past April 12, provincial leaders, six members of Parliament, including the Deputy Prime Minister, plus
1,000	invited guests, celebrated the 25th anniversary of this dynamic family farm and the outstanding achievements in quality swine production and world wide exports.
Warren Stein said, and I quote:
We are proud to be Canadians and share with you the Canadian dream. I know of no other place in the world that would have allowed us to do what we have done. Starting from a vision of serving our fellow man and contributing something of worth to society, twenty five years ago we, by using Canadian technology and with the help of you, our friends gathered here this evening, have reached this milestone in our business.
I will be most happy if at this evening's end we can openly thank God for giving us the Canadian opportunity and the pride that goes with it.
What a tremendous Canadian.



NATIONAL UNITY

Mr.   J.W. Bud Bird@Fredericton-York-Sunbury: Mr. Speaker, there is one small paragraph in the throne speech that I believe is more powerful for current times than any other. I am referring to those words which emphasize that the cause of national unity and the mission for national prosperity are inextricably interlocked and interdependent.
Yet, that statement conveys realities which are so obvious we frequently take them for granted.
Clearly, we must face the facts that unity and prosperity do go together in Canada's future. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Atlantic provinces. We are critically dependent there upon a strong and unified country to ensure that we share in the quality of life available to all Canadians. Any breakdown in Canadian unity will be devastating for prosperity in Atlantic Canada.
Conversely, however, the assurance of a unified country provides unique motivation for the entrepreneurial skills of Atlantic Canadians and strengthens their desire to contribute more fully to their own prosperity and to the well-being of the nation.
Unity does spawn prosperity and prosperity does strengthen unity.
That is the message, Mr. Speaker, that we must deliver to every Canadian.
May 14, 1991



FISHERIES

Mr. Stan Wilbee (Delta):: Mr. Speaker, a serious situation is continuing to develop on the west coast regarding the native food fishery. Commercial fishermen are concerned that their livelihoods are being threatened in order to provide settlement of Indian land claims.
The commercial fishermen feel that they should not be called on to bear the brunt and cost of these claims, but that they are the responsibility of all Canadians.
While the threatened blockade of Vancouver harbour on May 31 will do nothing but annoy and inconvenience others, it shows the deep sense of frustration these fishermen feel.
I call on the government to remedy this difficult situation to prevent serious problems on the west coast this year, with meaningful discussions with all groups involved.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, clearly one of the thrusts of the throne speech is free trade within Canada. But just as the FTA, a good deal is contingent upon the existence of a level playing field. We must ensure that a level playing field exists within Canada before we start breaking down the barriers to trade that now protect smaller markets like the Atlantic provinces.
A modem, up-to-date, competitive transportation system is fundamental to economic development and prosperity in Atlantic Canada.
Federal discrimination against the port of Halifax and consequently the whole competitive situation of Nova Scotia has been a bug-bear for many years.
While Montreal benefits from free ice-breaking, dredging and nav-aid services, user pay and compensatory rates have always been applied to the rail line that is Halifax's life blood to the rest of the nation. If user pay is to apply to Halifax, it should apply to Montreal. If user pay is to apply, then CN should be required by the government that owns it to effect cost saving technology when available. The acquisition of double-stacked cars will reduce costs by 20 per cent. The survival of the port
Oral Questions
of Halifax and the health of the Nova Scotian economy depends on it.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister.
In the Throne Speech, there is a part, which makes up about a third of the document, entitled "Participating in Prosperity". I don't see why it was not entitled "Sharing Hope". For the million and a half Canadians looking for jobs, there was little hope in yesterday's Throne Speech.
Here is my question to the Prime Minister; Does he not think that time has come to abandon the current economic policies of high dollar and high interest rates and replace them with policies which will immediately create jobs for the 1,500,000 unemployed who are feeling desperate right now?


Right Hon. Brian Mulroney (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the policies suggested by my colleague are precisely the ones we are following, with some success I may add.

Short-term interest rates have declined 500 basis points since last year and almost 100 basis points since the budget. The Canadian-U.S. interest rate differential is now around 300 basis points, down from 550 basis points.
My hon. friend talks about jobs. We have had a difficult time of it. After leading the industrialized world in job creation for six years, we have had a very bad year of it, but last month employment increased. I know my hon. friend will agree with me that the good news last Friday was that unemployment decreased by three-tenths of a percentage point, dropping unemployment down to 10.2 per cent.
There are encouraging signs in the economy, most important, the steady decline of interest rates and further signs that economic growth will be brought about in a non-inflationary manner. This is, of course, what the government has been seeking to do, and it is the only way to provide durable jobs.

May 14, 1991
Oral Questions


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I do not deny that interest rates are going down, but there is still a spread of almost four points between United States interest rates and Canadian interest rates. It causes our dollar to be too high to make our product competitive in the United States.
In the throne speech, the government talks about 2.5 million jobs being created by the year 2000, nine years from now. Does the Prime Minister not realize that from 1970 to 1979, with a much smaller economy, there were more jobs created than this 2.5 million over the next nine years? Why is the Prime Minister not willing to do something today or not able to do what is needed to make the Canadian economy more competitive so that we will have jobs. We need a lower dollar and more competitive interest rates if we want to be able to compete.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is quite right. Indeed, in six years, from 1984 to last year, there were 1.6 million new jobs created, which was the largest per capita job creation in the entire industrialized world, with the exception of Japan. That was quite a remarkable record.
We think the targets we have set, 2.5 million new jobs and an increase in real individual wealth of 25 per cent, are achievable goals. Perhaps the nation, with increased productivity, by paying down our deficit, lessening our debt load, bringing about a greater degree of unity, can do better. That is why unity is so interrelated with prosperity.
I agree with some of the points made by my hon. friend in his speech this morning. That is why we have to work together to ensure that Canada enjoys both unity and prosperity.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the point I am making is that the Prime Minister does not care at all about the problems of the unemployed today. He is following exactly the same policies that created the made-in-Canada recession. I say to the Prime Minister that it would be easier to have unity in this country if we had a better economy, and he should start to work on that right away. In order to achieve it, he has to reduce the value of the Canadian dollar, like most people in the industrial sector are asking the government to do. In order to achieve it, the
government could make the Canadian interest rate more competitive so that we can compete and create jobs.


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, my friend says that we have to reduce the value of the Canadian dollar as a top priority. That is quite wrong. We have to reduce interest rates as a top priority, and we have to reduce interest rates while keeping inflation down.
The last thing that this country wants or needs is a repeat performance of that brought about by a government of which he was a member where inflation went to the roof, where unemployment went to the roof and where expenses were completely out of hand.
We want to bring about sustained economic growth in a non-inflationary climate, and that is exactly what this government is in the process of doing.


Ms. Sheila Copps (Hamilton East):: Mr. Speaker, one of the wildest claims in yesterday's throne speech was the absurd statement that the Canada-U.S. trade agreement has helped secure the Canadian economy.
This is patently false. Steel workers, hog farmers, forestry workers all know that the government promise of access to American markets is a fraud. The Canadian economic battlefield is littered with the corpses of the first trade agreement.
With 1.5 million unemployed Canadians, with 360,000 jobs lost since the trade deal was signed, why is the government plunging blindly ahead into a second deal with another country?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw my friend's attention to the fact that since 1988 we have seen our trade surplus grow from $14 billion with the United States to $17 billion. We have seen exports grow by 7 per cent in the face of a recession. We have also seen a significant shift in the inward flow of investment. Net direct investment in Canada has changed from a net outflow in 1988 to a net inflow, I believe, of the order of $5 billion. In those broad numbers there are some very significant improve-
May 14, 1991

ments to our economic performance directly related to the free trade agreement.
There are any number, and I can spend some time going through these with my friend, such as Heron Cable, Union Carbide, Xerox, Proctor & Gamble, "duty elimination as a result of the free trade agreement had an important influence on the company's decision to expand operations in Belleville". We see the impact of free trade being characterized by additional growth for Proctor & Gamble.
I have a number of these success stories as a result of the free trade agreement, and I would be very happy to share them with my hon. friend.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Mr. Speaker, Canadians will not soon forget the words of this minister who created a made-in-Canada recession when he said: "You gotta die before you go to heaven". Thousands of Canadians are dying right now.
For the Prime Minister to put him in charge of trade policy is like asking the pyromaniac to guard the fire hall.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Sheila Maureen Copps: Yesterday, in the Throne Speech, the Government was blowing its own horn, saying that the Free Trade Agreement helped protect our economy. This is an insult to the 1.5 million Canadians presently unemployed and to the 360,000 people whose jobs have been eliminated since the start of the Free Trade Agreement. Here is my question to the Prime Minister; When is he going to acknowledge that this agreement is hurting the Canadian economy? When is he going to admit that the Free Trade Agreement is contributing to unemployment in Canada?


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, I remind my friend again of those broad economic numbers that I talked about in my first answer to her.
Let me go back to some of these individual companies: Xerox Canada. The president of Xerox said that because of free trade, Xerox had invested in the Toronto area from which they would sell world wide, and that free
Oral Questions
trade would provide Xerox Canada with more of an opportunity to be competitive. Kodak (Canada) said that this major production transfer to Canada was made possible by accelerated tariff elimination under the free trade agreement.
A smaller retailer, Northern Reflections, was allowed to expand into the United States in order to take advantage of reduced tariffs under the free trade agreement. That is precisely the impact of the free trade agreement, to help companies expand here in Canada. That is precisely why we feel we can move forward with confidence to look at a negotiation with Mexico and the United States to broaden that free trade area, to gain more job opportunities, more opportunities to expand world wide from bases in Canada.



Hon. Audrey McLaughlin (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday this government put forward in its throne speech its vision of the future. What it forgot to say was that since 1984, Canadians are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet, that because of this government's failed economic policies and the Canada-U.S. trade deal, over 260,000 Canadians have lost their jobs. It failed to say that the GST is devastating small business and eroding consumer confidence. And what did it offer Canadians yesterday? More of the same: expand the trade deal, continue policies like the GST.
What did it say to the 1.5 million unemployed in this country? Wait until the next century and you might get a job.
When is the Prime Minister going to direct his ministers to show some real initiative, some real creativeness and get Canadians back working so we can create a Canada that Canadians want to belong to?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, the only way that this could be done, and it is a little less dramatic perhaps than what would be suggested by my hon. friend, is to continue the downward trend in interest rates, by keeping government spending down, by reducing the deficit, by trying to get that burden of debt down, to bring about investment with which we can create the necessary jobs.

May 14, 1991
Oral Questions
Interest rates are down some 500 basis points; 100 basis points since the budget.


An hon. member:: Not enough.


Martin Brian Mulroney: My hon. friend says not enough. I agree, not enough. With the support of his party, some of the cost-cutting measures that we are going to introduce will help interest rates to come down even further.
I think my hon. friend will have a choice to make and can explain it to Canadian people. Either you go about the question of job creation by reducing interest rates and by bringing about the necessary investment required to create durable jobs, or, alternatively, you spend borrowed money and increase deficits-as has been done in other jurisdictions by some 300 per cent-and see where that leads you down the road. We think that is a blind alley and we think that this is the proper way to create durable jobs in Canada.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the Prime Minister that there is another option. The other option is to invest in the people of Canada and show the Canadian people that we have faith in them.

Mr. Speaker, in the Speech from the Throne, the government says that national unity and the economy are linked. There are 1.5 million unemployed Canadians in this country. In Montreal, for instance, one out of four people live on welfare or unemployment insurance.
If the Prime Minister really wants to help maintain this country's unity, where are the programs that will provide jobs for the unemployed in this country?


Martin Brian Mulroney: If the
Leader of the New Democratic Party has a more effective and perhaps less expensive approach than the one taken in Ontario, I will be delighted to consider it.
So far however, it is clear, unless you absolutely want to saddle our children and grandchildren with a heavy tax burden that would mortgage their future, that jobs can be created when interest rates go down. To make those interest rates go down and thus create jobs in Montreal or elsewhere, by attracting the necessary investment, we must control government spending, we must maintain
our policy of putting public finances on a sound base, and we must provide incentives for national and foreign investment.
It was thanks to these policies that during our first six years in power, 1.6 million jobs were created in Canada, and we intend to repeat this exercise, starting in July or August.


Audrey Marlene McLaughlin: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the Prime Minister speak to those hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have lost their jobs through plant closures across this country and do not see that job coming back. They know that the Canada-U.S. trade deal has sold out Canada and they don't want that trade deal extended to Mexico to do that further. That is a future I want to see, where we don't have that.
The Prime Minister talks about the future and prosperity, and in the Throne Speech identifies clearly that one of the keys to that is the education of Canadian young people and the retraining of Canadians.
This government has cut back on post-secondary funding, it taxes books and magazines, and last year cut the citizenship instruction and language training programs for immigrants. How can this government say that it is now committed to education as the key to the future? If the Prime Minister is truly committed to education as the key to the future for our children and our grandchildren, will he reinstate the funding for post-secondary education that this government cut just a few months ago?


Martin Brian Mulroney: Mr. Speaker, as my hon. friend knows, the government has increased funding for EPF since 1984 in a very appreciable manner. My hon. friend should also know that the problem in Canada is not exclusively money. Canadians spend more per capita on education than any other industrialized country in the world with the exception of Sweden. The results are what is lacking, not the infusion of money, although the federal government remains ready to co-operate in regard to improving both these standards and in enhancing our competitiveness.
May 14, 1991

The hon. member points out that her party would cancel the GST, cancel the free trade agreement, cancel the deal with Mexico-


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Martin Brian Mulroney: -that they want to go back to the 19th century. They would cancel the future. But we are going to build jobs for the future as long as I am a Canadian.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


TRUCKING INDUSTRY
Mr. Sergio Marchi (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. Since this government deregulated the trucking industry in 1988 without any adjustment provisions whatsoever for the predictable onslaught of American competition, Canadian truckers have become the victims of endless bankruptcies, lost jobs and weakened livelihoods; in fact, they have needed blockades and parliamentary protests just to get the attention of this government.
Will the government finally take immediate action to help our Canadian trucking industry, which is literally dying while this government dithers, and respond to the crisis faced by these Canadian workers and their families who have hit absolute rock bottom?


Hon. Jean Corbeil (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for his questions, because there is no doubt that the trucking industry is one of the backbones of the transportation industry in this country and therefore it is necessary to build the prosperity that we are all looking for in the years ahead.
My predecessor last year met with the stakeholders in the trucking industry. As a result of that meeting, a task force was formed and that task force, composed of all the stakeholders in the industry, called for seven studies. It was understood at the time among all the partners that the studies would be available a year from that date. The studies are going to be completed. We will get the report from the task force and we will take whatever action is necessary at that time.


Sergio Marchi: Mr. Speaker, Canadians are absolutely tired of being studied to death. What they want is some action and some solutions to the problems. That is what they want.
Oral Questions
I will return to the minister, because Canadian truckers are being ridden off the road by unfair American competition. Given that our truckers pay the GST and theirs do not, the U.S. has favourable taxes on depreciation and we do not, they have low tax deals and prices and we do not. They engage in a legal cabotage and we look the other way.
Is the minister finally prepared to address the real root causes facing our trucking industry? Is he prepared to change the rules of the game so that our Canadian truckers and our industry can have a chance to survive? When is he going to stand up for number one?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I can see that the hon. member is dedicated to the trucking industry as much as we are. I would wish that he would be as dedicated to the truth as we are.
One of the items that he just mentioned was that truckers are paying GST. This is just not true, because the truckers are paying the GST but are getting a refund for it. Therefore, it is not the truckers who are paying the GST.
It was precisely to find out the real truth about the problems of the trucking industry that a task force was created last year. We ordered seven studies to make sure that we have the facts about all aspects of the trucking industry. We will take the necessary action when we get the results of these studies.


Mr. Don Boudria (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Mr. Speaker, last Friday, Glengarry Transport, the fourth largest trucking company in Canada, and based in my riding, went insolvent. It created a loss of 1,800 jobs in 13 Canadian cities. So far, the company is not going and everything is stopped.
I want to ask the minister not for a study, but specifically: What is he going to do for my constituents and the thousands of other truckers who have lost their jobs or who are about to lose them?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, we always deplore the loss of jobs by any truckers as we do for any other people employed in this country.
The question of a bankruptcy by a private company is something that is beyond the responsibility of the government.

May 14, 1991
Oral Questions
Of course our hon. friend from the opposition should know that in the labour department two years ago, we introduced a program to help the people who are laid off temporarily.


Don Boudria: Mr. Speaker, what they want are not measures that lay them off, they want their jobs back.

Elere is my question to the government opposite: 656 trucking companies in Canada went bankrupt in one year and now, the fourth biggest company in this country did the same. When is this government going to wake up? And why do we let one of the biggest Canadian industries slowly die in order to please the Americans?


Jean Corbeil: Mr. Speaker, I must remind my honourable colleague opposite that this government is precisely working hard to create jobs for Canadians, as it has been doing since 1984, with more than one and a half million of new jobs created in Canada, and we will continue to do so. In the Throne Speech, we indicated that we will proceed on the road to prosperity by making all Canadian industries more competitive so that more jobs are in store for Canadians.


THE CONSTITUTION
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the minister for constitutional affairs.
As the minister knows, our committee on the amending formula has just finished travelling across this country holding public hearings. Everywhere we went, the consensus was that people want a constituent assembly to deal with the Constitution. The people want more than just the politicians to be involved in the committee on our constitutional future.
In light of that and in light of the fact the minister has said he wants to build in this country a non-partisan consensus on the Constitution, I want him to explain to this House why he pre-empted that committee report and decided not to go to a constituent assembly at this
time. Would he now reconsider that decision and include in that committee next fall not only elected politicians but non-politicians representing the ordinary people of this country?


Right Hon. Joe Clark (President of the Privy Council and Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. I have particular reason to know from our experience together in this House the depth of his commitment to imaginative and genuine responses to achieving goals of national unity in the country. I look forward to working with him. I assure him that I have not pre-empted the report of the Beaudoin-Edwards committee, which we look forward to receiving.
We have taken the decision regarding the phase of constitutional discussion which will begin in September. There was a question as to whether we should, as a government, respond to what is a very clear cynicism about politicians in the country by contributing to that cynicism by simply saying that politicians, elected people, will no longer be entrusted to carry out the responsibilities that have traditionally been ours.
We have taken the decision that we should not succumb to that cynicism, that we should instead give elected members of this House, and members of the Senate, the opportunity to demonstrate our capacity in the most open, innovative way to serve the interests of the country.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Ms. Lynn Hunter (Saanich-Gulf Islands):: Mr. Speaker, what the Beaudoin-Edwards committee heard from coast to coast to coast was that the old ways are not good enough, that we have to take a courageous step to find a new way to unite this country.
I ask the minister of constitutional affairs why should Canadians have any confidence in this government listening to this newly conceived joint parliamentary committee when they have pre-empted the Beaudoin-Edwards parliamentary committee?


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, we certainly have not pre-empted the committee whose recommendations I have not seen, but which I look forward to receiving. I believe that it is the view of other members of the House that that committee

will have the freedom to make recommendations which will be very seriously considered by the government.
There is no' question that people have had enough of old ways. They have had enough of excessive partisanship. There is no question about that, and particularly on this issue.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Clark: As her leader and I had the opportunity to discuss the other day in Whitehorse, there is an expectation on the part of Canadians who support no party, and on the part of Canadians who support all of the parties in this House that we will put the unity of the country above either partisan considerations or any fealty to old ways. We have indicated in the Speech from the Throne that there is going to be, for example, authority for this new joint committee to meet with the elected parliamentarians in the legislatures of the territories. That has never been done before. That is a new approach. There will be several others.
I would hope the hon. member and her colleagues in all parties of the House would give us the opportunity to let Canadians see and take part in new approaches to the most fundamental issue we face, which is not simply the survival but the reinvigoration of this country.


IMMIGRATION
Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of immigration and it concerns the case of Mr. Al-Mashat, the former Iraqi ambassador to the United States who is now a landed immigrant in this country.
We learned today that his application was processed in 28 days. Meanwhile, thousands of Canadians are waiting three and four years for the applications of their spouses and families to be processed.
Why did this former mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein get preferential treatment at the expense of ordinary people waiting patiently? Why was he allowed to jump the queue?


Hon. Bernard Valcourt (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I had the chance this morning to see the hon. member at the press conference
Oral Questions
where my colleague, the Secretary of State for External Affairs and myself explained and detailed the reasons why this has happened.
The hon. member raises a point about family reunification. He will remember that when the former minister introduced the immigration plan, the five year plan, she undertook then to review the process so as to ensure that priority be given-


An hon. member:: Answer the question.


Bernard Valcourt: What is the point of asking a question if you do not want the answer? What is important is that Canadians know that the government is preoccupied with that aspect of family reunification. I shall look at the processing system and make sure that in our priorities we give priority to family reunification in Canada.


Thomas (Tom) William Wappel: Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable. I asked the minister why the ambassador jumped the queue and he talks about family reunification.
I will ask my supplementary of the Prime Minister. We learned today that at least one memorandum about Al-Mashat was sent to the minister of external affairs while the application was still pending. This case calls into question the very integrity of the immigration program. Canadians are entitled to know the facts. Will the government immediately table all memoranda about the Al-Mashat case sent to all responsible ministers, officials and the Prime Minister?


Bernard Valcourt: Mr. Speaker, this morning I made public a chronology of events explaining how this decision came about. The hon. member is now asking me to ignore the Privacy Act and the rights of Canadian residents. I do not think there is a need for that. They would like, of course, to make a big thing out of this. The facts were disclosed this morning and we have been quite transparent about it all. What is important is that we avoid such situations in the future and these are the steps we have taken.


DISASTERS
Mr. John Nunziata (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister and it concerns the Air-India disaster.

May 14, 1991
Oral Questions
On June 23, 1985 a bomb killed 329 people on board Air-India flight 182. Two hundred and eighty people on board that plane were Canadian. There were 80 children on board. It was the biggest mass murder ever in Canadian history.
For the last six years this government has refused a royal commission of inquiry into this tragedy. Now that the criminal charges emanating from the Narita bombing have been dealt with by the criminal courts, will the government now initiate a full commission of inquiry to investigate all the disturbing questions that have been raised by this tragedy?


Hon. Doug Lewis (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, the House will know that the government has been conducting an inquiry through the RCMP into this matter. I am informed that there are ongoing plans to reinvigorate the inquiry this summer with an effort to recover as much of the hull as can be recovered from the ocean floor.
I appreciate the concern of my hon. friend. We are all concerned about this and we are trying to get to the bottom of the matter. The investigation is ongoing.


John V. Nunziata: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister knows that the criminal investigation has come to a dead end. There has been a commission of inquiry in Cork, Ireland and another in New Delhi, India. Notwithstanding the fact that 280 people on board this flight were Canadians, the Canadian government has yet to conduct a royal commission of inquiry. We know about the advanced warnings that the Government of Canada had. We know about the erased tapes. We know about the CSIS and RCMP bungling. We know about the false affidavits. The families of the 280 Canadian victims are waiting for a royal commission of inquiry.
Can the Prime Minister of Canada explain why the conduct of Sinclair Stevens warranted a royal commission of inquiry and the biggest mass murder ever in Canadian history does not?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I reiterate my answer to the previous question of my hon. friend. The government is concerned. The investigation is ongoing and we are making every effort to bring this matter to a conclusion.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Vic Althouse (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
A western newspaper, The Winnipeg Free Press reported yesterday that it was the Prime Minister's decision to open the Canada-U.S. border to wheat, despite his ministers' disapproval. Can the Prime Minister indicate to the House why he overruled his ministers to clear the way for U.S. grains to come into western Canada?


Hon. Bill McKnight (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform my colleague that agriculture is of great interest to the Prime Minister. That is one of the reasons Canada entered into the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement.
The hon. member comes from the province of Saskatchewan where a lot of our production in agriculture, as he and everyone knows, is involved in grains. Within the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, there is a clause that opens the United States border for Canadian grains. There is a clause that says when support for Canadian grains-wheat, oats and barley-become equal or higher than the United States, we would then remove the tariffs on American grain. We have done that, because the support to Canadian wheat farmers is higher in Canada than the support to farmers in the United States.
Another reason, as the member knows, is that in the first seven months of this crop year we have exported
400,000	tonnes of wheat to the United States. We did not want to jeopardize that and neither did the Prime Minister.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the same minister.
The calculations that were used to indicate equality between the two countries do not take proper account of the fact that an important part of Canada's payments accumulate because of premiums paid by farmers and governments over a series of years generate pay-outs on the years that are chosen to decide the equality. Why did this government not stand up and get a proper accounting system to reflect-


An hon. member:: They do not want to.
May 14, 1991


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: -the kind of systems we have on our side of the border instead of only reflecting the kind of systems and assistance they have on the other side. Why did they not take into account the fact that we have insurance programs and that those should be spread over a number of years, instead of being calculated following the year the pay-out happens to come because of a drought.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member is concerned about the agricultural industry and particularly the grain and oilseeds industry. We share that same concern.
The reason we entered into the agreement with the United States was to open a much, much larger market to Canadian grain producers. We are exporting more grain now to the United States of American than we have ever before.


An hon. member:: Exactly. It is working.


William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: I can explain to the hon. member, but rather than my explanation, maybe he would like the explanation of the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Mr. Jesperson, who said: "We do not dispute the calculations and we do not fear opening of the border. Our superior quality and efficiency allow us to compete with any country in the world. However, we cannot compete with massive export subsidies being used by the United States, in some cases in direct contradiction".
Also, I can inform the hon. member that the Americans do not use the Export Enhancement Program in their own country. Therefore, we are competitive. We are able to command a higher price now than we were able to before. This government will continue to operate effectively and aggressively seek out markets for Canadian grain in the United States of America.


Mr. Speaker:: It is time to move on now.


UNEMPLOYMENT
William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Recent reports indicate that 25 per cent of Montrealers are on welfare or unemployment insurance and that Montreal has the highest urban poverty rate in Canada. These statistics are absolutely shocking, yet the government in the Speech from the Throne yesterday has promised new jobs for the year 2000.
Oral Questions
What planet is the government living on? If it is really serious about unemployment, why are the government's targets set for the year 2000? Why not job creation goals for the year 1991?


Hon. Benoit Bouchard (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, during the previous session I told the same member why and how the government intended to intervene in Montreal. I said it before, and I say it again, that there are a number of economic development programs in the Montreal region that are working very well, including programs in the East and Southwest. A number of other programs are also being considered at this time, but I may remind the hon. member that the same constants that apply to other parts of the country, apply to Montreal.
As soon as interest rates have gone down, as soon as the drop in interest rates has had a positive impact on the economy, I am sure the Montreal region will be one of the first to take advantage of these measures, Mr. Speaker.


William Warren Allmand: Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer my question. The fact is that today, 25 per cent of the people in Montreal are unemployed or on welfare, and they need their federal government today, not in the year 2000. Why doesn't the minister have any objectives for 1991?


Benoît Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, if this government were to do what the hon. member's government did in 1982, when it took the kind of measures the hon. member is referring to, the results would be exactly the same as they were at the time, meaning disastrous.
I am sure the hon. member heard last week about Canadair's impressive regional jet, and I think that is the route Montreal, Quebec and Canada in general should follow.


THE CONSTITUTION
Hon. Lucien Bouchard (Lac-Saint-Jean):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Constitutional Affairs. For five years this government has championed the recognition of Quebec's distinct identity. That recognition was even signed by eleven first ministers. However, in the Speech from the Throne yesterday, there was no reference to Quebec's distinct identity but to Quebec's "unique character". I would like

May 14, 1991
Routine Proceedings
to ask the minsiter what difference he sees between "distinct identity" and "unique character"?


Charles Joseph Clark: None, Mr. Speaker.


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, if there is no difference, why change the word? Mr. Speaker, I submit that this government-


An hon. member:: Ask the question!


Lucien Bouchard: -needs a good dictionary more than it needs an adviser on constitutional law. I would like to ask the minister, considering the great debate that is imminent, whether he intends to offer Quebec anything else besides this futile play on words?


Jean-C. Lapierre: Right on!


Charles Joseph Clark: Mr. Speaker, I didn't play games with words. I didn't change the words, I didn't change my political convictions and I didn't change parties.


Some hon. members:: Hear, hear.


HOUSING
Alan Redway: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In yesterday's Speech from the Throne the government set a target of creating some 2.5 million new jobs. The minister is well aware that one of the main reasons for double digit unemployment in this country at the present time is the slack construction industry.
Will the minister agree to create housing construction jobs by stimulating demand without increasing the debt or the deficit through the introduction of a 5 per cent down payment for first-time home buyers?


Hon. Don Mazankowski (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I know that the hon. member would be pleased about the recent upturn in housing starts and housing resales which have been stimulated in the last little while.
I also know that he will be encouraged by the fact that interest rates have receded by five percentage points in the last 11 months or so. That is all good news. There has been improved confidence expressed by the business community, and I think that is welcome news as well.
That is the best way to stimulate the housing industry. I am pleased to note as well that at yesterday's annual conference of home builders, they indicated they felt things were turning around and getting better.
With respect to the point the hon. member raised about the 95 per cent mortgages, we are examining that very carefully and will report back to the hon. member in due course.


Hon. Gilles Loiselle (President of the Treasury Board and Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I would like to ask leave of the House to go back to Routine Proceedings. I have a message from the Governor General, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Speaker:: Is is agreed?


Some hon. members:: Agreed.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting Estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1992, was presented by the President of the Treasury Board and read by Mr. Speaker to the House.
May 14, 1991
[Stage Direction]
Tribute

Hon. Gerald S. Merrithew (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, the frailty of human life on this planet has been forcibly brought to our attention with the passing of a truly great Canadian, Senator and former New Brunswick Premier, Richard Bennett Hatfield. Just past his sixtieth birthday, Senator Hatfield crammed a lot into his six decades on earth.
Not only were Richard Hatfield and I about the same age, he had a profound effect on me during the last 20 years of my life, although I knew him much longer than that. Having served with him in the New Brunswick legislature for 12 years, ten as a minister and six as his Government House Leader, our political association continued after I moved into federal politics.
Few people were very close to Richard Hatfield, and this includes most members of his Cabinet. Over the 17 years in which he was premier of the province, wisely he avoided close friendships with his ministers, knowing that he could possibly have to fire them at some point in the future. His leadership style was certainly unique. Definitely not a "hands-on" premier, on a daily basis, he generally left ministers to guide their own departmental activities but was always available to support them if they got into trouble with the caucus, the party, or the public. Many a minister felt the reassurance of his formidable presence when it was needed and they were most appreciative of that. He did have a lot of friends and loved to entertain the backbenchers, (the private members,) the media, and friends in the cultural and political field.
Richard Hatfield was the consummate politician. He lived and breathed politics and really did not work very long in any other field of endeavour. He was extremely good at the game of politics! While no other Progressive Conservative government in New Brunswick governed more than two successive terms, Premier Hatfield led the party to four successive election victories covering the period 1970 to 1987. For those who know the politics and the history of politics in my province, this was no mean feat! With remarkable aplomb, he built the party from its Saint John River Valley base to every county in the province.
[Translation}
Richard Hatfield demonstrated throughout his life that he understood well the aspirations of the francophone community in his province.
Richard Hatfield worked very hard to ensure that his party be representative of all parts of New Brunswick.

I sincerely hope that Richard Bennett Hatfield will not be remembered solely for the 1987 defeat of the party. That would be a most unfair assessment for a man who engineered a whole series of spectacular victories at the polls. Even after the loss in 1987, it is my view that while the electorate voted against the man, they did not hate the man. Besides, how many parties in history in any part of Canada won five successive election victories?
Perhaps unorthodox in ways, certainly enigmatic, the best term I can think of to describe Richard Hatfield is an enlightened social reformer. In many ways his reform of the political system was years ahead of that in other jurisdictions.
He believed strongly in social reform and instituted changes in family law, judicial reform and child welfare legislation.
Much has been written about Hatfield's so-called special interests, his love of travel, his love of cooking and good food, late night discussions with his host of friends, his penchant for politics-anybody's politics- and his ever-present fight with weight control. Above all of this, he had a tremendous love for his country and for its people.
Richard Bennett Hatfield is now gone from our midst. New Brunswick and Canada have lost a man whose passionate Canadian views were legendary. He loved his country with an unparalleled passion. Above all, he desperately wished to hold his beloved country together in this time of travail. Alas, he would have been able to make a major contribution to our national constitutional debate if he had been spared.

His most durable legacy will be his contribution to national unity. Ever since the 1971 Victoria Conference and until his very last day as senator, Richard Hatfield has pursued national unity with an unrelenting determination and a firm resolve.

May 14, 1991
Tribute

Working with three prime ministers and a multitude of provincial premiers, he assumed the status of senior statesman on this issue. He believed to the core of his being that Canada was a unique land, a land endowed with a host of treasures: its natural resources; its rugged and profound beauty; its magnificent peoples that make Canada their home. His contribution to the cause of national unity will be sorely missed. His legacy, however, will live on.
I believe that when the history of Canada is written, Richard Bennett Hatfield will be accorded the place of honour he so richly deserves: consummate premier of New Brunswick, avowed pan-Canadian, reformer and leader.


Mr. Douglas Young (Acadie-Bathurst):: Mr. Speaker, Richard Bennett Hatfield served the people of New Brunswick as premier for 17 years. He led his Conservative Party to an unprecedented four election victories, taking the measure of four Liberal leaders, including the member for Acadie-Bathurst.
Richard Hatfield was proud of his deep understanding of New Brunswickers and his finely honed political instincts rarely failed him, especially when it came to what the electors expected from their premier and their government. Premier Hatfield often said that the secret of his success was that he trusted New Brunswickers and they trusted him because he reflected their values and their principles. He was always supremely confident that their sense of justice and fairness would prevail, come election time, and four times out of five he was right.
For two decades his presence on the national and international scene was the focus for how the rest of the world viewed New Brunswick.

Richard Hatfield contributed greatly to the development of the Acadian community in his province. Unequivocal proof of his dedication to the development of the French fact is found in the unanimous approval by the legislative assembly of New Brunswick of Bill 88, an Act to recognize the equality of the two official language communities of New Brunswick. The bilateral entrenchment of Bill 88 in the Canadian Constitution would
crown the courageous efforts of this good friend of the New Brunswick Acadians.

Chief Rolling Thunder had a special place in his heart for the Micmacs and the Maliseets of New Brunswick and his genuine commitment to aboriginal people was expressed recently in an eloquent statement by Dr. Charles Paul, who described his friend as a true champion of the Indian people.
Richard Hatfield was always, as my friend has said, a passionate spokesman for Canada and in view of his key role in the repatriation of the Constitution, Canadians know he would have made an important contribution to the current constitutional debate.
We are all saddened by the untimely passing of a man who devoted much of his life to his province and his country.
My colleagues and I extend our sympathy to the members of Richard Hatfield's family and to his many friends in Canada and around the world.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, as the member for Beausejour in New Brunswick, and especially as a minister who had to deal with Mr. Hatfield in the patriation of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, I was very sad to see that he was leaving us so early.

Richard Hatfield was a truly great Canadian. Throughout our negotiations with the provinces on the patriation of the Constitution as well as on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, what I found most impressive in this man was the wonderful courage he has shown throughout his political career. He has never been afraid, although himself an anglophone, to confront individuals who did not appreciate at all what he was doing to promote the French fact in New Brunswick.
Also, as the previous speaker noted, he was incredibly ahead of his time and displayed a tremendous strengh of character on these two issues, even if he lived in a society which made it difficult at times to champion the rights of the native people. Every minute of every hour I have spent working with him was enjoyable; his behaviour was always proper and he was very witty. He never looked
May 14, 1991

worried; life was always great! But he did not neglect the rejects of society. These people count a lot for us politicians.
That is why Richard Hatfield will be remembered in Canadian history as one of the English Canadians who has done the most for promoting, very rapidly and with an incredible amount of energy and courage, the French fact in New Brunswick and the Acadians that I now have the honour of representing. He also helped the native people who, at the time, were not important in the political debate. Nonetheless, every time the subject of native rights came up at the table, no one could have better promoted the rights of the natives and the entrenchment of their ancestral rights in the Constitution than the great Canadian that was Richard Hatfield.


Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon-Clark's Crossing):: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party I would like to join in making some comments about the unfortunate passing of the Hon. Richard Bennett Hatfield.
I would like to join with my colleagues in everything they have said about the contributions he has made. I would like to concentrate on just a couple of points.
I did live in New Brunswick from 1972 to 1975 when Mr. Hatfield was the premier.
There were a couple of things that, as a resident of New Brunswick, touched me particularly. Most people who live in Fredericton at least got to know the premier because he was a person who would be available in the city. You would often see him in the market.
He was someone who touched ordinary New Bruns-wickers in a very special way. That certainly is indicated in the way feelings have been responded to since and also by the fact that for 17 years he was premier of that province.
I would also like to make mention of one other point which has also been raised, that is, the truly magnificent efforts that Mr. Hatfield made in bringing official bilingualism to the province of New Brunswick, something which would not have been easy for a Conservative leader at that time.
Tribute
He did it. He expanded the party as has been indicated to the Acadian population and made the fact that New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province a very important contribution to Canadian political and constitutional life.
With those few words, I would like to extend on behalf of my party our sympathy to the family and friends of Mr. Hatfield.
[Translation]	'


Lucien Bouchard: Mr. Speaker, I knew Richard Hatfield. I too can testify to his human qualities, his simplicity and his open-mindedness.

He was a sincere Canadian, but at the same time a sincere friend of Quebec.
Even in critical times like these it must be possible to give tribute to a man of honesty and openness. Richard Hatfield was both.

This man, as deeply involved as he was in the political fight, had no animosity against anyone. He harboured nothing but respect for everybody.
Mr. Speaker, whatever lays ahead for Quebec and for Canada, we must be able to count on the good will and realism of political leaders like Richard Hatfield.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I want to just briefly pay my respects and tributes as well to the memory of Richard Hatfield as a friend, as a great Canadian and as a fine New Brunswick-er.
I had the privilege of first meeting Richard Hatfield during my work on the Special Joint Committee on the Constitution of Canada in 1980-81.
I will never forget the passion that he brought to his commitment to keeping this country together, to strengthening the country

and, of course, to promoting the equality of the Acadian men and women.

May 14, 1991
The Address

He was a warm man. He was a man who was gregarious and friendly, as my colleague indicated, and yet he was also an intensely private human being.
I mourn his loss. I am sure all Canadians mourn his loss. We feel a sense of pain at his premature death. We know that he could have contributed and would have contributed a great deal to the debate which is going on in the country at this time, not only with respect to national unity in terms of New Brunswick but also with respect to the particular contribution of aboriginal nations.
I want to join in saying farewell and paying tribute to this decent man, a friend, and to join in extending my sympathy and respect to his family and to his loved ones.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Pronovost for an address to His Excellency the Governor General in reply to his Speech at the opening of the session; and amendment thereto of Mr. Chretien (p. 24) and on the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Langdon (p. 33).
The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. The hon. member for South Shore has 12 minutes left for his speech.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pick up where I left off.
I was talking about the economic needs of Atlantic Canada in general and Nova Scotia in particular. I would like to set forth for the House a number of particular and specific needs.
I think we have in the throne speech some very excellent, general ideas as to the direction in which the country should go. However, I would like to now, if I may, offer some assistance to the government in making
some specific suggestions of things that I think we need in Nova Scotia.
They really come into two categories. The first and foremost has to do with our need for transportation infrastructure which is absolutely essential for economic development.
Given our location vis-a-vis the rest of the country and the United States, transportation is a key to our economic survival, let alone development. There are three areas in which I think that there is a particular need. The first relates to the state of our highways. I realize that highways are a provincial jurisdiction normally and that the expectation is that the provinces are supposed to provide for them. However, the fact of the matter is that none of our provinces are overburdened with financial resources at the present time nor have they ever been. I know there was precedent with respect to the building of the Trans-Canada Highway many years ago.
Therefore, I would like to urge the government to consider seriously, over the course of the next three or four years, setting aside the funds to make possible a renewal of that highway system, certainly at the very least the quadra-laning of the Trans-Canada Highway. I would like to see the quadra-laning of Highway 103 and the completion of the all-weather system in Nova Scotia. This would contribute tremendously to our ability to participate in the opportunities provided not only in the free trade agreement with the United States, but indeed in the breaking down of barriers for trade within Canada.
A second area that is absolutely essential to our needs has to do with the rail line, what used to be called the Intercolonial Railway. As I mentioned earlier in my remarks, Nova Scotians were not overwhelmed with enthusiasm for joining Confederation. However, one of the sweeteners offered to us, both at the time before Confederation occurred and after, was the assurance that the Intercolonial Railway would be the link that made it possible for us to participate economically in this new nation.
It is sad to say that the state of that railway is not a great deal better today than it was following its completion in the 1860s. We are very unhappy and unsatisfied with the degree of attention provided that railway by the Canadian National Railway system.
May 14, 1991

I know that officials of the Halifax-Dartmouth Port Commission are in this city today and will be meeting with the Atlantic caucus of the Conservative Party-and I am sure with others-to impress upon it the absolutely desperate need that we have for the maintenance of that line as a first-class line, as well as for the implementation of new technology that will reduce the costs of using that line, thereby making it much more likely that the Port of Halifax will effectively compete with American ports like Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York.
A third area in which transportation is essential and for which funding is required has to do with port infrastructure. Of course the sea has always been integral to the economic survival of Nova Scotia. Within my own constituency of South Shore, I have a number of ports designated as Department of Transport ports as distinct from Department of Fisheries and Oceans ones. I found regrettable the lack of capital funding available to the federal Department of Transport for port development. In particular, I would like to speak about the port of Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
Over two and a half years ago, the Harbour Development Committee of the Queen's Liverpool Development Commission developed a feasibility study for the building of a new channel that would bring the port of Liverpool to life again. Three major industries are integral to Queen's County: Bowater Mersey Paper Company, Steel and Engine Products and Mersey Seafoods that are highly dependent on being able to bring larger ships into port than was the case many years ago when those businesses first began. We are talking about a major project. We are talking about a $15 million project.
There is money available from ACOA which recognizes the economic development value of that project. Similarly, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, through its Small Craft Harbour Program, recognizes the potential of it. Indeed, I might say that the province is prepared to talk with the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources about allocating some funding from the offshore oil and gas fund. The lead is the Department of Transport, but the Department of Transport cannot proceed unless it has capital funds.
I could go on and speak about the dredging that is needed in Lunenburg, about the dredging that would make a channel and enable Bridgewater to become a
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viable port or about the needs for a new docking facility in the town of Shelburne. But I believe the point is made that funds have to be made available for transportation infrastructure in our marine areas if Atlantic Canada is to have the opportunity to grow as it should.
We understand that times change. Prior to Confederation, the trading patterns for over 200 years in which Nova Scotia was involved were north and south between Nova Scotia and New England and down the coast. Confederation and the national policy of Sir John A. Macdonald in the late 1870s and 1880s changed that by setting up tariff walls which enabled the development of essentially a branch plant economy relationship between the United States and central Canada. We in turn were subcolonialized in the maritimes. With the re-establishment of trade north and south, as opposed to east and west, we have to catch up to where we were 100 years ago to re-establish our trading links.
Therefore, I am saying that the government must recognize that not only are we a political federation but effectively we are an economic federation. We have to recreate or establish, for the first time perhaps, a level playing field in terms of the basis upon which we as Atlantic Canadians can compete effectively within the Canadian market, let alone take full advantage of the opportunities that exist with the free trade agreement with the United States, whether on a full North American basis or not.
I read in the Speech from the Throne reference to the breaking down of barriers to trade among the provinces of Canada. This is an obvious and a necessaiy and important step. It makes sense in theory, but as a Nova Scotian I must be frank and say that it causes me a certain amount of fear. I am not sure that the state of the transportation infrastructure enables us to compete effectively with the larger industries of Ontario and Quebec. Therefore, I trust and hope that as the government develops specific programs to make progress toward those goals, it will take cognizance of the needs of Atlantic Canada.
The second major economic area I hope the government will recognize is the long-standing practice in this country is to recognize that federal as well as provincial expenditures can play an important role toward economic development. Co-operative agreements, of course, have been very effective vehicles, but there must be

May 14, 1991
The Address
enough money made available so that development at the local level can take place under them.
We see CIDA as an agency with expenditures that can make a very important contribution to economic development in our region. Unfortunately, CIDA does not seem to have discovered the marvellous food value of fish.
For some time I have been amazed that with the food aid programs around the world we have not taken advantage of the various kinds of dry products which could be used that are wholesome, nutritious and, indeed, would support the Atlantic Canada fishing industry at a time when it is in difficulty.
The last point I wish to make on this has to do with base closures. We found out two years ago the devastating socio-economic impact that could be the fall-out of base closures. I recognize that it is difficult. The Department of National Defence is not a social agency. It has responsibility and it has to use its budget as best it can to achieve the goals it has established. However, there is no good time for a base closure if it is your community that is impacted.
I know. I lived through the base closure at Barrington as a result of the 1989 budget. It did not get the publicity that Summerside did, because of course it was not a closure of the same magnitude. However we are hearing stories now that the government is looking at further base closures.
We in Nova Scotia are hearing stories that Cornwallis may be one of the bases targeted. I want to say here and now that the closure of base Cornwallis would have a devastating economic impact on Nova Scotia at a time when we simply cannot afford it.
As a member of Parliament it is my right to be heard in this place. I believe as a member of Parliament that it is my responsibility to be heard in this place but, I believe equally so, it is the responsibility of the government to hear and to listen to what is said in this place.
I want to say here and now as one member from Nova Scotia-and I am sure I will be joined by every other member from Nova Scotia-to the government: "If you want to think about base closures, forget it for now and forget it for Nova Scotia, because we simply cannot handle that right now and we are not prepared to do so".
I know my time is running down. The key to unity is economic prosperity. When I go home people do not talk to me about unity issues. They talk to me about the basic economic issues: jobs, survival in tough times. That has to be the focus.
I commend the government for putting emphasis on linking economic prosperity and unity because they are one and the same. My closing words have to be as my opening, that as we look at the renewal of Canada, we think about Quebec and we think about Alberta but we think also of the maritimes and of Atlantic Canada. I urge the government as it makes its plans, and I urge all members of this House to bear in mind that we are all Canadians and we must all be in if we are going to have the kind of unified strength that I know we all wish for.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to make a few points and raise a few questions of my colleague.
I quite agree with him when he says when we think about the renewal of Canada we have to think of every single region. We have to think of Quebec, Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, the west, and the great north.
I would, in fact, be prepared to support his plea that no bases be closed particularly if he were able to persuade his government to go back to P.E.I. and see if it could undo the harm that it has done; go back to Manitoba, to Portage la Prairie to see what it might be able to do as a result of the devastation it has wreaked upon my own province of Manitoba.
When he began his remarks he referred to a visionary Speech from the Throne. I think that is a bit of an exaggeration and I will make a few comments and perhaps have him reconsider what he said.
With respect to national unity, I wonder if he would agree with me that we are in fact wasting time. We have a constitutional crisis. I cannot understand why with any kind of crisis one is putting off action. In the Speech from the Throne there is vague reference to a possible referendum or constituent assembly. There is, and I commend the government for that, some hope for aboriginal peoples, although the extent of what will happen is certainly not clear. I would have liked some assurance that language minorities would be protected. I
May 14, 1991

am as concerned as they are with all of the rumours that have been circulating that their rights may be in some jeopardy.
I would have liked to have seen some reference to other Canadians, those Canadians of origin other than aboriginal, French or English.
With respect to the economic situation I cannot see a whole lot of hope for those people who look at the $30.5 billion deficit, the debt of close to $400 billion, the almost five million poor in this country, the two million who are on welfare today, the 1.8 million Canadians who will be served by food banks this year, the 1.5 million unemployed, and the bankruptcies which have soared and which if one compares to roughly one year ago are up in excess of 50 per cent.
My final point is with respect to education. He did make some comments. My hon. colleague knows full well that the Prime Minister, who was then the Leader of the Opposition indicated in his book, Where I Stand, that he would double investments in research and development, and that he made some similar promises during the elections of 1984 and 1988 indicating that he would not tamper with the transfer formula. He made some very laudable statements to his party at the annual meeting in a number of other areas of the country indicating that it should devote more time, energy, to human resource development. What happened? It cut the transfer payments in 1986 by 2 per cent, cut the transfer payments in 1989-1990 and froze them from 1990 on. Research and development used to be 1.40 of gross development and it is now down to a little less than 1.30. For literacy, $4.50 per Canadian per year has been the investment.
Is there not a flagrant contradiction in what we have heard from the government, not only in this throne speech but in other statements? Clearly actions speak louder than words. I think the throne speech has a few good ideas but there is lots and lots of rhetoric, and I am wondering if the hon. member would care to make some comments.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, I must say I would like to compliment my hon. friend on his speech, or was it a question? I am not sure which.
I welcome the opportunity to respond. He makes a number of interesting points.
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I read in the newspaper today that somebody said the throne speech is a one-day wonder. Well, the throne speech is intended, as I understand it, and most of them are, to be a statement of where the government intends to go. This one has clearly spelled that out.
Clearly the two priorities that have been spelled out are national unity and economic prosperity, and they are linked. I have spoken a great deal on the economic side. I want to talk a little bit about the unity side. I did not have an opportunity to do it before and so I will do it now.
We are all good at talking in this country, but we are not so good at listening. We are not so good at reaching out. We are not so good at seeking to understand the other guy.
When I reflect on what went on in this country a year ago, when I watched the unravelling of Meech Lake through the initial actions of Premier McKenna of New Brunswick and subsequently through the actions of Premier Filmon and Premier Wells, I said: "These people are speaking to their provincial audiences and they love to go on television and be interviewed and speak to whoever might be ought there, but they are not so good at listening".
Last year was last year. They will be judged by history for the actions they took and for the impact that they may or may not have had on this country. We have to start to listen to others. I might say the same applies to Premier Bourassa of the province of Quebec who is reaching out.
I am very pleased to see that the polls indicate the majority of Quebecers want Canada to work. The majority of Quebecers are federalists, but there is a strong feeling of rejection.
I want to send a message, a message that I get reinforced to me day after day by people in Nova Scotia who would really like to understand what the people of Quebec are looking for but they keep coming back to that great barrier that exists between English and French Canadians in this country today: the sign law, Bill 178. It is repugnant to democratic principles. That is what people see. There are so many things being said and so many things reaching out. People want to understand, people want to accommodate and people want it to work but they keep saying: "But what about that sign law?"

May 14, 1991
The Address
Therefore, I would urge the premier of Quebec and those in this House who may know him to say: "Take a look at that sign law and do not justify it by saying that they did terrible things in Manitoba 100 years ago". Two wrongs do not make a right.
We as Canadians, whether we are from Quebec, the west, Atlantic Canada or Ontario have to be prepared not only to talk but to listen and to try to understand. Then we can build this country as we want it to be.


Mr. Nic Leblanc (Longueuil):: Mr. Speaker, the emphasis seems to be on national unity these days and some say that, without it, we will not be able to meet the economic challenge.
But we know full well that the present economic krach is the made-to-measure creation of this government. It is not because Canada has been divided for the past twenty years that the federal deficit grows by at least $20 or $30 billion a year.
The cumulative debt in Canada has reached $400 billion and we are under the impression that Canada is not doing well because it is divided. Canada is not doing well precisely because there are eleven political powers operating in this country, eleven powers at odds with one another and holding elections at different times, which leads to confrontation and inconsistency. It also goes to show that Canada is not financially viable.
Let us stop kidding ourselves and start decentralizing. We have to give more powers to the regions, thereby making them sovereign. It is a must. What we want, in fact, is for Quebec to be the first to become sovereign. We do not want this country to be destroyed, but to be saved economically speaking. A flashy speech from the Throne like this one will do little for the economy of this country. Far from it.
The first thing to do is to decentralize and give more powers to the regions, thereby granting them sovereignty. Only then can we hope to see the economic situation improve.


Peter L. McCreath: Mr. Speaker, my time is brief. I will talk quickly. Quite simply, the hon. member who just spoke ran under the banner of the Progressive Conservative Party and under the leadership of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney who was then and is now the best hope for providing leadership that will reunify this country and
recreate the Confederation of tomorrow that we all look forward to.
I respect my hon. friend for his views, but you do not build strength by tearing things apart. You build strength by staying at the table, by slugging it out, by having your say and listening to what the other person says and trying to work together to make it all come together. At a time when Europe is coming together, where is the logic in Canada falling apart?
Quite simply, there is no logic in that. There is no logic in the policy of my hon. friend's parliamentary group, or that of the Reform Party which has the same aspirations.
I say that members of Parliament came here to work for Canada, to have Canada grow, become strong and become unified.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a matter that affects us all, and this reminds me of that time back in 1981-82, and even before, when I was involved in the debate in this House on a new Constitution with a Charter of Rights. I found this a very difficult time because as you know, Mr. Speaker, I was unable to support measures that would reduce or quantify my rights or add a notwithstanding clause restricting the application of that legislation. I therefore voted against my leader's constitutional proposal-


Mr. Prud'homme:: Trudeau never forgave you!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: They didn't forgive me but I think they understood.


George Albert Proud: Oh, they never will!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Today, Mr. Speaker, Canada is again facing a time of tremendous tension, a crisis partly due to the demise of the Meech Lake constitutional proposal and partly to what I see as a lack of leadership and vision on the part of the federal government and politicians generally.


George Albert Proud: Especially in Newfoundland!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The advent of free trade, the deregulation policy, privatization, the weakening of agencies that represent our national identity such as the CBC, VIA Rail, Air Canada and Petro-Canada all of this, Mr. Speaker, acted as a catalyst for the present crisis. Because the government has been slow to resolve this conflict, a number of divergent-not marginal because

they are no longer that-groups have emerged that are prepared to tear up and destroy everything.
Since fortunately, Mr. Speaker, most Canadians are contra-revolutionary in spirit, we will get together and try to rebuild our country with the same diversity that has kept us together for 124 years.
Mr. Speaker, in addition to individual and collective values, there are two concepts I would like to discuss with my friends today, two concepts that form the very basis of this country. The first concept is dualism. Canadian duality is a fact. It is mentioned practically every year when we discuss legislation. We talk about it and in some parts of the country it has become a very important issue indeed. The second concept is regionalism, another basic concept which we believe is very important in this country, because of our geography, because of the vast territory this country covers, a country that doesn't make sense with its east-west orientation, a country that wants to unite regions that are so totally different.
First of all, our linguistic duality is based on historic, legal and political concepts. Although some may not realize this, Mr. Speaker, linguistic duality will always be a scapegoat in national conflicts. One hundred and twenty-four years after the British North America Act was passed, a reluctance to accept this linguistic duality still exists among Canadians.
Not so long ago, Mr. Speaker, and I saw it happened myself, men used to anglicize their names and forbid their children to speak their mother tongue-


George Albert Proud: In order to succeed in life!


Jean-Robert Gauthier: -as my colleague from Saint-Denis just said, in order to "get on in life" as we used to say. To succeed, they changed their names and no longer spoke French.
In spite of it all, the situation is not hopeless. Francophones can still be found in the regions. They are the majority in Quebec.
Over the last 30 years, we have made some progress, and I was part of it. Let me recount some historical facts so that we have some indications to better understand
The Address
the situation. It probably began in 1961 with the Heeney Commission, the Civil Service Commission of Canada, which agreed that every Canadian should have the right to service in French or in English from the federal government.
In 1962, the Glasco Commission said the same thing. The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Bicultural-ism, that is the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission, was created to, and I quote, "inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the important contribution made by the ethnic and cultural groups of Canada."
In 1965, Mr. Speaker, the Commission concluded, and I quote from the Report:
Canada, without being fully conscious of the fact, is passing through the greatest crisis in its history.
Mr. Speaker, I submit to you that we also are passing now through a serious crisis here in this country.
In 1966, Lester B. Bearson stated in this House "the principle that both francophone and anglophone candidates are entitled to a job in the federal government and will enjoy the same consideration and have the same opportunity to work in the language of their choice."
In 1978, Parliament passed an Act to amend the Criminal Code in order to allow the concerned parties to ask for a trial in either official languages. In 1979, the Pepin-Robarts Commission-it is now very fashionable to refer to Pepin-Robarts-recommended that the Constitution be amended in order to protect minority rights in some areas. In 1980, the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Official Languages was set up. I give credit for that to the then Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Joe Clark, who in 1979 had granted the first meeting of this Official Languages Committee. In 1982, the official and equal status of French and English in federal institutions was enshrined in the Constitution. In 1983, Parliament passed a resolution on the linguistic rights of francophones in Manitoba, and a second resolution in 1984.

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The Address
To remind those who might have forgotten, in 1982, a referendum had been held in Winnipeg on the rights to services for francophone minority in that city and was defeated.
Since the Conservative government has taken power, progress has been slower. In his first Speech from the Throne in 1984, he said, and I quote: "My government is committed to ensuring that the equality of the two official languages-so vital to our national character and identity-is respected in fact as it is in law."
That promise was not kept, Mr. Speaker. That equality is not a reality today. In the 1986 Speech from the Throne, the Conservative government promised to amend the Official Languages Act. It was amended two years later in 1988. But here we are, in 1991, three years later, and the regulations have still not been passed. The act is a paper tiger, Mr. Speaker, since the regulations have not been passed. Three years after this House passed a bill on official languages, we are still waiting for the regulations.
Even worse. Rumour has it that this Conservative government is considering transfering to provinces the implementation of the official languages policy.


George Albert Proud: That will be quite something.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: The implementation of linguistic rights.
The Speech from the Throne delivered yesterday does not contain a single word to put that rumour to rest or to reassure French-speaking Canadians outside Quebec who sometimes feel they have to go underground for fear of hostile reactions from their neighbourhood.
Fortunately, Mr. Speaker, polls indicate a noticeable change in our youth. One can still hope that some day, the Canadian identity, which is largely based on our linguistic duality, will be more than a constitutional reality and become part of the heart and spirit of Canadian men and women.
Debates have been going on throughout this country. A total of eight committees sat and some are still sitting. I will name them, Mr. Speaker. There is the Spicer Commission, the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future, the Beaudoin-Edwards Joint Special Committee on the Process for Amending the Constitution of Canada, the Silipo Commission in Ontario, the Belanger-Campeau Commission in Quebec, the Horsman Committee in Alberta, the British Columbia Cabinet Committee on Confederation, the Manitoba Task Force on the Constitution, the New Brunswick Commission on Canadian Federalism. In all, there are eight commissions presently studying this question.
Mr. Speaker, our country deserves of course much consideration, but also some actions. I believe then, as I tried to make it clear earlier, that dualism is one of the foundations of our federation. If you do away with this feature, Mr. Speaker, you will kill my country. I am quite sure of that.
Second concept: regionalism. It is a basic concept established a long time ago in Canada, since, as I said earlier, our country is so big. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, what other country can boast having vast and fertile prairies, huge farming land, large mountainous regions dotted with lakes, wild regions in the North and the Arctic tundra?
Our country has evolved from distinct regional communities strongly attached to their local identity and traditions. Still, regionalism is one of the foundations of Confederation, but it is also considered to be one of the scapegoats for nationalistic conflicts. I hear members of the "Bar-B-Q" party over there who plague us with their short comments once in a while. Quebec asks for a distinct status or, as it is put in the Throne Speech, unique.
During the school tour I made in my riding since January-I visited almost every single one of them-, I was asked the following question: What makes Quebec so different or unique, since it was said today that these two words meant it was the same thing? I did not say that the Minister responsible did it. Aren't all our provinces distinct? Of course, all our provinces are distinct, Mr. Speaker! That is what makes our country so rich.
But with 5.5 million of people speaking French on a territory where 280 to 300 hundred million of people speak English, Quebec is the only community in North America with a French speaking majority. Besides its language, Quebec has its own Civil Code, its own economic institutions-caisses populaires, Quebec Deposit and Investment Fund, etc. Quebec negotiates educational and cultural agreements directly with France; it participates in numerous international conferences and contributes to the work of the international organizations. Moreover, Quebec has its own pension plan and administers its immigration program. So, by virtue of its language, its culture, its legislation and its economical structures, Quebec is distinct from the other provinces, it is unique.
May 14, 1991

While recognizing that characteristic, we will have to meet the minimum expectations of Quebec, find solutions to the conflicts between Western Canada and Central Canada, meet the needs of the Maritimes and solve native claims. Mr. Speaker, that is an ambitious program, that is a challenge for us.
Mr. Speaker, if divorce results from an accumulation of factors, the same is true of national conflicts. If a consensus is not found, the antagonisms, whether they are cultural, social or economic, will grow and split this country.
Mr. Speaker, rather than continuing as a federation with two levels of government emanating from the same population-federal and provincial governments are elected by and accountable to the same people-some provinces seem to favour a confederation. I read recently some comments of experts on the confederation process, that is to say a government of governments. The federal government would be elected by the provinces and not the people. The elected members would elect the other level of government.
Experience shows that most confederations have been unstable and have either collapsed or moved to federalism. Mr. Speaker, while the European Community is hoping that economic association will lead to political federalism, some Canadian provinces would like to move the other way.
For lack of a representative and effective policy on the part of the central government, the Canadian federation must now make some major changes.
A number of our problems also come from the division and sharing of responsibilities. Therefore, we must consider a new division of powers which is more in keeping with our time. The society in which our Constitution was born, in 1867, was very different from the present. In a householder I sent to my constituents, there is a questionnaire dealing with this question of division of powers.
Several fields of responsibilities which did not exist or were not fully developed then have been split between the provinces and the federal government. This is the
The Address
case, for example, of communication, transportation and the environment which were not controlled; fishing and logging were not regulated. Over time, the federal government entered fields of provincial jurisdiction in order to create national programs, while provinces stepped into some other fields to promote regional development. Conflicts, Mr. Speaker, have been fuelled by costly and frustrating duplications. We must, therefore, come up with a new division of powers which will respond better to a rapidly changing society, while providing for a better cultural, social and economic development.

Much of our current constitutional debate revolves around the distribution of powers and responsibilities. In at least one area, all levels of government-federal, provincial, regional, municipal-share responsibilities.
All Canadians, as stewards of this country, must participate in the protection of the environment. The environment carries no passport. It knows no territorial limitations between countries, provinces and municipalities. The environment is the same.
We share the consequences of neglect and abuse. We share the benefits of clean air, clean water and clean land.
In my own riding, the Rideau River flows into the Ottawa River. Both of these rivers need cleaning and protection. So far, it is only because of emergencies such as the $12 million clean-up of the coal tar spill in the Rideau River in 1987 that we have acted to protect these rivers.
As well, we have not adequately harmonized our environmental laws and regulations despite the obvious loopholes for some offenders.
In Ottawa, as an example, four federal entities-the Bank of Canada, the Department of Transport, the Department of Supply and Services, and the National Research Council-were charged in 1987 with giving chemical waste to hauling companies that illegally disposed of these wastes by dumping them, untreated, directly into the Ottawa River.

May 14, 1991
The Address
Only the Bank of Canada was fined. The other three had their charges dropped on the argument that federal entities cannot be prosecuted under Ontario pollution laws. Such an occurrence is appalling. The green plan created by this government should be addressing such problems.
For this reason we must consider carefully the importance of setting stringent international and national environmental protective standards. Without such standards the likely result is a confusing variety of regulations differing in both strength and scope, encouraging a low level of environmental protection in some areas and creating loopholes.
I want to deal with another important area. Mr. Speaker, I know you have told me I only have a minute. I may want to indicate to my colleagues that I would like to have a little more time, but I will see what questions come. I would like to speak about the process we are facing now, that is the constituent assembly and the referendum question. Both those questions under study at this time need to be explained. I would appreciate getting a question either on the referendum or on the constituent assembly.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that the challenge of the national unity is enormous, but it is worth tackling. We must face it in a Canadian spirit, with love and kindness. We must find solutions to make this country a greater and better place to live. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Guy Ricard (Laval-Ouest):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question to the hon. member for Ottawa- Vanier. I know that he supports dualism in Canada, and that he has always, at least since I have been a member of this House, defended all Canadians, anglophones and francophones alike. He is a person who is constantly fighting for the rights of everyone.
While I was listening to the speaker who rose before him, the member for South Shore, something he said caught my attention. He said that Canadians should talk to one another. In his speech, the member for Ottawa- Vanier said something along the same line. So I would ask him to elaborate a bit on that last remark, that is,
should we, as Canadians, talk to each other in order to understand one another or is it useless to do so?


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, first of all, it is true that we need to talk, but I would like to say to my colleague that, in the Speech from the Throne, the govemement proposes to establish another parliamentary committee, another tool of communication, but with this difference which I am going to explain.
The parliamentary committee that will be established next September will draw from the Beaudoin-Edward Committee, the Spicer Commission and a government paper that will be presented to it this summer, I suppose, and it will travel through Canada to consult all the legislative assemblies, not the people, but the legislative assemblies; it will report back in February 1992, not to the Parliament, but to the government.
So, I say to government members that they will have to clarify this situation or explain, to me and to all Canadians, why a direct dialogue with Canadians is excluded. Mr. Speaker, I would have thought that with the Spicer Commission, the Beaudoin-Edwards Commission and all the commissions that I mentioned earlier, the situation would have been clear enough. But that is not the case! After having reviewed all those commissions, one would have thought that all the political parties of this House could adopt a common position and have it ratified and presented to the people of Canada, and that the problem would be somewhat solved.
But no! They announce some task force, a study group composed of a government majority which will review next September the said documents and report not to the House of Commons nor to the Senate but to the government.
I say to the hon. member that that is beyond me. Why not go to the people? Why not tell us directly what is happening and what propositions we should consider?


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier for his speech. Everybody knows how perceptive he is in constitutional matters. I can even tell him that we listen to him with great interest because we know that even when we were very bound by governmental solidarity he did show more vision than we did in 1981-1982 as he foresaw the problems we experience now.
May 14, 1991

The hon. member was talking about eight commissions, the hon. member for Laval on the govemement side wishes for the return of a kind of Real Giguere with Parle, parle, jase, jase, the hon. member for Ottawa- Vanier, who has seen quite a few commissions in his life, there have been eight of them, said we are going to have a ninth one, and probably a few others. I listened to Clyde Wells this morning and I seldom agree with him, but this morning he said: even if there were 20 other committees, this is not a matter of process, it is a problem of substance. And when one considers the proposals which have been made, whether it be a referendum or a constituent assembly, in the final analysis the basic problem confronting us is that we hold diametrically opposed views. We have seen today his leader make a very centralizing speech, worthy of the good years, but we listened this morning for example, to the leader of the Liberal party we heard him say: as for the environment, we are going to set the standards in Ottawa, and the provinces will appoint their inspectors; in the field of education, we are going to set the standards in Ottawa and the provinces will see to the rest. In other words, Ottawa runs everything and the provinces pay for it and end up doing all the work.
We know that no political party in Quebec can realistically agree with this kind of federalism. And I know the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier is aware that only the Equality Party could perhaps agree with his leader's thinking. But when we look at a report like the Allaire Report, when we look realistically at the facts, does the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier think that the new committee which has just been announced is going to settle the fundamental issues, or whether we are going to be cheated again in the process? It is my opinion and it has been our view from the start that the English Canada will never come up with an acceptable offer by 1992. Ultimately, the train has already left the station and, unfortunately for English Canada, instead of carrying on with the process, perhaps it should focus on the substance of things.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I must tell him that, quite frankly, as far as I am concerned, if there was ever a time when any shape or form
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of partisanship should be set aside, it is when the unity of my country is at stake. I believe that no government, no politician and no individual has the right to roll the dice with the future of Canada. I appreciate that my colleague is a member of a caucus which is against both the Canadian duality and, more likely than not, the kind of regionalism I described. However, this is not a dialogue of the deaf. We simply disagree on the basic premise. So, we cannot come to an agreement. Explain as I may- ad vitam etemam and ad nauseam, if you prefer-Mr. Speaker, my view of this country of mine, of Canada, I will never make him understand because he has his own view and there is nothing I can do about that.


Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lievre):: Mr. Speaker,
I listened with interest to the hon. member for Ottawa- Vanier who has a reputation for perceptiveness in many fields in this House. He raised the question of the referendum. I would like him to expand on this question of great interest to me, as I am sure most of my colleagues would like him to do, considering his long experience. What would be, in his opinion, the criteria or prerequisites for a referendum to be a true expression of the will of the Canadian people?


M. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, on the issue of referendum I have a lot of reservations, as for that matter some colleagues like the hon. member for Saint-Denis would tell you, in 1981- 1982 we went through the same experience.
I agree that the instrument or process might be acceptable. And with my leader when he announced it, I expressed publicly some opinions about it. The four requirements which in my opinion should be met or otherwise satisfied would be as follows: That the referendum question be clear and precise; second, that it should be supported by all three political parties in this House; that it does not reduce at all the rights of the minority; and that it be subject to the simple majority of the country and, on top of that, to regional plurality where each region would have a right of veto: Quebec, Ontario, the Maritimes and the West. With these four conditions, Mr. Speaker, I think that should a referendum be held, it could be seen as equitable.


George Albert Proud: You might win the member for Saint-Denis with this.

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Hon. Harvie Andre (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address this House during this throne speech debate, particularly on that part of the throne speech which had the chapter heading "Changing the way Ottawa works".

Mr. Speaker, many changes were made in the proceedings of this House over the nearly 20 years since I was elected here. I think the most important one was the broadcasting of our proceedings because it brought about fundamental changes in the way we deal with public business. Television cameras gave Canadians access to this House. Canadian men and women in the comfort of their home can watch the work of their elected representatives. Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that about one million Canadians watch the parliamentary channel each week to listen to debates on a bill, hear a statement by their member or watch the Question Period, which is the best show of all.

Nevertheless, in my view this is just one of the many factors which have contributed to our image problem.

Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the issue I would like to deal with now. As a member and as a Canadian, I am deeply concerned about the low esteem and consideration of Canadians for their elected representatives, not only members of this House but also other representatives at all levels. Members of the House of Commons should take this problem seriously and do all that is needed to restore confidence and respect for elected representatives.

The erosion of confidence in the very foundation of our democratic system must be addressed. It is our intention to do that or at least to try to make some progress in this session of Parliament.
The issue is the disrepute into which we politicians, we members of Parliament-and I think all elected politicians in Canada suffer in this regard, but in particular, we in this House of Commons-have fallen.
The fundamental element of our democratic system is the election in which Canadians, by secret ballot, elect men and women to represent them in their legislatures, city councils, and here in Parliament. Yet the polls all tell us that those who the people of Canada elect are held in very low esteem. Indeed, in looking at the most fundamental question facing the country-namely the question of unity, the question of the Constitution- serious people, people of high repute, people for whom I have a great deal of respect, suggest that the best way to examine these changes is to exclude entirely from the process anybody who has been elected.
For people to seriously suggest that holding elective office is an obstacle to participation in the most fundamental question facing the country is to suggest that they have little respect for the institutions in which we function and that the very basis of our democratic system is in some jeopardy.
That sends signals to us that we would be fools to ignore, not only for our own personal welfare as elected people, but certainly in terms of what we all want in the end. That is to see the survival and prosperity of this democratic country and the institution of which we are a part, which is fundamental to the future of the country, to a democratic system. We cannot have a free and prosperous society without this democratic foundation, an institution like this if not this one specifically.
What is the reason for this? Why have the people of Canada reached these conclusions about those of us whom they have elected to higher office? Well, one of the factors is certainly a skewed and very limited view of House proceedings. TV, which preys on our adversarial system, does not .provide the opportunity to see a lot of what goes on. We all know, as members of Parliament, that there is a lot of good work that goes on in committees and many other ways around here. We know that there are debates that are held which are not watched with great enthusiasm, they are not applauded. The press gallery today, as every day, is empty of observers.
When I first arrived here, there was always at least one member of the press gallery on behalf of Canadian Press reporting on the debates. That does not happen any more.

What people do see through television is mostly Question Period. They see high emotional debate. They see strong language. They see outrage and indignation. They see behaviour that sometimes we must acknowledge we are not proud of. What they do not see with enough frequency is calm deliberation, discussion of issues in a serious way, serious issues with serious solutions, respect for each other's points of view even when we differ, and final decision. When they see us vote, they see us vote as blocs. They see us stand up as a bloc either for or against and they wonder about the individual they elected to represent them.
There are other factors which contribute to the disrespect or the anger people have for this institution. I have to acknowledge part of it is the tough agenda and the tough medicine. This government has introduced and passed legislation which was not popular, very definitely not popular. We did so with the firm belief it was required, it was needed, and did it recognizing that we would have to account for it. In the process, people have felt that we were not acting according to their wishes.
It is ironic, 70 per cent to 75 per cent of Canadians say they want their elected officials to follow their wishes, but about 75 per cent say they want their elected leaders to take strong decisions and do the right thing, even if it is not popular. They want strong leadership but they do not want their views ignored.
Of course, they also see us involved in highly partisan, highly fractious debate. They see, too often, members standing up accusing the other side of malfeasance, of corruption, of ignorance, of stupidity, of irresponsibility, all of those things. The blame is not on one side or the other. I am not trying to assess blame. They see us all doing that.
Sometimes the temptation to do that is overwhelming. It is irresistible. It is emotion. We do feel strongly about these things. Yes, when you stand up and take these dramatic emotional stands, your chances of getting reported or appearing on television is increased. These things are, in a sense, understandable, but they bring us into disrepute.
There is also concern in parts of the country, particularly my part of the country, the west, that they are not
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being adequately represented. Too often they see groups standing up as a party group and voting on a particular issue which does not make sense to them. It does not affect them. They do not understand it.
They do not understand why those of us from western Canada are not standing up and saying: "Well, we do not like this because people in the west do not like it." They do not understand why we vote as a party bloc all the time and do not show more divergences in reflection of the divergences that exist in this country.
They sometimes accuse us of being Ottawa's representatives to the constituency as opposed to the constituencies' representative in Ottawa. They get angry about that.
They believe that the system does not provide enough opportunity for listening, consulting and taking their views into consideration. All of these things have contributed to the general disrepute in which we are held.
Much of the focus of the public debate is on the question of free votes. They say: "We should have more free votes. People should be free of party discipline. We should change the roles of members of Parliament so they can vote as their constituents want."
They suggest that we should eliminate the element of confidence from the questions when you are dealing with legislation. They should not be questions of confidence ever. The element of confidence should arise when they are clearly spelled out as being questions of confidence, thereby freeing members to vote according to their constituents.
I will deal with that in a moment. First, I think we have to remind ourselves of just what reforms we have made, because the House is a dramatically different place than when I first arrived here.
There is the old expression: "Everybody knows that power corrupts." I think it is equally valid to say that powerlessness corrupts. If you do not have power or the ability to have an impact on things, that is corrupting in itself.
It causes you to do extreme things. It causes you, outside these institutions, to involve yourself in civil disobedience and to take extreme action, if you feel you are powerless to change things.

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Within this House, it causes behaviour which is not well viewed by the public.
There have been a lot of changes. In 1984, this government in its throne speech promised parliamentary reform, and the McGrath committee was appointed. It did excellent work. It looked at how this House functions, from ministerial accountability to the legislative process to committees.
The McGrath committee had three reports and recommended a total of 119 individual changes. It had 119 individual recommendations and 92 of those are totally in effect. There are 17 more that are partially in effect. Only 10 were not implemented, and most of those were for reasons of impracticality. It was not for political reasons. For example, there was a recommendation that the Justice Building be taken over for members' offices, and so on.
An overwhelming number of recommendations were approved. Committees were given their own budgets, staff and research for special projects, and could perform research on special projects on their own authority.
Prior to 1984, a committee could only meet if the government House leader authorized it to meet. It could only look into those things the government House leader authorized them to look into. Now committees can look into whatever subject they choose. They have their own budgets and research facilities. They have a lot more authority and there is more opportunity for members to have some influence.
An example of the kind of thing that is happening is: after the reforms came into effect, the number of committee reports in a two-year period went from 27 in 1987 to 29 in 1990. There were only 10 and 12 reports from committees in the two years prior to the McGrath commission.
There was almost a doubling of the number of studies. A lot of those reports were excellent and formed the foundation for changes in the law and for changes in the way Canada views a number of issues. They in fact represent substantial good works by members of Parliament.
We now have a process of review of Order in Council appointments. Everybody appointed by cabinet to a
position in this country can be brought before a committee of the House. Their credentials are examined to see whether they are worthy of the position. That is new; that never happened before. Committees are set up to follow government departments and are better organized. Committee members have the ability to travel and to call witnesses. Sound recordings of standing committees are permitted.
Private Members' Business was changed. A random system for selecting Private Members' Business was introduced outside the executive's control.
A committee of private members makes the draws. Prior to 1984-in other words, my first 12 years in Parliament-there was only one private member's bill passed to my recollection. That one was by the late Father Sean O'Sullivan. It was a bill to make the beaver the official animal of Canada.
Since those reforms we have had a number of private members' bills passed; not a lot, but a lot more than happened before that.
Those are important changes. The election of the Speaker was an important change, as were Statements by Ministers with equal opportunity for the opposition, more hours of business, and so on.
Phase two of the reforms was introduced at the conclusion of last session. Again they enhanced committee activity. There was more emphasis on precedent. We are now allowing television into committees, which is a recommendation of a committee of this House. It will be a committee of this House that will decide the rules on how television works, not the government House leader or the government. It will make those decisions.
Private Members' Business has been enhanced. There is more flexibility in substituting items. Now we will need to debate a bill for only three hours to bring it to a vote, rather than five hours. That is a significant improvement.
There will be more private members' bills passed. There will be more days for consideration of private members' business than was the case previously.
We have carried on with the reforms, empowering private members in the last changes to the rules. That having been said, there still is a clear view that we need to do more and there is a clear sense that this place needs more reforms.
May 14, 1991

A healthy democracy depends on participation and information, yet most of the recent reforms and the previous ones are not appreciated or they are dismissed as irrelevant. Canadians do not have a wide knowledge of the parliamentary system and how it works. That is part of the problem.
The changes that are happening in committee are not headline grabbing stuff. It is not on the news. It is not the stuff that gets reported. Ignorance in the best sense of the word, not in a pejorative sense, exists about the parliamentary system.
What we see reported are the partisan fights in this place, the antics. We see very little about the positive, mundane parliamentary happenings which in the end are so much more important. As I said the debate now seems to focus on the issues of free votes and party discipline.
Let us look at that in some detail. First, the majority of votes in this House in fact are not on issues of substance. They are on technical details. We have a lot of votes but only a very small percentage of them is really of substance and something we want to give consideration to.
The question is why cannot we all vote our own conscience. I am reminded of a political science study I saw asking people who came out of the election booth on election day why they voted and how they voted. What was their reason? Forty per cent of the votes were a reflection of-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The minister's time is up unless he obtains unanimous consent to continue. Is there consent?
On a point of order the hon. parliamentary secretary.


Albert Glen Cooper: Mr. Speaker, the minister was just beginning to enter into a question that is very important to all members of this House, and that is the whole question of free votes. I might ask if he would take some time now to respond to that issue which is very much a concern of mine.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: The question is very simple. The Standing Orders provide that a member can exceed the 20 minute period if there is unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?
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Some hon. members:: Agreed.


Some hon. members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Questions and comments. The honorable member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Some hon. members:: Question!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: I will recognize you after the hon. member for Ottawa-Vanier.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Mr. Speaker, I admit the minister in question touched on an important topic, namely the question of free vote. I would like to ask him to explain his conception of what would be a free vote, briefly of course, in view of what occurred in this House when the government itself, on the opposition's initiative, wanting to reaffirm the confidence of the House in our health system, which is excellent, voted against the motion, giving as an excuse that it involved the confidence in the government. This is a good example of a situation where the government could explain us how and in what context we could use the free vote.


Harvie Andre: Well, Mr. Speaker, I regret that I have run out of time because I do do want to say, and I will address the question of my colleague, that it is my intention to ask the management committee of the House to look at a number of changes that could occur.
In terms of how we deal with legislation, perhaps one of the reasons we have partisan debates so often on pieces of legislation is the way they are introduced. At second reading the minister explains it in the House, the opposition is almost duty-bound to oppose it, and we are into partisan differences immediately.
I want to ask the committee to look at pre-studied bills after first reading. Bills could be sent to committee after first reading so that the explanation of the details of the bill can be done in a less partisan atmosphere than is now the case, and to see if in turn we cannot have a more limited second reading debate and free votes.
I want to look at the implication of free votes in terms of what it does to the nature of the country. We are one of the unique countries where no one is actually elected on a national basis. We all represent constituencies. We have to ask ourselves if we had truly free votes where everybody represents their constituents, why would there ever be an incentive for my honoured colleague to vote for support for grain farmers since he has none in his constituency, and why would there ever be an incentive

May 14, 1991
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for me from Calgary to vote for support for fishermen, for example, since I have none in my constituency.
Political parties have a vested interest in building a consensus across the country, in fact we are one of the few institutions that do have that. I want to ask the committee to examine this matter to make sure that we do not throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak, in saying everybody is free to vote and should vote according to their constituents wishes.
I want to ask the committee to re-examine this question of opposition day and opposition day motions, which is what the hon. member referred to. These votes on opposition day motions are supposed to be a surrogate for votes on the question of supply and therefore are confidence by definition. They do because of the motion we have raised, "this House loves medicare", and you have the government voting against it which is an absurdity. We do not want to vote against it, but if it is a surrogate for confidence we have no choice.
Let us re-examine that. Maybe we need to re-examine what those votes should be and I would like the committee to take a look at that. I think we have to examine Question Period quite frankly, because if all members are going to be equal, then all members should be equal. He knows, as I know, in watching the British House that it has quite a different approach. The approach is that everybody is equal, the government comes in and everybody has an equal opportunity to question government or make representations on behalf of their constituents, everybody.
We are organized in party blocs where the main opposition bloc first and the second opposition bloc next are structured in a way which means the individual is less important than the party bloc. If individuals are to count in this House, and the public is demanding that, we have got to look at that. Maybe that needs to be changed as well and I ask the committee to take a look at that.
I think that the empowerment of individual members is essential to give meaning to the casting of a ballot and to the selecting of an individual. We also have recognized though that we are a large diverse country and we cannot afford to dilute the glue that political parties bring to this country by giving a Conservative in British Columbia a
vested interest in trying to reach an accommodation with a Conservative in Quebec and a Conservative in Newfoundland, and the same applies for the other national parties.
If we unduly destroy the cohesion of national parties, then we have to ask ourselves what is to take their place in keeping this country together? If everybody represents a small parochial interest, then we lose some very important glue. I want to ask the committee to look into that as well.
I want to ask the committee to study these and to report back as soon as possible. I would like to start these changes next September. I do not think we can get them done before the end of June, but I would like them looked at and we do not need to proceed in one large package; we can proceed piecemeal, implementing as we go along.
I know we are all pretty cynical about each other's motives, but I must say at this time when the future of the country is at stake and the reputation of parliamentarians, all of us, is at such a low ebb, that we have to treat this responsibility seriously and we have to look at those changes. I think it can be done. I hope that the committee will take on that responsibility very early and will do something for this Chamber and for this country.


Mr. Francois Gerin (Megantic-Compton -Stans-tead):: Mr. Speaker, I can hardly hear the minister's speech and find any credibility in it. In the Throne Speech, the very paragraph about a reform of the Standing Orders of the House also mentions that the report of the Royal Commission, appointed to study the electoral reform, will be tabled.
May I remind you that the Royal Commission was also established to study political party financing. However, we all know that, in spite of the promise made by the Prime Minister a few days before the last election, to institute public financing as soon as he was elected,-two years and a half have elapsed and nothing has come of it-we know that he never intended to do so and thus he has deceived all Canadians, including Quebecers. Moreover, in establishing that Royal Commission and in appointing the members he has chosen himself, he led
May 14, 1991

the reform in such a way that it did not provide anything on public financing.
So, how can we believe all the words of the minister, when we see that in fact he does not intend to change anything?
Mr. Lortie, the appointed Chairman of the Royal Commission, recently said, in an interview with Le Devoir, there would be no public financing. He even said so before completing his study.
But, no study was made on the role of bagmen within the Canadian Conservative Party, while this process has been denounced for seven years already. No study was made on the impact of public financing, on the participation of Canadian citizens in the whole process of political parties.
And today, they want us to believe that changes will be made to the Standing Orders of the House or to the system. That will never be done. There is no will for a change. I would ask the Canadian and Quebec people to read the 1984 Throne Speech and see all these false wishes that never came true. And the present Throne Speech is a deception for the whole of Canada.


Harvie Andre: Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure why the hon. member should be upset about having a royal commission on electoral reform. The commission is doing good work, as far as I know. We have not seen the report yet, but we are looking forward to the report.
The throne speech deals not with the electoral process, but in a sense the products of that process, namely, this House of Commons and the way we behave. Some of us get elected under one banner and then change. Whether that is appropriate or not is something that perhaps we should look at. Do the people have a right to expect some integrity from those they elect, and expect them to perform according to what they say? That is perhaps one of the things we may want to look at.


Mr. Kindy:: On a point of order. I think 30 minutes has expired.
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Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker,
I too wanted to say a few words on the throne speech debate today, particularly about the issue of the future of Canada and national unity that is so important at this time.
There is no doubt in my mind, as we go into this crucial next one or two years of Canada's development, and as we strive to reach a national consensus, that we should make sure we devise a process of changing our Constitution that is as open, fair, accessible and democratic as possible.
The process must be democratic so that the people of this country have full access to the process, so that the people of this country are the ones who build the Constitution. Constitution-building in this country must be done by more than just elected politicians.
We must have people from all kinds of groups that are under-represented in the Parliament of Canada involved in the process.
I make a plea this afternoon about seven or eight points that should be considered as we look at the future of our country and the unity of our country, which was an important part of the throne speech read by Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn in the Senate yesterday.
A committee of this House has travelled Canada, has had public hearings in 16 different communities in all the provinces and territories of Canada, and has been given a loud and clear message: the people want in, the people want to be part of the process, the people want a new process and a new way of building a Constitution.
People want a constituent assembly where you would have, yes, the elected politicians representing all parties in this House. You would also have people who are under-represented in the current electoral system. I refer specifically to women who are under-represented in this Chamber. I refer to the aboriginal people who are under-represented in this House, and certainly underrepresented in terms of our national institutions and our national decision-making bodies.
I refer as well to the many minorities, the multiracial and multicultural minorities that are a growing reality in this country, and want to be part of that process. They would not be a part of that process if our next round of

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constitutional talks involves only the elected politicians and the senators here in Ottawa.
I make the plea that the government reconsider the wisdom of a parliamentary committee to negotiate the next round of our constitutional future, and expand that committee to include not only elected people and politicians, but turn it into a fully fledged constituent assembly representing the people of this country.
A second thing that is really important is that we have a broad process of public hearings and public input as we determine where to go and the future of our country. It is important that this Parliament make a commitment to have public hearings for constitutional change whenever there is a proposal made to the people of this country. All too often in the past we have not had adequate public hearings or adequate input, or we have had a proposition made by the government to a parliamentary committee and the committee has said: "Well, you cannot really change the proposition. You can look at it and you can have public hearings, but you cannot change it". That is not good enough.
We need mandatory public hearings, where a parliamentary committee would hear from the Canadian people, listen to the Canadian people and change the proposition before it becomes part of the Constitution of Canada.
I would also would like to see the provinces and the two territories of this country do exactly the same thing.
During the Meech Lake Accord, only about half of the provinces had public hearings. The other half never had public hearings at all. Many of the provinces just relied on their premier or a vote in their assembly to say yes or no to the accord.
Even Premier Wells, who likes to talk about openness and democracy, in Newfoundland and Labrador did not have public hearings at all before he rescinded his support for the Meech Lake Accord. Again, is that listening to the people? That is not listening to the people. The provinces in a federation should have public hearings and public input so people at the provincial level can have a say in what their MLAs and their provincial representatives are saying in terms of constitutional change.
The third area we should look at in terms of public participation is whether or not we should have a national referendum for constitutional change. I think that requires further study. A referendum could be very divisive in this country. We have to look at who would write the question and questions of funding for the yes and no side in a national referendum.
Then we have the question of what is a majority. In a federal state is a simple majority of 50 per cent plus one good enough? I suggest it is not. Perhaps a majority in the four great regions of this country: the west, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. Is that even good enough? Is it right and proper to have a national referendum on a question of minority rights where we are dealing with the aboriginal rights or the land rights of the aboriginal people of this country? I am really doubtful.
I caution the government that when it tables legislation on a referendum procedure later on, it had better make sure we know where we are going before we use this tool. A national referendum could override the rights of minorities, override the rights of regional minorities, be it western Canadians, Quebecers, Atlantic Canadians, or northerners. It could override the rights of groups such as aboriginal people or ethnic minorities or, indeed, linguistic minorities such as the anglophones of Quebec or the francophones outside of Quebec.
That is an area that needs further study before we commit ourselves to having a national referendum.
It is more important to make sure that the people have a say in building a national consensus on what the constitution should be. At a time when that consensus is being built, it should be the people of this country who determine whether or not we should be enshrining more aboriginal rights or stronger rights for minorities or a charter of social and economic rights. The people of this country must have a say at the developmental process, at the proposal level and not be handed a fait accompli by bureaucrats, as has happened so many times in the past.

Mr. Speaker, I am convinced, after spending several weeks attending public hearings throughout Canada, in every Canadian province, in the Yukon, in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, that most Canadians want a united and strong Canada. We must have a Canada for all Canadians. We must find a compromise for the

benefit of the West, natives, Quebecers, the North, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and everybody.
I am optimistic that we will be able to find a way to save our great country and to protect at the same time its national solidarity and its real diversity, Mr. Speaker.
We are lucky to have two great languages, French and English, and the natives who were here before anybody else, and now a large number of people who came from many countries from all over the world.
After six or seven weeks of public hearings, I am convinced that most of our national population will wish to have a united and strong Canada.

In the process of changing our country, the most important thing is democracy, giving people a voice and allowing them to participate in every stage of the process.
I think we should look at some of our history. We have had a proud history in many ways in terms of what kind of a country we have built. We have medical care, hospitalization, health insurance, and family allowance. We have a mixed economy. We have a free and democratic country.
We have a wealthy country with many resources, but when it has come to changing our Constitution, we have often been deficient in living up to the great rhetoric and the great hope that we all hold for this country.
The oversight that is the most glaring to me is how we have shunted aside and forgotten the aboriginal people, the first people of this country.
When we look at how we change our Constitution, there is no reference whatsoever to aboriginal people. They do not have a voice at the table. Before we make changes to the Constitution with respect to the aboriginal people in this country, changes which affect them directly, whether treaty rights or self-government, I suggest that aboriginal people themselves should have a say.
They should be allowed the right of consent. In other words, we should not change treaty rights without their consent. We should not impose a system of self-government in this country. If there is self-government for aboriginal people, it should be with their consent. If we
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deal with issues that affect them directly, it must be with their consent.
Second, no matter what the constitutional issue may be, the aboriginal people must be at the table. They must have a voice. They must participate or take part in those meetings, because aboriginal people in this country are affected by equality rights for men and women. They are affected by whether or not there are property rights in the Constitution, whether or not there is free speech. They are affected by our languages, our many cultures and our Canadian reality.
The time has come to make sure that they have voice and that they have a real role in consenting to changes in the Constitution that affect them.
The next thing is the role of our northern territories. When you travel the north, you find out very quickly that they are treated in many ways by people in this part of the world as though they are colonies. Things are imposed on them by the politicians in Ottawa and by the bureaucracy.
Many years ago in 1905 when my province became a province of this country it became a province through an agreement by the people in the then territory that Saskatchewan now is and the Parliament of Canada.
The people of Saskatchewan and the Parliament of Canada in a bilateral sense agreed that Saskatchewan should be a province. The same thing in Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, Prince Edward Island and, in 1949, Newfoundland and Labrador.
It was the people in the Dominion of Newfoundland and Labrador who had a referendum and later signed an agreement with Canada through the Parliament of Canada to become a province.
In 1982, when the Constitution was patriated and brought back to Canada with the charter of rights, Parliament changed the rules for the creation of new provinces.
Instead of it being a decision of the people of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, for example, and Parliament, a new province could be created only if there was the agreement of Parliament and seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the population of Canada. That is not fair. We are not applying the same rules in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon as we applied in the rest of the country. I suggest that we go back to the rules before 1982 for the creation of a new province. If

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the Yukon or the Northwest Territories wish to become a province and Parliament consents, then it is a province.
Of what business is it to the provinces of Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario whether the Yukon is or is not a province? It is time we stopped treating them as if they were colonies.
Second, there is no provision in the Constitution that would prohibit an existing province from expanding its territory into the Northwest Territories or the Yukon. There is no provision that would stop that unless it was stopped by seven provinces representing 50 per cent of the people and the Parliament of Canada.
We suggest that the territories themselves should have a veto over the expansion of existing provinces within their boundaries. If British Columbia, Alberta or some other province decides unilaterally to expand north, the people in the territories should have the right to say no.
Third, it is imperative that the governments of the two territories be represented at constitutional meetings, at the constitutional table, and that they have a chance to participate and a voice in federal-provincial meetings. I am very pleased to see that in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, today and yesterday at the Western Premiers Conference, Mr. Penikett, the premier of the Yukon, and Mr. Patterson, the government leader from the Northwest Territories, were there as full participants along with the four western premiers. That is a step forward. It has become a conference not only of western premiers, but also of the two leaders from the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Let us follow that example and apply it to all constitutional negotiations, to all federal and provincial negotiations, to all negotiations that affect the people of the two territories. If we do that we are then talking about a more democratic Canada.
These are some of the issues that we should address when discussing how to change our Constitution and how we, as Canadians, can make our country more democratic.
There is one other issue I wish to refer to regarding changes to the Constitution. That is whether we should have a free vote on constitutional matters in this chamber. We heard from dozens and dozens of Canadians right across this country who were asking the parties, at
the committee that looked at a process of amending the Constitution, for a free vote. Person after person said that if there was a free vote on the Constitution in this House, members of Parliament would be forced to represent more accurately their constituents on a constitutional matter. They would be held more accountable by their constituents on a constitutional matter.
I suggest for all constitutional amendments that come before this House, we have a free vote with a two-thirds amendment, which would force members of Parliament to be more accountable to and representative of their constituents. It would also force members of all political parties in this House, be it three or four or five political parties, to try to reach a consensus on constitutional matters, to make sure that a constitutional matter is above and beyond partisan politics and that we try to achieve a truly national consensus. If a two-thirds majority was required, in almost every Parliament in this country, with a few exceptions like 1984 where there was a large majority, the consent of a significant number of people in the opposition would be required.
A government could not come before this House and say: "Look, here is the proposition and we do not care what you say, we are going to have a committee and then we will ram it through the House." That is not good enough.
I believe that on constitutional matters which are not partisan matters in the traditional sense, there must be a free vote with a two-thirds majority.
I think that is the feeling of the members of the Liberal and Conservative parties who sit on the joint committee on amending the Constitution of Canada.
If we were to open up the process, make the process more democratic, make it more accessible to the people in this country, then I think we could bring this country together. We could unite this country around the values that all of us share.
Travelling the country makes one more of an optimist. People want to stay together. People want this country to unite and stand together. They are also looking for a new way and a new method of building a country, reaching a

consensus and building a constitution. They want people to be democratically involved. We can do that through a constituent assembly, where people who are now underrepresented in Parliament have a chance to be represented at the table, in particular the aboriginal people of Canada.
Travelling the country you would find, after you get over some of the deep-seated animosity between so many peoples in this country, a real understanding that one of the real jewels of Canada is the diversity that we have, the fact that Quebec is so unique and different, with a different language, a different history and culture, and a different legal system. We have a great tolerance toward minorities and ethnocultural groups from all parts of the world. We are the second largest country in the world, after the Soviet Union, in terms of area, and that tremendous size and the mountains and the differences in this country should be seen as things that we cherish and build on, and not divide us.

Mr. Speaker, my friend, the member for Chambly, and I, we spent two or three days just before Christmas in New Brunswick, in British Columbia and also in Edmonton and when we spoke to students, we noticed that there was not a very big difference in the various parts of the country: All people want a clean environment, a job for their children and peace in the world, whether they speak French or English or live in western or eastern Canada.

What we need in this country is an open democratic process. I see my time has expired and you are about to rise. We need an open democratic process that allows people to participate.


Alex Kindy: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. member. He addressed the question of Canadian unity. He did not mention the question of referenda. I would like to know if he is in favour of referenda, whether he wants people's input, or just the constituent assembly.
Another point I would like to comment on is that Canadians right now have tremendous economic difficulties because of the policies of the government, of high interest rates, and so on and so forth-the goods and services tax in particular.
Travelling this country, everybody tells you the economy is slow and things are not progressing. They blame
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the goods and services tax and they blame the high interest rates that have caused a made-in-Canada recession.
What we should be addressing is the question of economic recovery. One of the points the Governor General mentioned in his Speech from the Throne was free trade with Mexico. I would like to know whether the hon. member's party is also in favour, at this time, of an association with Mexico, of free trade with that country.
I do not believe that this is the opportune time. We have not established a working relationship with the provinces, we have not established free trade with the United States that is to the benefit of Canada. I would like him to comment.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the most important issue in this country today is the economy-all the economic problems, the unemployment, the high interest rates, the devastation in the farm economy, particularly in western Canada. That is the number one issue. People want us to solve the unity problem within the next year or so. Then we can deal with the real problems, which are jobs and creating wealth for the people of this country.
I am convinced, after travelling this country time and time again, we do not need the GST in this country. We should get rid of the GST. The free trade deal with the United States has sold out too much of our sovereignty. We have given away much too much for what we receive. We should not now be entering into yet another free trade deal with Mexico that once again will hurt this country by sending more and more jobs south of the border into Mexico where wages are very, very low and working conditions are very, very poor.
These are real issues that have to be addressed, and addressed very quickly. This is why we have to resolve this unity question, so we can get on to the real issue of building a strong and prosperous Canada with jobs reaching every person.
Second, on referenda, I think the member from Calgary may have been out. In my speech I spent two or three minutes on referenda. I suggested that we have to look at the wisdom of whether or not we should have national referenda. If we do have a referendum, we should look at all kinds of questions that are real problems for me. It could be a divisive tool. What is a majority in a referendum? Is it just strictly a national majority or do we need a majority in each of the four regions of the country? Do we put minority rights to a

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referendum, such as the rights of aboriginal people who make up five or six per cent of the population. An amendment to the Constitution may be one that deals strictly with their treaty rights or deals with land entitlement or deals with self-government. Should that be put to a national referendum?
There could be a tyranny of the majority, trampling over minority rights. The same is true of rights of multiracial or multicultural minorities. I raise those as questions that are legitimate. There are also questions about the financing of a referendum, do we have limitations on the yes and no side, who will ask the question and why.
The important thing for me is that we involve the people in the process from the beginning through a constituent assembly and through very open public hearings at both the federal and provincial levels so that people participate in building the process and building the Constitution.
There may be a place at the end for a national referendum, but only a national referendum that unites Canada, binds us together and not divides us. All I am saying is that we have to look at it more closely. I think it requires a bit more study.


Jim Karygiannis: Mr. Speaker, there are those of us who came to this country as immigrants, there are those of us who chose Canada. We could have gone to any country in the world. However, we chose Canada. We are very disturbed by some people who are trying to divide the country, the separatists from Quebec and the separatists from the west.
My question for the hon. member is the following: Will he agree that we have to invite the ethno-Canadians? Will he agree that multiculturalism has played a definite part in this country. Yesterday, the first Sikh graduated from RCMP training wearing a turban. Will he agree that ethnocultural Canadians should sit at the negotiating table and start negotiating, that these people who come to this country by choice and are sick and tired of the separatist factions of this country are needed and needed today?
I speak about my hon. friends from Quebec. We came here by choice and we do not want any part of what they are saying.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I obviously agree that ethnocultural Canadians have to be at the table. That is a major reason why we have recommended a constituent assembly. My friend from the Liberal Party's leader, if I can be a bit partisan here for a second, has rejected the idea of a constituent assembly. I think if one were to reject the idea, I would be hard pressed to figure out a way to bring the people who are under-represented in our parliamentary system to the table in the numbers that they should.
That is why we recommend a constituent assembly. It is easier to have the linguistic minorities, the ethnocultural Canadians, people with multiracial backgrounds and the aboriginal people at the table if there is a constituent assembly.
It is the reason why I hesitate about a national referendum. Minority rights can be overridden by the majority. I think not just of aboriginal people but people from other minorities.


Nic Leblanc: Mr Speaker, some called us separatists earlier. Perhaps you will be proud in a few years to learn that we saved the rest of Canada because we wanted sovereignty for Quebec.
Because of the way things are going right now, this country is heading straight into bankruptcy. The deficit is now $400 billions and we don't know how to solve this problem. I would like only to say that you are going to be proud to see perhaps one day a sovereign Canada, formed of the rest of Canada, that will be able to grow better than it is today.
I would have a short question for the hon. member who just spoke. We talked earlier about unity. He spoke a lot about unity. In the Speech from the Throne, the government said that education should be under its jurisdiction and that we should have a legislation providing us with a national policy on education when we know

very well that education is a provincial jurisdiction and that for Quebec, it is very precious. The Quebec Minister of Education said today that that kind of infringment by the federal government was outrageous and totally unacceptable.
Speaking on that same subject, the leader of the NDP said today that the federal government should play a more important role in education. That means that she supports the plan announced by the tories in their Speach from the Throne. Does the hon. member support that position and can he explain how Quebecers could accept such an infringement on Quebec jurisdiction?


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, our Constitution gives some powers to the federal government, other powers to the provinces and I agree that education should stay with the provinces. However, in its administration it might be useful to have a national policy with some kind of coordination between provinces in that area.
It might be possible to have, I am thinking about my own province, Saskatchewan-maybe not Quebec, because it's different-and British Columbia or Manitoba, more coordination between the various systems. But, strictly from a constitutional point of view, I think that this power should stay with the provinces.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: Resuming debate. The hon. Member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore.


Mr. Patrick Boyer (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in this debate on the Speech from the Throne.

This morning when I was walking to the Parliament Buildings, I passed the post office building at the corner of Elgin Street and Sparks Street. I looked again at the cornerstone on that building. It said 1939 A.D. 1939 was after 10 years of the most cruel and crushing depression ever to have been felt in this country, and was the moment that war clouds were gathering over Europe and we were about to be plunged into the most severe military holocaust of this century.
Yet, at that low moment, in that valley of despair, someone had the courage to build a building that was a part of Canada's future. I see that as a metaphor for
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where we are today, that ability to inscribe hope, even to see confidence, in what we build.
What we must build today is not with mortar and concrete, with glass or steel. What faces us now is building new attitudes of confidence, confidence in ourselves as Canadians, and building a cultural renaissance in our country that will give rebirth to a greater Canada.
Over the last two years as Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, I had the chance to see how many other people around this planet view our country. If I had any wish in 1991, it would be that Canadians could see ourselves as others elsewhere in the world see us.
They would find it incomprehensible that we, in this comfortable country, are talking with such despair about our future. Hearing this current debate, they would certainly be blinking in incomprehension.
How about those who are living within the northern or southern borders of Iraq today? What about those in the Bangladesh flood plain, where the current crop of human fatalities is but an ominous portent of what is waiting as the UN today released statistics showing that world population is going to double in the next 60 years?
What about those who live, barely, in Ethiopia or Sudan staring vacantly into the dizzying void of starvation? What about those in the pollution choked countries of eastern Europe? What even of those people struggling to avoid the final collapsing remnants of the communist regimes where the lie could no longer be lived, even by those who spoke it?
Canada imperilled? Canada about to break up, to break down, to break apart? Canada? No one who sees our country from abroad can understand this nonsense. You have to be Canadian to understand the parasitic insecurity and self-doubt which constantly brings us down, to know that the route to political unity actually lies through a new attitude and awareness of ourselves. We are daring to express that in a cultural way and in a vastly more democratic way.
The late Canadian literary scholar Northrop Frye urged that we forsake political tinkering and concentrate more positively and profitably on becoming, for the first time, the cultural federation.

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He saw, as I do, as a necessary precursor for our political restoration a cultural renovation of the country, a society valued mainly for its beaver pelts, its softwood forests and the soldiers it can supply to other countries' wars. Frye said, speaking of our earlier years, that Canada is unlikely to develop any cultural phenomenon beyond a problem of identity, a general state of wondering why it exists.
The last 20 years have seen a buoyant and refreshing expression of our authentic selves in a culturally robust Canada. This has directly contributed to our successes in other fields.
Keith Spicer may have been misunderstood when he said that it was important to listen to our poets, but I do not think that he was wrong.
The strength today of Quebec is but an expression of Quebecers' strong sense of a common tradition lived and expressed in a culture which went through a quiet revolution and which gave Quebecers a new sense of status and political influence. All of this, of course, has been done by Quebecers who are proud of their culture and who are living their culture within Canada.
In several very important respects, Quebecers have in fact been leaders of Canada from the beginning to the present. A reluctance in 1914 to send young men from the forests, fields and factories to die in the bloody mud of a European imperial war seemed incomprehensible to many other Canadians.
I believe Quebecers had discerned a truth not yet seen by others at that time. A quest by Quebecers to press for new Canadian symbols was seen as disloyal by many in other parts of Canada, parts of Canada where today those symbols have become proudly unifying for all of us.
Impatiently, ahead of many other Canadians, Quebecers who wished to be maitre chez nous set a theme that has been grudgingly accepted by those in other parts of Canada long accustomed to the comfortable cocoon of being, first a British colony, and subsequently an American colony.
Quebecers have, perhaps not always even knowing it, given leadership to Canada. This is the time more than any other for the true sons and daughters of Quebec to
stand forward and say to the rest of Canada: "follow us, let us together make the long-held dream of Canada, a greater reality." This is also the time for all Canadians to say to Quebecers that the tempering influences of our larger country have helped prevent a too insular approach. Canada helps us all, wherever we live in this country, avoid becoming too provincial.
Quebecers have not been alone, but have been partners with the rest of us, in giving a definition to the Canadian experience. Nous sommes tous les Canadiens.
In contrast with the United States and with France, which began with revolution and the deductive approach to unity that a revolution inculcates, as Northrop Frye has also observed, Canada has had a history of compromise and ad hoc agreements with a fairly constant attempt-whatever the lapses-to preserve the rights of both sides. As others have already said, in Canada today there are in fact many sides.
In this Speech from the Throne it was very important to hear the government speaking for those who in our society too often are voiceless, too often the silent Canadians.
Yesterday, for example, the references to programs for Canadians with disabilities is of fundamental importance for the kind of Canada we want to be, because 13.2 per cent of our fellow citizens have varying degrees of mental or physical disabilities. That is 3.3 million Canadians.
Likewise, the provisions for the aboriginal peoples, our first Canadians, in the whole new approach that is being taken are overdue and most deserving of support from all of us.
Third, the references to children, the most vulnerable of all in our society. Again, this is important because of their relative voicelessness in society and the importance of supporting those initiatives.
Fourth, Canadian workers and those who operate small businesses in our economy at this time. When combined with the recession there is a major restructuring under way in the Canadian economy, which points to the need for very, very careful action on that front, as was outlined this morning by the new Minister for International Trade.
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On the large scale we can see in this speech where Canada is and, I believe, where Canada is going. That is, from the model of a 19th century nation state we are in transition to a 21st century international country. Within this transition all of us have our specific proposals and hopes, those things we would like to see and achieve.
For example, I have been advocating the formation of an International Green Cross, a new international agency that could do for the environment what the International Red Cross does for humans in times of calamity and disaster.
Another idea I want to continue working for in this session of Parliament and beyond is the formation of a national youth service corps for young Canadians at the end of the high school years, even before entering university, a period perhaps of 18 months. Canadians of that age from all parts of the country could work in several streams of a national youth service corps on a rotational basis around our country. One stream, perhaps, of military service, another stream of environmental service and a third stream of social activity and service, and so on. All of this would help to unify the country and build Canadian culture as a result of young Canadians having the opportunity to live for a while in New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan, B.C. and Newfoundland, and move around and see something of the silent promise this country so often hides from those who never stray beyond their own bailiwick.
These are the kinds of ideas I want to see accomplished. I know so many other members of Parliament and many other Canadians across our country have their projects, dreams and aspirations, but we can only accomplish those in a united and strong Canada. If we do not have a country, what do we have?
That is why this whole approach and the reforms talked about yesterday are so important.
Although the reference in the Speech from the Throne to our cultural accomplishments was only a passing one, I believe the greatest cultural accomplishment is the one that lies ahead of us. It is our greatest challenge to see a re-confederation on a cultural basis.
For example, consider education. The throne speech calls for a new culture of learning. Education is unquestionably the responsibility of provincial governments. Yet, no Canadian can ignore that over the past two decades it was the Canadian government that paid millions of dollars to train adults to be bilingual because
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the provinces operating the educational system for over a century in a country with two large linguistic groups had largely fostered a debilitating unilingualism.
No Canadian can ignore the fact that today it is the Canadian government that must spend millions of dollars to overcome illiteracy and millions more for worker retraining, even though these, strictly speaking, are matters of provincial jurisdiction.
Provincial governments simply cannot clamour for more powers, judged against this record, until all of us who are Canadians define and defend Canadian national standards. Perhaps those Canadian standards can then be more effectively implemented within our regional and local communities. That, in my view, will be the essence of the constitutional changes which lie in the not too distant future.
The government's educational goals by the year 2000, just nine years off, as mentioned in the Throne Speech, include cutting illiteracy in half, doubling university graduates in mathematics, science and engineering, ensuring that 90 per cent of Canadians achieve high school graduation by age 25, and increasing employer funded training fourfold. That is a great Canadian national challenge. The even greater challenge is to all those who give cultural expression in whatever form to the Canadian experience.
Now is the time that all those people must come to the aid of their country and its definition, because that is fundamental to our future.
Since yesterday, the country has a clearly defined constitutional renewal plan. It has a timetable and it has clear leadership from the Prime Minister who unequivocally has stated, echoing the call of our Prime Ministers of yesteryear, that it is the Government of Canada alone which speaks for all Canadians in the coming debate over the redistribution of Canadian provincial powers and institutional change.
I would like to add an important proviso to that. While it is the Canadian government of all the governments which speaks for Canadians, we can and we must also go beyond governments directly to the people of Canada. When all the constitutional proposals for change have been made by the various committees and deliberative bodies, it must be the Canadian people themselves who decide. That is why the Speech from the Throne, calling

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for popular involvement in this process, is an historic milestone in our evolution as a true democracy.
The Speech from the Throne advises us that we in the House will be asked to approve enabling legislation to provide for greater participation of Canadian men and women in constitutional change. Tomorrow afternoon I will table again in the House my private members' bill, the Canadian Referendum and Plebiscite Act, so that it can be considered by our Parliament in concert with this stated intention of the government.
We Canadians have been a timid democracy for the main. We owe it to ourselves to more robustly embrace our authentic experience. We owe it to ourselves to involve and to trust the people in the processes of constitution making. Our cousins in Australia have not hesitated to do this. There constitutional amendments must be ratified by the people themselves. If it is not possible to ratify, as the Australians found in eight times out of thirty-two, then if you cannot persuade a majority of the people living in the country that the proposed changes to the fundamental rules of the country are worth making then they ought not to be made.
More important even than the numbers that are added up on the night of a national referendum or plebiscite is the educational process that we go through in the campaign, that intense period of focused debate and discussion, hearing the pros and cons, the self-definition that comes, as it did to Quebecers in 1980, as it did to Prince Edward Islanders three years ago on the fixed link issue, as it did to people in the Northwest Territories on the territorial division plebiscite. This is a great opportunity for all of us to join in direct partnership with the Canadian people. For that reason also, I am very proud, as a Canadian, to be supporting this Prime Minister and this government.


Ron J. Duhamel: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his address which I found to be sensitive. I know him to be a committed parliamentarian.
As I understood the address, he attempted to answer one fundamental question: Why is Canada breaking up or on the verge of break up? Clearly, if we are not
careful, it is a possibility. Certainly we hear that a great deal throughout the whole nation.
I want to explore that very briefly. Is it because of the continued tensions between the English and French speaking people of this country? Is it because of the policy of two official languages? Is it because we have ignored for too long our aboriginal peoples, creating pressures that have become very difficult to deal with? We have been very slow in addressing them. Is it because we have been unable to accommodate those Canadians of origins other than aboriginal, French and English, who somehow feel as if they have been left on the periphery? Is it the recession? We all know that people are worried about their jobs. When we do not know what will happen tomorrow we sometimes become much more impatient and perhaps less tolerant. Is it possibly because of the breakdown of some of our east-west links? I do not say that in a partisan kind of way.
Decisions have been made with respect to VIA Rail so there is less travel, disruptions brought about by the Canada-U.S. trade agreement, and the imposition, and I understand the reasons, of the government's goods and services tax. Again I stress it is not a partisan statement. Is that contributing to this breakdown?
Perhaps just a final point, is it perhaps related to, in the final analysis, our inability to work with each other? I was rather surprised by a comment of the member for Yorkton-Melville, who said that my leader had indicated that he was against a constituent assembly. I found that really surprising because I had been the one who had explained to him what my leader had said which was very simply: "Here is what I would prefer, a parliamentary committee putting forth a package, consulting with Canadians, and then a referendum". He did say, and I heard him publicly, if a constituent assembly will do better work than a parliamentary committee, if it can be decided whether it should be elected or selected, how large it should be, what it's mandate should be, then he is quite prepared to look at it.
Is it because in the final analysis, when it comes down to the fundamentals, that we cannot in fact reach out and work out a solution that is the best for the country and the best for all Canadians.
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Patrick Boyer: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has listed a number of factors: language, the position of aboriginal Canadians, those who feel they are left on the periphery, the economic recession, the east-west links that have perhaps broken down, taxation issues, and others. All of these are sand in the gears grinding down the good will and successful operation of our country.
Most of these serious issues are problems in our country because of the underlying difficulty that we have communicating with ourselves as Canadians. That is why I was emphasizing the cultural basis of what our Canadian experience is. When we have a more robust Canadian identity, we are proud and capable of sharing without feeling inhibited, without having that Canadian self-doubt that causes us to act like shy country cousins and step back, but actually to step forward and embrace one another from whatever part of the country we live in. Then these issues, be they economic recessions which occur in a cyclical pattern in a controlled capitalist economy like ours, or the taxation issues that bedevil us as Canadians want more services but we are finding that the cost of paying for them and servicing the debt is too burdensome to continue on its present footing, can be dealt with.
Those of us in this Canadian House of Commons and those who succeed us in subsequent generations are never going to lack any of these specific issues to debate. Debate is the turning of the gears that makes the sound of a country actually working. My concern is the deeper one that I alluded to throughout my remarks. That is the absence of a strong, positive, Canadian cultural experience that gives us the confidence to go forward with all that we are doing so well, with all that we can be so proud of as Canadians, and celebrate it, and salute one another for doing it.
That is why I pointed particularly to the province of Quebec and its phenomenal progress in recent decades because of the intrinsic strength that comes from that shared culture. That, achieved within Canada, shows us all the better way.


Mr. Phillip Edmonston (Chambly):: Mr. Speaker, I found my colleague's speech very interesting. I would like to make a comment about the dynamism in Quebec.
I must remind my colleague that Quebec may be a little more dynamic than some other provinces because,
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in a way, we have learned to be suspicious of the federal government. Just remember the referendum of 1980 after which Quebec had to rely only on its own resources and on its own means. It is around that time that we began to show real entrepreneurship and that our businesses began to be really flourishing. That explains in part why Quebec is one of the provinces which can best cope with global and Pan-Canadian competitiveness.
I would really like to ask my colleague if he ever thought about the things that the provinces had in common. We talk here, in this House, of all the differences, of all the things that divide us. I too am an immigrant, in the sense that I chose Canada, but in my case, I chose Quebec. During my trips across Canada, I saw many things that we have in common. I can quote this example: in Quebec, we have a lot of caisses populaires, while in the West, they have credit unions or co-ops.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, in Quebec we have also some mistrust towards Ottawa. This same mistrust exists in the West and in British Columbia, and it is a rightful, healthy mistrust. But it is not strong enough to destroy the country. I would even say that with this mistrust, we can still build a country.


Patrick Boyer: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the NDP member's comments concerning the diverse dimensions of our country. That is the true Canadian spirit.
He is pondering over the Canadian identity and the realities all Canadians must dial with. That is paradoxical but the common reality is found in the Canadian diversity. As George Bernard Shaw said it, paradoxes are truly realities.
I think that the challenge is for Canadians to experiment diversity all across the country. I can see how Quebecers that confine themselves to the Province of Quebec, to that sole environment and life experience, may develop a separatist mentality. As for Canadians living exclusively in the West who never know the incredible experience of visiting the province of Quebec or even Ontario and the Maritimes, they truly show a lack of Canadian spirit.

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Even Canadians from the Maritimes with their great traditions and secular experience of closeness to nature are a great lesson for us in other parts of the country.
Thus, that is very simple and that is why I have suggested the creation of a national force of Canadian youth.


Ms. Mary Clancy (Halifax):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks by complimenting my colleague from Etobicoke-Lakeshore and saying that I am appalled that he has not been to the maritimes. I hope that he will go there very soon. We will be delighted-


An hon. member:: He did not say that.


Mary Catherine Clancy: He did not say that. I am sorry I thought he said he had not been to the maritimes.


Patrick Boyer: My mother was born there.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That is your mother, Patrick.


Patrick Boyer: I have been to Nova Scotia.


Mary Catherine Clancy: Oh, I misunderstood.


An hon. member:: Invite him to come again.


Mary Catherine Clancy: That is fine. We would be delighted to have you visit again and share our joint feelings of Canadianism.
When I began thinking about what I was going to say here this afternoon, it was impossible not to think back to the summer of 1990, the summer of our discontent.
It was the summer that saw the failure of Meech Lake, the forcing of our native peoples to the barricades, the looming recession and the terrible polarization that began among Canadians.
Here we are, the most favoured country on earth that has been blessed by God and lent to us privileged few who have the fortune to call ourselves Canadians. We have been and continue to be in great danger of spoiling our heritage and ruining our future.
Today, nearly a year after the summer of 1990 began, we are still a nation in distress. We are perhaps a nation with an illness of the heart. We are a people filled with fear and a nation no longer willing to trust. We are a
nation that is frustrated and angry. It is a terrible picture, and it is one that must be changed.
When it comes to the future of Canada, it is absolutely clear to all of us that we must put aside our differences as politicians. We must work together on all sides of this Chamber to ensure that we are are not the parliamentarians who preside over the demise of Canada.
Now and again, I have been accused of being partisan. I accept that description, and I accept it with pride. Parliament is no place for women and men who are not passionate in their beliefs and who do not fight fiercely for their policies and principles.
Partisanship has been getting a bit of a bad name, and we, in this Chamber are all to blame to some degree for that. Partisanship is an honourable tradition in this House, as it is an honourable tradition in all the democracies of the world.
All Canadians are, indeed, better off because that tradition exists and because it is the very heart of our democracy. There are certain times-God knows that this is one of them-that this tradition must give way to a higher need.
In times of national peril, we must all remember that Liberals, New Democrats, Conservatives, Reformers or Independents are first, foremost and always Canadians.

We may be French Canadians, English Canadians, Chinese Canadians or Italian Canadians, but today, tomorrow and forever we are first and foremost Canadians.

It is our job to convince the people of Canada that we are a constituent assembly, that we represent ordinary Canadians and that, most important, we-every one of us in this Chamber-are responsible to ordinary Canadians. We are responsive to their concerns.
One of the privileges of being a member of Parliament is that it takes you out of your own province and to different parts of the country. It does not matter where I have been in the past year, whether I was in Winnipeg, Toronto, in my own maritimes or in the far west. I heard the same thing from Canadians.
May 14, 1991

They are afraid and they are uncertain. They look to us to give them a solution to this fear and this uncertainty. Each one of us is only important in that we are here to speak for our constituents.
My constituents, those in Halifax, as well as the people I have spoken to all over this country are saying essentially the same thing. They are saying: Restore our country. Restore our faith constitutionally and economically. Each one of us who is privileged to sit in this Chamber knows that to achieve this is our most important job.
Consequently, this morning when the hon. Leader of the Opposition spoke, he spoke in support of a number of the government initiatives. Indeed, we on this side of the House do support a number of the government initiatives. We support the idea of a joint committee of the House and Senate. I have some concerns about the timing. I wish it were sooner. The fact that it is taking place is a move in the right direction.
We support the idea that the government will put forward its own particular views. Whether we will at the time support all of those views remains to be seen. Nobody, even at the risk of danger for the country, is prepared to buy a pig in a poke. We are here to represent our constituents and ensure that this country not only survives but thrives. The alternative is too terrible to really contemplate. The decisions that we make here, the actions that we take here, will be for each one of us crucial to our own future and the future of the generations who come after us.
Also, in a very important light-and each one of us has this belief, I think, deep down in our hearts-we particularly do not want to leave these jobs having made Canada worse than it was before we came to them. Each one of us, whatever our region, our constituency, our background, whatever the policies that drive us to seek political office, whatever our political parties, comes here, I believe, with an absolute determination to improve this country, to make it a better place.
If we listen to that commonality which is shared with all Canadians, then we are taking the steps to reduce the hurt and the fear and the distrust that has built up over the years-not just this past year but in previous years. We are taking the first steps to create an atmosphere in Canada where we listen to each other, where we respond to each other and where we understand that in our diversity is also to be found our commonality.
The Address
I turn now to the second portion of my remarks. Although we must always remember our higher calling and we must work together to ensure the survival of our country, it is not our only job as parliamentarians. We must still carry our passionate partisanship to the specifics of government policies. It is to this that I speak now.
There are many aspects of yesterday's throne speech that are troubling. If this is the last throne speech before the dissolution, and it well could be, there were many things missing from yesterday's alleged blueprint for government action.
One of the things that I noticed missing was the lack of mention of anything relating to a national child care policy or a national child care program. We cannot forget for one instant that there are still a million latchkey children in this country and they are waiting for this government to do something to alleviate their situation. Indeed their problems and the problems of their parents, and in particular of their mothers, are problems that are as crucial in their own way as are the problems of the survival of the country.
A country that is to survive must be a country that looks after its weak, its young, its underprivileged. It is our job again, as federal members of Parliament, to pay attention to this, to respond to this and to react to this.
There were other things that were not mentioned. As a member from the Atlantic region, I was disturbed at no mention in the Speech from the Throne about the fishery. I was disturbed that there was little or no mention of anything remotely offering hope in the area of regional development. I was disturbed that there was little or no mention of anything relating to the whole question of transportation and the problems that we have in Atlantic Canada as a result of the slow destruction, or in some cases the quick destruction, of the transportation infrastructure.
I was disturbed by the pronouncements relating to post-secondary education, not disturbed by the spirit of the statement. The spirit of the statement is fine. Again, it is one of those things that every one of us can agree with. What disturbed me was the call for yet more discussion papers and not a call to action.
Our universities are suffering. Nowhere are they suffering more than in my region with the highest tuition fees, the lowest salaries and the poorest physical plants. These are institutions of higher learning that have a proud tradition and send people from the provinces of the Atlantic right across this country and across the

May 14, 1991
The Address
world, people that we are proud of. This cannot go on as they are being choked by under-funding.
I was most disturbed by one line in the Speech from the Throne, and I refer to the translation: "and my government will appoint a blue ribbon panel of concerned Canadian men and women to inquire into the serious problem of violence against women in our society".
Since November when we struck the subcommittee on the status of women of the health and welfare committee, I have sat in that committee and listened to eloquent and moving testimony from witnesses from all across Canada about the increasing and horrifying state of violence against women in our civilized country, in our country where we are all talking about listening to each other and being responsive to each other's needs.
I believe that among the members of this House there is not a person who does not finally grasp the significance and the widespread existence of this problem. In my small province of Nova Scotia, and I have said this before, there have been six spousal murders of women in the past year. Those statistics alone are frightening.
We know the statistics in the city of Montreal in the year of the dreadful, horrible massacre of the young
women engineering students, when 118 other women murdered. Those murders were almost unnoticed. We know that this goes on. We know that it occurs in too many households.
Women's groups, individual women, my party, and others have been calling for a royal commission on violence against women. We call for that royal commission because we know it is absolutely necessary to have both the scholarly evidence that a royal commission can call upon and the tremendous light of publicity that a royal commission will engender.
I fear from this one line in the Speech from the Throne that this is not what we are going to get. What I see here is something called a blue ribbon panel of concerned Canadian men and women. We do not need a blue ribbon panel. We need a panel that is rooted in experience and we need a royal commission.
Are you cutting me off, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. DeBlois):: It being 6 o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 o'clock p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).


[Stage Direction]
The House adjourned at 6 p.m.
[Stage Direction]
Wednesday, May 15,1991